BAAAHAHAHHAAAAaaaa… haa.. oh… haha. I love dinosaurs. This made me laugh by myself. And that’s fun. Ya.

From YouTube:

Completed in January 2010, The Moon Bird is a dark fairytale about an orphan girl who must outwit a terrible sorceress with the help of a magical lunar bird. The film is a short animation fifteen minutes long funded through the UK Film Council, Screen WM and CHANNEL 4.

From the Brother’s McLeod Site:

We’ve never done this before but we thought we’d take you through the process, the ups and downs, the long nights and early mornings. We’ve got to deliver the film by August so it’s going to be a busy few months.

The film is titled ‘The Moon Bird’. The story came about after Greg challenged Myles to write a Brothers Grimm tale. We’re going through script tweaks at the moment and Greg is working on style sheets, character and layout design.

Here’s an animation by Andy Hueng done in 2005. This is interesting, creepy and thought provoking. Here’s the short blurb from YouTube:

A machine with a doll face mimics images on television screen in search of a satisfactory visage. Doll Face presents a visual account of desires misplaced and identities fractured by our technological extension into the future.

I found this some time around Halloween–not sure exactly why I never posted this already. Just came back up while checking starred items in Google Reader. I had to share it. I know I will never look at bubble-wrap the same way again. Now I can’t help making that horrible horrible whining pitiful weeping when all things in my life at the moment seem defeated. This video is done by Arthur Metcalf and has hit up some festivals: It depicts that last moments of horror for a society of sentient bubble-wrap bubbles. Creepy.

Germans in the Woods from Rauch Brothers on Vimeo.

I love these types of animations that grab the audio from some interview done ad-lib to then be given this treatment. “Germans in the Woods” is a short animation by Rauch Brothers Animation that tells the story of veteran Joseph Robertson’s haunting memory during the Battle of the Buldge in WWII.

The first time I saw this type of production–animation over ad-lib audio–was with Doogtoons, and most recently it was to a Kevin Smith SModcast episode featuring Aquaman–but it’s neat to see this treatment given a serious treatment instead of the typical comedic one.

Here’s a music video by Giles Timms, a freelance motion graphics artist. Giles is pursuing an MFA at UCLA’s Department of Theater, Film and Television. This animation is done in a cutout style with illustrations mimicking woodcut art of the days of old. This video takes you on a journey of a young boy wrapped up in a world of gothic horrory goodness. From Gile’s YouTube site: “Enchanted by a pixie, a child called Yorick enters a magical kingdom, but when Yorick returns he finds his world ravaged by time.” The music is performed by Ceri Frost.

[Watch Video on YouTube]

I’m guessing not enough people have seen the works of Blu, a surreal artist who works in multiple mediums, but the most fascinating and extravagant of them all HAVE to be his stop-motion, real world environment, animations. The animation above, titles “COMBO”, was done in 10 days during Studiocromie’s 2nd annual FAME Festival in Italy. It is a collaborative piece with artist David Ellis which alters the space of an abandoned building–it animates the setting by turning holes and windows into mouths and eyes, it uses pipes like intestines and flattens open windows while at the same time creating flat fake windows to match. It’s just too much to explain properly and just needs to be watched. It does loop once–likely to convey the “full circle” concept that could have this play on and on forever.

This video below, titled “MUTO” was done in Buenos Aires and Baden, was the first environmental stop-motion animation I saw from Blu and it’s still worth watching. Marvel and contemplate in sheer owe at the TIME and IMAGINATION something like this takes to do! It’s no surprise at all that this sucker has turned out over FIVE MILLION views on YouTube!

[View Video on YouTube]

It’s worth saying that Blu also has a pretty rad website design. It’s modeled after a moleskin-style sketch book with handwriting and illustrations integrating with the content. Very cool stuff! Also watch more of his crazy animations on Blu’s YouTube account and subscribe to his account to receive more!

[Watch Video on YouTube]

This short animation titled “The Black Dog’s Progress” by Stephen Irwin, funded by Animate Projects,  follows the life os a black dog as he travels through an abusive home, struggles to stay alive only to end up in more disturbing situations until its end. The music by Sorenious Bonk set the enervating tone just right. The tiled flip-book design is misleading as it’s got a playful, childish quality to it. Even the line work and simple animation hearkens back to grade school flip-book scenarios you’d draw on the corner of your note book paper during class. Alas, this journey is a very dark and  unfortunate one for the poor black dog.

I’m impressed by how Stephen even did up a “reviews” post built with YouTube screenshot that were then animated in that glitchy grunge style. Brilliant idea and creative execution!

Watch more Stephen Irvin animations
Stephen Irvin’s Blog
Sorenious Bonk on MySpace
Sorenious Bonk’s Blog

[A Record Of Life from Owen Gatley on Vimeo]

This animation brings together a couple things I find fascinating: Science in relation to evolution and space exploration, age-old and classical scientific notations and diagrams, and layered art turned into animation. This short animation takes the viewer on a journey of discovery, creating a free-flowing thought-process to wonderfully complimentary music by Owen Gatley.

How could I NOT collect all this info here? I’ve been hit with a flurry of news on this topic in the last 10 minutes and wishing some of the cool stuff was all in ONE place. So here it is, the short of it is that Disney has acquired Marvel Comics and its portfolio of 5000 characters for $4 billion buckaroos by the end of the calendar year. The acquisition highlights from the press release: Disney’s strategic focus on quality branded content, technological innovation and international expansion to build long-term shareholder value.

It all sounds like madness on the surface because, if you’re like me, it’s initially hard to NOT connect Mickey and crew with the grim-and-gritty world of the Marvel Universe. It’s hard to picture a world where Disney doesn’t force Marvel stories to tone down on the violence and turn out more child-friendly comics. One the plus side, this brings new readers into comics, right? If ANYONE can create leverage when it comes to targeting children, it’s Disney… right?

I’m not sure why I’m still mildly weirded out though. Disney wants to provide Marvel properties a broader audience reach. It has the marketing power, it has a strong footing in entertainment and world distribution, what could go wrong? Warner Bros. bought out DC Comics and it’s all fine and dandy on that side. Warner Bros. owns the Loony Tunes and I don’t have Bugs Bunny popping out in my imagination with a Green Lantern ring… but then again WB also gave us the Batman Animated Series–so that branding innately made sense.

But Disney… and Marvel. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Disney mostly has the girl market covered and booming… but what do they have for boys nowadays? Not saying comics are just for boys–but you get what I’m saying, I hope–comics have a larger boy demographic. Plain and simple. If Disney can reach out to young boys again AND young girls, then it’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned! With that said, I’ve gathered some awesome points brought up by fans thus far. Enjoy!

Awesome Fan Points gathered from the iFanboy community:

• Will we see a Donald Duck/Howard the Duck teamup?
• Will we see a Little Mermain/Namor teamup?
• Will we see an Increadibles/Fantastic Four teamup?
• Will Kingdom Hearts be mixed with Marvel supers as well as Square Enix? (Cause = totally awesome)
• Will we finally get Darkwing Duck in comics? (please)
• Will we finally see Gargoyles in comics? (pretty please)
• What happens to the distribution deals with Paramount?
• What happens to the BOOM! Studios Disney license deals?
• Wait. So WHO owns the right to Marvelman?
• Will the Marvel MAX and Icon lines shut down by Disney execs?
• Disney owns the CrossGen Comics portfolio: Will these old characters join the Marvel Universe now?
• Anyone else seeing an animated future for Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers? Will Pluto join the team?
• Will the Superhuman Registration Act be expanded to include talking animals?
• Will there be a Disney Zombies miniseries?

Original Wolvie/Mickey art found at: The Wolverine Daily