Frank Tashlin’s extremely rare 1952 cartooning booklet How to Draw Cartoons has been posted online in its entirety. In the book, Tashlin promotes his SCOT Art technique, which simplifies every cartoon character into squares (S), circles (C), ovals (O) and triangles (T).

Tashlin’s idiosyncratic style is geared more toward print cartoonists than animators, owing to Tashlin’s beginnings as a newspaper cartoonist. Even though his old-school cartooning style was already on its way out when the book was published in 1952, somehow the style looks artful in his confident hands. Throughout the book, Tashlin uses examples from his own illustrated books, including The World That Isn’t, which still holds up as a masterpiece of graphic art commentary.

Not to take this too far off-topic, but if you’re interested in learning more about Tashlin, I’d also recommend this Michael Barrier interview, which was conducted just one year before Tashlin passed away.

Tashlin has never been properly given his due as an animation director, mostly because his career as a live-action director eclipsed his earlier work. But he was easily among the most forward-thinking, singular and influential animation directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Below is a fine example of his innovative directorial style—the 1943 Warner Bros. short Puss n’ Booty.

UPDATE: Cartoon Brew reader Xevo points out that numerous examples of Frank Tashlin’s Van Boring newspaper comic were recently published on Ger Apeldoorn’s Fabulous Fifties blog.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 9 comments | Post tags: Frank Tashlin, Puss n' Booty, Warner Bros.

This clip is a relatively recent dubbing of “Minnie’s Yoo Hoo” (from Mickey’s Follies (1929), animation attributed to Ub Iwerks) off the German edition of Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White Vol 1 (American edition 2002; German edition 2009). Enjoy your weekend!

(Thanks, David Gerstein)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 4 comments | Post tags: Mickey Mouse

One of the most unique voices in animation, Marcell Jankovics, the Hungarian director of features like Fehérlófia and shorts like Sisyphus, has completed a new feature. And this is not any film, but a two-hour, forty-minute epic that was in production for nearly 25 years!

The film, Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man) was released in Hungary last December. It’s adapted from a famous Hungarian play of the same name written by Imre Madách. A film review by Vassilis Kroustallis suggests that it’s relentlessly bleak and somewhat repetitive, yet worth seeing:

Lucifer, the co-creator of the world (according to his statement) tests Adam and puts him to sleep to see his destiny through the ages. The trip is interesting, visually stimulating (but never pretty), and relentlessly repeating. Not a single note of happiness or laughter enters The Tragedy of Man, which proceeds from the Garden of Eden to Egypt and then to classical Greece, Rome, Christianity and beyond…The choice of the stories to tell is varied and remarkable. Along with the usual historical suspects (Danton and the French Revolution, Hitler and Stalin), the Miltiades story from Greece (a general who becomes a traitor), and the Tancred and Crusades segment—along with the battles on the Filioque—are a treat to watch in this context.

Jankovics’ work is always a unique visual experience, and one expects this to be no different. Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung described Jankovics’ style best when he wrote that Jankovics can “make the movement a primary aspect of the design. Every element—character & setting, foreground & background, color & shape, is integrated into a total composition in motion. It approaches the idea of animation as a visual equivalent to music, with analogs to melody, rhythm and harmony working in a non-literal evocation of ideas and feelings.”

Below are a few stills from The Tragedy of Man:

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 12 comments | Post tags: Az ember tragédiája, Hungary, Marcell Jankovics, The Tragedy of Man

Last Thursday, Rhode Island-based 38 Studios laid off its entire staff of nearly 400 people, which presumably included many artists and animators. The unceremonious layoff notice sent to their employees can be read on Gamasutra.

The game studio was started by former baseball player Curt Schilling, and had received a $75 million loan guarantee from the state of Rhode Island (population 1 million), which gambled that Schilling’s company would bring high-paying tech jobs to the state. The company managed to slip out one game before collapsing, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which both looks and sounds like the creation of a sweaty-palmed, pimple-faced high school student.

Amalur shipped 1.2 million copies in its first 90 days (according to Schilling). The governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee, said in a press conference a couple days ago that the game would have needed to sell more than twice as many copies just to break even.

There’s a lot of lessons to be learned here, the first of which would be that just because you know how to throw a ball doesn’t entitle you to tens of millions of taxpayer dollars so that you can pretend to run a video game technology company. Schilling just made it that much harder for legitimate video game entrepreneurs to receive any type of investment for their companies.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 19 comments | Post tags: 38 Studios, Curt Schilling, Rhode Island

“No one goes to Milt Kahl – or Marc Davis or Ollie Johnston or Frank Thomas – ‘Wow’ what pencil did you use?” That’s my favorite quote from last Monday’s Marc Davis Lecture, The Development of the Digital Animator, moderated by Tom Sito. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has posted online the ten most significant moments from the event. Panelists included Lasseter, Bill Kroyer, Tim Johnson and Phil Tippett. You can watch all ten segments here: on Oscar’s You Tube channel.

(Thanks, Ed Himmel)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 22 comments | Post tags: Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences

…it might look like these incredible designs by Matthew Humphreys, an artist currently at Hasbro Studios. Click on image above to seen the full line up. Honestly, if it were up to me, I’d be developing at least one Marvel property as a Disney hand drawn film… Dr. Strange, Sub Mariner, The Silver Surfer…

(Thanks Red Pill Junkie, via io9)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 39 comments | Post tags: Marvel, Matthew Humphreys, X-Men

…actually, the makers of Life’s A Jungle are desperately trying to trick consumers to pick up this low budget travesty. People say the DVD market is dying – if it puts an end to crap like this I’m all for it. And if you think the box art is bad… wait’ll you check out the trailer:

(Thanks, ParamountCartoons)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 60 comments | Post tags: Life's A Jungle

Buz-e-Chini is being hailed in the news story above as being the first computer-animated short in Hazaragi, the language of the Hazara people, who are the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The director, Abbas Ali, was born in Afghanistan, but fled the country when the Taliban took over and studied animation in Pakistan. The film appears to have been produced mostly in Pakistan since the production company is Karachi-based Post Amazers. Also, in the news piece above, the director indicates that he started production on the film while he was still living in Pakistan.

The entire film can be viewed below. It’s an impressive production based on a Hazara folk tale. The film is dedicated to Hussain Ali Yousafi, the voice of the wolf, who was assassinated in 2009. No one said making animated films in Afghanistan would be easy.

(Thanks, @PrinceofRazors)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 11 comments | Post tags: Abbas Ali, Afghanistan, Post Amazers