I have no idea how I missed this but in 2007, John Updike wrote an article about dinosaurs for National Geographic. Turns out he knows his Avemetatarsalians (a better word to use than Ornithodirans it turns out, but sadly not as catchy) and gets downright philosophical about them. And I love, love, love the paragraph that opens the second page. Holy guano!
The only downside of the previous article is that the illustrations are the generic CGI jobs that are so annoyingly popular nowadays (who electrocuted the velociraptor?) The same criticism cannot be applied to these AMAZING (and very strange) Lord of the Rings stickers discovered by chance by author Ethan Gilsdorf. Be warned, whoever illustrated these stickers had a mental picture of Tolkein's characters that was... different. And very sixties. On the upshot, this will be how I imagine Tom Bombadil forever.
Speaking of crazy ways of drawing familiar characters, Something Awful's Flashtub has done a pair of dead-on parodies of Dingo Pictures/Phoenix Games. They make a lot more sense (???) if you watch this first. See the parodies here and here. (Naughty language warning.)
Maybe this isn't new to southern Californians, but Disneyland commercials air only very rarely here on the east coast, and this new one advertising the long-awaited reopening of Star Tours is the Best Thing.
The Onion AV Club shared a wonderful interview with Norton Juster. And one of their local branches questioned the logic of the NKOTBSB tour, and of misaimed nostalgia in general.
Over at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, Dave alerted us to some new "Terra Nova" teaser images, which can be seen here. The most important thing to note is that we get a better look at the theropod critter from the teaser trailer which I had assumed was a Carnotaurus. Turns out it's one of Branon Braga's invented species and... sigh... Brannon Braga.
I mentioned in the last post that I am foaming at the mouth with anticipation over "Brave". And now even more so, as Cartoon Brew has revealed that the characters have a wonderfully eerie Brian Froud a la "Labyrinth"/Miyazaki a la "Spirited Away" look.
Speaking of, "Labyrinth" is 25 years old yesterday.
CHUD.com reposted the list of winners from this year's Saturn Awards. Yipes.
"X Number Best of Whatever" lists on the Internet are usually a load of poo-poo, but here's Time Magazine's 25 Best Animated Features. You know what I just said about the Saturn Awards? Yeah... same thing here.
GeekMom shared an awesome way to get kids into art on her blog. I should raid my overstuffed, OCD-affected art supply box and make a few of these to give out to my little cousins when they visit.
The good news is, there is a sequel to Lev Grossman's The Magicians on the way. The bad news is, we have to wait until August. The... neutral news is, we have a teaser image as well as a discussion between author and illustrator to tide us over.
A couple of fun Tumblers about animation art have come to my attention: Smears, Multiples, and Other Animation Gimmicks celebrates the (often very strange) art of the motion blur, while Out Of Context Animation takes stills out of context with... odd results.
Apparently, someone wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal that, according to GeekMom and i09 (and many, many others), might as well have been entitled "Badly Informed, Sensationalistic, and Deeply Patronizing Thoughts on a Genre I Lost Touch With Decades Ago and Now Only Notice the Very Worst Popular Recent Examples Of". As usual. This time it's young adult literature.
In happier news, I can't wait, I can not freaking WAIT, to go see this.
Speaking of dinosaurs and glee, Albertonychus has done a fabulous series on feathers which you all need to read starting here.
And Darren Naish has been sharing chapters from his bird biology book that, sadly, never happened.
Everything is Terrible gave us a brief reminder of why I kinda miss the "eff it, let's just slap some trash together and there's your costume" aesthetic of low budget 80's sci-fi movies. They also reminded us that there is nothing on God's green Earth that is more utterly confusing than Christian Furries.
Last week, I wrote about how "Jurassic Park 4" just refuses to die. Turns out the same thing can be said for the "Fraggle Rock" movie (and good lord, the comments on that article are depressing). I maintain that the Fraggles are Jim Henson's crowning moment of awesome, but my interest in a film gradually eroded when it went from "the original puppeteers will play the characters!" to "it's going to be CGI" to "and it's basically got the same plot as 'the Smurfs'". And then the report came in that the studio wanted a "darker and edgier" script and that's the point where I was just, f**** it.
io9 has a list of Things That We Will Never See Happen in a Green Lantern Movie. They've also shared a timely list of uncomfortable issues raised by the presence of the Popemobile in "Cars 2".
Legendary Bronze Age Disney animator Andreas Deja launched a blog called -what else?- Deja View. Definitely worth following.
Speaking of neat artist blogs, Jody Bergsma gives us a refresher on the color wheel. I should really practice my watercolor skills this summer. Her crab painting gave me some nifty ideas for the upcoming Carboniferous Gallery.
Cartoon Brew shared this charming teaser for an upcoming stop-motion film based off The Boy With the Cuckoo Clock Heart. Just try not to get the chorus in your head.
This theater disclaimer is both the most hilarious and the saddest thing.
Via "Hark! A Vagrant!", Strong Female Characters! Also simultaneously the most hilarious and saddest thing.
And Project Dryptosaurus hosted the Boneyard Blog Carnival!
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Sketch of the Day!
Squirrels!
