The Art of the Title Sequence interviews director Jim Capobianco and animator Alex Woo about the thoughtful end credit sequence of WALL·E. From the article intro:

Jim Capobianco’s end credits to Andrew Stanton’s “WALL·E” are essential; they are the actual ending of the film, a perfect and fantastically optimistic conclusion to a grand, if imperfect idea. Humanity’s past and future evolution viewed through unspooling schools of art. Frame after frame sinks in as you smile self-consciously. It isn’t supposed to be this good but there it is. This is art in its own right. Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman’s song, “Down to Earth” indulges you with some incredibly thoughtful lyrics and, from the Stone Age to the Impressionists to the wonderful 8-bit pixel sprites, you are in the midst of something special

Come October, I know I’ll definitely be adding two new books to my bookshelf:

South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program 1941-1948 by J.B. Kaufman. The topic is fascinating, the historian is impeccably qualified. This should be incredible!

The Duchess of Whimsy is the first time that Ice Age designer and New Yorker cover artist Peter de Sève has created original illustrations for a children’s book. I’ve seen it and can say that this isn’t your average children’s book. Every page is a work of art.

It’s a special day when the quality of fan art exceeds the artistry of its animated source material. Then again, with Scooby-Doo, the bar was never set that high to begin with. The entire image — possibly NSFW — is after the jump. If you know who the artist is, please share the info in the comments.

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Paint is a trippy live-action short from 1968 directed by West Coast advertising art director Norman Gollin. Why post it here on Cartoon Brew? Not only because it has the mesmerizing voice of Paul Frees, but because it was produced at the Haboush Company, which was the commercial production studio of animation legend Victor Haboush. I’ve known Vic for quite a few years and I’m always amazed by how many cool projects and people he’s been involved with throughout his career, from studying with Lorser Feitelson at Art Center, apprenticing under Tom Oreb for much of the 1950s on Disney films like Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom and Sleeping Beauty, art directing Gay Purr-ee, starting a commercial studio with the inimitable John Dunn, and later directing hundreds of live-action commercials and producing experimental animated shorts at his own company. Oh yeah, he also worked on The Iron Giant. Somehow it’s not surprising that he’d be involved with a film as wild as this.

The painter in Paint is Charlie White III, a veteran airbrush artist who is one of four people featured in the new book Overspray: Riding High with the Kings of California Airbrush Art. White notes that Gollin shot the entire film without any re-takes. No paint-overs or practice; it was all painterly improv.

(Warning: This film might be considered NSFW, though most people would consider it art.)

A few nice collections of holiday-themed cartoon artwork to keep you entertained during the cold weather…

Beautiful drawings by “Walt Disney Staff” illustrating a short story by Pearl S. Buck that appeared in a 1956 issue of Family Circle.

Illustrations from Jingle Bells, a Little Golden Book by the great J.P. Miller.

An incredible collection of Disney Studio holiday cards from the 1930s-’50s.

Delightful and humorous holiday imagery from the early-20th century published in Life magazine.

Holiday comic art including some great Frosty comics, as well as the creepy Littlest Snowman cover above.

Inappropriate it may be, but the music video for Lele’s “Breakfast” gets a chuckle out of me. The raunchy lyrics (NSFW) are made that much funnier by the crude animation that illustrate the words literally. The drawings in the video are by Piet Parra, who is also a member of the band. It is the first animation work done by Parra, though he is a well known Dutch illustrator who runs runs the clothing label Rockwell. Parra, whose style owes a lot to Sixties and Seventies graphic trends, didn’t exactly animate the piece so much as he made a bunch of illustrations that were later timed out to the music by another artist, Sandder.

There’s an extensive interview with Parra on the Submarine Channel. His description of working in animation for the first time is rather amusing:

Yeah, that was a lot of work. Especially since I had never animated before. Jezus! And Sandder helped a lot. He did the editing. I just made the drawings. We kind have a double process going on. I draw everything onto paper first and then I scan it in and trace it in Illustrator, so that it becomes vector. That way I can scale it. Then Sandder took all the single frames and put those into a program to do the editing. He also took care of the timing, made sure it all matched up with the beats. I would be drawing and after thirty frames I thought, oh well, that’s more than enough, but with that you only actually fill a second and a half. It’s completely crazy! That’s why some parts are repeated. Otherwise we would still be working on it.

A new exhibit of Parra’s artwork titled “Boo to the Hoo” opens this Friday, December 5, in Paris at the The Lazy Dog (2 Passage Thiere 75011). Opening reception is from 6-9pm with an afterparty at Le Regine.

Also worth checking out is this video documentary with Parra. The final minute is particularly interesting as he shows a clip from a Famous Popeye cartoon that directly inspired a new series of MacBook and iPhone sleeves that he recently created:

*Disney animator and character designer Jin Kim has started a sketchblog that includes the humorous image above of animator Glen Keane playing the role of his character Tarzan.

* DreamWorks character designer Shannon Tindle is peeved (and justifiably so) about the new Blu-Ray DVD edition of Sleeping Beauty and how all of the DVD’s bonus features and documentary material omit mention of one of the film’s primary visual architects: character stylist Tom Oreb. When I wrote about Tom Oreb in my magazine Animation Blast back in 2001, there was admittedly very little information available about his career. It was only after a year of research and interviews with the likes of Vic Haboush, Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnston, David Swift, Iwao Takamoto, Marty Murphy, Ray Aragon, and Oreb’s sister Mary that I managed to compile a substantial account of his life and work. Today, thankfully, it’s a different story. Everybody is aware of Tom Oreb and his invaluable contributions to the Disney studio…well, everybody it seems except for the people that Disney hires to produce documentaries about their company.

* “Of Cabbages and Kleins” is a thoughtful (and thought-provoking) essay by animation historian Michael Barrier about labor politics, the Disney strike of 1941, animator Phil Klein and liberal journalist Naomi Klein (author of No Logo).

* I can’t remember the last time I’ve been jealous of anybody, but I’m definitely jealous of my animation pal Matt Jones who recently visited the legendary cartoonist Ronald Searle in France. He writes about the experience on his blog. Matt also runs the fine Ronald Searle Tribute blog.

* Richard O’Connor of Asterisk Animation has written an insightful post about collaborating with Kim Deitch and They Might Be Giants on this piece of animation:

Digital artist Pixeloo has created a super-real version of Nintendo’s Mario (full image on his site). It’s not bad but he’s no match for this Mario: