Looking Backward

I'm writing this as a bit of an addendum to the VANITY FAIR article on the early years of Cal Arts.

I'm pleased and honored to have been included in the list of interviewees, and think that the article is a good snapshot of that time. But like a snapshot, it only shows a few details, while others are fuzzy, and there may be distortions to the image. This post will attempt to bring one issue in particular back into focus.

One attitude that prevailed at that time was that if you weren't going to Disney you weren't going anywhere. After all, the Cal Arts program had been set up to retrain artists for the Disney studio as the older artists retired. We ate, breathed and learned from Disney films (This monolithic attitude began to crack in our second year, thanks to my classmate Darrell van Citters, who arranged visits after hours from artists Michael Maltese, Mike Lah, Maurice Noble and Ed Love as a hint of what else was out there.) Cal Arts sponsored a talk by Chuck Jones and another by Richard Williams.

Animation Block Party - Get Your Hunched & Goofy On!

Tina Price is bringing her Creative Talent Network to the City of Burbank for this year's Burbank Arts Festival. An entire tree lined block on San Fernando Road in front of the Gordon Biersch brewpub (oh boy!) will have animation folks to meet and stuff to buy.  It's like a mini outdoor CTN Expo.  It's Saturday and Sunday, 10 to 5.

Some Unique Gifts to Fight Over

In the United States, unless your TV has been broken, your newspaper shut down, and your internet connection failed, you know all about "Black Friday".  This term is not in reference to post-Thanksgiving bowel movements.  This is the day, the awful day, when media advertisers rile people into such a frenzy as to act out as a mob of deal-hunting vigilantes.

So what's a mild mannered, somewhat sane, hunched and goofy person to do?  Well, let FLIP rile you  into a geek frenzy with some cool, unique gifts from people who have been featured in this year's FLIP!

Ready?

Dean Yeagle's "Melange" at Book Soup

posted by Steve

FLIP featured artist Dean Yeagle is doing a book signing tonight!  Originally published in France, "Melange" is an 128 page overview of his career including many of Dean's Playboy cartoons.   If you're in the Hollywood area go see Dean at Book Soup!    His feature in FLIP was its most popular page ever.  I wonder why.......

Anyway, the book signing starts at 7 tonight!

Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, California

And buy a book!