Cartoon Brew

GOLDMARK ON CARTOON TUNES

Our buddy Daniel Goldmark was interviewed about Music and the Hollywood Cartoon last week on WNYC's music discussion show, SOUNDTRACK. You can listen to it here. His new book TUNES FOR 'TOONS' is now on sale - and will be reviewed in Friday's WALL STREET JOURNAL. Congratulations Daniel!

Siepermann on TREASURE PLANET

Character designer Harald Siepermann has a series of posts on his blog where he shares his character concepts from Disney's TREASURE PLANET and speaks of his ideas for various characters. Fascinating stuff. Scroll down his blog to read all the entries.

GO FOR THE GOLD

I know Jerry has already mentioned this, but it's worth doing so again. I received my copy of GO FOR THE GOLD: A MEATHAUS SKETCHBOOK when I got back from Ottawa and I've been completely inspired over the past couple days. Credit belongs to the talented Chris McDonnell, who is responsible for bringing together an incredible array of names from the illustration and animation worlds, and putting together an awesome sketchbook. There are 31 artists represented and each artist's section ranges anywhere from two pages to over twenty pages.

It's nice to see work by Spumco friends like Katie Rice, Wil Branca, Robert Cory and John Kricfalusi. Cory is working on SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS now, and his work is shown alongside two other SPONGEBOB contributors: Chris Mitchell and Paul Tibbitt. All three of them have some solid, twisted work in here. Also good to see NY pals like Jim Campbell and Celia Bullwinkel with their own sections, as well as contributions by other well known names like Jim Mahfood, Tomer Hanuka, James Jean and Ralph Bakshi. The whole thing totals 218 black-&-white pages, and sells for a quite affordable $12.95. You will not find a better bargain around. It's printed on-demand by Lulu.com, and the print quality rivals any printed book to be found at the bookstore. Note: I was offered a complimentary copy, but insisted on paying because I want to encourage quality artist-driven projects, and GO FOR THE GOLD is a project most worthy of support.

OTTAWA SNAPSHOT

Here's a photo of me at the CHAPTERS bookstore in Ottawa last week, shortly before my book signing, with copies of both my new books on the shelves. I will try not to keep hyping these projects, but it's rare to have two books debut at the same time. Both THE ANIMATED MOVIE GUIDE and PINK PANTHER: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE should appear in local bookstores near you within the next few weeks - and can be ordered on Amazon.com now.

Disney Dunk

Swish! After Roy Disney Jr. fouled out with SaveDisney, he has rebounded by purchasing the Harlem Globetrotters. Yup, nothing beats buying a few black people to help a rich white businessman regain his confidence...or something like that. (via The Disney Blog)

Back from Ottawa

Four words: OTTAWA WAS A BLAST! I'm still recovering (sleep, man, sleep) and will write more about the festival in a bit. If you post photo galleries or do a festival report on your blog, email Jerry and I, and we'll let others know. In the meantime, here's a photo of the Ottawa festival's artistic guru Chris "Animation Pimp" Robinson and myself at the tail end of this year's festivities. A week of animation will make anybody look deranged. Either that or I really suck at taking photographs.

castleBERDskillz

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.

STILL UNPACKING

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.

PINK PANTHER BOOK UPDATE

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.

OTTAWA UPDATE #2

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.