Gabe Swarr and I first met Marc Deckter when we had a booth at the San Diego Comic-Con a few years back. When Marc whipped out his sketchbook, we were both immediately taken with the utter uniqueness of his work. Sheer genius or sheer insanity, we wondered? Often times it’s one and the same. Marc’s latest project, which also happens to be his USC Master’s thesis, is called castleBERDskillz.com.

Marc explains the concept: “CastleBERDskillz is a secret magical world inhabited by singing birds, cautious deer and playful bears. It’s an interactive environment, so you need to click around and see what you can find! There is no story - it’s just a place to visit and explore.” The layering of sounds and how those audio elements mesh with the visual environment is truly impressive. It may not be to everybody’s taste, but if you enjoy hilarious cartooning that would make any mental institution proud, then you’ll easily spend an hour or so exploring castleBERDskillz. A few navigation tips: Multiple clicks will yield different results. Press the space bar and left arrow keys for more variety. To return to the main menu, click on the ‘M’ on the right side of the screen.

PINK PANTHER BOOK: Ok, I think I have the answer. Apparently, according to my Pink Panther book designer at DK, the U.S. version WILL include a dvd of several DePatie Freleng cartoons.OTTAWA FEST: Bernard Joaquin went to an Ottawa Animation Festival workshop I was a panelist on - Creating Compelling Characters - and he sketched and posted a portrait of me and co-moderator Ellen Besen on his blog. If anyone else has photos of me (or Amid) in Ottawa - please send them in.

Brew reader Greg Chenoweth writes:

Brew people (and anyone else for that matter) can order the Pink Panther book with the DVD from Amazon’s Canadian website: www.amazon.ca. If you have an account set up with Amazon.com in the USA or like Amazon.co.uk in Britain, their account will work with Amazon.ca in Canada or any other Amazon.com website.

I’m checking with my editors at DK to confirm if the DVD version will be on sale in the U.S. - but for now, the version with the dvd is definitely available on stores in Canada and online from the Canadian Amazon.com.

I’m en route to Los Angeles today, from an exhausting week in Ottawa. Met many Brew readers - including our two festival pass contest winners - and had a ball running Pink Panther cartoons, signing copies of my new books, and displaying the WORST CARTOONS EVER program at the Saturday night animators party. Amid and I will be back to regular blogging by Tuesday. So forgive the delay in new information. We will be back with a full report on our adventures later in the week.By the way, they are selling the PINK PANTHER book in Canada with a dvd of early Pink Panther cartoons attached. I know you can know order the book on Amazon.com and they will ship the book to you immediately. Does anyone out there know if the Amazon.com version has a dvd attached? The publishers told me first, a long time ago, that a dvd would be attached to the book. Months later they said it would not. I will check with DK when I get back to the states. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if any readers can let me know if the book has shown up in local bookstores - with or without dvds.Thanks.

Tonight we started screening films at the Ottawa Internation Animation Festival. I’m on the feature jury, so I won’t give my opinions yet on the full length films until I see them all - but tonight we saw FRANK & WENDY, a bizarre animated feature comedy from Estonia. All I can say is: strange.The shorts screened tonight were amazing. None of them were bad, even the experimental non-narrative ones were entertaining and visually dazzling. Two in particular, CURSE OF THE VOODOO CHILD (Steve Woloshen) and Chris Hinton’s “cNOTE” were beautiful, kinetic works of art. DELIRIUM FILMS OPENING TITLE by Nebojsa Rogic (pictured above right) was perhaps the most incredible thing shown tonight. A completely gonzo version of a movie opening logo as you’ll ever see.As for the narrative films, these three were winners in my book: MILCH by Igor Kovalyov (produced by Klasky Csupo) was a superb and surreal slice of life: FISH HEADS FUGUE by Lauren Indovia and Lindsey Mayer-Beug (produced at the Rhode Island School of Design) is a tour-de-force of all animation techniques; and John Canemaker’s moving story of his relationship with his father, THE MOON AND THE SON, was absolutely riveting.There were also commercials, promos and student films screened - with Luis Blanco and Michael Uman’s Comedy Central i.d. spots (pictured above left) real standouts.So far so good. I also met a few Brew readers - and that is always rewarding. Hope to meet more of you as the week goes on.

As Jerry mentioned yesterday, both of us will be hanging around Ottawa this week for you-know-what. I’m currently in Detroit, waiting for my connecting flight to Canada. Posting will more than likely be sporadic, unless I get the urge to update a lot, and odds are that won’t happen. If you see us up there, please say hello. We like meeting our readers (well, at least most of the time).

I cannot speak as to the quality of this party, but local Ottawa cartoonist Chris Dainty wants to let Ottawa festivalgoers know that they are invited to carouse at his place the evening of Friday, Sept. 23. Details are below (click on image for bigger version).

The latest Flash episode of CAPTAIN CAPITALISM, “To Bleep or not to Bleep”, deserves some kind of award for its final iris-out gag, which is an unexpected and very funny tribute to Tex Avery starring Dick Cheney. Fortunately, the rest of the cartoon has some nicely timed animation and is chuckle-worthy as well. The cartoon series is created by Brad Graeber of Powerhouse Animation out of Austin, Texas.
(via Fatkat Studios blog)