Disney XD Airs Kirby Buckets Tonight at 8pm

Tonight is the series premiere of Kirby Buckets, a live-action/animated comedy created by Gabe Snyder & Mike Alber (Supah Ninjas) about Kirby Buckets, a 13-year-old with a vivid imagination who dreams of becoming a famous animator like his idol, Mac McCallister. With his two best friends, Fish and Eli, he navigates his eccentric town of Forest Hills. The trio usually find themselves trying to get out of various wacky predicaments before Kirby's sister, Dawn, and her best friend, Belinda, catch them. Along the way, Kirby is joined by his animated characters, each with their own vibrant personality that only he and the viewers can see.
The animation is provided by Freddy Cristy (Animation Character Designs and Supervision) of Titmouse, Inc. founded by Chris Prynoski. Among some of Kirby's characters are Tri-Butt, Dr. Gut-Punch, Macho Taco, Octo-Stache, Scrunch Face and Dawnzilla.

SF @ SF

Today, I attended the Satire Fest, a conference where cartoonists, artists and writers mingle and special guests host seminars to discuss their work and methods on creativity, at the Marines' Memorial Theatre in San Francisco. I would have taken pictures, but the camera on my iPad has terrible quality. I stayed for an event presented by Lalo Alcaraz and David Silverman.
Lalo Alcaraz is an award-winning artist, cartoonist, writer, and the creator of La Cucaracha, the first nationally-syndicated, politically-themed Latino daily comic strip. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, Variety, Rolling Stone Magazine, LA Weekly and many international publications. He has also been featured on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Univision, Telemundo, PBS and other media. Lalo is currently a faculty member at Otis College of Art and Design, teaching illustration and communication arts. He has written books and co-hosts an LA satirical radio talk show.
Lalo first talked about La Cucaracha. Although it has been one of the most controversial in the history of American comic strips and received mixed feelings from readers, La Cucaracha is still going since its syndication on 2002. At the same time, he showed samplings of his previous work in editorial cartoons. During the second half the discussion, he talked about how he got a call from Fox network to talk to the show runner of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane. Lalo said yes, but asked why. What he didn't know was that the phone call was a job interview for Bordertown, a new animated show MacFarlane is executive producing with creator Mark Hentemann. The show is about two racist families in "Mexi-fornia," a fictional Texas desert town on the US-Mexico border starring Hank Azaria as Bud, a border agent, and Nicholas Gonzales as Ernesto, a Mexican immigrant. Alex Borstein is voicing Janice, Bud's wife, and remaining cast include Missi Pyle, Judah Friedlander, Jacqueline Pinol, and Efren Ramirez. Alcaraz is one of fourteen writers, only five of them are Latino. He auditioned "for four voices, but didn't get" any of them. The sitcom is set to premiere in spring 2015. It is the first show with a half Latino, half Mexican-American cast and being part of this project has had him feeling awkward since he had no human contact as a cartoonist for twenty years. Culture Clash was said to be his first primetime writing job and once developed a show for Disney Channel, but didn't get green-lit.
David Silverman has been with The Simpsons since the beginning and has directed numerous episodes and The Simpsons Movie. He also co-directed Monsters Inc. and is recently playing in a jazz band Vaudevillains. He discussed about how he got started with The Simpsons back in 1987 when they were just shorts for the Tracey Ullman Show. He went to UCLA with Gary Baseman and graduated with a master's degree in animation. Gary seemed like he was doing great as an artist, while David thought he was not getting anywhere. He wasn't even sure if he should stay with The Simpsons. During that time, he thought about getting into commercial art and had a brief stint on a show produced at the old studio where Bob and Sody Clampett did the Beany and Cecil Show that didn't even last a month. Silverman presented a montage of the old Simpsons shorts set to music. He also showed clips of a new Simpsons episode being developed. It's about Bart becoming a jazz drummer; one of the clips is Krusty the Clown announcing several jazz performers. The artists had fun designing caricatures for the musicians and Richard Sakai, one of the names Krusty announces is a Simpsons producer. I really loved what he showed us; I was laughing so hard and can't wait to see the full episode when it airs. During the Q&A, David noted that Matt Groening still attends almost every table read, giving creative feedback and design notes. The crew really lost his input when he was too busy with Futurama. During the early seasons, all of the cast members use to record their lines together, but, as time went by and technology changed, they now do their lines separately. However, they still do it together when they choose.
Satire Fest continues tomorrow. Check the website for the program and buy your ticket. It's for cartoonists, satirists, and just creative people who love art. (Between you and me, I was able to sneak into this event for free!)
http://satirefest.com/

Introducing my first Post!

Hello and welcome….

I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time. Well, one of my friends suggested this and I think I waited long enough. It’s time.

I am going to start…

…wait for it…

…a blog!

This blog celebrates classic cartoon history with an emphasis on the golden age of Hollywood animation. I thought having this would be cool because animation has helped shape me into the person I am today (hey, everybody needs a hobby) and was important to making not only my childhood happy, but also yours. :D

For you readers, here is what to expect:

Rough animation drawings, visual development art, thumbnail sketches and character designs; I’ll be devoting the space mostly to the work of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Warner Bros Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies directors, and MGM (mostly Tex Avery and Tom & Jerry), as well as Pixar and DreamWorks. I plan to display artwork from other studios.

Stories of the animators. The Nine Old Men were masters in their craft, but it’s interesting to observe their human side. A lot of what I’ll talk about this group will refer to John Canemaker’s “Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation,” an incredible and insightful book that I highly recommend.

I will try to keep you updated on recent news in the animation world and intend to write reviews for cartoons and films or just short bits of commentary for a particular scene. (Blogs tend to evolve and I also want to review other films besides animated.)

Sometimes, I’ll post thoughts and share work of other artists who influenced me, such as Heinrich Kley, TS Sullivant, Dr. Seuss, Ronald Searle, William Steig and others.

I am totally new at this and feel free to comment if there’s something you’d like to discuss, but please be nice.

If you love this stuff as much as I do, bookmark the page and join the Facebook page too! Hope you check regularly as I guide on a journey into this magical art and please – spread the word! So bring out your laptop, go to a computer, look at your smartphone or tablet or whatever; have a snack or drink if you want; tell your parents that you’re doing something important; remove your brain (assuming you can find it); and enjoy!

And if you’re going to take your pants off to relax while you’re reading, please do it in the decency and privacy of your home (and this includes girls too).

The author is not in any way responsible for the punishment of those who refuse to obey the important message in the previous paragraph or to put on their rash ointment regularly.