Kim Deitch

Kim Deitch, son of animator Gene Deitch, has been writing an autobiography of sorts at The Comics Journal site. This installment mixes comix, music and animation into a gumbo that features animators Sally Cruikshank, Tony Eastman, Gene Deitch, and comix artist R. Crumb.

Who Owns Our Modern Myths and Legends?

(Click to enlarge. It's a big one.)

Charlie Jane Anders at io9 has put together this chart showing how six large corporations essentially control the pop culture franchises that make up our common experience.

The chart doesn't really represent ownership as much as it represents control. New Line Cinema doesn't own The Lord of the Rings, only the film version. And Harper Collins doesn't own Tolkien's novels, only the publishing rights. But when you see how much these six companies control, it's clear why copyright and digital rights management have become major issues and why the United States is leaning heavily on other countries, including Canada, to write legislation to protect U.S. corporate assets.

The chart is also incomplete. Notice that while Disney is listed, none of the drawn animated characters are on this chart. Neither is Nickelodeon or CBS (both Viacom companies), though Cartoon Network makes it. That just shows that what's here is only the tip of the iceberg. The odds are that if you've bought a book, seen a movie, bought a DVD or watched TV, you've been feeding these corporate behemoths.

Fred Moore's 100th Birthday

Cartoon Brew has a photo of Moore I've never seen, Jenny Lerew posts a lovely photo of Moore with his wife Virginia and their infant daughter, and Andreas Deja posts a large sampling of Moore's work. The above is the one Moore from my own collection.

Moore is practically a mythical character. His influence is ubiquitous, not only in animation but also in greeting card art of a certain vintage. Because he died before fans and historians could interview him, he's a mystery compared to other Disney artists. His death, often falsely attributed to his alcoholism, has spawned more versions than I can count. He's the Bix Beiderbecke of animation: the flawed boy prince, bursting with a unique talent, who left us too soon.

What would we give to have known him?

She Was the One

Another Storycorps film from the Rauch Brothers.

Soundboard

Check it out...very large library of sound clips and well organized. Seems you might be able to record your own as well.

Enjoy!
JP

found via Spungella

Walt Disney Animation Studios

When I was at the Art Institute of Seattle ten years ago, I quite honestly had no clue as to what I wanted to for a living.  Probably like a lot of us, I just knew I wanted to "do something in art."  

Right then,  I started to come across the work that Disney was doing at the time, and in a flash became inspired to begin to pursue animation.  Quite obsessively actually.   I felt like a total slacker in high school, but animation just ignited something in me and all of a sudden I wanted to... wait for it... work hard!  What?! I now had this pie-in-the-sky dream of being a Disney Animator.  

Since then, I've had the good fortune to do a lot of things in this industry,  and I'm forever grateful for every experience I've been blessed with, good and bad.  I've had some amazing experiences w/ amazing people that I wouldn't change for anything.  What helped me pull through the bad was remembering what changed my life in the first place, and why I even wanted to do this.  So, as you can imagine, I feel extremely lucky to say that I've accepted a position as a Character Animator for the Walt Disney Animation Studios, working on their next feature film, Wreck-It Ralph!

It's still pretty surreal to say it.  And I know it's not cool to be this geeky when you're a already a professional, but man,  I GREW UP ON THIS STUFF!

Wish me luck because I'll need it!  Blue Sky Family!  You've all been awesome and the pleasure was all mine.  Thanks for your support everyone!

Early Computer Animation

Ed Catmull, currently the president of the Walt Disney and Pixar animation studios, was one of the key people in the development of computer animation. Catmull was and is a software engineer, somebody who developed the nuts and bolts of making animation work with computers.

A couple of his early pieces have surfaced. The first, reported on Cartoon Brew, is a film from the University of Utah in 1972.

After the University of Utah, Catmull went to the New York Institute of Technology, located on Long Island, where he was involved with trying to find ways of joining the computer with drawn animation. John Celestri has reprinted a paper Catmull wrote called "The Problems of Computer-Assisted Animation."

Computer animation has reached a high level of sophistication but it wasn't that long ago that it was struggling to establish itself as a practical medium. These pieces show how far it has come in less than 40 years, all within the working lifetime of Ed Catmull.