Noted animation producer / director / technologist / multimedia guru / man of international mystery Christopher Panzner has launched a brand new bi-yearly digital magazine, LHOOQ (pronounced “Look”), a pluridisciplinary (pronounced “double-you tee eff”) look at mindstyle, lifestyle, arts, literature, anything, everything.  The first issue includes a great piece spotlighting three well-known Canadian (pronounced “Kun-ay-dee-yan”) animation-type folks, none other than Mike Fallows, Chris Robinson and L. Elliot Taylor

Is there a dead Christopher Walkin among us?

It's hard to choose my favorite Christopher Walken.  Kevin Pollack, Jay Mohr and of course, Kevin Spacey come to mind.  In fact, Mr. Walken has become such an iconic personality that it's tough to watch him on TV or in a film and not think, for a moment, that he doesn't do nearly as good a Christopher Walken as one of the previously mentioned actors. He's just not Walken enough.  As they say, you can't be too rich, too thin, or have enough Christopher Walken.

For every cowbell junkie and True Romance lover, this video should scare the "Wow, Wow, Wow" out of youze.

Moe, Larry and Curly would be proud.

Is this 13 seconds of tough love or tough luck?  You decide.

This aint your father's Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Candy Kugel, Rick Broas and the folks at Buzzco Associates have taken on big business and the pervasive economic and political dissatisfaction spilling over on Wall Street with a set of 7 animated shorts.  In the time-tested spirit of political humor, where one can only laugh when faced with daunting issues that are anything but funny, each short is based on a traditional nursery rhyme, spinning topical issues together with little childhood ditties we all know and love.  The latest film, Itsy Bitsy Spider, was just released last week.

Dice passing the Sketchtravel book to Hayao Miyazaki.

Recently, I had an opportunity to talk to Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, whom many of you know as a driving force behind the Totoro Forest Project and most recently, the Sketchtravel charity art project.  An accomplished artist who spends his days applying his formidable skills as an art director at Pixar Animation Studios, Dice gave me an inside look at the unprecedented Sketchtravel sketch book, a historic collection of sketches being auctioned off this coming October 17^th.

By Nancy Phelps

Estonian animation director and educator Ulo Pikkov has accomplished a remarkable feat in producing a most readable book on animation theory.  For those who do not know about the technical side of animation Animasophy – Theoretical Writings On The Animated Film is a great place to start.  Readers who are already well versed in animation techniques will be reminded about what they already know but don’t always think about.

By Nancy Phelps

If you have ever watched an animated film and wondered “How did they do that?” then Tobias Wengert’s  ANIMATORS how did they do that? is the book for you.  Wengert has transcribed in print his conversations with twelve diverse members of the Stuttgart, Germany animation community who reveal the secret techniques behind the magical images they create.

Lion King

On IndieWire, Bill Desowitz delves into the 3-D retrofitting of Disney's The Lion King. He talks to those in charge of the work and those who worked on the original classic as well.

Poster for the restored McCay short

For the past 2 years, Bill Plympton has had a team of interns busy restoring Winsor McCay’s last short film, The Flying House.  As work has progressed, Matthew Modine came onto the project as a producer and with assistance from business partner Adam Rakoff, has launched an online fundraising effort through Kickstarter.com.  Find out more about Winsor McCay, his career, the restoration of the film and how you can get involved.

Treat yourself to Brad Bird's Annie Award Acceptance Speech video

One of the highlights of this past Saturday's ASIFA-Hollywood Annie Awards was Brad Bird's acceptance speech, done via video from the Vancouver set of Mission Impossible IV.  Brad was honored with the Winsor McCay Award for Lifetime Achievement.  How could you possibly out-do the compilation of clips they screened highlighting his incredible body of work?  Well, you follow it with a recorded acceptance speech that brought down the house. 

If you weren't at Royce Hall, you're in for a treat.  If you were lucky to be there, this is certainly worth at least two more viewings...enjoy!