AWN’s The Miscweant attends the opening reception for ‘What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones’ at New York City’s Museum of the Moving Image.
AWN's The Miscweant attends The Academy’s “Icons of Animation,” dedicated to the work of character designer and New Yorker cover artist Peter de Sève; artist and animator William Joyce; Argentinian illustrator, author and animator Carlos Nine; and the King of Indie Animation, Bill Plympton.
With four seasons under its belt, The Hub channel’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic celebrates its season-ending two-part episode and a just-announced 26-episode season five with one of its “What’s the Hubbub?” online chats.
Turbo’s supersonic racing snail gets his own Netflix spin-off series with Chris Prynoski as Exec VP.
AWN's The Miscweant talks to Elliot Cowan, who is in the home stretch of creating the feature-length The Stressful Adventures of Boxhead and Roundhead, an expansion of the animated shorts the veteran animator/animation director has been creating since 2006.
“It wouldn’t be the first time a labor of love arrived stillborn.” That was the closing line to a 1980s article about animator Richard Williams’ long-gestating animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler.
The powerhouse team behind DreamWorks latest feature "The Rise of the Guardians" gather in New York City to describe their creative collaboration.
Too big to fit into one blog entry: Joe Strike's report on the NY Comic Con continues with coverage of Adult Swim's Venture Bros. and Robot Chicken panels.
Ponies, Venture Bros, Robot Chickens… and more; Joe Strike visits the New York Comic-con
An attic autocrat meets his downfall at the hands of a band of freedom-fighting toys in Czech animator Jiri Barta's imaginative stop-motion fable.
Joe Strike dives beneath the rotting flesh of Laika's new film "Paranorman" and uncovers some surprising facts about Chris Butler and Sam Fell's 3D stop-motion zombie romp.
Overall, Brave is an entertaining and even groundbreaking piece of work, both for its gutsy heroine and Pixar’s new ‘Presto’ animation system, responsible for Merida’s fiery red flowing locks.
It’s baa-ack! The days are getting longer and warmer, but the real sign of spring’s incipient arrival is of the return of the New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Why do I always start salivating when I’m invited to an event in the Viacom building? Oh yeah, it’s because they always put out the nicest spreads - and whatever they’re promoting is usually pretty interesting too.
Well, I finally got to speak to Bernard Derriman. Speak as in actually talk to him, as opposed to our Email ‘conversation’ back in 2005 when I wrote about animated music videos and his now justly famous Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me. Our paths crossed again when I wrote about Fox’s new Sunday night cartoon Allen Gregory.
Derriman directed two out of the show’s seven initial episodes; if the series gets renewed (which all depends on how much America takes an arrogant pipsqueak to their hearts) he’ll be doing more of them. At the moment he’s busy with Fox’s other Sunday night backup toon Bob’s Burgers.
Can a former supporting player (Shreks II, II and IV) carry his own film? The answer is yes, especially if it sets up his backstory, introduces a female rival/love interest, provides plenty of entertaining set-pieces and a despicable villain or two.
What to do with these characters has been Warner Bros.’ challenge for years now. The classic theatrical shorts have matured from classic to just plain old. (Masterpieces all, but old just the same.) Attempts to bring them up to date have given us excretions like Loonatics, so-whats like Baby Looney Tunes and faux old-time toons like Carrotblanca. Under exec-producer Sam Register, they’ve finally gotten it right: contemporized their merrie menagerie while keeping their core personalities intact.
The year-plus early teaser trailer is a given for spectacular genre movies nowadays… but how about the full release of an entire movie – an animated Pixar film at that – some ten months before its official premiere? In this case however, the Pixar film in question runs all of seven minutes and is set to accompany the summer 2012 release of Brave, Pixar’s next full-length feature. It’s called La Luna, and it’s the story of a boy, his dad, granddad… and their peculiar relationship with the celestial body of the title.
Saturday morning at the movies, watching a cartoon – what could be more reminiscent of the joys of childhood? Well, the cartoon this particular Saturday morning (September 10, 2011) was not exactly the kind of matinee I used attend back in Brooklyn when the theaters had ‘matrons’ who kept the kiddie section in line. Today I’m wearing polarized lenses and watching Disney’s upcoming 3D re-release of The Lion King.
Veteran voice actor Jim Cummings has vocalized Winnie the Pooh and Tigger for over thirty years. His enthusiasm for voicing the bear and the tiger is of Tiggerish proportions, as you're about to read...
The New York Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s Education program rolls on, ably overseen by the museum’s Senior VP of Education, Danny Fingeroth. Fingeroth’s impressive credits include a lengthy stint as group editor of Marvel’s Spider-Man books. As part of his job Fingeroth rounds up pros and the level of Peter Kuper, Larry Hama, Paul Levitz and J.M. DeMatteis to share their knowledge and experience with aspiring comics creators.
The Transformers may be raking in the box office gold and G.I. Joe battled COBRA in the multiplexes, but while those once-upon-the-eighties Hasbro cartoon shows made the leap from TV cartoon to big screen live action, the diminutive equines collectively known as My Little Pony have returned in a new animated series that has surprised a lot of people. To put it simply, The Hub Channel’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is one hip show.
Well, I guess it was too much to hope for, lightning striking twice in a row. (Then again, Pixar was able to pull it off to the third power with its Toy Story iterations.) But to put it bluntly, Kung Fu Panda 2 is no Kung Fu Panda. No, it’s not bad, it’s just that if KFP was a home run with two men on base, KFP2 is a double – a solid double nonetheless, maybe even drove in a run, but still a double. (Make that a triple if you’re not as much in love with Kung Fu Panda as I am.)
Lord knows I had my reservations about the entire affair. Trying to do something with these characters outside of the short cartoon format where they were at their best has always been risky; with one or two exceptions (like say, Taz-mania), the less said about efforts like Loonatics Unleashed, Space Jam or Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the better. But in brief, my personal reaction to the first episode… The Looney Tunes show works. I like this show – a lot, as a matter of fact.
Ever have a friend who was just the funniest guy you knew? Always coming up with great jokes completely out of left field, or riffing on whatever was happening at the moment? You graduate and go your separate ways, then six years later you meet up again. You can’t help but notice he dresses a lot better than he did in school. He still tells jokes, only now a lot of them are what he heard last night on Leno, or he’s quoting the catchphrase of the moment. It was fun seeing him again, but it’s not the reunion you were hoping for. That’s how I felt walking out of Hoodwinked Too!: Hood vs. Evil.
