Wear A Bikini, You Zombie, You!

One of my favorite Homestar Runner memes is "Wear a Bikini!" I always thought it...it was so funny when they said that.

My point is bikinis are funny. What happens when you put something so funny on the most TERRIFYING CREATURE EVER THOUGHT OF? Scariness of hilarity? HILSCARITY?

I'm sleep deprived. Wednesday night saw the return of Drinking and Drawing to NYC. Drinking and Drawing is an event hosted by Frederator Studios that combines the grind of cell animation with the fun of getting drunk in a bar. The fine examples of zombie art above were part of the sketch wall. Some great pieces there, be sure to click for full detail (can you tell which one is mine? HINT: It's unprofessional!). This however was mere practice for the main event...


Animation party! Drinking and Drawing shorts are produced thusly: 10 lightboxes are set up in a bar (M1-5 Bar in this case), and participants are given a theme and invited to draw up to 8 frames within ten minutes, at the end of which someone else takes over the station, and picks up where the last frame left off. You can draw anything you want, as long as it's a zombie wearing a bikini!

It's even more stressful than it sounds! More after the jump...

I was part of the very first group to go up and sketch, and man did I blow it. I am GLAD I didn't take any pictures of my cells, because it wasn't pretty. I blame the fact that we were forced to use crayons. No one uses crayons except babies and serial killers. And I am neither, sir.

I'm now anxiously awaiting the fully animated result, which will be posted on DrinkingandDrawing.org. If my 8 frames create any semblance of movement, I will be happy and surprised. In the mean time you can check out some past product. You know what I notice about these past animations? THEY'RE NOT IN CRAYON. Goddammit.


This is supposed to be a semi-regular event, and despite the stress I was made to suffer, I would highly recommend it. It's free, and there are lots of cool looking nerds around. Keep an eye on the site for the next outing, or just watch our Weekanerd sidebar, because it's sure to show up there.

More photos (with sketch details) on the Gnerd Flickr!

NYCC Sneak Peak at Pixar's Up

The wait was long, the security was draconian, and the room was practically empty... but the payoff was worth it. For a very lucky few, Pixar screened the first 50 minutes of this summer's film, Up. Lucky for us, we were tired enough from a day of running around the con that an hour+ wait in line didn't seem like such a punishment.

I'm not going to break this down with as much detail as the Watchmen open, but to be on the safe side: *Spoiler Alert*... I suppose... mostly because the movie so far has been little more than still images and a pretty teaser-I'm not sure how much marketing will show in the lead up to its release; but I was shocked at the direction the film took. So if you want to go into the movie fresh with no preconceptions, no need to keep reading. Then again, what I say below may very well be revealed in the next trailer, so who knows. Either way, read at your own risk.

Needless to say, Up was not quite what I expected. I was expecting a classic journey tale... perhaps on par with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, or the Wizard of Oz, or Around the World in 80 Days, or, hell, even The Chipmunk Adventure... but the journey aspect of the film was relatively short lived.

That's not to say I was disappointed! Not at all. In fact, within the first 10 minutes, Up had an extended montage sans dialogue that was so unbelievably well executed and heartwarming that I was in tears. I've never cried at the first 10 minutes of a movie. I mean, if I ever cried at movies that is... cause I don't... cause only girls cry at movies... Anyhow, this montage will surely secure its place in cinema history. Talking afterwards, AHR suggested Pixar make an entire movie without dialogue... brilliant. Between this montage and the first 30 minutes of Wall-E, critics and fans alike should be clamoring for the same thing.

Anyway, broad strokes: Ed Asner's curmudgeonly Mr. Fredrickson is completely lovable, Jordan Nagai's 9 year old Wilderness Scout, Russell, is spotlight-hoggingly humorous (if at times a tad overbearing), and the balloon house is, frankly, awesome. Now here's where it gets a bit bonkers. Did you know there was going to be a goofy, giant mythic bird... or talking dogs? Me neither. Well there is. And they're all very funny. In fact, even if the journey element of the film seems short lived, Up has retained one of my favorite archetypes of the journey film: the assembling of the motley crew. And at the end of our allotted 50 minutes, it was quite a lovable team-I'd gladly sit through another 40 minutes watching this bizarrely mismatched group of explorers (you got your old man, your goofy kid, your dopey talking dog, and your wide-eyed, dodo-esque bird... what more do you people want?!?).

But all of this leaves me wondering if Up is more akin to a Dreamworks film... not that that's a bad thing-I loved Kung Fu Panda... but I worry that it may be lacking some sort of particular Pixar charm. I'm not sure what exactly... but something seemed missing. In fact, had it not been for the brilliant montage at the beginning, this could have passed for any other company's film; still great-but maybe not Pixar great. Again, this all sounds negative, but I left that screening smiling. And I'm wiling to wait till May for Pixar to prove me wrong again-they have many times in the past. Besides, I think they've earned a little blind faith over the past few years (at least enough to overlook Cars and pretend they have a perfect track record).

Geekanerd Spotter: Mexico Edition

Hola pistolas! Greetings from warm and sunny Oaxaca, home of half the AHR family tree. Oaxaca is a great place to relax and ride out the inevitable video game withdrawal, but just like the song says, there is always something there to remind me.

Also of note; no one here seems to care about Dark Knight very much, but the Resident Evil animated movies (??) are HUGE.

Also thought some of you might appriciate this...
This image really confused me. It looks like a legit Disney character design, but who is it? From whence did it come? The combination of dark skinned girl, walrus, and penguin had me thinking...Eskimo Princess? Could this be some sort of Direct to DVD Disney flick available only in Central American markets?

The answer is: no. It's just Young Ariel colored to look Latina. The shell necklace is a giveaway. Inside the book, she's a redhead as per usual. Pretty disappointing, actually.

UPDATE: Okay, so the real explanation is even less interesting. A Gnerd commenter more up on the recent crop of Disney Classics informs us that the girl on the book is actually Ariel's DAUGHTER, who does in fact have black hair on account of her parentage (Eric, anyone?). Still...darker skin color, right? Maybe? Bah.

Robot Day: Tracing the Lineage of Wall-E's Robot Pals

Geekanerd loves Wall-E! Even me, the resident Pixar cynic. The first third of the movie is a masterpiece, a MASTER. PIECE. Between that and the credit sequence, let's give them the Oscar, why not. I spent most of yesterday evening geeking out about my favorite moments, watching clips on YouTube, pouring over the amazing BuyNLarge viral site, and crying over the mere memory of several scenes.

As a product design nerd, I love that they didn't over-anthropomorphize the "modern" robots, ie all the robots except Wall-E himself. The art designers gave them tons of personality while still making them realistically look they were built for only one service. They're not androids, but true blue mass manufactured robots.

While the Johnny 5/Short Circuit comparisons have already well chewed over, here's our attempt to trace the robo-influences of some of Wall-E's friends...

Until Auto started talking, I thought it actually might be GLaDOS. Still alive indeed, seven hundred years in the future! Red eye against white circle with a black line down the middle...it's all there, people. But as Sarah pointed out, GLaDOS' look is in turn a rif on HAL 9000, and Auto's eye is clearly a DIRECT reference to his iconic red light. Portal only came out a year ago, so there's probably no way Auto could have been influenced by GLaDOS...how about that short before the movie, though, with the magic hat? That was Portal. It just was.

More after the jump....


I wouldn't be at all surprised if the PR-T cosmetic bot was designed with a nod towards the IT-O Interrogator droid from Star Wars. Both are floating orbs with multiple arms, and given that the PR-T droid we meet in the movie is malfunctioning, their functions may not be all that different either.

Eve is harder to pin down, but the resemblance to Apple products in general is pretty clear. I think more than anything she/it reminded me of the Mac Mouse, in it's smooth, seamless white ovaltude. But the face and gun reminded me of something as well; the Robosapein toy robot from Wowee, which me and Albo saw at Digital Life last year.

Anyone else see anything in Wall-E that reminded them of another famous robot?

Venture Brothers Season 3 - Watch It Now! As in RIGHT NOW!

Wow, time flies; the first episode of Venture Brothers Season 3 is available for internet viewing RIGHT NOW over at AdultSwim.com. You're probably going to want to watch that. I'm going to watch it right now. I'm extremely excited. I just watched the first 10 seconds. I'm even more extremely excited. I just watched the whole thing. Entirely satisfying. Big win for fans of the Monarch and Doctor Girlfriend. Continuity/character development heaven. Several lols and one "aww" at the end. I love this show so very much.

The show properly premieres Sunday at 11:30pm on TV, if you still have one of those.

Extra Bonus Funtime 3000: James Urbaniak, voice of Dr. Venture, celebrates the new season with by posting a David Bowie photo to go with each of the show's mains characters. This is possible because David Bowie has not just one outfit, but several ch-ch-ch-changes. Sorry, blame Flight of the Conchords.

In other less-free but still awesome Venture news:

NYCC 08: The Mighty B! Panel

I came to Comic Con on Sunday for one reason; The Mighty B! panel. A full episode ("Sweet Sixteenth") was screened along with a number of pencil tests, character models, and background art, and I am now certain of what I had already suspected; this show (premiering April 26th) is going to be a solid hit with my slice of the cartoon watching demographic. That would be the Too-Old-To-Be-Watching-Cartoons crowd who helped to make shows like Spongebob and Powerpuff Girls such cultural phenoms. Just look at the team's pedigree:

Amy Poehler: Co-Creator and voice of the lead character. As you can see in the character models above, Bessie's personality is an amalgam of many of Amy's child characters, i.e. Andy Richter's Sister, SNL's Kaitlyn ("RICK!"), and especially Cassie the girl scout, who can be seen in the first episode of of The Uprights Citizens Brigade show (Cassie is my 2nd favorite of her UCB characters, right after Arby). Andy Ritchter and Rob Corrdy also contribute voices, and I imagine a number of other New York comedy folks will show up eventually as well.

The other two co-creators are Erik Wiese of Spongebob and Cynthia True of Fairly Oddparents, two shows that I'd say are the finest comedy Nicktoons of the last decade (okay, there may be room on that list for one more). Also on the animation team are folks from Ren and Stimpy, and you can really see the influence of all of those shows in both the writing and especially in the kinetic, wild-takes-aplenty style of the animation.

After the jump: hand drawn animation! Gorgeous painted backgrounds! Goofy, hyperactive female protagonists! They said it couldn't be done, but we have the technology!


Mighty B! is set in San Francisco, and creators Wiese and True mentioned wanting to set the show outside of the generic suburbia so many kids cartoons seem to exist in. They projected several of the show's outstandingly beautiful hand-painted backgrounds during the panel, and though these photos hardly do them justice, you can see the amount of care and artistry the Mighty B team is putting into the show. As an East Bay native who has spent my share of time in San Francisco, I'm impressed with how these painting capture the unique architecture and angularity of SF through the vibrant filter of a child's perspective. The panel also projected a still from an episode called "Bat Mitzvah Crashers" (noted as a favorite by True and Wiese), certainly not something you'd expect to see in a typical nicktoon (okay, fine, Rugrats) so it seems like the diversity of living in a big city will also be reflected.

The animation is all hand-drawn, which combined with a real sense of spontaneity in the voicework (how could you not allow for improv when your cast includes Amy, Andy Richter, and Rob Corddry) gives the show an extremely free-wheeling feel. At times the pacing felt almost out-of-control in the episode I watched, though I don't imagine that kids are going to be phased by any formal wonkiness that nerds like me care about. Besides, nothing risked nothing gained; the chaotic pace also results in some really inspired moments of humor that recall the craziness of Ren and Stimpy's early seasons.

Lastly, the prospect of seeing a girl protagonist in a cartoon that is not "a girl's show" is really exciting. Growing up as both an obsessive fan of cartoons and a goofy, nerdy girl, I was aware from a very young age that all the cartoon characters that made me laugh were boys. Girl protagonists were, as aptly put by Cynthia True, "straight-men and sidekicks". As much as I love female characters like Sandy from Spongebob and Wanda from Oddparents, their roles are generally to pull back the action, to worry and advise against things. Even girls who have their own shows in this brave new millennium such as Kim Possible and Jenny from Teenage Robot tend to have almost model minority personalities; level headed, strong, smart, pretty, and bland. These are cartoon characters with no extremes; where's the fun in that? The most silly, strange girls in modern cartoons may be Bubbles of the Powerpuffs and Starfire of Teen Titans, and both of these characters must share the stage with others. The Mighty B! is Bessie's show, and I can't recall ever seeing an animated character like her before. Wacky to the point of unhinged, energetic to the point of hyperactive, Bessie is made of extremes. Will kids respond to her? I think so. The show's inclusion of choreographed action sequences by animators from Airbender (we saw an pencil test from a Ping Pong battle which had me laughing out loud) and a good amount of ever-popular gross out humor, I think this show has a great chance of connecting with kids, and it's success would go a long way in changing people's ideas of what a girl protagonist can be. This is a show I have been waiting for for a long time, and I'm eager to see how it's received. Fingers crossed.

Saturday Morning Cartoons Of Our Youth Get Animetized

If you like to search for cartoons on YouTube, you are familiar with the mind-numbing inanity of AMVs, or Anime Music Videos. AMVs cater to people who enjoy watching cartoons recut to gothy pop songs, or those who get off on pretending their favorite characters are lip-syncing to novelty pop songs. I am no stranger to blinding fandom and the strange things it makes a person devote their time to, but I draw the line at editing cartoons that have already been edited.

Sadly, as this blog continually introduces me to new lows in my threshold for geeky crap, I have to admit the above video (the Best Comedy winner in the 2008 Boston AMV Awards) is really fun. It features a collection of clips by a guy named (sigh) Ranmafan477 who edits an AMV series called The Anime Network, which syncs anime clips with, among other things, Saturday Morning Cartoons intros from the 1990s. And we all know how awesome those are.

The above video was shot at the convention itself, and though the video quality is weak (but watchable), hearing the audience reaction is a blast. Hit the jump for a menu of where the best stuff is.

00:00 - This Chip and Dale parody is boring unless you love Gunsmith Cats.
00:30 - Hilarious, I don't want to give anything away.
00:54 - Darkwing Duck - these Disney Afternoon ones just don't do it for me. Audience loves it.
01:18 - Bit that will only be funny if you have at least a passing familiarty with Inuyasha, which I'm afraid I do. Audience goes nuts.
01:41 - Power Rangers parody that seems redundant.
01:44 - Amazing Death Note/Beetlejuice mashup.

Then there's a bunch of clips from movies and TV synced with anime, which I personally find less engaging, till we get to...

5:12 - A very well-edited take on one of my favorite modern Nicktoons, The Fairly Oddparents.

What was shown in Boston appears to be a "Best Of" reel, but if you want more all six episodes of The Anime Network can be seen on Ranmafan447's YouTube page. Episode Six has a nice high quality version of the Beetlejuice/Death note thing.

Weekanerd NYC: MySpace Politics, John Woo Anime, and Crazy Russian Sci and Animation

Monday, March 24

Morley Winograd & Michael Hais: Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics
6:30@ Cooper Union, The Great Hall, 7 East 7th St, Manhattan

The future of American politics is MySpace? Are all the candidates trying to launch indie rock music careers? Winograd and Hais will lecture on how much the intra-net has effected the current campaigns, and will sign copies of their new book. How I long for the day Americans can use Wii votes for elections, and the long silent reclusive nerd voice will be heard.

Science Fiction Lounge, John Woo Anime, and Russian Animation...

Tuesday, March 25,

• Science Fiction Lounge Music: Aelita
  
• 10pm @ Monkey Town, 58 N 3rd St, Brooklyn
  

A weird 1920s Russian sci-fi movie with a live sound track by a "first class improviser's quartet". Hit the link to hear samples of the musicians. 10 bucks plus a $10 drink min, reservations are recommended.

Wednesday, March 26

• Appleseed Ex Machina
  
• 7pm (Doors at 6:15) @ The ImaginAsian, 239 East 59th Street, Manhattan
  

The original Appleseed movie was fun in a confusing, kind of boring way. But at the New York Anime Festival I saw a clip of the opening scene of this "upgraded" version of the film, produced by John Woo, and let's just say it featured flying birds and people shooting guns with two hands. IMPORTANT: RSVP at that link ASAP, you're supposed to do it by 12pm on Monday.

• Russia! Magazine Presents: Animator Aleksey Budovskiy
  
• 7:30 @ Freebird Books, 123 Columbia St, Brookln

Check out that animation - Miro, right? Budovskiy will talk about the past, present, and possibly future of Russian Animation. Though as far as I'm concerned, this is the last word in Russian animation...

Movie Review: Persepolis

The new Persepolis movie (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s adaptation of Satrapi’s popular comic book) begins with a grown Marjane staring at the departures board in a French airport. She’s looking at a listing for a flight to Tehran. It’s a color scene in a black-and-white cartoon, but you don’t feel like it’s because Marjane is finally alive on the inside or in Oz or anything like that. Marjane looks dismal. She goes through the motions of boarding the flight, but stops short of doing so.

It’s made difficult for certain peoples to see themselves in the representations of other certain peoples. Satrapi’s simple, colorless drawings present an opportunity for overcoming this disability.

The story is told through several long flashbacks, the first of which has Marjane, in late 70s Iran, as a cute, round-faced and extremely self-assured child intoxicated by the glamour of political turmoil. Her parents (Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian) are progressives who worry about their friends and family members being held as political prisoners.

Dealing with an audience who will know at least a little about what will happen, Satrapi and Paronnaud still manage to make the family’s hopeful anticipation of a post-Shah Iran feel immediate and gripping. When the Islamic revolution changes their way of life, the adults in Marjane’s life, vignetted in charcoal, rationalize the situation directly to the camera– half the country is illiterate, religion and nationalism are the only ways the people can come together, things will improve. But Persepolis depicts life in Iran as increasingly repressive and rife with public dishonesty. The movie is very funny, and much of the humor comes at the expense of the most iconic results of the Islamic revolution. Iran sent Cannes a peeved note for showing the film this year, and had it pulled out of Thailand recently.

The social model for women in post-revolution society intrudes on Marjane’s coming-of-age, which is a whole big piece of this story, and the filmmakers are funny and unflinching in telling it. The black head covering and chador – new and bothersome to Marjane’s cosmopolitan family – are used to great effect in scenes at school (a crowd of teenage girls, their differences wiped away), on the street (two old harpies shift and bend around Marjane, offended by her homemade Punk is Ded jacket and Michael Jackson button (“western decadence!” ))

As Marjane grows up, she becomes incompatible with her country. Her grandma (Danielle Darrieux) bolsters her fierce independence, and acts as an external conscience. That sounds maudlin and predictable, but this grandmother isn’t your sweet and dim movie stereotype. When Marjane has a man arrested to distract Revolutionary Guard officers from noticing that she is wearing makeup, her grandma berates her like nobody’s business. And Grandma makes references to the “small dicks!” of various men, a determined and strident reversal of objectification. And when Marjane pretends to be French at a school party in Vienna, Grandma appears as a shadow stalking her home.

The film is beautiful to look at. It employs some familiar old-school cinematic tools – magic-lantern-type animations, silhouetted and expressionistic renderings of ruination and fear that reminded me, in flashes, of a wide range of black-and-white directors, like Murnau and de Sica. Olivier Bernet’s score is wonderful (and it doesn’t feel fake “Middle Eastern” like you’d hear in a Hollywood movie), and it’s super important in Persepolis, which tends toward an almost episodic structure, at times ending sequences with an iris out to black.

Persepolis doesn’t neglect to tell the story of Western tampering with Iranian affairs, and it doesn’t gloss over European xenophobia. Marjane seems like a misfit everywhere on Earth, and she directs her anger outward, at the Khomeinians who have her people in a headlock, at a cheating boyfriend, at bourgeois Europeans. Only during a trippy, drawn-out sequence in which she takes anti-depressants (she ends up in the clouds with god and who I assume is Marx), do we get the sense that she ever struggles with her reaction to her situation. She has not a moment of self-doubt.

Each main character rejects the Islamic revolution totally and completely, which left me wondering about those who would have their private resistance eaten away by time. I was curious about what is was like for Marjane’s parents to optimistically consider something like the Islamic revolution as a brief downtick in the national soul, only to see its grip on your culture tighten. In one of the movie’s last moments, Marjane is in an Iranian airport with her family. Her parents’ black and white oval faces take on the familiar expressions your parents usually have when you’re about to board a plane without them, but she’s never coming back.

Ratatouille Wants An Oscar - A REAL One!

I wasn't much of a fan of Ratatouille, but the film critics of America certainly "ate it up" (sorry). It's currently the best reviewed film of the year as scored by Metacritic, and unless Atonement, Sweeney Todd, or There Will Be Blood contain exactly zero elements that anyone might dislike, Brad Bird's portrait of an artist as a young rodent will by numerical critical consensus be the best film of 2007. However, Ratatouille is unlikely to get an Oscar nom for Best Picture because animated films have been ghettoized into their own category since the 2001 awards. It was then that the Best Animated Feature category was introduced, which has since been treated more like Least Bad Kiddie Movie, judging by some of the nominees. While the existence of the category doesn't actually bar animated films from Best Film competition, most don't bother to campaign, nullifying their chances. But according to this NY Times Article, the folks at Pixar are making a go of it, perhaps inspired by their own odds-overcoming cartoon rat.

As much as I'd like to see Pixar set a precedent for high-quality animated films competing on the level of other critically acclaimed films, I don't see it happening this time around. 2007 looks to be a pretty damn good year for American films, this being the year when the US's endless war anxiety finally rose to the surface in an eruption of downbeat, bloody movies, setting up a crowded playing field that I doubt Ratatouille will squeeze into.

What would it take, I wonder, for an animated movie to get nominated these days? The first and last cartoon to compete for Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast; has there been another animated film released in America since then that has had the same winning combination of production value, dignity, and traditional storytelling? The Triplets of Bellville was a bit hit with critics, but it was way too weird to play as an Oscar movie (although that year the extremely weird Return of the King won, which in addition to being a mess was one of the most boring movie I've ever seen, despite featuring a scene where a man on fire jumps off a mountain). Action-comedies are persona non-grata as far as the Oscars are concerned, so The Incredibles is out too. I think the only animated movie in the last seven years that could have had a shot was Spirited Away, which was also foreign and pretty bizarre, but was easy to watch and by a famous and celebrated filmmaker. But Spirited Away has come and gone, let's look to the future. If Ratatouille can't change Americans minds about animated film, perhaps Persepolis can. With an amazing looking trailer and extremely timely subject matter (a first person recollection of Iran's Islamic Revolution), Persepolis is poised to be one of the biggest adult-oriented animated features in U.S history, and will also likely determine commercial viability of animated films adapted from comics. Given those stakes, I hope Persepolis lives up to it's hype. But as far as awards go, it'll have a hard enough time wrenching that statue out of Ratatouille's hands in the Animated Feature category, especially if the Best Pic campaign fails. Or who knows, maybe Jerry Seinfeld will do his stand-up in every Academy voter's living room and Bee Movie will take the whole thing.

Related: My schizoid review of Ratatouille with a title that makes zero sense.
Geekanerd's look at Persepolis' acting talent, plus one of the early trailers.

Weekanerd NYC: Shlock Horror, An Animator Speaks, Music Trivia & Prog Rockers

Monday, November 26th

• In The Mouth of Madness
  
• 10pm @ Metropol/Cinema Classics, 332 11th Street, Manhattan

This appears to be a C-list John Carpenter movie in which the lead character is based on Stephen King. Probably horrible, but it's free with a one drink minimum, and there are $3 PBR pints all night long. So if you bring a friend and get drunk enough you can have your own personal MST3K experience.

Tuesday, November 27th

• Animator Tom Sito
  
• 7pm @ School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd Street, 3rd Floor
  

Sito was an animator at the House of Mouse during the mid 90s Renaissance, and worked on all their hits, starting with Mermaid and ending with Pocahontas. Good timing.

Wednesday, November 28th

• Music Trivia Quiz
  
• 9pm @ Freddy's Bar & Backroom, 485 Dean St, Brooklyn
  

Hey a trivia night, haven't done one of those in a while. Kind of a slow week. If you're the kind of music nerd that can field trivia questions about the last 50 years of alternative rock music, you might win some "scrill". That's mid-90s East Bay punk talk for "monies". $3 to play, free to watch.

Thursday, November 29th

• Claudio Sanchez and Ken Kelly
  
• 5pm @ Jim Hanley's Universem 4 West 33rd Street, Manhattan
  

What's with nerds and prog rock? Where you find one you always seem to find the other. Claudio Sanchez is the lead singer of Coheed and Cambria, and Ken Kelly is the artist who did the sci-fi-space-fantasy cover for their latest album, No World For Tomorrow.

Michigan J Frog Now Actually Dead

It's the end of an era, toon fans. Newsarama via Variety reports that the 13-year old Kids WB Cartoon Block is no more. With it goes the last trace of the WB network itself, leaving only the CW, that dead-inside cypher of a station. Granted, it's been a long time since the glory days of Animaniacs and Freakazoid. The modern-era WB toonage has consisted mostly of dubbed anime, mediocre DC action shows, and truly unspeakable hackwork.

But while those with cable can bask in the warm glow of top-rate cartoons 24/7, I feel sorry for the kids and nerds across the nation who are stuck with what network TV dishes out. Because while Kids WB is not the trendsetting powerhouse it once was, a few of their shows still maintain that rare spark of wit; Johnny Test has it's moments, and that annoying new Scooby Doo show redeems it's grotesque concept (Scooby and Shaggy are rich!) with a comically non-threatening villian voiced by the great Jeff Bennet. And even their weaker action shows like The Batman and Legion of Superheroes look pretty good compared to the the crap they show on FOX that's produced by 4Kids, the same company that will incidentally now be creating cartoon programming for the CW.

With two 4Kids cartoon blocks on Saturday mornings, cable-less kids can expect a lot more dubbed anime (which admittedly can be a lot of fun in it's own mind-numbing way) and more travesties like TMNT: Flash Forward. It's the Ninja Turtles...but they're IN THE FUTURE!



Compare and contrast with Limozeen: But They're In Space.

John Kricfalusi Dares To Dream...of the Ideal Animation School

John "K" Kricfalusi has given us animation nerds so much. Ren and Stimpy, this Bjork video, and those really disturbing Yogi Bear cartoons you used to see on Cartoon Network after midnight.

Now John K is giving us a virtual tour of his own fantasy animation school. Yesterday in his blog, all kinds of stuff, he posted an illustrated rundown of the classes that would make up the first year program, which includes technical basics and also more abstract notions such as Drawing Funny and Interpretation & Caricature. If your interest is piqued, check it out and leave him a comment - if John gets enough interest, we may yet see a day where the sun rises on the campus of Kricfalusi U.

New Rock Band Trailer Is More Exciting Than Pixar's Last Two Films

YEAH! Despite having zero to do with gameplay, this is one of the best game trailers I've ever seen. Cartoon Physics + Fast Moving Car + Rock = Winning Promotional Strategy.

The trailer is actually promoting a promotion, namely the Rock Band 2007 Tour, a traveling demo show & competition which kicked off yesterday in Las Vegas. Info after the jump...


I had a look at the Rules and Regulations for this so-called tour - to compete in the "Rock Off Auditions" you need to be part of a four-piece "band". It seems like you'll have to show up pretty early in order to get some practice time in before you play in front of the judges. Bands will be evaluated based on their ability to "demonstrate Rock Band™ game play with proficiency and accuracy, radiate energy, vitality, possess stage presence and are comfortable in front of a camera."

The two finalists get a complicated MTV reality-show prize package, that includes meeting a band and "playing" on TRL. The for-real finalist band gets to "open" for a real yet-to-be-named rock group, so if you've ever wanted to play a video game on stage in front of a screaming rock crowd, here is your chance!

The rules also demand that each four-piece band designate a "leader". Luckily the tour doesn't come to NYC until November 1st, so the Geekanerd Crew has almost two months to wage smear campaigns against each other.

For dates and locations, check the Official Site's schedule for detailed tour info - some important details have changed since the last press release. Such as moving to the tour from my former-hometown of Oakland to stupid Berkeley. Damn hippies.

New Beowulf Trailer: Now With Marginally Disturbing Angelina Full Frontal

Beowulf's red band trailer was unleashed online today, and we all know what that means - the twin pillars of the modern American movie industry, Gore and Nudity! Here's a bit of the former, courtesy of Monster Crispin Glover, AKA the primary reason I'm going to see this movie.
You've got to pass an age-check before downloading the trailer, and not the fake, Please-Say-You're-18 kind. Those over 18 or those who know their mom's full name and birth date can check out the trailer here.

The trailer promotes the movie in the vein of 300, with a generic rock soundtrack, a familiar shot of archers releasing a volley of arrows, and scream of "I! AM! BEOWULF!" towards the end that matches "THIS! IS! SPARTAA!" in delivery and tone.

Oh, and naked Angelina Jolie. That's after the jump.

So the internet finally got what it so desperately wanted; Naked Angelina Jolie. Is it all we expected it to be? Well, no. The Beowful effects team seems to have made it their objective to de-sexify Jolie as much as modern technology allows, which extends to giving her lower regions the barbie-doll treatment and CGing her face on to another body. At least that what it looks like in the trailer. You can even see it in the screen cap - her head looks out of proportion to her body, like they either used a body double or completely CG'ed her body and stuck her face on top. But I'm sure there are those who aren't as picky about their celebrity wank material, and far be it for me to rain on their parade.

The rest of the character animation as seen in the trailer does little to illuminate why Robert Zemekis is such a fan of this Polar Express motion capture technique.


If I wanted to watch a video game cut scene, I'd play Resident Evil. Still, one can't discount the presence of Monster Crispin Glover, so perhaps there's hope for this Neil Gaiman penned blockbuster yet.

Related: Geekanerd's Past Coverage of Beowulf

Team Fortress 2 - Cartoons Never Looked So Badass

Since the PS3 and XBox360 came out I've wondered how long it will be before video games begin using character animation sophisticated enough to make gameplay indistinguishable from say, a Pixar movie. Turns out the designers at Valve are in fact hard at work creating gorgeously rendered, chunky-yet-smooth cartoon character designs for the upcoming Team Fortress 2.


Illustrative Rendering In Team Fortress 2

This behind-the-scenes vid is refreshingly technical and info-packed, but those who, like me, don't include the words "clamped lambertian" in their volcabularly might get lost around 2:13. Might. I'm not saying I did.

For high-res vids of these hot graphics in action, check out the game teasers, which show off a great sense of humor as well.

Via Bleeding Pixels

Reel Geek: Webcomics In Hollywood

Every Tuesday, Geekanerd Correspondent Bishop rocks it movie geek style...As geeks and/or nerds, I can pretty safely assume that you enjoy four things: comics, the internet, movies, and animation (if you dislike any of these things then you probably misspelled a word on Google and somehow ended up here). Well, today we’re going to talk about all four of those things coming together in a writhing orgy of tangled limbs and sweaty buttocks.

Oh my! Upcoming WebComic to Animation info and video, after the jump!


As many of you may know, Scott Kurtz, author of Player vs Player, the popular gaming comic, has launched an online animation series based on PVP. The series is set for 12 episodes, pumped out once a month, for a fee of $24.95 for the year. So far the reaction has been a mixed bag, but the internet is full of critics who would nitpick the way a popular website was giving away free money, so I’d rather not sit around debating how a character’s voice didn’t sound like what a 13 year old in Iowa felt it should.

PVP: The Series is being brought to us by Blind Ferret Entertainment, which is the studio that produced Tim Buckley’s “Ctrl+Alt+Del” series last year (see the trailer here). Blind Ferret is the creation of “Least I Could Do” writer Ryan Sohmer et al. Now I know I’m supposed to be discussing movies here, but bear with me.

Blind Ferret recently announced plans to create a full-length feature animated film starring the cast of “Looking for Group,” another comic that Sohmer writes. Sohmer posted a short that he and the BF team had put together for everyone to see, so take a quick peek at the video below.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the very fact that webcomic creators are pushing into the frontier of animation and film is pretty exciting to me. What we’re seeing is another expansion by webcomics into a venue traditionally only seen in syndicated comics. Garfield, Heathcliff, Peanuts and others were all syndicated newspaper strips that branched out into merchandising, which included animated features and television series. Webcomics have really only proven themselves to be financially profitable in the past few years, with powerhouses like PVP and Penny Arcade and collectives like Dumbrella and Dayfree Press. Now it looks like webcomics are taking up the challenge to produce animated series and movies without the backing of a large syndicate, and personally I’m glad to see them doing it. Sure things are going to be a little rough at first and there are going to be a lot of false starts and misfires, but that’s just part of the game.

Blind Ferret said that CAD: The Series was indeed financially profitable, and PVP still seems to be attracting subscribers, so we may start seeing more and more webcomics pushing into the animation field. Better still, we’re going to be seeing them get there on their own terms (or at least much closer than they would working under a syndicate and a network). Now I know some people out there are going to scoff and roll their eyes because webcomics are “trying too hard” or “going commercial.” Well those people have herpes. All we’re seeing is artists branching into another field of expression, one that allows them to create new material and give a new voice to their work. It may also push web-based animation ala Homestar Runner more into the spotlight and encourage more young artists into animation. This means not only more series like Homestar, but more series like “Venture Brothers” hitting the channels as networks see that these web-based series can garner an audience and make more compromises with creators about content and themes that carry over to air. Sohmers’ “Least I Could Do” has already been optioned and is in development for a TV series.

I’m looking forward to seeing web-based animated series grow and garner larger audiences. The scripts will probably be a little unsteady early on (writing for the screen has a different pacing than with a 4-6 panel comic strip), and the animation will be a little uneven, but go watch an early episode of the Simpsons and tell me you KNEW that it was going to be the success that it was.

Justice League: The New Frontier Footage on YouTube

This promotional featurette for Justice League: The New Frontier has shown up on YouTube and features sound bites from Dan Didio, a shockingly youthful Bruce Timm (this guy is 48?! He ain't human!), and Darwyn Cooke himself. It's all pretty standard promotional fare, lots of shots of the beautiful original comic that only make the static-looking animation appear less impressive. Judge for yourself - maybe they're just holding out on us.


Via Newsarama
Thoughts on the all-star cast (all stars of the B-List, at least) after the jump...

So at 1:46, they announce an all new voice-actor lineup, but we don't actually get to hear any of the characters voices. Perhaps because DC knows that any change in the regular Justice League voice-actor lineup is going to cause fanboys' ears to bleed. Since New Frontier features "re-imagined" versions of the Justice League (or if they wanted to integrate the concept of the 52 multiverses, they could just say it was a different earth) it makes sense that they'd have different voices. For the most part the choices seem pretty reasonable...

Kyle Maclachlan as Superman - fair enough. He can certainly play stilted and clean-cut as well as anyone.

Lucy Lawless as Wonder Woman - Obvious choice. Still a good one.

David Borenanz as Hal Jordan/Green Latern - Hal wasn't a character in the original Justice League animated series anyway, so David Borenanz doesn't have much to live up to. Plus he's Angel. And he wore a green shirt to the recording session, which earns him credibility points.

Neil Patrick Harris as The Flash - This is supposed to be the Barry Allen version of the Flash, and since NPH is doing the voice I have a feeling he's going to be regulated to comic relief just as Wally was in the regular show. The shot of him being caught in a net (A NET!) at 2:26 doesn't do much to dispel this.

Jeremy Sisto as Batman - ah, here's where I have a problem. Not that I don't like Jeremy Sisto - he was great in Six Feet Under. But I haven't seen an animated version of Batman who wasn't voiced by the legendary Kevin Conroy since, well, ever. I read a book with Batman in it, I hear Conroy's voice. Unless Sisto comes out of the gate with some fantastic new interpretation of the character, it's going to be extremely jarring to watch a movie where Batman is speaking with the voice of...some guy.

The Top Ten Classic Cartoon Intros

Today Geekanerd is running down the TOP TEN CLASSIC CARTOON INTROS, those 60-second masterpieces that got you all fired up before your favorite cartoon. Grab a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, and join as we count 'em down!

SELECTION CRITERIA:

• Must be from a series no longer being produced
• Must be an English-language series
• Must feature original animation (none of that Disney Afternoon clip-show crap!)
• Must be from a series intended for kids

Read the rankings and watch the videos after the jump...




10.Taz-Mania


HIGHLIGHTS:
1:00 - This opening shot of Tazmania is as awe-inspiring as any IMAX nature doc.
0:43 - Taz has more personality and life in these few frames than he did in any of the actual episodes.
0:28 - Falling Safe Alert. WB Animation really nails those classic gags!

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
This opening does a great job putting Taz-Mania's madcap cast of characters on display. Taz himself, however, was a pretty poor protagonist. It's as if they gave Ed from the Lion King his own show. Taz was only around for name recognition, and was by far the least interesting thing about the series. The opening sequence seems to acknowledge this up front ("Oh yeah, don't forget Taz") in the grand tradition of Warner Brothers Cartoon Self-Awareness.

9. Muppet Babies

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:29 - Words can't convey how bizarre this transition is; it seems that the dimension Scooter had been occupying is sucked into a black hole and replaced with a circus nightmare featuring his opposite-sex doppelganger.
0:18 - The appearance of a genuine Advanced Tie Fighter cements Muppet Babies as the coolest show on Nickelodeon, ever.

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
Does this opener remind you of anything? I'm now convinced that the very distinctive (read: ugly) Rugrats intro is in fact a direct homage to Muppet Babies. They both capture the sense of micro-chaos that makes up the world of a child, although Muppet Babies does it to a rockin' 1960s The-Beach-Boys-meets-The-Monkees-Meets-The-Chipmunks theme song.

8.Thundercats

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:40 - This switch from 1st to 3rd person perspective is a brilliant example of how sometimes breaking the rules yields amazing results. And that is one POWERFUL run cycle!

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
The animation in this intro is technically superb, and here's why - it was done by Pacific Animation Corporation, which in 1986 included a collective of animators who would go to found Studio Ghibli!

7. Count Duckula

HIGHLIGHTS:
1:23 - This stuffy British production company logo confused kids across the nation..."When did Nickelodeon become PBS?!"
1:15 - Great, scary image...wouldn't you love to own that animation cel?
0:50 - The narrator really sells this voice over. Gotta love the brits.
0:18 - Showing a mere carrot to be more vicious than Duckula is a nice surreal way of putting a point across.

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
There sure is a lot of satanic imagery on display here...good to know that while until recently Harry Potter books were still being burned, in the 80s you could slip a pentagram and blood rituals into a kids show and no one would bat an eye. Good times!

6. Doug

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:28 - Ah young love...don't you wish real crushes were as gentle and transcendent as this?
0:21 - The way Doug tenses his feet to convey surprise is a great bit of cartoon "acting".

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
Doug may be THE most innocent cartoon ever made - while many of these intros are heavy on flash and action, Doug's opening sequence is so charming and simple you might not notice what an ingenious bit of meta-animation it really is.

5. Jem

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:40 - Did you see that?! A guy drove his car drove up on stage and grabbed Jem! And look at how the frame shakes after they drive off screen - he totally drove into a wall and killed them both!
0:19 - Wow...The Misfits are not afraid to use slightly discordant harmonies, KISS-style make-up, and provocative stage presence. Good for them!
0:14 - Although I have to say, Jem really makes her one spin-move work for her.

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
No one on the Geekanerd Writing Staff ever watched Jem as a kid, but this intro is incredible. It captures the 80s MTV aesthetic almost better than MTV did! The rotoscoping is used to great effect, and I can't get over how awesome The Misfits are. I hope a reunion tour is in the works.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:37 - "Get a grip!" And they're literally getting a grip on their weapons. Classic.
0:27 - Anyone who thinks Mikey is mere comic relief would do well to witness his pwning of ninja stars.
0:24 - Splinter's transformation is kind of terrifying...look at that smoke coming off his hands!
0:12 - Pizza toppings stick to the "camera lens"...nice touch, animators!

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
This intro's hyperactive energy is impossible to resist, and it somehow succeeds in making anthropomorphic turtles look like the coolest guys around. But take a look at 0:40 - This profile shot of the turtles is awesome, but why does it look familiar? Compare with Thundercats at 0:55...hmm.

3. The Real Ghostbusters

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:59 - This opening strut rivals Saturday Night Fever for sheer coolness.
0:42 - All the main characters are perfectly summarized...Egon does machines, Ray is the happy-go-lucky goof, Peter is lazy and hilarious, Slimer likes eating and Winston is the token black guy with no personality.
0:24 - Nightmare fodder for kids across America.
0:20 Nothing says "I'm going to trap you in a box" like rhythmic gun presentation.

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
Boy, the animation owes so much to anime! Jeanne's reaction at :30 to being kissed by Slimer is an facial expression straight out of the Tenchi playbook. And Jeanne is looking pretty sexy for a nerdy single secretary...but maybe that's just me.

2.Tiny Toons

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:48 - I love this gag. Babs and Buster defy expectations at every turn!
0:33 - Tiny Toons made a big deal about the art of wild takes, and Plucky, reacting to his own giant head, gives a great example here.
0:28 - Pay attention to their body language- Buster jumps in with a feminine flourish, and Babs barges in. A split second later, it's revealed that the two are disguised as the other. These animators really went the extra mile.

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
Tiny Toons began what would be a Renaissance in smart, edgy comedic cartoons from the WB (this trend would finally fly to close to the sun with the brilliant but alienating Freakazoid). The tone of this intro was used again and again in the WB cartoons that followed, but the quick-witted magic was never captured quite so well as on Tiny Toons. "We crack up all the censors" has to be one of the all-time greatest lyrics for a kid's cartoon. Irreverence defined.


1. Batman: The Animated Series

HIGHLIGHTS:
0:56 - As the cheery WB logo fades into the glaring headlights of a police blimp, you know you know this toon means business.
0:44 - Now that is a good looking explosion! And be sure to note the elegant animation on the falling debris.
0:33 - This is a perfect graphic-novel style composition - angular, bold colors - effortlessly effective.
0:26 - What are these crooks so scared of?
0:23 - Oh, right.
0:20 - If anyone had any questions as to how an unarmed vigilante could deal with gun-toting punks, here's your answer.
0:18 - Note the punk's horrified reaction to seeing this demon of the night take out his partner. This is what Batman is all about, people.
0:17 - Beautiful if physically improbable aerial move.
0:09 - Great dumbstruck body language on the cop, indicating that Bats works outside the system.
0:03 - Chilling. A single frame ingrained in the psyche's of kids across America.

MATURE PERSPECTIVE:
Many readers will have had occasion to watch this opening long since their childhood, as the complete Batman: The Animated Series DVD Collection is required viewing for all animation/comic book geeks. But no matter how many times you watch this sequence, it doesn't lose it's impact. It's simple, stark, and gorgeous. Watched from beginning to end, you can't help but be moved by that ever-vigilant pose in the final shot...never has a cartoon hero looked so dark and foreboding. This intro prepared kids across the nation for what was so often a thrilling, serious, and emotionally gripping half hour of toonage. Give it up for Bruce Timm, ladies and gentlemen.

EPILOGUE:
Some animation buffs may be ready to storm the Geekanerd Technodrome for making a "classic" list comprised entirely of cartoons from the 80s and 90s. In our defense, we did review toons from earlier eras, and even the best seemed flat and repetitive when compared to our cherished finalists. Also it seems the Z-axis was not discovered in popular American animation until 1980.

Oh, we also left out Animaniacs. Sorry.

Iggy Pop and Sean Penn To Voice English Dub of Persepolis

While Watchmen movie rumors are all well and good, the other most exciting upcoming comic-to-film adaptation is Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. It's the autobiographical story of a girl growing up in Iran while theIslamic Revolution reached it's height. This foreign-yet-understandable trailer focuses on a counter-revolution going on in the 1970s; HARD ROCK.



Bad. Ass. Who says 2-D animation is dead? ICV2 blogged today that A-lister Sean Penn and punk rock god Iggy Pop will both be voicing roles in the English-language release, due out in late 2007.

Analysis after the jump.



This project is only a blip on Iggy's illustrious acting career, which includes a reoccurring role as Michelle Trachtenberg's dad on "Pete & Pete" and a great cameo in Dead Man's most homoerotic scene. But it's a pretty remarkable gig for Sean Penn - it's rare for truly respected American dramatic actor to do cartoon voice over work, since not many high-profile dramatic animated films are released in the USA for widespread consumption. Usually only Miyazaki gets the big acting talent to show up for English dubs. Of course, cinematic acting skills don't always transfer over to the magical craft of voice-acting, so here's hoping Sean Penn nails it on his first time out.