A Call To Help Corny Cole

As many of you probably already know, veteran animator/storyboard artist/teacher Corny Cole recently lost his home, pets and a lifetime of his artwork in a brush fire. Corny and his wife are fine and staying at a hotel right now, but they'll be needing a lot of help to get back on their feet.

I'm keeping in touch with the California Institute of the Arts, who are in the process of setting up an account for donations. A lot of my friends have already offered financial assistance, and (since the school is also considering a charity auction) artistic contributions.

If you haven't already been contacted, please feel free to let me know on the comments board if you'd like to help out. If you include an email address, I'll keep you notified on developments.

Thanks to Cynthia Overman for the notification.
Photo courtesy of animationguild.org.
Copyright: Moses Sparks Photography www.mosessparks.com

UPDATE: PAYPAL ACCOUNT NOW AVAILABLE FOR DONATIONS!

CalArts and the Creative Talent Network have set up an online fundraiser! If you'd like to help out, please make a donation - there's a PayPal link in this Cartoon Brew article. Every little bit helps!

Thanks so much to Jerry Beck and Cartoon Brew for the update.

Original Mach 5 Go! Go! Go! Opening

Jerry Beck helped me to find this clip from the Japanese show that became known as Speed Racer here in America. What surprised me was that the famous theme song was always in the opening titles - I always thought that it was created for the domestic release.

Don't you think this version of the song should have been in the new movie somewhere - in the end credits at the very least? It makes me want to see more of the Japanese version of the show, even though I think it'd wind up disappointing me, like reading the original manga did.

Anyway, I think the music and visuals are fun - enjoy!

Cartoon Brew > Flip #11 > Me!

Jerry Beck did a quick write up on Steve Moore's Flip #11, which features Steve's interview with me. Thanks, Jerry!

CartoonBrew Adopts The iTunes Model

Check out CartoonBrewFilms - there's just three shorts to buy right now, but hopefully there'll be lots more cool stuff where that came from. There's a Q&A feature too, so Jerry, Amid, or the filmmakers themselves can answer your questions. I'm especially curious about the Frank Tashlin stop-motion short - I didn't even know it existed!

What a great way to see short films without feeling like you're robbing the filmmakers!

Casper Gets The Big Book Treatment

BOING BOING: 400 page Casper anthology coming in April
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:02:27 AM

Leslie Cabarga and Jerry Beck have put together a 400 page Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book anthology, to be published by Dark Horse in April. Can't wait -- these are awesome comics.

I've made no secret of my love for the Paramount Harvey Comics of the 1950s and early 60s. These have been virtually ignored by the comics community, and unknown to animation fans. Now that we've completed our personal collections (through eBay and Comic-Con at bargain prices), Leslie and I are compiling a large volume of the 100 best stories, restored from printers proofs and original art, by permission of Classic Media and to be published by Dark Horse this summer. These comics were drawn mainly by the Famous Studios animators: Bill Hudson, Tom Johnson, Howard Post, Steve Muffatti and others. Warren Kremer's classic early stories will be presented as well. I'm also contributing an introductory essay to this 480-page volume and we've got big plans for further editions. I'll be plugging this again in the coming months, but you can place an advance order now, for Harvey Comics Classics Volume 1: Casper The Friendly Ghost at Dark Horse Comics.

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Thanks to Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew for the source article, and for making this book possible! I'm a big Harvey Comics fan myself, so I'll be picking this up when it hits stores.