Cartoonist and animator Bill Plympton's wonderfully weird "Your Face" animated short features vocals by Maureen McElheron, slowed down by one-third for maximum slurriness. Nominated for a 1988 Academy Award, "Your Face" inspired the below 2018 couch gag on The Simpsons with Homer's vocals by Dan Castellaneta.
I used to see/hear Porky say this 20x a day.
I want this on my tombstone, but maybe higher res. Read the rest
Just now, I tried to recall what I had for lunch the other day. I had to wrestle with it for a few moments before I was able to pin a chicken chimichanga at Espi & T's to the mat for a ten-count.
I don't remember the face of the the woman who broke my heart while I was in my early 20s nor what happened to the boxes of the comic books I used to own. But my head absolutely refuses to let go of the theme song to The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin -- a cartoon that I watched MAYBE twice in my life. It's been slowly driving me insane for the past few days.
Share in my pain. Read the rest
In this 7-minute animated cartoon, a woman cooks a bao dumpling that suddenly comes to life as a baby.
Read the restIn “Bao,” an aging Chinese mom suffering from empty nest syndrome gets another chance at motherhood when one of her dumplings springs to life as a lively, giggly dumpling boy. Mom excitedly welcomes this new bundle of joy into her life, but Dumpling starts growing up fast, and Mom must come to the bittersweet revelation that nothing stays cute and small forever. This short film from Pixar Animation Studios and director Domee Shi explores the ups and downs of the parent-child relationship through the colorful, rich, and tasty lens of the Chinese immigrant community in Canada.
In 1992, seven years before the premier of SpongeBob SquarePants, the late Stephen Hillenburg was enrolled in CalArts' Experimental Animation Program. As a student, he created his first cartoons, including "The Green Beret" (1992) seen above, which landed him his job at Nickelodeon, working on Rocko's Modern Life and, later, developing SpongeBob SquarePants.
Meet Bonnie's new toy "Forky" and head out on the road. Directed by Josh Cooley (“Riley’s First Date?”), Toy Story 4 comes to theaters June 21, 2019.
French illustrator Linda Bouderbala did a fun exercise where she gathered some of her favorite characters from geek and pop culture and organized them by color. Read the rest
In 1991, Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (aka Moebius) and a team of animators created this gorgeous short pilot for a film called Starwatcher. According to this Wired feature that Mark wrote in 1994, "Starwatcher was slated to be the first feature-length animated movie to be made with 3-D computer graphics. But the film's producer died in a car accident, and shortly thereafter it was discovered that the French production company bankrolling the film was FF85 million (US$15 million) in debt. (Many suspected the car accident was no accident.)"
Absolutely stellar work by comic artist and "animotion" director Dmitry "Ahriman" Grozov of Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Heinz Edelmann (1934-2009) was the German illustrator and designer best known for art directing the Beatles' 1968 animation Yellow Submarine. In 1970, he created this magnificent opening animation for the ZDF broadcast movie series "Der Phantastische Film."
(r/ObscureMedia, thanks UPSO!)
Coming to Netflix soon. It's enraged the online nazis for the usual reasons, but this time it's particularly delicious because they can't even pretend it was ever for them. When they say she looks like a boy, all you have to do is take that thought seriously, just for a second, to understand how completely they're losing that particular aspect of the culture wars.
Myisha Haynes and Jaz Malone released the second in their fun and interesting series on how cartoonists can draw black people while avoiding imagery fraught with negative connotations. Read the rest
If there's anyone out there who's never felt like an imposter, or suffered from FOMO (fear of missing out), or struggled with self doubt, I sure would like to meet them.
Yet, just because these are common human experiences, it doesn't make it any easier to deal with when they happen to you. (Can I get an a-men?!)
In 2017, for the 100 Day Project, Portland-based cartoonist Lucy Bellwood penned her own demon in a series of 100 comics. Those illustrations have now become a book titled 100 Demon Dialogues.
In the forward she writes, "Back in 2012, entering my first year as a full-time freelance cartoonist, I hit an art rut. Trying to shake things up, I doodled a picture of a tiny, taunting inner imp who apparently believed I’d never make anything of myself."
"He cropped up time and time again over the next five years — when things were going well and I was worried I’d lose everything, or when things were going poorly and I thought it’d never get any better. Each comic I drew about him brought a little more humor or clarity to our relationship, but I still felt like I was at his mercy," she continues.
"Then, in April of 2017 I set out to complete my second 100 Day Project, a themed challenge in which participants do something creative every day for 100 days. Spanning just over three months, it seemed like the perfect chance to really dig into what was going on with this little jerk and get a handle on how to banish him for good."
Her project resonated with people of all walks of life. Read the rest
The bootleg_daycare Instagram account is a fantastic stream of poor representations of famous cartoon characters emblazoned on the walls of dodgy daycare centers, ice cream trucks, and other locales. "Don't worry, your children are in good hands."
bootleg_daycare (Thanks, Lux!)
The Royal Ocean Film Society looks at the work of pioneering animator Richard Williams, whose work on Pink Panther and Roger Rabbit bucked animation trends and pushed for a more exaggerated style of movement. Read the rest
