Maybe that’s not how you spell “canuck’ll head”…hmm. I’m not so sure about this fine marvel animated feature Hulkster vs Wolvie, but who knows? It’s kinda weird that Marvel’s rocking so much on the movie right now, but their cartoons are well… Ultimate Avengers. This definately looks sharper than the other marvel cartoon stuff, but I dunno…what’s up with Wolvie’s mask? I get the whole “original look” thing, but it’s not really like the original or the current. That batman face with the yellow nose is just weird to me. Freak!

“From this day on it will never be like it was, but only as each person remembers it.” - Woolie Reitherman, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men.

The quote above was made in reference to the death of Walt Disney, but I think it’s just as fitting in describing the passing of Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney’s Nine Old Men, who passed away yesterday.

As an animator I feel that the death of Ollie Johnston, and, as a result, the dissolution of the Nine Old Men, is an era-defining event that’s hard to articulate. My animation teachers would tell their students of the excitement they felt upon the release of The Illusion of Life, the book considered by many to be the animation bible, co-written by Ollie Johnston with fellow Old Man Frank Thomas. It was a revelation to them. Even if I had never read the book myself, through my teachers I learned their lessons. More important to me than that was John Canemaker’s book devoted to The Nine Old Men, a tome that detailed the triumphs and tragedies of those nine animators, their mentors and peers, and the studio that grew up around, and eventually away from them. I came away from their stories with the realization that great art was as much the result of sweat and happenstance as it was natural talent, and their example reminded me that life outside of animation is not only desirable, but is also necessary to the creation of art.

Commentary on the latest animated incarnation of Batman seems to be split right down the middle between people piling on it for being a show aimed at children and people piling on the people doing the piling. I’m of the opinion that Marvel and DC are far past their best by date, so I’m happy to indulge the fantasy that something minor like this could destroy either company.

That said, the promo image they released is the kind of thing that hurts my inner animator. Blue Beetle looks great. Love the fingers. Forward shots are rarely flattering, but rules are made to be broken and Batman pulls it off with some dynamic foreshortening. But what’s up with Green Arrow? Is he ditching his friends? I probably would too if all I had was a quiver full of arrows. And why is there so much nice negative space between Batman and Blue Beetle, but none between Batman and Green Arrow? Does he just take bad pictures?