CHICKS BE ROWDY

Animation designed by the awesome Dave Cooper. He never updates his website or blog or Flickr page, so heres a link to a Google images search for his work. He does paintings and comics and toys. He also did a kids book under a pseudonym, I presume because his other stuff can get kind of porn-y. I like this song, too.

Get at me:

THE ABOMINABLE CHARLES CHRISTOPHER

... is a weekly webcomic by Karl Kerschl. It's about a sasquatch guy and his woodland buddies. Kerschl draws awesome animals.

It's usually funny, but there're poignant moments and cool mystical things.

Go here.

Get at me:

CARICATURE

I thought I knew what this video was going to be. But it's really, really entertaining. Highly recommended, whether you draw or not.

Get at me:

AWESOME NEW MOEBIUS INTERVIEW

"... now I am like a unicorn."

Get at me:

KIDS BOOK

Pages 7 and 15.

click to engorge.

Get at me:

RONALD SEARLE

... shows us a thing or two about energy (and about drawing).

Get at me:

MOEBIUS EXHIBITION

... at the Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain in Paris. Click here for a bunch of crazy pics. Looks like a huge show in a huge venue.

Get at me:

DEMONIC PROCESS

Get at me:

SNEAK PEEP

Get at me:

101 DALMATIONS BACKGROUND

Get at me:

WHY IS THE SKY BLUE?

It isn't. Not according to 1950's Hanna Barbera cartoons, anyway. They were cheaply made, with very limited animation and quickly painted backgrounds. Making up for those limitations was a mad strong design sense and unique color choices.

click to enlarge 

Gorge on eye candy at the mind-bogglingly researched Yowp.

Get at me:

CHUCK JONES

I found this Chuck Jones documentary in 9 parts on YouTube. If you're an animator, illustrator or designer, there's some valuable stuff to learn here. Plus, funny.

Get at me:

SEUSS CHUCKS

Peep these two and others at Converse.com.

Get at me:

CARTOON MODERN

I found this book at a second hand shop on the weekend. 2006, 200 pages, 12x7".

There used to be a blog out of which the book sprung, but it's now sadly defunct. 

Lots of awesome art by the heavy hitters of 50's cartoons: Maurice Noble, Tom Oreb, Eyvind Earle, the amazing Mary Blair and a score of others.

It's gorgeous; basically a history of mid century american animation; UPA, Disney, MGM, Warner Bros, Hanna-Barbera, etc. Every page is full of hi-res color scans of cels, concept art, color keys, and mad textual info. 

You can order it from Amazon for $30.

Get at me:

ROBERT BINKS

... is (or was) an 1970's illustrator. Little is known about him but there are five posts featuring his art on the Comics Journal's site.

Get at me:

TOVE JANSSON

...was a Finnish author and illustrator. Here's a blog post about her, and here's a page with scans from her illustrations of other author's works, including the Hobbit and Alice in Wonderland.

Get at me:

ONE FOR COMMON SENSE

Cartoonist par excellence Jeff Smith had to fight off some kook who wanted to ban his books from an elementary school. It's an all-too-rare example of this sort of thing turning out like it should. Jeff tells the story on his blog along with links to news sources covering the story.

Get at me:

RIP VAN WINKLE

...we read the original story by Washington Irving in English, which could summarize as follows: this lazy guy is married to a horrible woman. He falls asleep for 20 years and she is dead when he wakes up; he lives happily ever after (there's a lot more subtext, etc, but hey). Responding to the story, I cynically did the following cartoon in some kind of bastardized 70's Playboy steez ala Mort Drucker and Erich Sokol (who are both very awesome).

Get at me:

DUCK SHOT IN FACE 18 TIMES

-Rabbit Fire

-Rabbit Seasoning

-Duck, Rabbit, Duck!

These are the three cartoons comprising the infamous "hunting trilogy", featuring Bugs Bunny consistently outsmarting Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. The dialogue is smart and there are a ton of sight gags. Written by Michael Maltese, directed by Chuck Jones, music by Carl Stalling and voices by Mel Blanc. This is the dream team of mid century american animation. At one point Blanc voices Bugs imitating Daffy and Daffy imitating Bugs. Jones throws in so many little facial tics and sideways glances to the audience, so funny, plus some really cool design like the panel above, and great painted backgrounds. I'd love to go through these frame by frame. Kids cartoons suck so much these days because creators don't give kids enough credit. They're talked down to. These old cartoons are so funny because these guys were just trying to make themselves and each other laugh.

"I'm a Fiddler Crab! Why don't you shoot me? It's Fiddler Crab season!"

"Let's run through that again..."

Get at me:

HALLOWEEN BUGS

I remember being 4 or 5 years old and actually being frightened by the last of these 3 cartoons. Something had lifted the veil of comedy for me and I was filled with dread by two obese children, blinded by their greed, gorging themselves on candy, oblivious to the fact that a toothless old lady gleefully prepares to cook them alive and cannibalize them. All for our amusement.

How horrible.

I feel the need to listen to some Jacques Brel.

- Evil Scientist.

- Vampire.

- Wicked Witch.

(p.s. - that last line of dialogue = 1954)

Get at me: