Earlier this week, Cartoon Network premiered a new episode of The Powerpuff Girls in honor of the show’s tenth anniversary. Notably, the cartoon was produced in Flash for the first time. All previous episodes were animated traditionally on paper. In this post at Cold Hard Flash, creator Craig McCracken and animation director Eric Pringle discuss how they transitioned the show from hand-drawn to Flash. McCracken, who came up with the characters in 1991, thinks the show should have been made in Flash from day one:

“The show was designed with very tight, crisp, bold, clean-ups. Because it was originally hand-drawn, the line weights always varied, but with Flash we were able to get that crisp look every time. Looking back at the PPG series, I realized I designed a Flash show before Flash was invented!”

On an semi-related note, why didn’t I know Craig has his own DeviantArt page with over 5,000 fans on it? The image at the top of this post—the first drawing he ever did of the crime-fighting trio—is taken from his DeviantArt.

It’s not just Inauguration Day in the United States; it’s also the first-ever Outnauguration party. Cartoonist Joe Fournier created this animated short documenting the event.

Every year around the holidays I receive a whole slew of animated greeting cards. The new year’s greeting below by French artist Art Grootfontein is the most impressive from this past season’s batch of e-cards. It should be evident from the piece itself, but Grootfontein also tells me that one of his favorite sources of inspiration is my book Cartoon Modern.

Roger Ebert has discovered Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues and he’s written a lengthy piece raving about how wonderful it is. Among other things, he writes:

“I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together four entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord.”

and

“One remarkable thing about “Sita Sings the Blues” is how versatile the animation is. Paley works entirely in 2-D with strict rules, so that characters remain within their own plane, which overlaps with others. This sounds like a limitation. Actually, it is the source of much amusement. Comedy often depends on the device of establishing unbreakable rules and then finding ways to cheat on them and surprise you. The laughs Paley gets here with 2-D would be the envy of an animator in 3-D. She discovers dimensions where none exist.”

I think it also says a lot about Ebert’s passion and love for cinema that he’s written such a long piece about a film that nobody can currently see and which has no shot at commercial distribution because of copyright issues. Ebert is not only writing about how much he likes it but has also arranged for it to screen at his personal film festival in April 2009 at the University of Illinois. We’re delighted at Cartoon Brew that Ebert is putting his weight behind the film since both Jerry Beck and myself feel that it’s an incredible accomplishment within the animation art form.

Read Roger Ebert’s article here.

UPDATE: Nina Paley has just posted her distribution plan.

Sally Cruickshank (Quasi at the Quackadero) explains the genesis of this Christmas greeting on her blog. She created the animation in one week because, she writes, “Flash is so nifty for animating. A week! And mostly I was doing other things during that week!”

What a perfect way to start the weekend! Today marks the debut of a new music video by illustrator/comic artist Dave Cooper in collaboration with animator/director Nick Cross. The video is for Danko Jones’ song “King of Magazines.” Nick says, “The animation was all done in Flash by myself and Steve Stefanelli, working from Dave’s storyboard and rough designs.”

I’ve already watched it a few times and can’t get enough of it. It’s so refreshing to see a cartoon that actually indulges and celebrates its cartooniness. Lots of joyful animated FUN in this one.

There’s a war brewing in the animation software world and Cartoon Brew is right in the thick of it. In fact, I only became aware of the no-holds-barred battle in the past few months because two of our biggest advertisers have been the dueling companies: Adobe and Toon Boom. The latter is currently making a serious run to overtake Adobe Flash as the preferred software package for 2D digital animators. Toon Boom’s new Animate software has an animator-friendly set of features and more importantly, it’s price-competitive with Flash. This isn’t a new development. We spoke of the animation community’s increasing dissatisfaction with Flash last January when Mucha Lucha creators Eddie Mort and Lili Chin announced they were switching to Toon Boom software.

Australian animator Adam Phillips, of Bitey Castle fame, has reviewed the new packages from both companies—Toon Boom Animate and Flash CS4—and approves of both, though he’s more enthusiastic about Toon Boom Animate:

[Toon Boom] Animate is definitely an exciting release for animators who are frustrated with the animation limitations of Flash. It’s also the most intuitive of their fantastic animation programs to date and it’s priced very competitively. Packed with animator-friendly tools, is based entirely on traditional animation workflow (with all the benefits of digital animation) and has a library of effects that will put your work way ahead of the average web animator.

Phillips’ verdict on Flash CS4:

If you’re sticking with Flash and you decide to upgrade to Flash CS4, I think you’ll be blown away by it. There are a few persistent gripes, such as masking, audio, video format export, brush sizes & shapes, colour management and the Timeline. However, certain new features have thrilled the shit outta me! They include armatures (Inverse Kinematics), 3D movieclip translate/scale/rotate, the Motion Editor (an amazing, kickarse version of the old Custom Ease window), Spray Brush (which can spray movieclips all over the Stage - perfect for say, millions of flowers in a meadow, animated swaying in the breeze) and completely new motion tween model.

It’s no coincidence that industry website Cold Hard Flash recently hosted three launch events in LA, NY and Toronto celebrating the release of Toon Boom Animate. Not to mention the site’s primary advertising spots are taken up by Toon Boom. The bottom line is that this competition between software makers should lead to more powerful and efficient packages for the animation community. Hopefully both software makers will continue to use Cartoon Brew as a battleground for spreading their message. We could use the few extra bucks.

Would be interesting to hear some animator perspectives in the comments—who’s switching to Toon Boom and who’s sticking with Flash? Speak up.

Click the arrow to watch “Villains” by Zack Keller.

Zack Keller used to work for Pixar and is currently in LA working as a writer/director. He and Ed Skudder have established RootFilms and just finished a music video (using Flash/After Effects) called William. Their other work is multi-media, utilizing live action, puppets, CG and special effects. Fun stuff. Check it all out at www.rootfilms.com.