This year, like every year, we wish one and all a wonderful day of Thanksgiving, no matter where you are.
And like every year, the best way I know to recapture that ultimate Thanksgiving feeling is via this perfect and lovely Charles Schulz cel illustration. Why? Because it’s the best there is. Enjoy the A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving in it’s glorious entirety below.
Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving in all of it’s meanings for you.
Hello 2012! We’re so glad to meet ya.
And to make you feel right at home, here’s a beloved classic that influenced us as kids, even to this day. Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, in it’s entirety. Baby New Year! Rudolph! Father Time!
We hope that your New Year 2012 is bright and the best yet.
Enjoy!
In 1953 UPA released a groundbreaking and incredibly executed short animated film version of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” with art by Paul Julian and a single voice actor, the incomparable James Mason.
This short is absolutely top-notch. I can’t believe that I hadn’t seen it before.
The claustrophobic spookiness is perfection, as is Mason’s voice over in translating Poe’s main character’s intense sense of rationalization of his crime. In short, it’s beautifully creepy and does full justice to Poe’s iconic short story.
One of the few not-for-children shorts produced in they heyday of Disney and Looney Tunes, this film also has the distinction of being the very first to have received an X-rating in the UK at the time of its release. Ahhh how the world has changed.
Hope that you dig this little gem too.
(click to watch the animation)
So, here is a really cool animation that I found through my friend Standard Design’s Twitter feed today (Tom Pappalardo) and I’m just unable to stop watching it.
It’s from an outfit called The New Zealand Book Council, a not-for-profit organization that serves to promote more reading, foster a love of books and promote New Zealand authors. I think it’s just completely riveting, beautiful, eerie, and downright superb.
(click to view the animation)
Paper cutting, stop-motion, and plain old lighting are 10,000x more mysterious and lovely looking than computer-generated work. As a fan of very old Disney (just about only the old stuff) and more so Warner Bros. classic Looney Tunes work, I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll probably be saying it in my grave.
(click to view the animation)
This piece, “Going West” is based on a novel by New Zealand author Maurice Gee. Produced for The New Zealand Book Council by the Andersen M Studio in London (a multi-talented brother & sister duo), the aim is clear as the NZBC’s motto at the end of the animation suggestion, to bring books to life. This piece is a stunner in that attempt.
(click to view the animation)
The NZBC’s mission statement reads: “Bringing books and people together. Like no other human activity reading opens up our imagination. It enables us to understand those around us. It allows us to project the future and reach back into the past. Reading can entertain, challenge and educate. We believe that reading can transform people’s lives.”
Having never heard of Maurice Gee, I can assure all that I will be seeking out his work based purely on the animation done here from his novel “Going West”, so it appears that their aims have worked a bit already. And, I’m now a HUGE fan of the Andersen M Studio, who’s range of work runs from animated pieces (as evidenced here) to commercial photography, music-making, and music packaging to book design. Perhaps I’ve found new heroes.
To learn more about the novel “Going West” click here.
To learn more about Maurice Gee, click here.
To learn more about Andersen M Studio, click here.
To learn more about The New Zealand Book Council & it’s projects, click here.
(click to view the animation)
