Animation Nation

Fans of Cartoon Planet are happy to see its return to television. Although Space Ghost won't be part of the line up, Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Flapjack and several other favorites will be.  Among the changes, there'll be a couple of new hosts and you can see who they'll be by watching the promotional video below. Thanks to ANer socklessM for bringing this to the Forums. The all new Cartoon Planet debuts this evening.

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Must be the season for trailers as we're suddenly seeing several of them come around for anticipated animated features. The most recent being "ParaNorman". Here's the official website for the movie. The production house is Laika in Portland, Oregon in the US. The release date for the film is August 17, 2012. Take a look at how it's shaping up. The Forum topic has been in development for some time and showcases several trailers for ParaNorman leading up to this one. 

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The latest from Ray William Johnson, who has the distinction of having the most subscribers to a YouTube channel. Production studio is Cosmic Toast of Burbank. Access his Facebook page here and here's the link to the Forum topic.

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Here's something that's fascinating to see. Renowned science fiction writer and futurist, the late Arthur C. Clarke, predicts and described personal computers and the Internet 38 years ago in 1974. There's additional video of him foreseeing our age and beyond 10 years before that in 1964 at this link.

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This is a heartwarming live action tale of an embittered painter who lost his eyesight due to a degenerative disease, and the relationship he develops with a little girl who assists him and helps to bring back his humanity. You can stream "Painting the Future"  for free for 24 hours today only, March 29, 2012, prior to the release of the DVD. Follow this link for more info. Meanwhile, take a look at the trailer and find out more of what this movie is about.

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The official trailer for the DreamWorks feature film "Rise of the Guardians" is available to view. Here's the movie's Facebook wall and also the official website. You can access the Forum topic here.

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If you're familiar with Steven Spielberg's Oscar nominated movie 'War Horse' released last year, I'm sure you'll appreciate the puppetering technology behind a stage play of the same name from the same book as the film. The most successful production the National Theatre of Great Britain has ever had. It's interesting to see animation at work in a very different way. Check out this video, it has behind the scenes footage of what's involved with the play, as well as historical info about just how bad World War I was for both man and beast. Forum topic is here.

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Here it is, the official trailer for Sony's "Hotel Transylvania" fresh on YouTube. I've been developing the topic on the AN Forums since last summer and it's great to finally get a glimpse at what we can expect of the film. Here's the link to the movie's Facebook wall.

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Here's something that we can all learn from and enjoy. The great James Baxter is one of the leading animators of our time with extraordinary creative accomplishments in feature animation. In this video, he draws the character of Po from the DreamWorks animated film 'King Fu Panda'. Although KFP was animated using computers, there are many instances where the character must be animated by hand drawn images as James explains in the video. There's also more James Baxter drawing footage to enjoy at this link as I'll be developing the topic further with footage of Mr. Baxter's work. The audio is a little faint but you can still make out what James is saying...

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KarmaloopTV is the online video channel of Karmaloop, an expanding media outlet that specializes in creating top-notch video content catering to Verge Culture -- a growing demographic of young people who are heavily involved in music, fashion, sports, and the arts.

In a partnered effort between Kylar Loya and William Cleveland, Karmaloop embarked upon creating create some original animation, and here's what's happening. It's from a series entitled 'Villians: Vlad the Impaler pt. 1' in which the history of the 15th century warlord who was the inspiration for the character of Dracula is explored in a gorily offbeat way. Remember, it's only a cartoon. You can access the Fourm topic here.

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