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An article from today’s Indecent Communicator says that Avatar producer Jon Physicist labeled the Oscars “a disappointment” after service of the film’s vital characters were nominated for an activity subsidization. He also said they pauperism to happening the statue “motion entrance photography” to “emotion capture” to sucker fill into thinking it’s something added. Meantime, Cameron stated fresh that, “Grouping confound what we screw through with vivification. It’s aught like animateness. The creator here is the playwright, not the unseen deal of an animator.” It’s always humorous how indignant mainstream Screenland becomes whenever they get a sensing of what it’s similar to be dressed as one of the industry’s second-class existence citizens.

Independent animator and producer Wendy Johnson Carmical has started a production blog dedicated to veteran animator Ken Mundie and his new traditionally animated film (still under production) called The Match.

Mundie, who is now in his eighties, directed the first Fat Albert special, created the titles for The Wild Wild West and produced a controversial Warner Bros. animated short, The Door (1967). Carmical says, “This endeavor to help Ken get his film made is inspired by a love of animation, respect for the pioneers, and regard for a really unique interesting artist.” The Match is “an animated film about an epic tennis match that represents the battle of brute force against the intellect. It will be animated entirely by Ken Mundie. We are hoping to find people interested in painting the finished animation and/or find funding.”

Below is a work-in-progress reel of the first act.

Walt Kelly, a former Disney animator and one of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th Century, is not one usually associated with the likes of Paramount’s Famous Studios. But did you know Kelly illustrated two comic book stories starring Paramount’s animated characters of the 1940s?

Long before Harvey Comics, or St. John for that matter, had the rights to Paramount’s cartoon menagerie, Western Publishing (Dell Comics) acquired those rights in the mid 40s — and produced comic stories featuring such animated “stars” as Hector the Henpecked Rooster, Herman the Mouse, Blackie Sheep and Cilly Goose. Kelly illustrated two 8-page stories – the first of which I’ve post below (click thumbnails to enlarge each page).

These were done for Animal Comics, the book in which Kelly developed Pogo Possum and are thus worth hundreds of dollars each. My thanks to Mark Kausler for loaning me his copies to scan. Cilly Goose is based on a one-shot Noveltoon cartoon of the same name from 1944. The Famous Studios comics ran from issue #7 through #17 as far as I can tell. This Cilly Goose story, from Animal Comics #15 (June-July 1945), has no relation to the animated film, and I have no idea who might have written it.

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This is the trailer for Tussilago, the latest short by Swedish director Jonas Odell. Story doesn’t sound like typical fare: “In 1977 West German terrorist Norbert Kröcher was arrested for having planned to kidnap the Swedish politician Anna-Great Leijon. Among the people arrested during the following raids was Kröcher’s former girlfriend ‘A.’ This is her story.”

Stylistically, it builds on Odell’s prior two shorts—Lies and Never Like the First Time!—which were biographical narratives combining an artistic use of rotoscope and live-actors with motion graphic embellishments. Tussilago debuts the end of this month at the Göteborg International Film Festival and will screen at the Berlin International Film Festival next month. Other festivals will undoubtedly follow. On a related note, Revolver, a beloved early short that Odell co-directed, can be seen in its entirety on the Filmtecknarna website.

“It’s not even a contest,” was the response an unnamed Disney exec gave the NY Times when asked to comment on Fantastic Mr. Fox’s Oscar chances against Up. Despite the swagger that some Disney folks apparently have, the Times warns that Disney and Pixar shouldn’t break out the bubbly just yet:

In a mid-December surprise, both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named “Fantastic Mr. Fox” the best animated movie of 2009. Similar awards from five other critics’ groups followed.

Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up are both nominated for this weekend’s Golden Globe Award, along with Coraline, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Princess and the Frog. Since initiating a Best Animated Feature Film category in 2007, the Golden Globes have given the award to Pixar every year (Cars, Ratatouille, WALL•E). We’ll find out in a few days whether Pixar can make it four-in-a-row at the Globes.