Events

‘A World of Characters’ Opens This Saturday At San Francisco’s Airport

Typically, the airport is a place that travelers want to spend as little time at as possible, but cartoon fans may want to rethink that strategy. In Japan, a four-day animation festival will be held entirely in an airport later this year, and in San Francisco, a new exhibit of cartoon advertising characters will open this weekend.

Cartoon Culture

How Garfield Got His Groove Back: The ‘Garfield’ Remix Phenomenon

Poor Garfield. In his heyday, he was amongst the most beloved characters on the funny pages, his plush likenesses fastened to car windows and his sarcastic barbs adorning office walls around the globe. Then, somewhere along the line, he underwent a pop-cultural re-evaluation. Jim Davis’ strip is now something of a pariah: just look at how "The Simpsons" paired it with "Love Is" as the kind of strip that Milhouse reads. What a comedown for a character once hip enough to be quoted in “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. But yet, the orange cat has been saved from cultural oblivion by a peculiar trend: the remixed "Garfield" strip.

Fine Art

Some Lucky Person Will Pay $25 Million Tonight For Jeff Koons’s Popeye [UPDATED]

Tonight in New York City, Sotheby's will auction a stainless steel, 2000-pound, six-and-a-half-foot-tall Popeye sculpture by Jeff Koons that is estimated to sell for between $25-35 million. Koons, who is already among the top three richest living American artists not to mention an avowed lover of "Croods," made three of these Popeye sculptures, which probably represents the number of people who he thinks are dumb enough to pay between $25-35 million for a Popeye sculpture.

Recaps

‘Steven Universe’ Recap: ‘Steven the Sword Fighter’

It’s been a few weeks but the last few times in Beach City we witnessed a lot of growth in the series. Steven had an anger revelation after he hung with the cool kids and really showcased the father-son relationship thanks to little Onion. Now we’re back and "Steven Universe" went and explored the maternal dynamic within their group after Pearl took a blade through the chest.

Apps

Miximal Is A Children’s App That Animation Fans Can Enjoy, Too

Animator Lucas Zanotto has released a follow-up to his Drawnimal appcalled Miximal. It's a mix-and-match style children's game in which different combinations of animals can be created. Little bits of animation accompany each section of the animal, and when all three pieces align into a complete animal, the creature peforms a short act.

Advertising

New Spots: Hermès by Julien Vallée and Honda by Smith & Foulkes

The following two spots attracted my attention for the inventive ways in which they mixed live-action with animation: "Metamorphosis" for Hermès, directed by Julien Vallée of Vallée Duhamel, and "Inner Beauty" for Honda, directed by the venerable production team of Smith & Foulkes through Nexus Productions.

Skip Dolphin Hursh
Artist of the Day

Artist of the Day: Skip Dolphin Hursh

Skip Dolphin Hursh works as a designer and animator for Nickelodeon in New York. Skip uses his free time to create personal work that includes handsomely designed looping animated GIFs that invoke thoughts of toy machinery and strange cellular activity. He explains more about how he arrived at this ongoing project in an interview with Giphy.

Box Office Report

‘Muppets’ Stumble in the US, ‘Rio 2’ Is #1 in Russia

No new animated movies debuted in the United States this weekend, although Disney's family-oriented "Muppets Most Wanted" opened. The film opened in second place with a disappointing $16.5 million (estimated), far below the $29.2M opening of the franchise reboot "The Muppets" in 2011. That earlier film plummeted at the box office, too, after its opening, suggesting that the Muppets franchise isn't as relevant to kids today as it was with earlier generations.

Recaps

‘Steven Universe’ Recap: ‘Onion Trade’

There’s something about Steven’s dad Greg that doesn’t add up. Will we ever really know why Greg distances himself from his son? This week in “Onion Trade," we explored a dad’s horrible ability to remember things, witnessed Steven’s lack of male role models, and learned a lot more about Onion, a character who revealed quite a few new layers.

CGI

Chris McKay Will Direct the “LEGO Movie” Sequel

Continuing the inexplicable trend of people named Chris directing animated features, Chris McKay, the animation co-director of "The LEGO Movie," will direct the film's sequel, which is currently set for a May 26, 2017 release.

Business

Disney Interactive Lays Off 700 People

It's been known since last month that Disney Interactive was planning to lay off several hundred employees, but the job slashing is far more extreme than had previously been anticipated.

Box Office Report

‘Frozen’ Crosses $1 Billion Mark On The Day It Wins Oscar

It's a special day for directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Their film "Frozen" will win the Best Animated Feature Oscar on the day that it crosses $1 billion in global box office revenue. It becomes, along with "Toy Story 3," only the second animated feature to achieve this distinction, and the 18th film overall.

Anime

Book Review: A Fresh Take on Anime History by Jonathan Clements

Jonathan Clements’ "Anime: A History" differs greatly from more populist overviews of anime available in the English-language market. This book is not about the anime texts themselves, but the surrounding industry: Clements delivers a tightly-packed account of anime production, distribution and viewership from the silent era to the present day.

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