The New York Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s Education program rolls on, ably overseen by the museum’s Senior VP of Education, Danny Fingeroth. Fingeroth’s impressive credits include a lengthy stint as group editor of Marvel’s Spider-Man books, college-level comics instructor and author, co-author and editor of various books and magazines on the subject of writing for comics. As part of his job Fingeroth rounds up pros at the level of Peter Kuper, Larry Hama, Paul Levitz and J.M. DeMatteis to share their knowledge and experience with aspiring comics creators.

As befitting the second ‘C' in MoCCA, cartoon courses are part of the curriculum too, like last year’s storyboarding class taught by Stephen DeStefano, or this past March’s “Animation Writing: How to Write Scripts that will Make You a Key Member of the Creative Team,” led by David Steven Cohen.

Ever have a friend, like back in college say, who was just the funniest guy you knew? Always coming up with great jokes completely out of left field, or riffing on whatever was happening at the moment? You graduate and go your separate ways, then six years later you meet up again. You can’t help but notice he dresses a lot better than he did in school. He still tells jokes, only now a lot of them are what he heard last night on Leno, or he’s quoting the catchphrase of the moment. It was fun seeing him again, but it’s not the reunion you were hoping for, the one that would recapture those great moments back in school.

That’s how I felt walking out of Hoodwinked Too!: Hood vs. Evil.

Megamind. All images courtesy of DreamWorks Animation.

Ever wonder how Wile E. Coyote would feel if he ever caught the Road Runner?

(Actually, Seth MacFarlane did more than wonder; in his Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy show, with the bird long digested, Wile E. turns to Jesus to fill the void in his heart.)

The inept arch-villain Megamind has the same problem; now that he’s finally offed his nemesis, the smug ‘n smarmy superhero Metro Man… what’s left to do? Terrorizing Metro City and kidnapping feisty reporter Roxanne “Roxie” Ritchi doesn’t have the same zing without someone to oppose him. There’s only one option left – and it ain’t looking for Jesus…

Beyond South Park and Dr. Katz, not much has stuck to Comedy Central’s cartoon wall. Drawn Together came close with three seasons. Lil’ Bush vanished with Bush II’s presidency, TV Funhouse came and went awfully fast back in Y2K – and anybody even remember Shorties Watching Shorties or Kid Notorious? Well, next month Comedy Central tries one more time with Ugly Americans, a higher-than high concept show that just might stick around for a bit.

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures.

On a rainy October Monday we media types, invited by the Disney folks, gathered at a midtown NYC arts center. The lure: a peek at the studio’s two big holiday events: Tron Legacy and Tangled, their CGI-animated de/reconstruction of the Rapunzel story.

Garlands of wheat-blonde hair twined around the handrails leading down to the basement auditorium to create an appropriate ambience for the main event of the evening (no, not the free buffet): a surprise, full-length screening of Tangled in its not-yet-fully-animated, not-yet 3D-rendered form.

I’ll go out on a bit of a limb here and call Tangled Disney’s liveliest animated feature in a long time and their best fairy tale updating ever.

Enrico Casarosa

The year-plus early teaser trailer is a given for spectacular genre movies nowadays… but how about the full release of an entire movie – an animated Pixar film at that – some ten months before its official premiere?

In this case however, the Pixar film in question runs all of seven minutes and is set to accompany the summer 2012 release of Brave, Pixar’s next full-length feature. It’s called La Luna, and it’s the story of a boy, his dad, granddad… and their peculiar relationship with the celestial body of the title.

Well, I guess it was too much to hope for, lightning striking twice in a row. (Then again, Pixar was able to pull it off to the third power with its Toy Story iterations.) But to put it bluntly, Kung Fu Panda 2 is no Kung Fu Panda. No, it’s not bad, it’s just that if KFP was a home run with two men on base, KFP2 is a double – a solid double nonetheless, maybe even drove in a run, but still a double. (Make that a triple if you’re not as much in love with Kung Fu Panda as I am.)

Jerry Bruckheimer may be the most soft-spoken, least bombastic man in Hollywood.

Not to mention one of the most conservatively dressed. Wearing a trim grey suit and tie, he showed up at a midtown NY screening room earlier this month to share a pair of scenes from his upcoming summer popcorn movie The Sorcerer’s Apprentice for an audience of appreciative geeks.

Waking Sleeping Beauty is a warts-and-all look behind the scenes recounting the rebound of Disney animation from its dark post-Walt days to its Lion King/Beauty and the Beast peak of 2D glory. Released by the studio’s own Disney Enterprises division, WSB is way more candid than any in-house company history has any right to be.

As you probably know, The Princess and the Frog is Disney’s first 2D effort in five years. It took John Lasseter, a Pixar guy who now runs all of Disney animation to get the studio to return to its 2D roots. Lasseter and company knew they had to hit a home run to make people care about hand-drawn animation again. They came to the plate swinging for the fence: would they ground into a double play or hit a grand slam? Is P&F 2D’s rebirth or its last gasp?

Hey, it’s a Disney movie – there’s gotta be a happy ending, right?

Damn straight – a happy ending to both the movie and the studio’s mission to show the world 2D’s still got the goods. CGI? We don’ need no steenkin’ CGI!