2012 is shaping up to be a great year for animated features. Even the sequels-to-sequels look great. Case in point: Madagascar 3:

Wanna know what’s on the mind of college students these days? Perhaps this photo of an elaborate desk doodle is the answer. Found on the image sharing site Imgur.com. Nice job!

Telecine is a suite of cable movie channels in Brazil. This beautiful spot by Beeld Motion (Eduardo Tosto, Greco Bernardi, Luiz Maggessi, Marcelo Mourão,Papito, Victor Seabra, Filippo Johansson) uses five different directors, using different techniques, to relay its core message to stay home and watch movies.

CREDITS
Client : Rede Telecine
Direction, Design and Animation: BEELD
Audio: BEELD
Copywriter: Alex Mendes (Telecine)
Voice over: Juca de Oliveira

A newer, longer look at Illumination’s upcoming The Lorax.

I know we have a lot of Jessica Borutski fans here (I’m one of them myself). Jessica has just created this incredible cartoon crest and is selling it as a limited-edition print. It’s available in different color tones (click image above to see the variant editions). A big version (34×36 inches) is limited to 5 prints. The smaller ones (13×15 inches) are a series of 10. Contact Jessica via email – through her website – if you would like to get one.

Sad reports coming in that Ricky Garduno, a young storyboard artist for numerous TV shows, has passed away at age 35. The cause of death is still unconfirmed. Some people online are speculating it was suicide, but it also may have been an accidental death. His credits included El Tigre, The Buzz on Maggie, Family Guy, The Drinky Crow Show and Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island! He also created the online comic 1930 Nitemare Theatre, which ran on Dumm Comics for a number of years. He participated in this roundtable discussion about Dumm Comics that we published in 2008.

UPDATE #1: Some lovely tributes about Ricky are being posted online:
Gabe Swarr
Jorge Gutierrez
Dave Thomas (plus a complete El Tigre board by Ricky)
Memorial comic by Peggy
Niko Anesti
Zach Bellissimo
Nico Colaleo

An example of 1930 Nitemare Theatre from 2009. Click for larger version:

UPDATE #2: Family Guy posted this tribute title card (below) on the 2/12/12 episode, “Tom Tucker: The Man and His Dream” (Season 10, episode 13).

Yeah, I know. It’s not animated. But the Stooges are part of my childhood – part of my life. And heck, they were animated several times (unfortunately). Here’s our first look at the Farrelly brothers movie. What do you think?

A gorgeous new piece from Melbourne based Rubber House. It’s a music video for the Gotye song State Of The Art, from their new album Making Mirrors.