DOCTOR WHO Series Six HD Trailer

Here's the brand new 60 second HD trailer for DOCTOR WHO series six, premiering in the UK and the US on April 23, 2011



A bit hat tip to Life, Doctor Who and Combom blog -- which, by the way, has a link to 300 hi res frame grabs from the trailer for your parsing pleasure.

Video: Chris Browne HAGAR THE HORRIBLE Interview

Mr. Media interviews Chris Browne, who draws King Features' HAGAR THE HORRIBLE (hence Chris wearing the Viking hat). HAGAR appears in over 1900 newspapers in 58 countries and is translated into 13 languages.

Here's the interview, in 4 parts.









Related: the HAGAR THE HORRIBLE hardcover book, collecting 428 dailies from the genesis of the strip 1974 to 1975.

Video: Jim Henson's WIZARD OF ID Pilot

Here's 4 minutes of a 1969 color TV test pilot of Johnny Hart and Brant Parker's WIZARD OF ID, as produced by Jim Henson.



More background on the project at Jim's Red Book.

Hat tip to Charles Burbaker via Alan Gardner.

That New PEANUTS Special

Have they gone TOO FAR with this new PEANUTS special?!?!

No, just kidding.

The above image is a 1963 parody of Mr. Schulz's runaway best seller by the great Hank Ketcham, from the 17th Annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards newsletter.

Seriously ... there is a new PEANUTS special. But it won't be on TV. Not yet.

From what I have heard, this special is reverently done in the Lee-Melendez style and it's good. I haven't seen it. It comes out, direct to DVD, on March 29, 2011.

Titled HAPPINESS IS A WARM BLANKET, CHARLIE BROWN here is director Andy Beall talking about it and showing some pencils tests via Animation Brew:



The special is longer than the classic ones, 46 minutes, and the DVD has many special features:

• Deconstructing Schulz: From Comic Strips to Screenplay - How the Peanuts comic strip was made into a special
  
  
• Happiness is...Finding the Right Voice - Meet the stellar new voice cast (Peanuts Specials, for those who may not know, have always employed children actors for the voices)
  
  
• 24 Frames Per Second - Drawing and Animating a Peanuts Special
  
  
• Deleted Scene with an Introduction by Director Andy Beall

Related: the new PEANUTS graphic novel HAPPINESS IS A WARM PUPPY, CHARLIE BROWN from Boom! Studios ships in April. The book is written by original creator Charles M. Schulz, adapted by Craig Schulz & Stephan Pastis, with art credited to Bob Scott, Vicki Scott and Ron Zorman.

Pop Culture Zoo has a preview.

Jerry Robinson: Life After Batman

Did you know there's a documentary about Jerry Robinson in the works? I didn't! Here's a great peek at Jerry, The Joker, Jet Scott and more:



This is from the Profession Cartoonist series -- the same team that gave us Will Eisner Profession Cartoonist documentary.

Related: Jerry's Lambiek page

Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner

He's 80 and he's all over the place. Here are but 2 clips to celebrate the Captain whose heart will last forever --

On International Talk Like William Shatner Day (that's ... TODAY!), even celebrities mimic Shatner. To see what Jason Alexander is talking about, see the second video. That's "risk is our business" speech from the TOS episode "Return to Tomorrow:"







And don't forget, this Saturday is Leonard Nimoy's birthday.

Hat tip to TrekCore for the photos.

Video: "Disposable" Customer Service by Ted Rall

Here's the 4th episode of Ted Rall's "Disposable" series, which is animated by David Essman. In this episode, Dan & Sarah deal with their mortgage lenders -- and there's a special guest star -- uh, well, if I say any more I'll just ruin it for everyone, like back in 1980 when that blabby little kid in line for THE EMPIRE STRIKE BACK talked loudly in line about Vader slicing off Luke's hand. Ooh. I still hate that darned kid.

Video: DANDY Cartoonist Andy Fanton

Dandy cartoonist Andy Fanton shows you how to draw everyone's favourite comic, George vs Dragon! Check out their epic adventures every Wednesday in The Dandy comic.



I didn't grow up with The Dandy, but I liked seeing Andy draw. Due to the lighting, the pencils are hard to see, but at about 3 minutes in, Andy begins inking. See how he turns the paper when inking?

Video: Ken Alvine

Cartoonist Ken Alvine draws. He starts with the eyes.



And then he shows us his studio walls, which have a bunch of framed cartoons by other cartoonists.

Thank you, ArgusLeaderMedia, for posting this.

Video: What's in Spock's Scanner?

Via BlackMoonCGI:



Hat tip to Tony Murphy!

Thomas Hart Benton: From the Ozarks and Beyond

Above: Thomas Hart Benton self-portrait, nicked from the Portraits of Painters blog.

Here's a video from Ozarks Public Television: Thomas Hart Benton From the Ozarks and Beyond, a 2003 profile of the artist who started out by being a cartoonist, and who went on to become a great American painter.

Video: Tom Gammill "Learn to Draw" #26

Famous Cartoonist Tom Gammill visits the Center for Cartoon Studies to see if these kids have the talent to make it as newspaper and magazine cartoonists. Hilarity ensues.



Warning: bodily fluid humor.

Video: 1973 STAR TREK Conventon

Thanks to beyondspock over at YouTube, here is a 6:40 film of the International STAR TREK Convention from February 16-19 1973, which was held at the Commodore Hotel, New York City. Attendees included in the film: Isaac Asimov, Oscar Katz, D.C. Fontana (on a TOS bridge mock up set) and Leonard Nimoy.



I don't know what the context is here. This was shot on film, edited together in a professional way, and is generally respectful to this odd little show that would not die. It's funny to recall this time, when if you said you liked STAR TREK it meant that NBC show from the 1960s. It was not this multi-limbed media machine, spewing out copies and reimaginations.

Perhaps this was a testament to early ongoing interest in the show - and the potential to make money from the franchise.

1973 would see David Gerrold's great books about STAR TREK, THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES (all about writing that episode) and THE WORLD OF STAR TREK. James Blish continued with STAR TREK 9, another book in the series of STAR TREK episode serializations.

The first of the new permutations TOS (The Old Show) would appear that fall, with the all new STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES. Within 5 years, the new STAR TREK 2 TV series was announced -- with all of the cast returning except Leonard Nimoy -- and then suddenly transformed into a theatrical movie (with Nimoy, natch!) a year later.

The girl at the end of the clip, who moves herself to tears, reminded me that the whole STAR TREK mythology came from people like her: sincere, true believers. A little crazy, maybe. But a good kinda crazy.

1967 Video: The Muppets

I saw this on Mark Evanier's excellent blog: a clip from an Ed Sullivan show (despite the "IBM Training Video" label the YouTube poster placed on it) featuring a proto-pre-Sesame-Street cookie monster, complete with teeth (!). Sometimes I forget just how funny the Muppets were.

Video: DOCTOR WHO/MUPPETS "Movin' Right Along"

A sweeping collection of DOCTOR WHO clips to the tune of "Movin' Right Along" from THE MUPPET MOVIE. A big hat tip to Andrew Farago for this!

"1979 - Hell of a year! China invades Vietnam. "The Muppet Movie" - love that film. Skylab falls to Earth, with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb."

Tour George Herriman's New Orleans

Big hat tip to Potrzebie!

Video: STAR TREK Anger Management

Via Laughing Squid with a Vulcan salute to Mark Anderson for the heads up!



One of the best mash ups I've seen.

Floppy Drive Organ

FunToTheHead shows off his "(d)iskette (O)rgan" playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue.



Here's FunToTheHead's description:

Test run of my (d)iskette (O)rgan doing Toccata & Fugue.

People have made floppy drives sing before, but this is my personal take on it.

Features two 3 1/2" drives and two 5 1/4" drives connected to a PIC18f14k50 microcontroller. It interfaces to any MIDI source via MIDI over USB. Straight MIDI would also be possible with an additional small circuit and some minor firmware changes. This initial version can respond to all 128 MIDI notes, and pitch bends +/- 2 semitones.

As it can produce only four simultaneous notes, and each drive has a different range and tonal characteristics, best results are obtained by arranging compositions by hand. However, it features two modes of operation: in one mode, MIDI channels 1 through 4 are played directly on floppy drives 1 through 4. In the other mode, all 16 MIDI channels are read, and notes are "intelligently" divvied out on a first-come, first-serve basis. "Note stealing" ensures that melody lines sound, but chords are often cut short. One or the other produces acceptable results for many unmodified MIDI files straight out of your favorite media player.

I apologize for the poor video quality. :)

Hat tip to Bob Flynn.

Video: Lynn Johnston Interview

An interview with the creator of FOR BETTER OR WORSE, Lynn Johnston. The interview is sponsored by Schoolism. For more interviews, please visit Sketchoholic.

Video: Comic Book Artist Peter Gross and MIX

For a short video (about 3 minutes, plus a damn 30 second advertisement in the beginning), this Star Tribune profile of Peter Gross (LUCIFER, CHOSEN, BOOKS OF MAGIC) packs a lot of information about who he is, what he does, and how he draws.



The article then focuses on the cartoonists in the Twin Cities area, with the prediction that most will be female in the coming years. Well worth a read, and it makes me consider dropping in for the next Minneapolis Indie Xpo.

Below: a fun & informative short video from the gang behind MIX about the 2011 Xpo, to be held November 5-6, 2011 at The Soap Factory in Minneapolis, MN: