Some Visual Goodness

Just taking a breather from worky-work to clue you all in on some great stuff happening around the web:

My Flickr group, The Retro Kid has reached some milestones recently, most notably the 1000 image mark. We now are about to reach 300 members, too, which is simply amazing to me. Big thanks to all those responsible for scanning and preserving such wonderful artwork for kids from the 40's into the 60's.

Speaking of which, my co-hort in crime over at the Kid and the one with the most Kid submissions (currently at 244!), Eric Sturdevant has now started up his own blog, Fun All Around. Along with some of his own work, Eric will focus on a some illustration greats from that mid-century era. Be sure to check out his post on Leonard Weisgard. Excellent work, Eric.



More illustration news, previously blogged Leif Peng and his fantastic Today's Inspiration has now a blog home! With each TI post you now get more insight into the life and times of each featured illustration great -- many of which were stars in their own right back then but have been largely overlooked nowadays. It's a shame because it's so important to know your history and to give respect to your art/illustration/animation elders. Please check out Leif's Flickr, too, as he's been putting together wonderful photosets of some of these illo giants.

My good pal Amid Amidi has started up Cartoon Modern, in what has to be a first: a blog for a book. Actually, it's more like an addendum to his upcoming book on design in cartoons from the 50's. I'm such a geek for the book already, and it won't even be available until Spring of '06. It'll be worth the wait, I'm sure.



Just as it is important to know your history in illustration, so it goes with animation. And that's why Stephen Worth has started up the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog. He just recently posted some more of Ray Patin Studios' work, thanks to Dan Goodsell of The Imaginary World. And speaking of Dan...

Dan has started up his own blog, too! Check out a sampler of things, featuring more of Dan's incredible collection of kid's food packaging as well as his own work. He's a big Retro Kid contributor, too. Check out more stuff on his Flickr.

More:

Nick Sung did a great review of TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM on his blog, The Firehouse Stomp -- using images of the film that I grabbed and displayed for you all back in May. This is exactly why I posted those images: for discussion and analysis, to better articulate and observe great animation design, color and composition. I highly recommend others to do the same. The more discussion, the more awareness, and the more awareness, the better we all get as artists and animators. Thanks for the post, Nick!

Joel Trussell's scribbledumpster: excellent and fun characters and color from Joel, he of Cartoon Cockfight. He directed the wonderfully amazing War Photographer. Brilliant.

Okay, so this post when for FAR too long than I had hoped. But there's so much great stuff out there, I couldn't stop. Enjoy these great sites and blogs, and keep it up!

Some cool news coming soon. Stay tuned....