Skunk Fu for You!

Yeah, I know Aaron's covered this stuff, but I only just got my Skunk Fu DVD in the mail from the Amazon, and I've become a fan. Really lovin' the 'no line' style...not only calligraphic, but also frees up time to focus on moving the characters rather than fretting about finessing line weights n' stuff. These two cycles courtesy of Alessandra Sorrentino...go check out her YouTube page for more goodness.

Right, off for the weekend...mebbe this ol' pooch'll have a surprise or two for y'all next week. Cheers!

Bob on tour!

Bob Wiseman, TAIS board-briddah and travellin' troubador, is off on tour! Here's a sample of his singin' n' pickin', accompanied by animation courtesy of Toronto's own Kathleen Phillips. He's gonna be packin' some samples of TAIS member animation with him on his journeys...stay for the show, enjoy the music (buy his CD, dammit) and mebbe he'll show you some aminations...if you ask nice. Bob will be crossin' the country, then headin' on down to New Zealand (Hey, Bob, drop in on the MukPuddies and say Hi!) to cap off the tour. Man, that's a long walk. Check out the tour schedule below. More later!

31 Jan 2009 6:30	sessions	st. catharines
11 Feb 2009 20:00	The Tranzac	Toronto, Ontario
15 Feb 2009 22:30	The Tranzac	Toronto, Ontario
22 Feb 2009 22:30	The Tranzac	Toronto, Ontario
12 Mar 2009 22:00	Lydias	Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
13 Mar 2009 20:00	The Exchange	Regina, Saskatchewan
14 Mar 2009 21:00	Club Belge	Winnipeg, Manitoba
19 Mar 2009 21:00	The Slice	Lethbridge, Alberta
20 Mar 2009 21:00	Ironwood	Calgary, Alberta
21 Mar 2009 21:00	The Artery	Edmonton, Alberta
22 Mar 2009 22:30	communitea?	canmore, Alberta
26 Mar 2009 21:00	Minstrel	Kelowna, British Columbia
27 Mar 2009 20:00	The Western Front	Vancouver, British Columbia
28 Mar 2009 20:00	Pacific Contact	Vancouver, British Columbia
2 Apr 2009 20:00	Duck Creek Gallery	Salt Spring Island, British Columbia
3 Apr 2009 9:00	& Loan Gallery	Nanaimo, British Columbia
4 Apr 2009 20:00	Cornerstone Christian Fellowship	Victoria, British Columbia
5 Apr 2009 20:00	Duncan Garage Showroom	Duncan, British Columbia
10 Apr 2009 20:00	The Quarry Arts Centre	Whangarei
11 Apr 2009 20:00	Cross Street	Auckland, Auckland
12 Apr 2009 20:00	Cross Street	Auckland, Auckland
13 Apr 2009 20:00	the Orange Zephyr	Tauranga
14 Apr 2009 20:00	Poverty Bay Club	Gisborne, Gisborne
15 Apr 2009 20:00	tba	Napier or Hamilton
16 Apr 2009 20:00	tba	New Plymouth
17 Apr 2009 20:00	tba	Palmerston North
18 Apr 2009 20:00	radio	wellington, Wellington
19 Apr 2009 20:00	Happy	Wellington, Wellington
21 Apr 2009 20:00	fairfield house	Nelson, Nelson
22 Apr 2009 20:00	highstreet Project	Christchurch
23 Apr 2009 20:00	tba	Queenstown
24 Apr 2009 20:00	tba	Dunedin
10 May 2009 20:00	via michael holt	toronto, Ontario

Black and White

Geez, talk about an excercise in minimalism. Everything you need to know about getting emotion out of a block of wood is here in Jon Izen's 'Black and White' series. More available on the Mondo YouTube page. Thanks to CHF's Aaron Simpson for bringin' this to my attention.

Mmm...chicken.

Just to leave you on a sillier note, here's the theme from Jay Ward's 'Super Chicken' series. This clip will have deeper meaning early next month...stay tooned.

Bullies have turned me into a raging dick...

I'll wrap this bully-baiting bit of bloggin' up with this lil' gem from a fella named Trevor Romain. When I see this type of thing, my honest reaction is that the dude responsible is a clueless hippy dolt raised in the suburbs who had to deal with little else in his life other than his parent's docking his allowance once in awhile. Y'know, Kyle's Mom. Then, I read this, from the Washington Post:

"As a child, he says he was held back by dyslexia, attended special education classes until fourth grade, was spanked by teachers for his tendency to daydream, and was told that he would never amount to anything, especially not the writer and artist he aspired to be. Often bullied courtesy of his small stature, he learned to run fast to escape his tormentors.

Running kept him fit, eventually enabling him to qualify for paratrooper training when, at 18, he was called to two years of mandatory service in the South African army. It was the late '70s, apartheid, and his company was building field hospitals. Early on, he encountered a small child who begged to be held and a sergeant major who forbade him to get emotionally involved. Disobeying orders, Romain says he picked the child up. "Both his legs had been blown off" by a land mine. "Something happened in my soul. I bent down and picked [him] up and I've never been held so tightly in my life. He put his head against my neck and he started to cry and his tears ran down inside my shirt, and that's when I felt that that's what I wanted to do. I actually felt a physical shock in my system."

O.k., let me just state that my childhood weren't no picnic...I won't get into a pissing contest with details. Yet, as bad as things got, I never had to pick up a kid with no legs beneath the knees. That's gotta do something in yer head. You either turn into a character from a Raymond Chandler novel, or...well, just watch the cartoon above. Half the time, I think the people who write kid's books are trying to whitewash reality...or their memories. In this case, from what I've read so far, mebbe this dude is just trying to adjust this reality a lil' bit so it dont' suck so much? Hell, I know a fella like that.

Ah, freaky pete. The places a blog post'll take you, neh? This cynical, sardonic ol' pooch tells ya, don't be judgin' no books by their cover. That Mr. Roger's garb could be coverin' a soldier's hide, and no doubt. Alright, enuff. More light n' fluffy later. Meanwhile, I gotta go leave another comment for this dude on YouTube. Cuz I did judge, dammit. Later.

Bully-Bashing from the master...

Having just seen Slappy take a jerk to pieces, I thought I step back to what I consider to be the ultimate bully beater of all time, Bugs. 'Bully for Bugs' features a full score by the immortal Carl Stalling, layouts by Maurice Noble and direction by Dr. Jones. Enjoy.

Slappy makes me Happy

Sometimes, you want art. Sometimes, you want beauty. Sometimes, you want the pleasure of seeing a cartoon schoolyard bully get seven kinds of tar knocked outta him by Slappy Squirrel. Notice that I skipped part one. The reason? If I ever see anyone picking on any one else even remotely like the assholes what done fer me in high school, I may try to reach through the monitor and strangle his non-existing ass...what can I say, I've got issues. More goodness later.

The Seed

O.k., one more for the road. 'The Seed' by Johnny Kelly combines hand drawn and paper model animation, a technique most rare and used in rare form here. Combined with a nice 'Boards of Canada' style minimalist soundtrack, it's damn fine stuff. Courtesy of Cartoon Brew, who're doing a retrospective on paper model and cut-out animation on the blog. Cheers!

Leap of Faith

An odd lil' film I found on Vimeo. Animation by Trunk Animation. More on Monday...including, well...how do you feel about Chickens?

White Winter Hymnal

Nice tune, this. Music by the Fleet Foxes out of Seattle. Animated by the band's lead singer, Sean.

Well, 2009 and we're kicking it off to a good start, and thanks to fellow TAIS board member Craig for the poster! TAIS is going to be hosting the first Incubator of the year, and the first Incubator we've had in many a moon. What's an Incubator? It's an animation open-house...drop by the TAIS art space to get some advice, show off works in progress, get feedback or just come up fer air and say "Jeebus, man...shave, whydon'tcha!" (that to me...really need to see a man about a razor.) Plus, a chance to get yer hands dirty scratchin' n' painting movement directly onto film stock...it's all artsy n' messy n' cool n' stuffs. Anyhoo, it's this coming Wednesday night at TAIS H.Q. All the details to be had can be had here. Hope to see ya!