Village of the Giants

I've got a new article up, this time a review of the Bert I. Gordon classic, Village of the Giants, starring Tommy Kirk, Beau Bridges, and Ron Howard.

Village of the Giants has long been a guilty pleasure of mine, and my review is an attempt to explain what's so appealing about it. That's an impossible task as the film is so damn strange, but I feel it's a worthy effort.

I also have a review of Savage Steve Holland's One Crazy Summer up. One Crazy Summer is one of my favorite movies, and I try to watch it every year around the beginning of summer.

I hope you like them!

Meanwhile, Back on Monster Island

Hey, it's been awhile. Here, have a cartoon.


For some reason, I decided to get a DeviantART account. Hopefully I won't be bitten by the Anime Virus and draw nothing but Naruto fan art from now on. We'll see!

Bye Bye Birdie

Hey, I've got a new article up on Suite101.com. It's a review of the Ann-Margret classic, Bye Bye Birdie.

Bye Bye Birdie is a weird, weird movie, and it's dated as hell. But there is something oddly appealing about the film, and as my review notes, Ann-Margret is easily the highlight of the film. Seriously, the minute the film turns away from her character's story, the film just grinds to a halt.

Writing

Hey, I've got a new gig writing for Suite101.com. My profile is here, and my first article about the Brian De Palma film, Obsession, can be seen here.

New Cartoons

Fun in the Sun(?)

Summer Magic

Knock it Outta the Park

I'm Back

Hey folks, sorry for not posting in a while. As cliche' as it may sound, I've been incredibly busy lately.

For one thing, I submitted an animated short to the Washington Filmworks 2010 Viral Video competition, and somehow it won. You can see the short here.

The short was popular enough that it got the attention of Tony White, who very kindly invited me to his "2D or Not 2D Animation Festival." Make sure to buy his books.

Fun times.

I've brought this blog back from the dead because I've found a really terrific article that sums up my frustrations with the "animation elite." You can read it here on Dave Levy's excellent blog. You'd think a medium as open-ended and diverse as ours would spawn artists who respect all styles of animation, and not just that of the golden age's, but you'd be surprised. Why would anyone want to limit animation's potential?

Animators are weird people sometimes.

Make sure to buy Dave's books too.

I'll leave you with a drawing. Here's a storyboard panel from my short. As with most drawings, the original sketch has a little more vitality than the fully-inked drawing. Oh well...

The Perfect Gift for the Holiday Season

Sustainability Unpacked: Food, Energy and Water for Resilient Environments and Societies has finally been released, and I'm holding a copy of it in my hands right now. I can't tell you how excited I am.

(I didn't do the cover though)

I was contacted by Maura Shelton in September of 2009. Kriistina A. Vogt, a professor at the University of Washington, and her team were looking for someone to do illustrations for her upcoming book on environmental sustainability. By chance, Maura saw my cartoons in The Daily, and contacted me. I met with Kriistina, Maura and the team, and was impressed by their enthusiasm and kindness.

The next few weeks were a blur of sketching, pitching ideas, re-drawing, pitching again, and finally creating the finished drawings. I won't lie, I felt like I was in over my head a couple of times at the sheer amount of work that went into this project, but I never forgot what a great opportunity it was.

Looking at the book now, it brings back all those memories, and over the next week or so I hope to share them with you guys. So I'll be posting sketches, alternate drawings, unused drawings, and other odds and ends.

I want to thank again Maura Shelton and Kriistina A. Vogt for letting in on this amazing opportunity. It's something I'll always be grateful for.