How to use this Page

The three founders of Mukpuddy started their studio in a New Zealand basement in 2002. Now they've got a tv series.

The post Mukpuddy’s Rare Feat: An Original Animated Series From New Zealand appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

  Before you all rush to say Arrow, here’s the whole line-up of keycards from WBTV this year for SDCC.  It’s the eighth year in a row they’ve sponsored these valued mementos of time spent standing in line then collapsing in exhaustion on your hotel bed.   Arrow (premieres Wednesday, October 5, at 8/7c on The CW): […]

The prodigal sons and daughters return to "defy" your expectations once more.

Another week, another roundup! Kyle Pinion and Alex Lu give their final thoughts on BATMAN #1, GREEN ARROW #1, GREEN LANTERNS #1, SUPERMAN #1, and TITANS: REBIRTH #1. Links to all the day's reviews inside!

Alex Lu and Kyle Pinion dive into this strange and continuity heavy book with surprising results!

The world has been reborn. Last week’s release of DC Universe: Rebirth #1 kicked off a new era of storytelling for the publisher.  The house that gave us Batman and Superman is looking to make up for the mistakes of the New 52 canonical reboot, reinstating old plot points that were erased from their timeline and even bringing back […]

He's documenting the animation process of his new film through a weekly video series.

The post Watch ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ Creator John Dilworth Animate His New Film appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

A Valentine's Day treat.

The post ‘Cthupid’ by Giovanni Braggio appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

We're going to get hurt really, really badly on January 19th.

Adobe's new Animate CC is making strides to be more animator-friendly, but is it too little, too late?

The post Adobe Kills Flash Name, Rebrands It As Animator-Friendly Animate CC appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Tensions build to an explosive breaking point for a group of automobile drivers in Nate Theis' satirical new short "Driving."

One of Iran's leading animation studios, Hoorakhsh has created a new music video for King Raam.

Oslo's trailer park home falls into a sinkhole, and he must choose between a life of warm simplicity and rigid luxury.

How a two-hundred-year-old opera made the transition to an online motion comic for contemporary audiences.

Smith singlehandedly transforms interviews of well-known figures into thought-provoking animation in 'Blank on Blank.'

By: Nick Eskey

Hello again nerds and nerdettes, and welcome to another installment of San Diego Comic-Con Funko releases! You know Funko, the purveyors of the highly popular POP! series of collectible figurines, who also vow to “cover as many beloved licenses and characters as possible to remind every Comic-Con attendee why they fell in love with these stories in the first place. “

We have some exciting announcements this time, including an extremely limited edition POP! figurine. Reminder, this year Funko will not be doing any sort of pre-buying. The only way you can get this beauties is on site, so be sure to visit the booth. If you don’t have tickets to Comic-Con… well there’s always black magic?

Without any further distractions, let’s bring on the toys:

Pop! TV: Doctor Who – Eleventh Doctor holding Cyberman Head

Does the sight of a British police booth cause you to hyperventilate? This eleventh incarnation of Doctor Who holding a Cyberman head then is the right toy for you. Check him out with his chic purple jacket and debonair hair. *Swoon.*

Pop! Disney: Frozen – Barbershop Quartet Olaf

From Pixar’s “Frozen,” perpetuator of a few sickly cute and catchy songs, comes everyone’s favorite silly snowman Olaf. This Barbershop Quartet Olaf comes complete with a hat, cane, and similarly dressed seagull sidekick.

Pop! TV: The Flash – The Flash Unmasked

Fan’s of the series “Flash” should keep their eyes peeled for this POP! The Flash Unmasked. Be careful not to let this one slip by you.

Hikari: Star Wars – Darth Vader Matte Black

Another Star Wars collectible? No, never. Who could have predicted? Despite there already being a thousand other pieces of Star Wars merchandise however, this Darth Vader Matte Black figure by Hikari looks beautiful. It almost looks like if this famous Sith was made of copper. Better find some room on those already crowded shelves for this toy, which is limited to only 1200.

Hikari: Marvel – Frosted Groot

In this batch of announcements, Hikari will be also coming out with this Frosted Groot. Limited to 1000, it looks like this humanoid plant made out with Olaf. Oh the magic of warm hugs.

Dorbz: Batman – Thrillkill Batman

Nothing better strikes fear into the hearts of men more than a caped crusader in a mask. Well, maybe a caped crusader in full grin and an alternate costume. Dorbz’s Thrillkill Batman sports a red and black costume and a smiling face. A cute, yet disturbing addition to any collection.

Pop TV: Hannibal – Bryan Fulle

And rounding off our releases is this highly limited edition POP! It’s unfortunate that the show Hannibal was cancelled, but you can share the hurt with this Brian Fuller figure. Dressed to kill in his Hannibal like attire, the show’s creator also sports a pair of spectacles and a large kitchen knife. This bad boy comes in only 144 units and will be available during his signing at the Funko booth on Friday, July 10th at 2 p.m. The line for the signing won’t begin until 1p.m., so no early campers please. No other Funko items will be sold during this time.

We’re getting closer to Comic-Con, so stay tuned for more Funko exclusives!

In their new reel, Japanese studio Science Saru offers a peek into how they produce animated projects in Flash, including the episode of "Adventure Time" that was directed by Masaaki Yuasa.

"Pim and Pom: The Big Adventure" was not only made on a tiny budget, but had the added challenge of translating the visual style of one of the most beloved Dutch children's book illustrators.

Welcome to TGI-FOC, a weekly feature at The Beat about comics on Final Order Cut-Off (FOC) and bits of the retail process that don’t merit a full column. I changed the name, for reasons. It’s a thing now.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It’s come up recently, so here’s the quick rundown of how I sell and recommend comics. First rule? Every comic is someone’s favourite. From AXIS to Tarot to Lumberjanes and beyond, there’s someone out there who is going to be blown away by the contents of a random comic. The goal, as always, is to match the comic to the audience, and to offer as little commentary as possible – unless asked point blank for an opinion. There’s a huge difference between “what’s this book about” and “what do you think of this book” – though in my experience, very few retailers and readers realize this. The amount of times I’ve heard people answer “what’s this book about” with “it sucks” is staggering, and it makes me sad. What if the person is the type who’d enjoy something you wouldn’t? When giving a recommendation or warning a potential reader of the dangers of reading, context is always key – which brings me to the second rule: always, always, always find out what a person likes before handing out recommendations. Do this by asking about their likes outside of the medium. It’s the best way to get the full range of a person’s likes, and it does a hell of a lot more for you than “I like Batman” or “I guess Saga is pretty good”.

Something to avoid? Recommending comics because you over ordered, or ordered lots. When you’re asked for a recommendation, someone is trusting you to help them out, not yourself. And sure, you might move a few copies of the book you over ordered, but at what price? If the customer doesn’t like the book, you’re going to have a harder time trying to sell them books in the future. Forget about the short term gain, and build a relationship that will help sustain your business. This is the reason why I never recommend books like AXIS to new readers – even if they’re looking for a book that has “a little bit of everyone in it”. A book like AXIS, you recommend to the folks who live and breathe Marvel, and the smattering of others who would be interested in the kind of bombastic story presented within. By and large, this kind of customer has a working knowledge of comics and a bit of the history – or at least enough to get them through the story with little incident. You would never, ever toss a new reader straight into the deep end, unless you knew they liked a bit of a challenge and like to troll Wikipedia (I have a few customers like that).

Anyway, there’s something out there for everyone, and little is accomplished by tearing down without context, at least as a retailer.

MARKETING

I’m not sure what the deal with October is, but I’m pretty sure the comic companies are trying to drown me in product. The first two weeks of the month have been weighed down with a lot of product, and after going through the FOCs for the last few weeks, I’m pretty sure we’re not going to see lighter weeks any time soon. The one good thing? The torrent of product gives me a lot of material to work with when it comes to talking about comics and marketing.

First, a big thumbs up for IDW’s push of V-Wars.

What you have there is a picture of the first trade (just $9.99), a value priced rerelease of the first issue ($1), and the clearly marked start of the second story arc. That’s a pretty good way of making sure anyone can try and continue to buy the series with relative ease.

Elsewhere, DC’s digital division hit the nail on the head by having the print editions of Flash: Season Zero #1 and Arrow: Season 2.5 #1 hit the stands just before and on their premieres respectively. People who were already excited about both shows found additional product, and others who didn’t know the shows were on or coming back were made aware. DC went the extra mile with Arrow by offering the first issue of Year One for a dollar, and having a great jumping on point in the character’s regular DCU ongoing (with one of the show runners acting as co-writer). As for The Flash, a solid effort was put in, but man, having a “Year One” story available for Barry Allen in the DCU would have been a great move, even if it was just the start of a mini set in current continuity.

As it stands, DC has been having a digital sale on a bunch of great <em>Flash</em> reads over at ComiXology, and has been doing so since the show premiered, so that’s pretty cool.

On the other hand, I’m not exactly sure what DC’s plans are for Constantine. I know they’re going to have a dollar book available when the show hits the airwaves, but where’s a good place for new fans to drop in on an ongoing? As it stands, my go-to is going to be recommending the newly minted Hellblazer trades and move things from there, but it hurts that I can’t point new readers in the direction of something currently in motion. The most recent issue of Constantine was an Earth Two tie in, which would only beget more questions than answers, and the collections of his current series throw him headlong into a big, messy crossover in the second trade. That’s not really an ideal situation, but it’s what’s there.

Though hey, points for the digital team for once again noticing a good marketing opportunity and plugging Constantine into the first issue of Injustice: Year Three. Again, the more ideal thing would be to have something with less baggage, but adding the character to one of their biggest digital successes certainly can’t harm things.

INCOMING

A couple of things to look out for on this week’s FOC for both retailers and readers alike:

Matt Fraction and Christian Ward’s ODY-C is on the list this week for shipping in late November. The reason for the big gap? Fraction and Ward are opening the thing with an eight page fold out. They wanted it to be larger, but apparently they’re jutting up against the edge of what can be done. Anyway, if you’re interested in a psychedelic gender-swapped version of Homer’s Odyssey – or know of anyone who might be – make sure your orders are placed sooner rather than later. (Spoiler alert: this is going to be crazy and wonderful and why wouldn’t you want such a thing?)

Also: Kurt Busiek and Ben Dewey’s Tooth and Claw #1 is on the list. 44 pages of stunning artwork, digging deep into an anthropomorphic fantasy world filled with magic and gods and all sorts of wonderful things. People who have read Astro City and things like Arrowsmith know that Busiek puts his all into his creator owned book, and the man’s imagination left unbridled is a sight to see. Ben Dewey’s art is some pretty next level stuff, and they’ve got the Eisner award winning Jordie Bellaire handling the colours – which means it will also be one of the best looking books on the stands at the beginning of November. Oh, and it’s just $2.99. A bargain!

***

TO BE CONTINUED…

And that will have to do it for this week. Real Thanksgiving is happening this weekend in Canada, wherein we celebrate the fact that an explorer didn’t freeze to death. Seriously, that’s why we celebrate it. And what’s more Canadian than celebrating the fact that you haven’t already frozen to death?

Anyway, prep for the holiday and the various festivities means this is short and late. Such is life. Until next time.

Science Saru, the new studio started by Japanese directors Masaaki Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi, has shared a behind-the-scenes look at how they used Flash in the recent TV series "Ping Pong."

Showbiz reporter and scooper Nikki Finke has been languishing under a no compete since she left Penske Media’s Deadline.com, which so founded. But she’s back, and the very first scoop on her site is a purported line-up of superhero films that WB is planning for the next four years. According to Finke, this is to be announced at Comic-Con.

May 2016 – Batman v Superman

July 2016 – Shazam

Xmas 2016 – Sandman

May 2017 – Justice League

July 2017 – Wonder Woman

Xmas 2017 – Flash and Green Lantern team-up

May 2018 – Man Of Steel 2

Finke adds that Suicide Squad and Metal Men were also considered but now on the back burner. And as Batman v Superman will be a “Dawn of the Justice League” film, cameos for the actors playing the rest of the universe are being signed up, including Aquaman and Green Lantern.

Ambitious plans, and as DC has been searching for its very own Kevin Feige—Zack Snyder can’t direct everything—they had better continue to search. Without a cohesive hand to helm this, this is a LOT of movies to come out in a four year period.

BTW, for year Nikki has professed that she “doesn’t do geek.” That this is her first scoop tells you all you need to know about the power of the comic book movie in Burbank.

By Jose M. Madiedo

On 11 September 2013, an unusually long and bright impact flash was observed on the Moon. Its peak luminosity was equivalent to a stellar magnitude of around 2.9.

What happened? A meteorite with a mass of around 400 kg hit the lunar surface at a speed of over 61,000 kilometres per hour.

Rocks often collide with the lunar surface at high speed (tens of thousands of kilometres per hour) and are instantaneously vaporised at the impact site. This gives rise to a thermal glow that can be detected by telescopes from Earth as short duration flashes. These flashes, in general, last just a fraction of a second.

The extraordinary flash in September was recorded from Spain by two telescopes operating in the framework of the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System (MIDAS). These devices were aimed to the same area in the night side of the Moon. With a duration of over eight seconds, this is the brightest and longest confirmed impact flash ever recorded on the Moon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our calculations show that the impact, which took place at 20:07 GMT, created a new crater with a diameter of around 40 meters in Mare Nubium. This rock had a size raging between 0.6 and 1.4 metres. The impact energy was equivalent to over 15 tons of TNT under the assumption of a luminous efficiency of 0.002 (the fraction of kinetic energy converted into visible radiation as a consequence of the hypervelocity impact).

The detection of impact flashes is one of the techniques suitable to analyze the flux of incoming bodies to the Earth. One of the characteristics of the lunar impacts monitoring technique is that it is not possible to unambiguously associate an impact flash with a given meteoroid stream. Nevertheless, our analysis shows that the most likely scenario is that the impactor had a sporadic origin (i.e., was not associated to any known meteoroid stream). From the analysis of this event we have learnt that that one metre-sized objects may strike our planet about ten times as often as previously thought.

Dr. Jose Maria Madiedo is a professor at Universidad de Huelva. He is the author of “A large lunar impact blast on 2013 September 11” in the most recent issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society is one of the world’s leading primary research journals in astronomy and astrophysics, as well as one of the longest established. It publishes the results of original research in astronomy and astrophysics, both observational and theoretical.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only physics and chemistry articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post A record-breaking lunar impact appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• Fluoridation of drinking water supplies: tapping into the debate
• Neanderthals may have helped East Asians adapting to sunlight
• Conservation physiology of plants

 

The Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival is made possible by sponsor JibJab and their strong support for emerging filmmakers.

Alex Horan’s Wolf Within grabs the viewer with its opening line: “As a boy in Kansas I was afraid of three things: rattlesnakes, tornados, and my father.” The short doesn’t let up, hitting all the right emotional beats throughout its nine-and-a-half minute length and exhibiting maturity and ambition that are rare for a student filmmaker.

Horan’s film, the seventh film to debut in this year’s Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival, was produced at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Th film is a period piece and family history, based on the relationship between Horan’s father and grandfather, the latter whom Horan never met. Without giving away the story, Horan’s literary allusions to the Jack London novel The Call of the Wild give the viewer an entry point into the world of the film, while providing an engaging narrative framework.

Horan’s delivers the complete package: carefully considered cinematic compositions and camera movement, one the more lush monochromatic palettes you’ll see, evocative sound design, and understated but highly proficient animation that matches the tone of the story. It’s this attention to detai that gives resonance to the father-son relationship depicted in Wolf Within.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmaker Alex Horan—

THE IDEA

I tend to lean towards humor in most of my work because it lends itself so well to the medium and it’s something I feel I have a natural ability to produce. I was afraid of using comedy as a crutch, and thereby challenging myself as both storyteller and an animator. For my degree project I wanted to push myself to create a film that made the audience feel something deeper than laughter; a film where you could connect and empathize with the characters. I felt that in order to create a film that meant something to the audience I first had to make one that meant something to me. I looked at what was closest in my life and found my father standing at the forefront. When I was growing up, he recited parables of his youth that shaped his character which, in turn, shaped mine. By deciding to explore the relationship between my father and grandfather I provided myself with the source material necessary to create a compelling narrative. More importantly, I also ended up learning a lot more about myself and my own relationship with my father and a man I never knew.

TOOLBOX

Nothing fancy here: backgrounds in Photoshop, frame-by-frame animation in Flash, compositing in After Effects and edited using Premiere. I love Foley so I tried to do as much as possible, only downloading sound when completely necessary. My favorite was using a pad of Post-its for the moth’s wings, utterly satisfying. I had initially hoped to use my father for the narration but quickly learned he’s a doctor, not a voice actor. I lucked out with a really talented guy from California using a casting website, which was a great learning experience coaching somebody via telephone.

CHALLENGES

Over the course of the year I really struggled with the narrative structure of this film. Initially I had a rough animatic with a general outline, but nothing concrete. I wanted my father’s story to carry the same weight for the audience as it did for him, but finding a way to do this narratively proved to be difficult. How much narration was too much? When was there not enough? Should there be any at all? I felt there was a fine line between spoon-feeding the audience and leaving them totally clueless. Unfortunately, due to deadlines, I had to start animating immediately and hopefully iron out the kinks along the way. I met with my god sent teacher, Tammy Dudman, a couple times a week where we’d just workshop my story. During these meetings we explored the relationship between my father and grandfather which, in a way, became an inquisition of myself. Here, I finally realized I had to worry less about my audience and more about myself and the film I wanted to create. Regardless of how tight or loose a narrative structure is, ultimately it is the viewer who decides how to interpret the film.

INSPIRATIONS

Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike was a huge inspiration to me as well as The Road by Cormac McCarthy, both works obviously dealing with similar themes as my film. Also, The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi naturally played a huge role throughout the filmmaking process. Daniel Sousa’s film, Mikkel Sommer, whose loose style really influenced a lot of my process work leading up to my film. Additionally, “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash actually influenced me quite a bit because of its Americana feel and the lyrics of Shel Silverstein which parallel my father’s upbringing in a way.

WHERE YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS

I’m sitting on a few short ideas right now that need some nurturing which I will continue developing and producing over the next five years. Ultimately I’d love to produce my own original content for television or film, but until then I feel there is still so much I need to learn about the industry. I’d be more than happy being a worker bee somewhere just to learn the ropes where I can develop my skills further as both an artist and an animator.

FILMMAKER WEBSITES

WEBSITE: AlHoran.com
TUMBLR: Phantomlobster.tumblr.com

An MTV Animation studio alum who worked on the television shows Beavis & Butt-head and Daria,

“The genesis for the film happened organically, growing out of the thousands of sketches I’ve done of New Yorkers over the past several years. Drawings of urban life as seen in subways, parks, cafes, bars, basically anywhere people will sit still long enough to capture with my quick contour line. Places where the dynamism of the city is evident and part of the concrete jungle that is the visceral pulse of a thriving city.”

The finished film will incorporate Cinema 4D, Flash and cut-out animation. With four minutes of the film already in the can, Hartland is asking for $17,500 to finish animation with an animation assistant, post-production, and to hire a sound designer and music composer. The campaign is currently at $7,896 with 26 days left to go. Rewards include signed DVDs of the completed film, original artwork, and the opportunity to appear as an animated extra.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen new animation from Nina Paley, director of one of the finest animated features of the past decade, Sita Sings the Blues. She released This Land is Mine yesterday. The short offers “a brief history of the land called Israel/Palestine/Canaan/the Levant.”

Nina envisioned the piece as the last scene of her feature film project Seder-Masochism. The status of the feature is unclear, but at least we have this stand-alone short complete with a convenient guide to who’s killing who.