The fourth edition of The Animation Show continues it’s rollout across the United States with openings in Los Angeles (The Nuart), Boston (Kendall Square), Washington DC (E Street Cinema) and San Diego (Ken Cinema) this week.

I’ll be in attendance at the Nuart on Friday where filmmakers Mike Judge (King of the Hill) and Steve Dildarian (Angry Unpaid Hooker) will do a Q&A after the 7:30pm show.

In honor of the theatrical release of Vol. 4 we will have two trivia contests this week. The winners will recieve a copy of the just-released MTV-Paramount Home Video DVD of The Animation Show Vol. 3. The contests will be posted here Wednesday and Thursday at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific. For more information on The Animation Show and when it’ll play in your town, visit the website.

One half of Cartoon Brew, namely me, will be attending the world’s largest animation festival next week. If you’re going too, drop a comment below. Lots of interesting programs slated for Annecy this year: a screening of the Israeli animated feature Waltz with Bashir, a celebration of Émile Cohl with live piano accompaniment by the festival’s artistic director Serge Bromberg, a presentation by Richard Williams, a lecture on Winsor McCay by John Canemaker, a sneak preview of Bibo Bergeron and François Moret’s new feature A Monster in Paris, two behind-the-scene presentations about the making of Jacques-Rémy Girerd’s new feature Mia et le Migou and the Irish feature Brendan and the Secret of Kells, Bill Plympton’s new feature Idiots and Angels screened in 35mm for the first time and the world premiere of Disney’s new short Glago’s Guest and Pixar’s latest short Presto. Sound like a decent week if you ask me.

The MoCCA Art Festival is coming up this weekend in Manhattan. I’ve heard only good things about the event; it’s been described to me as kind of like a mini-San Diego Comic-Con, comprised entirely of people who are serious and appreciative of the comic art form. In other words, no sword play or collectible card games at this convention.

Many animation folk will be present at MoCCA: Chris McDonnell will be at the Meathaus table promoting the new book he created about Ralph Bakshi, various Blue Sky artists will be there to launch the new volume of Out of Picture, and other artists like Mo Willems, Bill Plympton and JJ Sedelmaier will be presenting projects at various booths. Also, on Saturday, Plympton will receive the 2008 MoCCA Art Festival Award, and on Sunday the festival will present a program of contemporary Nordic animation. Complete exhibitor list and programming guide can be found on the MoCCA website.

Restored prints of Tender Game and The Adventures of * on the MoMA bigscreen tonight. More here.

Ralph’s comin to town… to party.

Meltdown is hosting a Ralph Bakshi bash in Hollywood next week with a gallery full of original drawings, paintings and animation production art. Chris McDonnell and Jon Gibson will also be on hand to sign copies of their new Bakshi book.

McDonnell tells us:

We are trying to invite as many people from Bakshi Productions’ past as possible. It’s a reunion, it’s a party, it’s Ralph in a room. Ralph is looking forward to talking and hanging with people so he’ll be signing books only as an exception to the rule, if at all. We are looking forward to this really being a great “reunion” for Ralph and all his old artists (and everyone else is welcome of course too).

Join us on Saturday night June 14th. The party starts at 7pm and will go on till 11pm. Admission free. Meltdown Comics and Gallery, 7522 W Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA.

If you want to do a little drawing at the Annecy animation festival, take note that Flight artists Bannister and Dik Pose are hosting the first-ever Sketchcrawl drawing jam during the festival next week. The event is planned for Thursday, June 12, beginning at 2pm. Full details can be found on the Flight Comics blog. The drawing at top of this post is by Matt Jones, who held a personal Sketchcrawl at last year’s festival.

If there’s one CAN’T MISS animation program in New York this summer, it’s the screening coming up this Monday, June 2, at MoMA: “A Marriage Made in Heaven: Animated Jazz Shorts from The Hubley Studio.”

The screening has two of my favorite shorts directed by John Hubley and made in collaboration with his wife Faith: The Adventures of * (1957) and Tender Game (1958). Even better, these are both newly restored prints. Every print of Tender Game I’ve ever seen has been faded and muddy. The opportunity to see restored versions of these classic films on the bigscreen is truly something to be excited about and I can’t wait to check them out. The program is 100 minutes long so expect plenty of other shorts on the program as well. It’ll be introduced by the daughter of the Hubleys, filmmaker Emily Hubley, along with jazz scholar and author Ed Berger.

As a bonus, in the theater lobby at MoMA there’s currently a mini-exhibit of John Hubley’s artwork from Adventures of *. (Michael Sporn offers extensive photos from the exhibit posted on his blog). I’ve already had a peek at the exhibit which includes some of the most exquisite and visually striking pieces of art I’ve ever seen created for an animated film. What makes John Hubley among my favorite animation artists of all time is not simply that he created such amazing artwork, but that he figured out how to make it work in the context of movement. There is no shortage of pretty artwork in animation nowadays, but too often the artwork betrays the fundamental purpose of the art form—movement—and is created with slight consideration to its role within the continuity of a film. Hubley, on the other hand, created pieces of art that, while beautiful when viewed individually, are even more thrilling to view as a collective whole working in the service of his films. There’ll be no better opportunity to experience what I’m talking about than at MoMA this coming Monday.

This Friday, May 30, ASIFA-San Francisco is holding a tribute to animator and director Richard Williams, in honor of his 75th birthday this year. The screening begins at 7:30pm at the Exploratorium in San Francisco (in the McBean Theater). Membership and parking are free, though you may have to be an ASIFA-SF member, which is a bargain at $25/year.

Films that will be screened include:

* His Oscar-winning short A Christmas Carol (1971)
* I Drew Roger Rabbit (1988), a rare British documentary about Williams
* Commercials made for TV in Great Britain, Europe, Canada and the US
* Two clips from the feature Raggedy Ann and Andy (1977)
* Title sequences for Pink Panther features
* Surprise footage

Williams will not be present in person at the event, however, he is a member of the short film jury at Annecy next month, and is also the subject of a tribute/retrospective at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September. These appearances probably have a lot to do with the forthcoming release of his highly anticipated Animation Masterclass Lecture Series on dvd (shot in front of a live audience at Blue Sky Studios).