Someday soon, a flood of subpar 3-D CG animated features will enter the marketplace and Hollywood’s love affair with the technology will end - and traditional hand drawn animated features will return and be appeciated again.Helping to speed this along: GEPPETTO’S SECRETFor more details, read the DMX Entertainment press release.

In honor of the forthcoming dvd release of WIZARDS, Ralph sits for a short interview at fulvue drive-in.com

Don’t try to rip off Betty Boop.

Pixar artist Geefwee Boedoe is coming out with a children’s book called ARROWVILLE. I don’t know much more about the book, but Geefwee also has a lot of nice artwork printed in the ART OF MONSTERS INC. book. Here’s an INTERVIEW from a couple years back where he speaks about the origin of his unique name and about other work he’s done in animation.

“Tron” broke new ground for the art of computer generated-imagery when it was first released in 1982. Now Disney’s landmark film returns for special 10-Day, 70 MM engagement at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, May 6th through the 16th.An opening night panel discussion will be moderated by Academy Award nominated visual effects artist/filmmaker Harrison Ellenshaw, and will include such luminaries from the film as director Steven Lisberger, visual effects supervisor Richard Taylor (”The Lord of the Rings” trilogy), and production designer/futurist Syd Mead. Complete press release here.

Sounds like a fun event taking place in San Francisco this Friday evening, April 30. Here’s the press release:

Enjoy an evening of Art Deco film and animation at the Legion of Honor Museum with Nik Phelps and the Sprocket Ensemble. Join Nik and the Ensemble as they treat you to a tour de force of the Deco Age from a vintage 1928 Felix the Cat to two seldom seen Busby Berkeley masterpieces as part of Art Deco Fridays in honor of the “ART DECO: 1910-1939″ exhibition. Other cartoons include Tex Avery’s MISS GLORY and Chuck Jones’ THE ARISTO CAT.

Each piece will be introduced by eminent animation and film scholar Karl Cohen and the audience will be treated to vocals and voice overs by Scrumbly Koldewyn and Cindy Goldfield. The show is free with museum admission: $8/adult, $6/seniors, $5/teens, free/children under 12 years of age, free for museum members. For info call 415/682.2481. Event starts at 6 PM and the Legion Museum is at 100 34th Avenue in Lincoln Park (San Francisco).

Those of you longing for Columbia Pictures to release their library of UPA and Screen Gems cartoons on dvd - you’ll have to keep waiting.But, Columbia-Tristar Home Video will commit one Color Rhapsody cartoon to digital home video this summer when it releases a “special edition” of the B-movie spoof THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVERA on dvd June 22nd. The Ub Iwerks 1937 cartoon “Skeleton Frolic”, a color remake of Disney’s “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), was re-released theatrically with LOST SKELETON in its limited theatrical release this past winter. It will be included as bonus material on the dvd. The LOST SKELETON feature itself is hilarious, and highly recommended regardless - the addition of this bonus cartoon makes it a must-buy.

An inspiring WEBSITE offering a visual history of comics, from more than a thousand years ago through 1930. Lots of great scans of comics that can’t be found anywhere else on-line. Plus photos of cartoonists, a history of speech balloons and much more. A lot of my favorites are here - Lyonel Feininger, Milt Gross, Cliff Sterrett - as well as a lot of names that I’d like to see more of, such as Olaf Gulbransson, Herbert Crowley and Oscar Anderson. Enjoy the site and try not to think too much about how in less than a century we’ve passed from the sheer beauty and creativity of these comics to the visual insipidity of DRABBLE.

(Thanks to Jared Chapman’s blog for the link)