Cartoon Brew

MICKEY AND THE GANG

Way back in August I plugged this book, but now that I've got it in my hot little hands and have spent hours perusing its pages - I gotta demand you go out and buy it as soon as you can.

Don't judge this book by it's cover - that's its weakest point. This is one of the most throughly researched histories of Disney's classic cartoons ever published. Most of the artwork in this book has never appeared in print (or been reprinted anywhere). Each page has new facts, new art, new details on Disney that appear no where else. If it sounds like I'm raving, I am!

MICKEY AND THE GANG started as a simple collection of the famed Good Housekeeping monthly pages produced by the Disney studio for ten years (1934-1944) - pages which usually highlighted the latest Mickey Mouse, Silly Symphony or Disney feature-length release. If it were only that, the book would be well worth having as is. But author/editor David Gerstein supplements each GH page with a plethora of bonus materials: the film's complete story, commentary, movie materials (posters, press ads, etc.), model sheets, other print adaptations, merchandising - and much more.

This 360 page full color glossy book is a real treat. In a year of some great books (including Canemaker's WINSOR McCAY, Goldmark's TUNES FOR TOONS and something called THE ANIMATED MOVIE GUIDE) this one may top them all. My highest recommendation - at $29.95 ($19.79 on Amazon) it's a steal - and a must for any fan of Disney's classic characters, animation art and those interested in the history of the studio.

Bill Plympton and Kanye West

The new Kanye West music video "Heard 'Em Say," animated by Bill Plympton, that I mentioned earlier can now be viewed HERE. In the BET interview before the video, West says he used Plympton's hand-drawn animation style because he wanted "something new, refreshing" and also that he wanted visuals that expressed "how natural the song feels, how organic the song is." Now, Kanye West is certainly not a bellwether for animation trends, but I found those statements really interesting. Suddenly, it's no longer computer animation that is considered hip and exciting, but rather hand-drawn animation, an art form over a hundred years old. Indeed, the raw messy esthetic of Plympton's drawing style is a welcome change of pace from today's endless parade of mathematically perfect CG models and animation, and the video is a great example showing that hand-drawn animation is still a vital and powerful art form, especially when used by artists like West who are savvy enough to know the technique's strengths and the appropriate places to use it.
(via fps magazine)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING - II

Best wishes to all our readers!

HENRY SELICK INTERVIEW

QUICK PLUG: Nice little interview with Henry Selick posted on Animated News.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Americans will be feasting with family and friends over the upcoming weekend.

On a semi-unrelated note, I'm thankful to ebay for making items like this easier to find.

And a couple more blogs...

I know we've done this a lot recently, but couldn't resist pointing out a couple more designer blogs that I just ran across. One of the very best, Lou Romano (THE INCREDIBLES), arrived online a couple days ago. And I wasn't familiar with the work of Pete Oswald, but he's a designer on FOSTER'S and he's also posting solid stuff on his new blog.

LOU MYERS (1915-2005)

Not an animator, but an influential print cartoonist - Lou Myers passed away yesterday in New York at age 90.

I've always enjoyed his sketchy, raw style in advertisements, New Yorker covers and illustrations (including his famous movie poster image for La Cage Aux Folles (1978) at right). He was one of the most popular cartoonists in advertising art during the 1960s. I hadn't seen much of his later work in the last 20 years, I didn't even know he was still alive - but I highly recommend seeking out his work.

Plympton and Gondry Videos For Kanye West

AWN reports that Bill Plympton recently completed a new animated music video for Kanye West. The video, for the song "Heard 'Em Say," is scheduled to premiere today on MTV during TRL. Now what's interesting is that the Plympton video is the second one produced for this song. Michel Gondry had already directed a video for "Heard 'Em Say," and for reasons unknown, this second video was commissioned from Plympton. According to this entry at Wikipedia:

A Christmas-themed video was originally set to be the official video for "Heard 'Em Say", set in Macy's flagship NYC department store, it was directed by Michel Gondry. It featured Adam Levine as the store's security guard. Shortly before the original video was to be premiered, MTV pulled it from the schedule. On November 12th 2005, the new video for "Heard 'Em Say" premiered on Channel 4 in the UK. The video is a black and white animation by Bill Plympton, although the video occasionally cuts to scenes of Kanye and Adam Levine... MTV will premiere the original [Gondry] version as a Christmas special in December 2005.

Monday Morning Inspiration: Charles Harper

This Flickr collection of 1950s bird illustrations by Charles Harper, courtesy of Eric Sturdevant, is incredible...so many interesting graphic variations on a single theme. I've heard that Harper is still alive -- somebody should really do an in-depth interview with him while he's still around. Though I don't think he ever worked in animation, he's influenced many animation artists. Background designer Scott Wills acknowledged Harper's influence on SAMURAI JACK in the book MAKIN' TOONS:

What I love about Harper's work is the ultra-stylization...Even the character design here has been influenced by him--how we draw birds, for example. We've a lot of influences, I have to say, but when I feel like I've done a painting that's very SAMURAI JACK, the way I want it, it's mostly Harper's kind of feeling.

(via fwak blog)