Craig Yoe’s Milt Gross Comic Books and Life Story

How do I love thee, let me count the ways: this isn’t so much a book review, but a book RAVE. Craig Yoe’s massive new tome reprinting the comic book art of Milt Gross (IDW/Yoe Books, 354 color pages, $39.99 or cheaper on Amazon) is an absolute must-have by everyone reading this blog. Buy it now. Gross was the dean of funny cartoonists, influencing everyone from Bob Clampett and Harvey Kurtzman to R. Crumb. He pioneered what we call today the graphic novel, worked in animation, wrote songs, coined slang, had a long running newspaper comic strip and directed two insane MGM cartoons in the 1930s (I’ve embed one of them, Jitterbug Follies (1939), below).

Yoe’s new book reprints Gross’ rarely seen comic pages for Picture News magazine and for the American Comics Group (ACG) from the 1940s. He precedes this with a 38 page detailed history of Milt Gross, loaded with rare cartoons, advertisements, still photos and frame grabs that are worth the price of the book alone. A Foreword by Herb Gross (Milt’s son) and a clever “Fold-INtroduction” by Mad’s Al Jaffee set the zany tone. The Complete Milt Gross Comic Books and Life Story; To paraphrase both Jack Kirby and Milt Gross: Dun’t Esk, just buy it!

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A-HAA Podcast 004: Eddie Fitzgerald II / Spike Jones

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation PodcastA-HAA Podcast
A-HAA Podcast
Episode 004

49 min / 24.9 MB / AAC
03.09.10 / RSS Feed
MP3 Version

INDEX

00:00:00 News with Michael and Danny
00:02:30 Eddie Fitzgerald Interview Part II
00:30:15 Breadcrumbs with Skip and Steve: Spike Jones
00:47:23 Closing notes with Michael and Danny

ABOUT THE GUESTS
Eddie FitzgeraldEddie FitzgeraldEddie Fitzgerald is a renaissance man among cartoonists. He is an animation director, story artist, philosopher, historian and all around great guy. On his blog, Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner, he has discussed everything from poetry, ballet, philosophy and music to Mad magazine, the unique shapes of ears, vintage men’s magazines, Italian insult gestures and how to make the perfect hamburger. Eddie is most famous for his “Fum-Eddies”, comic strips made from photos he creates on the iSight camera of his Macintosh. In his Fum-Eddies, he has travelled around the world, back in time to the old West, through the magic of dreams to Neverland and even via rocket into the deepest reaches of outer space! If you haven’t bookmarked his blog yet, do so. You’ll be glad you did.

Skip HellerSkip HellerSkip Heller is a multi-talented composer, arranger and musician who has worked in a diversity of styles, from punk rock to orchestral music to jazz to old time country. He is a wellspring of information on the history of music and the people who play it, and shares his encyclopedic knowledge daily on his blog at SkipHeller.com.

ABOUT THE HOSTS
Danny YoungDanny YoungDanny Young: A very sympathetic person once told me, “You have the perfect body for podcasting.” And while I don’t like to boast, the seat of my chair has almost completely taken on the shape of me. I’m always cruising the internets for savvy cartoon info and I’m ecstatic to be here co-hosting the fruits of my labor with you, and sharing in the wealth of animation knowledge there is to find. I sincerely hope that we all can become better artists because of it.

You can reach Danny at… dannyyoung@animationarchive.org

Michael WoodsideMichael WoodsideMichael Woodside: I’m a relatively new Californian, having recently moved from Central Florida. After volunteering at the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive, I realized pretty quickly that I basically knew a fraction of what was to be known about the world of animation. This podcast is a means for me to uncover these topics and to share them with people like you. So stick around, because we are gonna un-dumb ourselves at an alarming rate!

You can reach Michael at… michaelwoodside@animationarchive.org

Stephen WorthStephen WorthStephen Worth is the Director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. He’s a well known expert on vintage animation art with over 20 years of experience as a Producer for Bagdasarian Productions, Ralph Bakshi and John Kricfalusi’s Spumco. He is the recipient of three Annie Awards, including the June Foray Award for significant and benevolent impact on the art of animation.

You can reach Stephen at sworth@animationarchive.org

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
News Segment

ANNIES: 37th Annual Annie Awards Webcast
EVENT: 2009 Afternoon of Remembrance

Eddie Fitzgerald Interview

WWW: Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner

Breadcrumbs: Spike Jones
Spike Jones
AMAZON: Spike Jones: The Legend DVD
AMAZON: The Best of Spike Jones DVD
AMAZON: The Best of Spike Jones CD

AMAZON: Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection: The Greatest Novelty Records of All Time
AMAZON: Simcha Time: Mickey Katz Plays Music for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and Brisses
AMAZON: America’s Song Butchers: The Weird World of Homer & Jethro

GROOVESHARK Playlist: Spike Jones
WWW: Dr Demento’s Website (Streaming Shows!)

CREDITS
Produced by Michael Woodside and Danny Young
© 2010 The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood

A-HAA Podcast Theme composed by Christopher Heckman (Sarra Hey, Clarinet, Rachel Woods-Robinson, Trombone)
Breadcrumbs Theme “The Collector” by Skip Heller from the CD Lua-O-Milo
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Tom & Jerry Prawn Crackers

Direct from District 9:

Amid brought me a gift from his recent trip to Singapore - a package of these Tom & Jerry Prawn Crackers. Hey, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it… but I don’t see this coming to the Whole Foods Market anytime soon.

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Runaway by Cordell Barker

Now online: Runaway, a popular short from last year by Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back). And kudos to the NFB for making so much of their animation library, past and present, readily accessible online.

(Thanks, Warren Leonhardt)

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PREVIEW: Slim Pickings Fat Chances

Slim Pickings

It’s not often that I plug an animated short that isn’t finished yet, but I can’t resist this time. Slim Pickings Fat Chances is an almost-finished short by David de Rooij and Jelle Brunt from the Netherlands. The film makes no pretensions about being anything other than a funny cartoon (dialogue-less to boot), and it reminds me of a 1950s Tex Avery short in the best way possible. The timing is sharp and spot-on, the animation is funny, the characters are appealingly drawn, and the backgrounds have a delightful Paul Julian vibe. Usually, whenever artists try to capture the animation style of a bygone era, they fall short in some area or another and the effect is ruined. It’s rare when all the cogs are in place like this cartoon. It reaffirms my belief that there are superbly talented young artists working in animation today, and even when the mainstream industry doesn’t provide them opportunities, they create their own. The filmmakers have a production blog with concept art, animation tests, character designs and more. Keep an eye out for Slim Pickings Fat Chances when it hits the festival circuit later this year.

(PS: I found out about this short when David de Rooij won the caricature contest on the Brew a few weeks ago and told me about his film. A silver lining in a difficult situation.)

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1940 textbook predicts animated Penguins

I had a wonderful time in the City of Orange yesterday, guest speaking at Bill Kroyer’s class at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. While there, I visited a few antique shops in town and came across this vintage public school reader, In The City and On The Farm (1940). What caught my attention in the book was a 3-page chapter (thumbnails below, click to enlarge) about going to the movies to see a cartoon - Papa Penguin. It’s rare enough to find any acknowledgement of animated films in American culture at the time, even rarer in an elementary school text book. And this one sort-of predicts the spate of Penguin films to come (Happy Feet, Surf’s Up, et al). The third page even illustrates, via film strip, how the cartoon tells its story through pictures - just like a storyboard. I bought it (cheap) and decided to share - enjoy!

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LAT: Disney Restyles Rapunzel to Appeal to Boys

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the title Tangled isn’t the only thing being changed about Disney’s production of Rapunzel - it’s repositioning the film to attract a male audience.

From the article:

The makeover of “Rapunzel” is more than cosmetic. Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success.

Concluding it had too many animated girl flicks in its lineup, Disney has shelved its long-gestating project “The Snow Queen,” based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. “Snow Queen” would have marked the company’s fourth animated film with a female protagonist, following “The Princess and the Frog,” “Tangled” and Pixar’s forthcoming “The Bear and the Bow,” directed by Pixar’s first female director, Brenda Chapman, and starring Reese Witherspoon.

Since the release of its first movie, “Toy Story,” in 1995, Pixar has uniformly featured male leads in its films, including Buzz and Woody; Mr. Incredible, the middle-aged superhero in “The Incredibles”; and Lightning McQueen, the stock-car star of “Cars.”

Disney’s Tangled open on December 10th, 2010. Below is the latest teaser:

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Oscar Acceptance Speech

Quick, watch the first five minutes of this before the Academy removes it from You Tube Oops, too late. Watch the clip here.

(Thanks, Matthew Gaastra)

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Help the Hodges Charity Auction Continues

Help the Hodges

The Help the Hodges charity auction, which we wrote about last December, is still continuing on eBay. As explained earlier, the money raised will support animator Tim Hodge whose son’s car was struck by a train last August. His son, Matthew, remains in a coma today. There are plenty of primo pieces including a lot of production and pre-production artwork from animated projects as well as illustration art, toys and books. New items are being posted to eBay regularly, and full item descriptions can be found on HelptheHodges.com.

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Up wins Animated, Score awards; Avatar wins Effects

Pete Docter picked up the Oscar for Best Animated Film and Michael Giacchino won for Best Score for Disney/Pixar’s Up at the 2010 Academy Awards. Avatar picked up prizes for Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Art Direction. Logorama was the winner of the Best Animated Short Film Oscar. The full list of winners is online here.

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