Hey, someone’s gotta go after the lucrative stay-at-home Dad market.
No comments
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Ali Is Proud, Don King Loves The $2.50 Cover Price, And That Guy In The Middle Is So Engrossed He Hasn’t Even Noticed He’s Wearing His Grandma’s Wig
What’s The Opposite Of A ‘Fun-Fact’?
This: “Because ALF was abruptly cancelled in its 8th season, what was [intended as] a season-ending cliffhanger became the finale, with ALF being caught by federal agents while rendezvousing with his kin. In season one, an agent told the Tanners they would basically torture and kill ALF if they were to find him.” — Vranak
This Goofy Is Grotesque
Most terrifying Goofy toy…ever? (via)
Recommended Reading: The Hidden Story of Harley Quinn and How She Became the Superhero World’s Most Successful Woman
Vulture’s Abraham Riesman has put together a thorough examination of the rise and fall and resurrection of DC Comics’ clown princess of crime, Harley Quinn. As a big fan of her early appearances in Batman: The Animated Series, Mad Love and The Batman Adventures comics, I completely agree with a lot of what is said in this piece about Harley’s post-B:TAS appearances — they’re out of character, unoriginal, cliche T&A. That said, she’s more popular than ever. Click here to read.
Diego Rivera Was A Big Cartoon Fan
“If we look at the characteristics of the animated cartoons which are shown in movies, we find them to be of the purest and most definitive graphic style, of the greatest efficiency as social products, drawings joyous and simple that make the masses of tired men and women rest, make the children laugh til they are weary and ready for sleep and will let the grownups rest undisturbed.
“Mickey Mouse was one of the genuine heroes of American Art in the first half of the 20th Century.”
Diego Rivera, Mickey Mouse and American Art (1932), via
Top 5: Superhero Funnybooks (…That Are Actually Funny)
The term ‘funnybook’ is a holdover from a bygone era. An era when people still used the word ‘bygone’ and bought comic books that aimed to tickle their funny-bone instead of firing off some weird, alpha-male, wish fulfillment synapses in the pleasure centers of their brain.
Ah, but even in today’s grim ‘n’ gritty world of pseudo-realistic superhero comics there still exist a few books that aspire to be silly. There aren’t many (and they never last long), but they’re out there: Honest-to-goodness, capital-F Funnybooks — just like Grandma used to read! Listed below are five of my favorites.
Continue reading
Just A Heads Up…
Amazon is currently selling quite a few Studio Ghibli blu-rays at up to 45% off! Click here to check ‘em out.
Is Pixar Making A Musical?
In a recent interview with the UK radio show Saturday Night At The Movies, frequent Pixar composer Randy Newman was describing the falling out he had with Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, when he said the following:
“Lee Unkrich had Toy Story 3 temped with my music and it was limiting to me. [...] Now he’s not going to use me to work with him again. He’s doing a musical now.”
For the sake of fueling rumors and creating hysteria, let’s repeat that last line, only this time in boldface and with multiple exclamation marks: “He’s doing a musical now[!!!]“ Continue reading
Dave Bennett On Disney’s ‘Orange Bird’ Short
Jim Korkis and Cartoon Research have posted a swell piece detailing the creation of Disney’s one and only Orange Bird short, Foods and Fun: A Nutrition Adventure (1980). The best part of this post is the fact that they got the film’s jack-of-all-trades, Dave Bennett, (“my duties included character and prop design, storyboarding, track editing and reading, timing out the exposure sheets for the animators, layout, assistant animating”) to tell the tale! Click here to read.
Top 5: Sappy Spider-Man Comics
Spider-Man has always had girl troubles. From his first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 to whatever movie Marvel is releasing this year, the wisecracking web-head has rarely been lucky when it comes to love. Oh, sure, he’s had girlfriends. He’s even been married. But each and every affair inevitably ended in disaster. Death, dumping, a Marvel mandated mind-wipe — the deeper the love, the more messed-up the break-up. But does Spider-Man allow any of that to dim his dream of true love? Hells no. Skip ahead a few issues, and a new gal walks through Spidey’s door (or flies past his window…or punches him in the face while fleeing the scene of a crime…) and his lower half’s spider-sense starts tingling once more. Oh, comics. Ah, l’amour! Continue reading
Feb. 13, 12:59 pm
GIF via: Everlasting
The Nazis Vs. Mickey Mouse
“Young people, where is your sense of self? Mickey Mouse is the shabbiest, most miserable ideal ever invented. Mickey Mouse is a recipe for mental enfeeblement. Healthy instinct should tell every decent girl and decent boy that those filthy, dirt-caked vermin, the greatest carriers of bacteria in the animal kingdom, cannot be made into an ideal animal type. [...] Down with Mickey Mouse, and up with the swastika!”
Nazi propaganda circa 1931, via the wildly fascinating A Mickey Mouse Reader
Look-Alikes?
Natalie Dormer and Lola Bunny from Space Jam. (Via.)
For more animation look-alikes, click here.
Happy Lincoln’s Birthday
No, seriously. Able Abe not only played a humongous part in freeing the slaves, he also invented the musty-smelling log toys at your grandparents’ house, inspired Walt Disney’s first terminator and played a pitch-perfect cameo in the animated adaptation of Mike Mignola’s Amazing Screw-On Head. For those keeping track at home, that’s TWO high-points in the history of animation! And the slaves!
A Frightening Family Photo
From the twisted mind of Gaunted.
The Truth Is Stranger Than Twitter
When I first saw Jeremy Conrad‘s humorous tweet, I figured he’d summed up the details of the Sony/Marvel deal as well as anyone ever would. Money, right? That’s what makes the world go round and keeps the ‘biz’ in ‘show biz.’
Then Variety released the actual details of the deal and, well, you just can’t make this stuff up: SHIT WAS FREE. No one is getting paid!
James Baxter Has A Tumblr
…and he’s using it to share his concept art, character design and rough animation! Click here for greatness.
Dig These ‘Dragon Ball’ Dioramas
Model maker Pinfli has put together an impressive array of DZ dioramas using figures from the Master Resin Collection. Click here for the full photo set. (Via.)
Animation Essentials: Designing Shapes
Shiyoon Kim, a character designer at Disney Feature Animation, has released an old style guide that he and Glen Keane created for the animators on Tangled. The guide provides some great tips for studying and designing shapes, and features illustrations from Keane and quotes from Bill Moore — Chouinard’s legendary design professor!
Click through to get edumacated.
Ms. Marvel Graffiti Vs. Anti-Islam Ads
Mic.com reports: “Activists in San Francisco have taken on Islamophobia in their communities, defacing racist bus ads with [positive] messages inspired by [Marvel's] Muslim superhero.”
Unsurprisingly, Ms. Marvel’s creator thinks it’s awesome, too!
The Most Unnerving Part Of Universal Studios Japan’s ‘AoT’ Photo-Op?
The fake drool.
This Baymax Backpack Is Brilliant
The good news: The 2015 Disney/FILA collaboration features a backpack that looks just like Baymax’s charging station! The bad news: It’s currently only scheduled for release in Japan. The worse news? It’s gonna cost upwards of $125.
Oscar Noms Reimagined As Animated Pics
RIPT Apparel has unveiled their 2nd annual ‘RIPTcademy Award’ posters, and they’re even better than last year’s. There are twenty designs in all, most of them replacing the human cast with luminaries from the animation world. Looking over the collection, I’ve gotta admit — I think I’d prefer the fake versions to their critically acclaimed inspirations! Click here to purchase and/or view.
‘Bob’s Burgers’ Superfan Welcomed Into The Family Business
Way back in 2012, college senior Cole Bowden had an unusual idea: ‘You know those burger puns on the blackboard in every episode of Bob’s Burgers? I wonder what they’d taste like.’ That fleeting, hunger-fueled thought was all that it took to inspire Bowden - at the time a complete NON-cook - to begin creating recipes for each and every one.
Fast-forward one blog, two years and nearly 100 burgers later, and not only has Bowden found a fan in the show’s creator, Loren Bouchard, he and Bouchard are creating a Bob’s Burgers cookbook! I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to make the veggie-burger versions of The Beets of Burden, Cheeses Is Born and Blondes Have More Fun-Gus. I’ll be that much closer to living my life as a cartoon! Continue reading
