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Here is the Picture Prompt for April. It is by illustrator Joanne Friar: http://www.joannefriar.blogspot.com/  I think her illustration gives you lots of room to let your imagination soar.

WRITERS: Deadline to submit is April 22nd. I will announce who our guest critiquer will be next Friday. Please attach your double spaced, 12 point font, 23 line first page to an e-mail and send it to kathy(dot)temean(at)gmail(dot)com. Also cut and paste it into the body of the e-mail. Put “March 22nd First Page Prompt” in the subject line.

ILLUSTRATORS: Here is your chance to show off a little. I am looking for illustrations that celebrtes the month of April. This gives you a lot of leeway. I may post some as they come in during the, but I will definitely post all on April 30th, so I need to receive your illustrations no later than April 24th. Please make sure the illustration is at least 500 pixels wide and includes a blurb about you and a link to see more of your work. Please send it to kathy(dot)temean(at)gmail(dot)com and put “April Illustration” in the subject box.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Got an email today from this fun company (Snupped) and saw my owls dancing in the woods -
Cool!

Untitled from Ruby Geentjens on Vimeo.

I watched all the UPA theatrical shorts back when I was writing Cartoon Modern, but seeing them restored on TCM’s new 3-DVD “Jolly Frolics” set has been an eye-opening experience. If there was ever any doubt about how progressive the studio was graphically, this set will dispel such notions. Immediately after UPA, the floodgates of animation design opened—by the mid-1950s, all varieties of graphic styles were being explored in TV advertising and industrial films, and soon after, European animation studios like Zagreb Film were out-UPAing UPA. The studio’s dominance lasted but only a short period, but UPA’s influence was lasting. It played a key role in pushing animation out of its cocoon, thus allowing it to evolve into the rich and diverse art form that it is today.

The director whose reputation will benefit most from this collection is Robert ‘Bobe’ Cannon. While his stories tend to be formulaic and thematically repetitive, often times it seemed like he was the only director at UPA who knew how to put together a coherent film. (A good deal of that credit also belongs to his close collaborator T. Hee, who wrote most of Cannon’s films.)

More than the stories though, it’s the way that Cannon animated characters, which looks even more refreshing today in light of all the generic Flash and After Effects animation. In Cannon’s work, the way a character moves is never separate from its design. Discovering a visually inventive way to animate a character from point A to point B is Cannon’s greatest strength. The two most famous films in the Cannon canon are Gerald McBoing Boing and Madeline, but his later efforts, especially Fudget’s Budget, Christopher Crumpet’s Playmate and The Jaywalker—all looking better than ever on this set—display remarkable confidence as a director.

Below is some random visual eye candy from the “Jolly Frolics” shorts. We’ll be giving away a couple copies of the set this weekend so check back.

The World is Round  (illustrated by Clement Hurd, North Point Press, 1988) is technically not a poetry book, per se, although its author, Gertrude Stein, might argue otherwise.  I discovered it through a post a friend linked me to on the most excellent blog, Brain Pickings.  Now some of you might wonder how Gertrude Stein came to write a children’s book in the first place, and the story has much to do with the early development of children’s book publishing in the U.S. in the 1930′s.  Stein was asked by the youthful start-up publishing company of Young Scott Books (founded in 1938) whose mandate was to publish illustrated childrens’ books to submit a manuscript for their consideration.  Stein submitted The World is Round, a story of a girl named Rose (of course!) and her cousin Willie.  Rose was based on a child who was the daughter of Gertrude Stein’s neighbor in Bilignin, a small farming community located in the French alps.

The World is Round contains the story of Rose and Willie in 32 micro-chapters of the kind of lilting and somewhat nonsensical poetic like prose that is distinctively Stein.   Who cannot help but recognize Stein’s playful existentialism in such lines as “I am a little girl and my name is Rose, Rose is my name./  Why am I a little girl/And why is my name Rose/And when am I a little girl/And when is my name Rose/And where am I little girl/And where is my name Rose … “  Granted, this may not be your child’s cup of tea when it comes to bedtime reading, but sometimes I like to throw in a little twist of lemon to give a bit of complexity to the flavors of narrative one gives to one’s child.  My daughter liked the early chapters of this book, probably because they had to do with dogs, but has not warmed to it much since.  But she doesn’t mind my continuing with this book so I shall go on with it til the end.   As one reviewer said, “It is meant to be read aloud, a little at a time, and the adult who does so will find himself saying, ‘I remember thinking like this,’ and succumbing to the seductive quality of phrases, which will make it probably the most quotable book of the season.’  My edition has a lengthy but informative afterword that also contains information about the illustrator Clement Hurd and the artwork he did for the book.

Poetry Friday this Good Friday is hosted by Robyn at Read Write Howl.

Shhh. The Easter Bunny will be putting this book in my son's basket this weekend. I love how the simple narrative is elevated by the dramatic environment and sense of big adventure for a small boy.
And my little girl will hopefully enjoy this little Llama board book. We've read a few of these picture books, but board books are just her size for now. She's become excellent at flipping those chunky pages. The rhyming text is so much fun in all of the Llama Llama books.

Happy Easter to all!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Eric M. Esquivel
Phone: 520-321-4376
Email: EricEsqu.comics@gmail.com