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Animation

Black Ink and Big Creatures

Feb 17th, 2018
by rodney.
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A recent discovery from the Long Beach Comic Expo. Seung Woo Cha currently works as a director at Dreamworks TV… but he is also a fine artist, known for his imaginative depictions of wild life from around the world — especially gorillas and other apes. Often working in black ink, he paints in broad artistic strokes that nonetheless capture the essence and power of his subjects. Recently he collected several of his works together into a hardcover portfolio book, appropriately enough entitled The Art of Wild Life. You can purchase the book over at his web site, and see examples of his work as well.

image c. 2018 Draw 4 Life Studios

Korean Strangeness Comes To America

Feb 12th, 2018
by rodney.
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You may recall that a few years ago Fred Patten wrote an article for Flayrah.com about a very, very strange Korean animated film called Satellite Girl and Milk Cow. Here, we’ll let Fred summarize the plot: It’s about “… a pianist (male), transformed into a cow (female) by Merlin the Magician in the form of an anthropomorphic roll of toilet paper, and pursued by a villainous incinerator that wants to incinerate him/her; while a communication satellite falls from space, becomes an Astro Boy-like robot girl, and saves the cow from the incinerator and its secret agents.” Got all that? No? It’s okay, we don’t either. So why bring this up now? Well thanks to Animation World Network we’ve learned that GKIDS has finally picked up the rights for the film, and they will be releasing a subtitled version to theaters and DVD later this summer.

image c. 2018 GKIDS

Again, Rabbits Meet Foxes… Over Eggs

Feb 9th, 2018
by rodney.
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Here’s a European animated film from last year that we missed somehow: Rabbit School — Guardians of the Golden Egg. According to an article at Animation magazine’s site from last March, “Following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, family animated feature Rabbit School – Guardians of the Golden Egg has had a strong debut in cinemas… Directed by Ute von Münchow‐Pohl, Rabbit School centers on a young urban rabbit named Max who gets stuck in an old-fashioned Easter Rabbit school when it is surrounded by a clan of clever foxes who want to take over the holiday. With the help of cute bunny Emmy and the instruction of the mysterious Madame Hermione, Max learns not only the secret magic of Easter bunnies, but also where he truly belongs.” As you can see from the trailer, the film was dubbed with a British cast for distribution in the UK. No word yet if anyone plans to release it on DVD for North America.

image c. 2018 Akkord Film

He’s Red-Light. Pink Even!

Feb 5th, 2018
by rodney.
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And the strange mash-up of DC Comics and Hanna Barbera continues — and even expands. As you may recall, Snagglepuss made an appearance as a back-up story in the infamous Banana-Splitz-meet-the-Suicide-Squad comic. Well now the pink puma has his own new series all to himself, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles. “It’s 1953. While the United States is locked in a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, the gay Southern playwright known as Snagglepuss is the toast of Broadway. But success has made him a target. As he plans for his next hit play, Snagglepuss becomes the focus of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. And when powerful forces align to purge show business of its most subversive voices, no one is safe!” Written by Mark Russell and illustrated by Mike Feehan, the first issue is out now. Den of Geek has a review.

image c. 2018 DC Comics

The Annie Awards for 2017

Feb 4th, 2018
by rodney.
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Saturday the 3rd at UCLA, the International Animated Film Society (ASIFA) handed out the annual Annie Awards for the best in animated films, television, and effects for the year 2017. As everyone expected, the big winner of the evening was Disney/Pixar’s Coco, which took home 11 of the 13 honors that it was nominated for, including Best Feature, Best Directing, and Best Writing. (Not really an anthropomorphic film, but those alebrijes were so cool!) In spite of Coco’s sweep, there was still room for several anthropomorphic items to win awards in several categories. Revolting Rhymes was awarded Best Special Production (the award for medium-length original films). Based on the poems of Roald Dahl, Revolting Rhymes was created by Magic Light Pictures, which previously brought us The Gruffalo and Highway Rat. Silvergate Media’s series The Octonauts won for Best TV Production for Preschool Children, while We Bare Bears won Best TV Production for Children. Trollhunters won for Best Character Animation in a TV Production, and the feature War for the Planet of the Apes won for Character Animation in a Live Action Production. Cuphead took home the award for Best Game. Meanwhile, the Disney Mickey Mouse TV series had quite a night, taking home Annies for Best Directing, Best Music, and Best Storyboarding. Visit the Annie Awards web site to see the full list. [And remember: The Ursa Major Awards are taking nominations now!]

Image c. 2018 Magic Light Pictures

Their Names in Lights!

Jan 31st, 2018
by rodney.
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And their likenesses too, actually. KefkaFloyd is the on-line name of Dan Vincent, an artist who creates original laser-etched clear sculptures that glow with neon colors. So far, most of his designs are based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. But as you can see on his web site he covers other fannish ventures as well, and he’s always creating new works. So keep checking back!

image c. 2018 by KefkaFloyd

She Makes A Big Splash

Jan 24th, 2018
by rodney.
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Benson Shum is an illustrator and animation artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation. (He worked on Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, and other films.) As part of their Artist Showcase series, Disney-Hyperion published his illustrated children’s book, Holly’s Day at the Pool, which is available on Amazon. “Holly the hippo imagines the worst: Icebergs and icy water, penguins and seals! Her imagination bursts at every turn, making it harder and harder for her to step foot in the pool… Until she get the chance to be a hero. Holly may be scared, but she is a very brave girl.” Now on his web site Mr. Shum announced that he will be illustrating a new book, Go To Sheep, written by Jennifer Sattler. That one’s set to be published by Little Simon later this spring.

image c. 2018 Disney-Hyperion

PLOP!

Jan 23rd, 2018
by rodney.
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In the spirit of “How did this sneak up on us?”, it turns out that Condorito now has his own movie — called, appropriately enough, Condorito: The Movie. What, never heard of Condorito? The bird-with-a-beret was created in 1949 by Chilean doctor and political cartoonist René Ríos Boettiger. Since then, the bird has gone on to become practically the Mickey Mouse of Latin America… which is funny, given that he was created to make fun of Walt Disney’s over-sanitized version of Chile in the film Saludos Amigos. The Condorito gag strip (always ending with a lame joke or pun, and lots of characters fainting over backwards with a loud PLOP!) has become so well-known that someone was bound to make an animated movie out of it. And now Pajarraco Films (from Peru!) have brought Condorito to the screen in CGI. (It’s only been released in Spanish with subtitles, so far.) The plot? Condorito would desperately love to date his va-va-voom human girlfriend Yayita, but doing so means he has to get past her disapproving parents. Things get a bit more complicated when invading aliens capture and run off with Yayita’s mama — and who else but Condorito to try and rescue her? Admittedly the critics have not been kind to the film, some complaining that it smooths off the rough edges and adult content of the original strip. Though not very approving either, Lili Loofbourow’s review for The Week has some good background information on the strip. Oh, check out the official trailer too.

image c. 2018 Pajarraco Films

Funny Animals Around The World — Except Here

Jan 22nd, 2018
by rodney.
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And here we go again… Another cool animated funny animal series that has picked distribution around the world but somehow skipped North America… well, at least not the US of A. Here’s what Animation World Network has to say about Animanimals: “Each of the 26 non-dialogue episodes features a different animal facing an absurd adventure with a surprise ending. The series has already won 20 prizes across the world, including the Audience Award at the New York Children’s Film Festival for two consecutive years — for the films Zebra and Octopus — and the award for the Best Film for Young Children at the Chicago Children’s Film Festival for Zebra… The family entertainment series Animanimals is produced by highly experienced and creatively driven Studio Film Bilder in Stuttgart, which also has garnered many awards over its 28-year history… “All stories are driven by director Julia Ocker’s engaging sense of humor,” says Thomas Meyer-Hermann, founder of Studio Film Bilder. “There is laughter and empathy throughout the story, and then excitement at the clever and creative solution.“” Now it’s ready to be shown in much of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, New Zealand, and Canada. We’ll let you know if it gets closer to us here!

image c. 2018 Studio Film Bilder

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