How to use this Page

Thanks, Armadillo magazine, for making me this issue's feature interview! One of the questions was about which books I'd want to have if I was stranded on a desert isle. So in case I ever go missing with an armadillo, I thought I'd leave you this drawing to remember us by.



We're reading The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois, which is one of my all-time favourite stories (and his illustrations are pretty fab, too). You can read why I choose it and these other two books in the interview.



The other two books are Vainglory by Geraldine McCaughrean (whom I'm interviewing, along with Candy Gourlay, over at the Hay Festival on 30 May!) and Watership Down by Richard Adams.



One more thing: I just realised I'd agreed ages ago to do a workshop for adults on Sunday at the House cafe & gallery in Camberwell. (I used to run it with friends when it was just a gallery, not a cafe.) If you fancy designing a character, playing a story-starter game and making a little book, it's free and you don't need to pre-book. All materials supplied (unless you have some favourite drawing pens and pencils you want to bring along); you might need to buy your own coffee.

Make: Illustration with Sarah McIntyre - Sun, 27 March, House gallery, Camberwell Church Street, Camberwell, London SE5 8QZ, 2-5pm. (I'll be leading the workshop from 2-4 and you can stay another hour to finish if you like.)

Just as an armadillo side note, my sister and I used to have a friend with a mother in Louisiana (where, apparently, they have armadillos, and rabies is a bit of a problem). Her mother always gave her the stern instruction, Don't touch the armadillos. NOT EVEN WITH A STICK. So 'not even with a stick' is a bit of a catch-phrase for us now.

Those of you who love cartooning know that Mr. Richard Thompson is the greatest living cartoonist whose name isn't Ronald Searle.  Mr. Thompson's greatness is thrown into sharp relief when you learn that he does his daily strip, Cul de Sac, while suffering from Parkinson's (which he calls his Slapstick Affliction). Richard Thompson & myself at last year's National Cartoonist Society Gala. 

take a look (or two):
Scalatores Krickel Krakel

 Subscribe in a reader

Hadn’t checked in a while and was curious to see what the most viewed pieces of animation on YouTube and Vimeo currently are. The results are, erm, fascinating and quite reflective of the audiences who use each site. It should be pointed out that Muto, the most viewed piece of animation on Vimeo (3.5 million views) has significantly more views (8.8 million) on YouTube. In other words, good animation does get recognized on YouTube as well, but you have to wade through a lot of trash to get to it.

From a user standpoint, I no longer find it possible to discover new animators or films on YouTube unless someone sends a direct link. Vimeo’s community features are easier to use, and the number of users is still small enough to encourage browsing and discovery. I hope they find ways to maintain the sense of intimacy and community as they scale upward.

Top Animation on YouTube
1. Tootin’ Bathtub Baby Cousins – 151.1 million views

2. Intro La casa de Mickey Mouse – 123 million views

3. The Gummy Bear Song – 115.2 million views

Top Animation on Vimeo

1. Muto – 3.5 million views

2. The Third & The Seventh – 3.2 million views

3. The Crisis of Credit Visualized – 2.5 million

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags:

For the theme "spy".

Simon & Garfunkel always seems to have the right words... :)

Btw... gotta be the first time I draw a guy ...like.... ever! Super quick pencil sketch.

 Subscribe in a reader

Bigfoot encounters loggers, hippies, the power company and angry townsfolk in his pursuit of some peace and quiet. It’s the third (we posted the other two last June) self-funded music video for Sydney-based punk/rock band The Hard-Ons by Australia’s own Kapow Pictures:

CREDITS
Produced by Sandra Walters
Directed and Designed by Mark Gravas
Designed and animated by Colin Bigelow
Additional animation Aaron Powell
Editor Gemma Amos
Storyboard Mark Gravas, Colin Bigelow, Ginny Wong, Sasha Wisinowski

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Kapow Pictures

It’s not too late to join this year’s Reading the World Challenge if you haven’t already – just take a look at this post for details.

In our family we have all joined together and read picture books set in Mongolia, which is our current focus on PaperTigers. I had to hunt around a bit but we came up with a good selection. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail here as they are all gathered up in my Personal View, Taking a step into children’s books about Mongolia. We have really enjoyed delving into the culture and heritage of Mongolia and these picture books have been read all together and individually.

One bedtime Older Brother read Horse Song: the Naadam of Mongolia by Ted and Betsy Lewin (Lee and Low, 2008) to Little Brother – quite a long read and they were both engrossed. Watching them from the outside, as it were, I came to an added appreciation of the dynamics of Ted and Betsy’s collaboration, both in the energy of their shared enthusiasm and participation in the events surrounding the famous horse-race, and also of being struck by a busy, crowded scene one page and then giggling at the turn of expression on an individual study’s face the next.

And I’ll just share with you Little Brother’s reaction to Suho’s White Horse, which you can read about in a bit more detail in my Books at Bedtime post earlier this week:

It was a moving story. The governor made me angry because he broke his word and was cruel to Suho and his horse.
[Listening to the musical version played on the Mongolian horsehead fiddle, the morin khuur] Once you know the story, you can tell which part of the music is telling which part of the story. How do they make that music with just two strings? It fills me with awe.

I also read The Horse Boy: A Father’s Miraculous Journey to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson (Viking, 2009), an amazing story of a family’s journey to Mongolia in search of horses and shamans to seek healing for the torments that were gripping their five-year-old autistic son’s life: as Isaacson puts it with great dignity, his “emotional and physical incontinence”. If you have already read this humbling, inspiring book (and even if you haven’t), take a look at this recent interview three years on from their adventurous journey. Now I need to see the film!

And talking of films (which we don’t very often on PaperTigers, but I can’t resist mentioning this one), The Story of the Weeping Camel is a beautiful, gentle film that takes you right to the heart of Mongolian life on the steppe. Who would have thought a documentary film about a camel could be so like watching a fairy tale? Don’t be put off by the subtitles – our boys love this film. Take a look at the trailer –