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Norman Bridwell, creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog, died last Friday at the age of 86.

Finding videos of the Voldemort vs. Mary Poppins nuttiness online was surprisingly difficult.  Finally I found a sort of recap of the Olympic 2012 opening ceremonies with reference to the rise of the great children’s literature villains (The Queen of Hearts, a Disney-esque Cruella de Ville, Captain Hook, and Voldemort) and their destruction at the hands of 30 Mary Poppins.  “A sweeping rambling narrative” is as accurate an interpretation of what happened as any I could come up with.  You’ll see the references at 1:00 in this video.

And since we’re already on the topic of Harry Potter (admittedly we are almost always on that topic) I sure hope you guys had a chance to see the first installment of Harry Potter and the Ten Years Later.  I thought it was rather well done.  Sort of makes me want to see the whole series now.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

And now for a bloody effective book trailer.  If the point of such trailers is to cause the reader an immediate and almost impossible to resist urge to pick up the book and read it, Leave Your Sleep as edited by Natalie Merchant (yes, that Natalie Merchant) now has that hold on me.  It does not hurt that the songs featured here, paired with Barbara McClintock’s illustrations, are a delight.  A sheer, as they say, delight.

Resist it if you can.  And, might I say, this is one of the more logical uses of a celebrity getting involved in children’s literature that I’ve seen.  I was seated next to Ms. Merchant at a BEA lunch and to my delight she turned out to be a huge Barbara McClintock fan long before this book.  She said this, so I decided to quiz her by asking what she knew.  Without missing a beat she rattled off everything from The Gingerbread Man to Adele and Simon to the Aesop’s Fables Ms. McClintock did years ago.  Woman knows her stuff.

Okay, gear switch.  Obviously if I’m showing a Louis CK video then this is not going to be workplace friendly, though honestly aside from one off-white phrase this is downright pure for Louis.  When I read in a recent Entertainment Weekly article that he hated Clifford the Big Red Dog with a passion that eclipses the white hot sun I knew I had to find video proof.  Proof I found, and I love how he pairs Clifford with Narnia.  If Louis put out a CD that was just children’s book rants . . . okay, that’s a ridiculous dream.  But a dream I now have!

And now Louise Yates interviews Quentin Blake.  Because I can.

Thanks to Watch. Connect. Read. for the link!

And for the final off-topic video, awwwwww.  Baby goats.  Manic, remorseless baby goats.  Sadly adorable.

Thanks to mom for the link.

Dear Glen,

Since last Friday’s news that you’re leaving Disney, you’ve launched a new parlour game What Will Glen Keane Do? Everyone is wondering: Will he jump to another studio? Will he work on his personal artwork? Will he attempt to create a feature film independently as Richard Williams is currently doing? This letter humbly offers my suggestion for what you should consider doing.

If the outpouring of sentiment surrounding your departure is any indication, you’re one of the few verifiable superstars in animation. Over five thousand people reblogged the news of your resignation on Tumblr alone. You’re riding a wave of decades of built-up goodwill, and fans are invested in your career as they are in the work of few other animators.

Animation and Disney lovers are clamoring to see what you do next, and more than anything, it seems they want to see you make a personal animated film. It doesn’t seem to matter what that film is, or whether it’s a feature or short subject—just so long as you’re directing it. This is your moment to blow our minds. You can reset the animation world with the most stunning animated film we’ve ever seen, a no-holds-barred work of pure artistry without restrictions or interference.

The timing could not be more ripe since right now we are witnessing a paradigm shift in which artists increasingly receive their funding directly from fans and not business investors and corporations. Crowdfunding has taken off in the last year in all areas of creative culture. Video game designer Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango) recently concluded a Kickstarter campaign to fund a “point-and-click” graphic adventure game. He aimed to raise $400,000 and ended up raising $3.3 million. Comic artist Rich Burlew raised $1.25 million on Kickstarter to reprint his webcomic Order of the Stick. Comedian Louis CK self-produced and sold his last special on-line, and reaped over $1 million in just a couple weeks. He ended up donating more than a quarter-million dollars to charity.

No animator has yet to pull in the kind of crowd-funding numbers as the examples above, but then again, no animator with your name recognition has attempted the feat. By forming a direct relationship with your fans, it’s a virtual guarantee that you can do whatever you want. That includes raising the money you need to create a personal animated film, and more than enough to pay for a healthy group of assistants, clean-up artists, and everybody else on the crew. And, if like, Louis CK, you already have enough money to produce the work independently, just know that there are many fans waiting to see your work.

Few Disney animation superstars, past or present, have created personal animation projects. Among the Nine Old Men, only Ward Kimball ever created an animated short on his own time, and that film was only a few minutes long. You have the unique opportunity to change that history. In your resignation letter, you wrote that, “I am convinced that animation really is the ultimate art form of our time with endless new territories to explore. I can’t resist its siren call to step out and discover them.”

Everyone supports you in your desire to discover the art form’s new vistas. I sincerely feel that your best hope for exploring that creative vision is to do it independently—with the backing of your thousands of fans and admirers.

Best of luck,
Amid Amidi
CartoonBrew.com

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