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Our Holiday Card was seen on the Frames Per Second Magazine blog between the entry for Apple’s Rankin-Bass inspired stop motion Holiday ad (directed by Drew Lightfoot) and the WALL-E trailer.  It also got a shout-out on Cold Hard Flash.  Not too shabby!

P.S. I also noticed that one of my favorite illustrators S. Britt is linking to our blog from his blog.  His work and his cat Edsel are so insanely cute.  *wowie*

Cynopsis Kids reported today:

Tim Burton enters into a two-movie deal with Disney to direct two 3D movies, Alice in Wonderland and Frankenweenie, per Variety. First up is Alice in Wonderland, which will be a motion-capture movie, is of course based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.  Linda Woolverton (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast) is penning the screenplay for Alice.  Burton will both direct and produce Frankenweenie, which is based on his own 1984 short film about a dog brought back to life but his owner. Frankenweenie is set to be a 3D stop-motion animated movie.

A Frankenweenie movie is exciting, but Alice in Wonderland in MoCap?  REALLY? 

The original 1951 Alice in Wonderland movie is one of my favorite Disney films.  Mary Blair’s concept art and her color and styling work was stunning.  The music is catchy and classic.  And the Disneyland ride–because it gave me nightmares as a child–is a must-ride on every visit to the park. 

Tim Burton movies do delight me over and over again–Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood… But MoCap?  Maybe he’ll be able to bring something new to the table that I’m unable to imagine.  He’s able to direct stop-motion in a way that’s stylistically magical, even when the rest of the movie needs a little something-something (Corpse Bride?).  So, I’ll remain optimistic and hope for the best.  Good luck, Tim!

What drives Knoxville’s most famous cartoonist? Total fear. 

Check out this inspiring article from Metro Pulse about our friend Joel Trussell and his rise to success as an animator. Way to go Joel!

 

Our own Matt Tamaru was featured on Cold Hard Flash today for his animation of the opening sequence for The New Ballard & Ballard Cartoon Hour. It’s great to know that this project, part of a collection of collaborative installations exhibited in 2005, is still getting attention!

 

Matt spent all last week at the Platform Animation Festival in Portland, OR.  Some of the highlights of the event included reconnecting with our old friend Joel Trussell and meeting a number of animation luminaries like Will Vinton and Bill Plympton.  Matt and Joel were some the very first professional Flash animators back in the days of olde and were the Flash Directors for Zombie College.  Matt and I were heart broken when Joel and his lovely wife Kelly moved back to Tennesse from Sea-Town back in 2000.

Matt’s posted a few photos from the event and will be posting more on his Flickr site when I can wrestle time for him to do so. 

Joel at the Frederator’s “drink and draw”–he’s definitely drinking and drwawering

Bill Plympton at the pik-e-nik

Will Vinton also getting some picnic action

Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew

From our dear friend, Ms. Ellen Forney:

Dear friends -
Please come to the opening reception of my art show, “Big Fuckin’ Hands”! I’ll be showing six new 2′ x 2′ paintings in the Hands series, as well as two of the 4′ x 4′ pieces from the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. It’ll be a party! I hope you can make it!
xo
Ellen.
BIG FUCKIN’ HANDS
Paintings by Ellen Forney
June 20 – August 1, 2007
Opening reception: Wed., June 20, 6 – 8pm
Liberty
517 – 15th Ave. E. (at Republican, in Capitol Hill)
206-323-9898
www.LibertyBars.com

Check out the Cold Hard Flash article on our friend and confidant (shhhh!) Joel Trussell.  We told you that Matt worked on Cold Cut’s “This Island Earth”.  See!  We didn’t make it up. 

 

The Drinky Crow Show created by cartoonist Tony Millionaire and Eric Kaplan will have its debut on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim on May 13th. 

Tony Millionaire is best known for his Maakies comic strip which has appeared in The New Yorker and The Stranger.  Seattle’s own Fantagraphics has published six Maakies collections as well as two of Millionaire’s graphic novels.

Eric Kaplan has been a writer for Malcom in the Middle, The Late Show with David Letterman, and Futurama.  He was also creator of the animated web series Zombie College (which our own Matt Tamaru/Rodriguez was the Flash Animation Director).

Watch the trailer for the show on the Fantagraphic’s Blog.

It’s been a sad month. We just lost Joe Barbera, and now Iwao Takamoto, creator of Scooby-Doo has died. Takamoto was vice-president at Warner Brothers at the time of his death.

See BBC and Cartoon Brew for more on the incredible life of Iwao Takamoto. May he rest in peace.