Guilty

of harboring delicious sugary treats

Have Your Cake

So these are crummy cel phone pictures

Combining cartoon and sugary food is older than Grandma's first Twinkie, but in an era of expanding young waistlines is this really the proper place for some characters?

Cookie Monster now famously eats celery (something I don't understand, celery may be the disgusting food on the planet), but he can be eaten cupcake form.

Of course there's parental responsibility, but hey - if we're a trickle down society shouldn't the profiteers shoulder some responsibility too? With great power...

I didn't get any of these. But I bet they were delicious. Thanks Disney, Marvel, Nickelodeon, Warners and Sesame Workshop!

Animation Fan

Hopefully Blogger will restore yesterday's post.  If not I'll repost in the next few days.

Yesterday animator William Moritz stopped by the studio to show his work.

He was kind enough to leave this gift behind.

It's a fan from Odri Studio in China where he worked for a time.

The obverse is an illustration of the "animation history museum" they have in the basement of their studio.  Apparently this is even used as a resource by animation schools across the country.

I can only recognize the Wii controller, so I really need to brush up on my animation history.

You Can Have Your Cake

and eat at your own risk.

Cars!

Dora Explorer.  Tough night.

Batman, crushing crime.

Everybody's pal, Mickey the Mouse

Stepford Cards

In the drawer next to the Japanese Bambi cards are two decks of cards from the wrap party of The Stepford Wives post production.

The faces are standard, but the backs are special order.

They're a nice little keepsake from a fun project.

Paranoia Pins

At one time the streets of Tokyo may have been littered with these.  I like to think so.

Ten years is a long time in the button business, so these Maromi pins are probably a lot rarer today.

One half of the metaphoric center of Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, the character is a (n absolutely brilliant) satire on commercial icons.  So there's a meta-satire -I guess that's practically snark -to Maromi merchandise.

Little Slugger (Shonen Bat in Japanese, great name), is the balance to Maromi.

They make any lapel look better.

Japanese Bambi Playing Cards

On a recent dig through my drawers in search of the circle cutter, this deck of cards was uncovered.

They're produced by Nintendo Playing Card Company of Japan (I wonder if this evolved into the gaming giant -probably, is my guess) and they do have an official Walt Disney Company copyright.

Bambi here looks like a photographed model which was then heavily retouched.

It may have been done this way to aid in the lenticular box cover.

Lenticular doesn't photograph well.

The faces of the cards are fairly uninteresting.

Except for the Jiminy Cricket joker.  That would put the production of these some time after 1953.

The set even comes with an instruction booklet for card games.  In Japanese, but with a familiar face on the cover.

Mickey of the Rising Sun.

6 Cents for Postage

These pressboard plates have mailing labels on the back which call for 6 cents postage.

They're fancy postcards.

If they fit into the 2 ounce first class postage rate (I didn't weigh them), that would put them before 1958.  That's a three year window after the opening of Disney Land.

That feels about right stylistically.  The artwork is loose but still "appealing".  Moreso, in my opinion than the animated versions of these characters.

The brush line makes them feel more like Carl Barks' great drawings than the tight motion picture draughting.

Even how the Goof lays out interrupting the frame line is a nice design touch.

I got this exacerbated Donald for Christina.  Seemed appropriate.

Once and Future Junk

I'll admit, I'm not 100% up on the details of Disney films, but I think there's something a little off about this doll.

I guess she grows into her fins.

If baby Little Mermaid or toddler Little Mermaid don't float your boat, there's the teen four pack.

And if the infantilization of cartoon characters isn't your bag, take a step back in time.

If all else fails, you can get some merchandise from the Fleischer Studio.

Buttoned Up

We got a new batch of buttons in.

We're also in the mood for making some new reel graphic -the two collide.

Final footage in a couple days.

Some Guys Will Shill Anything

...like me. But Popeye? Say it ain't so!

We've already discussed how Segar's hero has helped America's youth eat their greens, but now it seems he's turned to the other side.



I'm no conspiracy theorist, but those "sticks" -produced by "World Candies, Inc" of Brooklyn look an awful lot like these ones produced by "World Confections, Inc" of Brooklyn, NY.



Here are the ingredients to our spinach-lovin' man's confection:



It's not a scam, "Round Up" contains a different set of chemistry: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Corn Starch, Tapioca, Gelatin and Artificial Flavors. These products are clearly geared toward different tastes.

The best of all products, and one Popeye should get behind, teaches kids to be cool and makes New York City restaurant owners start to yell at you before sheepishly looking away:

Shopping

Fifteen minutes until the school bell, desperate for a dry erase marker -none at the drug store, none at the other drug store or the hardware store or the copier or the other copier -I stopped in a fancy invitation/greeting card store on 13th Street.

They didn't have them either, but on display right next to the counter were these:

(artist's recreation: not actual DVDs inside store)

It's a little charge to see your work out in the "real world". Like being in a restaurant and seeing something you've done pop up on TV; seeing something on the "big screen" in the company of strangers, gauging their reactions, hoping for a reaction.

Here's more Little Pim on the little screen:



Collect them all: here.

We're hoping to start up on the next batch of these soon.

In the meantime, I remembered the Staples on Union Square, so we'll be all set with the dry erase markers.

Ready To Serve

When we opened for business, roughly one million years ago, we asked Maurice Vellekoop to illustrate an announcement post card.

Maurice is one illustrator that we'd love to work with.  There are few times we developed some longer form projects together (and one on contract for a VERY BIG MEDIA CONGLOMERATE that I'll post about in the future), but nothing's come to fruition.

We even did an animatic together for Grey Advertising, a million and one years ago.  The product freshened the air while flushing your toilet.  If that's not amazing enough (and, really, its more gross than amazing) Maurice's illustrated woman cleaned the bathroom in 6 inch wedge heels.

I'd buy that.

Voila!

Toy fair was a couple weeks back.  Here's a booth hawking some merch for a nice project we worked on.

Little Pim is a series of language DVD for toddlers.  It's created by Julia Pimsleur Levine after the Pimsleur language immersion method developed by her parents.  WNYC listeners are familiar with the name, Simon and Schuster sponsers the radio station under the auspices of the Pimsleur Technique.

There are current 3 DVDs in 6 languages (plus English).  The live action and editorial were done by Big Mouth Films (except the pilot which was cut at Asterisk by Mitch Friedman).  We did probably around 40 short little bits starring the panda.

We worked in Flash.  Not my favorite tool, but given the circumstances allowed us to get the job done.  Chris McMurray, Abbey Luck and Christina Riley were responsible for the lion's share of panda.  Jonny A did some too, I think.

I Yam What I Yam

This is probably not a big deal to all of you coaster enthusiasts out there, but I think it's funny.

My father was Popeye fan - yesterday was his birthday, so encountering this in the Pathmark was kind of cosmic.

The great thing about American supermarkets is their unending cascade of useless garbage -foods that shouldn't exist, infinite variations on Pop Tarts and the sad sack off brands and generic trying to look appealing.

Fruity Dyno-Bites begs mom to just "TRY ME".  And what smart mom wouldn't?  Ok, the mom who doesn't buy sugar in bowl for breakfast -but look at their mascot!

It's a kangaroo!  Her name is "Cool Blue", in case you're color blind and hipness-impaired (the sunglasses were the big tip).  "Cool Blue", the kangaroo that is the mascot for some dinosaur flavored cereal has a joey (cute times 10!).  He's named "L'il Oaty".

Can you imagine what a blast the art director and illustrator had while conceiving this?

"Cool Animals"

"Easy, kangaroos"

"Nice, they're extreme.  But family friendly"

"Ok, Ok.  But we need to make sure everybody know's they're cool"

"Oakleys.  Duh!"

After a few more bong hits and games of GTA "L'il Oaty" was born.

That's just how Doritos got it's "Don't bogart my Smokey Reds!" campaign.

By the way, I'd love to animate "Cool Blue" and "L'il Oaty" I think we really understand the character.  Give me a call and we'll work up the numbers.

Speaking of David Bowie...

A little while back I was involved with a woman (musician, nothing to do with animation) who had this:


For you younger readers, that's a "picture disk". It has music "encoded" into circular grooves which can be heard by spinning it against a needle with an amplifier attached. Sort of like this:

Usually they were round and black like in the picture above.

Picture disks were special promotions. Collector's items, like pogs or Grimace glasses from McDonald's.

This picture disk was the eponymous single (don't make me explain that...) by David Bowie from the soundtrack to the animated film When the Wind Blows.

I hadn't seen the film at the time I was dating the woman. For clarity's sake, she hadn't seen it either.

The film was released in 1986. I remember 1986. As a child, I was afraid of nuclear war. Reagan was a scary son of bitch. The media uproar over The Day After led to school board assemblies across America. What should we tell our children? The children! The children!

Today, when I hope against hope for an atom bomb to plop square on my noggin, When the Wind Blows is a curious artifact. It's production technique is interesting -painstaking in its day, easily achieved by amateurs 20 years later. The characterizations and animation are heartfelt.

The story -a long, brutal descent into wretchedness and death by two geriatric Brits -is, well, a long, brutal descent. I suspect the content of the film is as alien and bizarre today as the 45 rpm picture disk pressed to promote it.

Ho Ho Ho! Mailly Christmas!

I count how long we've been in business by "holiday" cards. This year marks our fifth card.

Hopefully it bucks our downwardly spiraling trend of cards, each year being slightly less inspired than the last.

Since the Depression is on and everything, we decided to print the cards ourselves.

Here's Ryan DeCosmo at the press.

This year Christina Riley was responsible for the card. The first few ideas I came up with weren't very strong, and she did a nice, simple cut that works well (and matches the sign on our door).

Christina watches ink dry.


This is 2007's card.

Brian and I were in Mexico on a job when this was at the printer.

A few days before we left, I had a dream that I got into a fight with the printer. I never yell at people.

Sure enough, there was a miscommunication while I was gone and it was printed incorrectly. Sure enough, I was on the phone driving to pyramids yelling at the printer. A really expensive mistake. Printing is expensive, especially when you come up with these harebrained complicated cards.



The joke is that all the monsters that get "good" gifts like toy trucks and video games are sad, but the guy that gets broccoli is thrilled. Bizzaro world!

Here's 2006, by Joey Ahlbum.


We wanted this to open up a narrative triptych or one of those Mad Magazine back pages, where the full page is one image and the folded page another.

It doesn't exactly work, but Joey's art is great and the printing is excellent. Great color, strong blacks. Pleasing.

2005's is pretty good.

It doesn't have the wit that I'd like our cards to have, but it's a funny drawing. The monster has clearly been standing in the snow for a long time.

2004
The M that came to dinner is in the middle.