I accepted the suggestion of placeboKatz and took a look at Destination Earth. It is a propaganda cartoon sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, where a Martian explorer discovers the secrets behind the USA's prosperity: oil and free enterprise. The best of it is not the message, is the animation and the producer behind it: John Sutherland Productions.

John Sutherland was responsible for the production of several Disney's animations of 1930's and 1940's. The Animation Station Podcast made a very nice episode about him:

John Sutherland worked as a assistant director for Disney before opening John Sutherland Productions in 1944 with the encouragement of Walt Disney. They specialized in writing and producing animation/live-action films and supportive print material during the remainder of the war years.
Soon thereafter, Sutherland began turning out animated industrial and propaganda films and was a place many animators went during periods of inactivity at the other animation studios during the 40s and 50s.

His fifties production is composed basically by educational short films and propaganda with animation, many of them with a clear anti-communist slogan - very funny nowadays. I made a search to see what else that he produced was available at Internet Archive in public domain and the result was quite nice. The result of the videos available and were you can watch it is below - the videos at You Tube were uploaded by The Animation Station Podcast.

- A Is for Atom (1953): Internet Archive - Google Video.

- Destination Earth (1956): Internet Archive - Google Video.

- Going Places (1948): Internet Archive - Google Video - YouTube.

- It's Everybody's Business (1954): Internet Archive - Google Video.

- Make Mine Freedom (1948): Internet Archive Google Video - YouTube.

- Meet King Joe (1951): Internet Archive - Google Video -YouTube.

- The Atom Goes To Sea (1954): Internet Archive - Google Video

- The Butcher, The Baker and The Ice Cream Maker (1950's): Internet Archive - Google Video

- What Makes Us Tick (1952): Internet Archive - Google Video.

- Why Play Leapfrog? (1950): Internet Archive - Google Video - YouTube.

- Wise Use of Credit (1960): Internet Archive - Google Video.

- Working Dollars (1956): Internet Archive - Google Video - below.

- Your Safety First (1956): Internet Archive - Google Video.

Posted by Bibi at 11:40 PM in Animation, Video, Vintage | Comments (2) ||

How can someone resist to that super-cute-furry-tiny-adorable-little-creature? Awww... so cute! That is just one of the several picture that Jamie McCarthy took from the northern short-tailed shrews that appear on his back yard. (Thanks André!)

Posted by Bibi at 11:28 PM in Animals, Photography, Photography | Comments (10) ||

A fabulous collection: Canadian War Poster Collection - The holdings of the Print Collection in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division include some 250 Canadian posters from the two World Wars.

During the First World War, the imagery of Canada's posters was, both thematically and graphically, similar to that of British war posters.This visual affinity was partly due to the imperial and constitutional ties between Canada and Britain.In addition, Canada targeted posters at specific ethnic groups. There were specially designed posters for French Canadians, Irish-Canadians and Canadians of Scottish descent. The bulk of the posters encouraged men to enlist and the public to buy Victory Bonds.
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In the Second World War, Canadian posters reflected the fact that Canada was not under attack by an aggressor on its own turf. Whereas some countries' war posters portrayed violence in graphic detail, Canada's posters generally avoided such direct images. While war posters again encouraged enlistment and financial support of the war effort, advancements in communication made appeals for discretion and secrecy staple messages of many Second World War posters. Another frequent theme was the encouragement of workers to increase productivity.

Posted by Bibi at 07:34 PM in History, Posters ||

Classic Cartoons: This blog is intented to support the love and rediscovery of Classic Theatrical Cartoons from the Golden Age of Animation but with an eye on modern productions as well as on tv animation! Full of images, the blog is not fast to load, but it worth it. Among the last post, I have some suggestions, from cartoons and animators that I like, of course: Attack of the Proto-Bugs Creature!, Tortoise Wins by a Hare (here we go again!), Tortoise Wins by a Hare, Fleischer's Hide and Seek and Betty Boop's Lost Kitten Found!.

Posted by Bibi at 07:06 PM in Animation, Blogs, Illustration ||

Who wants a IR Control Daleks? Each IR Dalek stands 8 inches high and is happiest when gliding across your desk shouting "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" and hunting for the Doctor. Complete with tank-like controls and digitized grating dalek voices you'll feel just like you're in your own low-budget BBC telly show. I want one!

Maybe you have no idea of what is a dalek, so start reading this post and listen to Dr.Who - Genesis Of The Daleks. After you are going to be prepare to make your own Dalek or even cool dalek ornaments for you next Christmas.

Posted by Bibi at 06:33 PM in Culture, Toys ||

From the APOD: The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh painted 1889. This painting is wonderful and now I have a good excuse to post it.

The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style of Starry Night appears, to many, to make the night sky come alive. Although van Gogh frequently portrayed real settings in his paintings, art historians do not agree on precisely what stars and planets are being depicted in Starry Night.

Posted by Bibi at 06:04 PM in Painting | Comments (6) ||

Videogame Theater presents Pac Man - The Insatiable Hunger. A funny video using puppetry and animation, with Pac-Man as a junkie and wife-beater. Poor Ms Pac-Man. (I know this isn't new, but I found it now).

More Pac-Man: Frogger, 1980 games, The Video Game Revolution and Pacman live-action video

Posted by Bibi at 03:15 PM in Fun, Fun, Games, Video | Comments (2) ||

Association Cinémannecy se met en quatre pour vous proposer une ribambelle d'images nouvelles. Découvrez notre univers emplit de Courts et Très Courts Métrages... The list of films of 2005 contains some great videos and almost all have links to watch the videos. The list of films of 2006 is available too an still short, but all the videos are available to watch on-line. From this last list my recommendation is Entre deux miettes by Sylvain Ollier, that joins animation and live action.

Posted by Bibi at 02:51 PM in Animation, Video ||

Le Moulin (The Mill) is a pretty good animation by the student Florian Thouret . The animation was his project to the to École Émilie Cohl in 2005 and it was in the last Annecy. Through love, a man disrupts the established system of a village dominated by a windmill. This fable was creating using 2D and 3D animation, and I will have the pleasure to see it on the big screen at the Anima Mundi in July.

Posted by Bibi at 01:23 PM in Animation ||

Here are six stupendous reasons why I love Datajunkie: "O" is for Orson!, "W" is for Welles!, "C" is for Campbell Playhouse!, "H" is for Harry Lime!, "M" is for Mercury Theater on the Air and "Z" is for Zither!. I love Orson Welles and those vintage radio recordings and songs sounds like music to my ears. He had the perfect voice, he knew how to use it and he was clever enough to choose the right texts for it. It's a pity that the stupid-bitch-Hearst didn't like Citizen Kane and helped a lot to destroy Welles' career. Anyway, he was brilliant at the radio too.

There are more great stuff there: the audio version of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven by the superb Vincent Price I think ( I didn't listen it yet) and Horror Stars on OTR!: radio lectures of horror and mystery (or suspense) stories read by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price.

More Welles: From Zombies to Orson Welles, The Shadow knows, Orson Welles and his early movies, The Mercury Theatre on the Air and Trailers of movies remakes and War of the Worlds.

Update: Datajunkie made a new Orson Welles post "T" is for The Third Man!.

Posted by Bibi at 12:39 PM in Audio, Vintage | Comments (2) ||

I have no idea of how many versions, by different artists, I saw to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lots of great works, but I didn't remember of the almost dark and fantastic illustrations by Arthur Rackham.

Rackham is often considered to be among the greatest book illustrators of all time. Major works of Arthur Rackham include the children's books Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900), Rip van Winkle (1905), Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1907) and many others. While he may be best known for his elaborate child literature illustrations, he also illustrated books for adult readers, e.g. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1908), Undine (1909), The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie (1911) (a.k.a. Das Rheingold), short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and several fairy tale books.

At his Wikipedia's article there are few examples of his works. More can be find at those sites:

- Aesop's Fables and English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel. The complete text with Rackham's drawings and coloured illustrations at Project Gutenberg.

- Alice in Wonderland: 13 color plates by Arthur Rackham, 1907.

- Arthur Rackham: seven reproduction of the painting to "The Nursery Rhymes of Mother Goose" for St. Nicholas Magazine in 1913.

- Rackham Fairy and Fairy Tale Art: a good gallery with many of his book illustrations, including Shakespeare works, Goblin Market and Mother Goose.

- SurLaLune Fairy Tales: the excellent site contains several of his illustrations to fairy tales books.

- The art of Arthur Rackham: Illustrations from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, 1906.

- The Illustrators Project: it has only three images of different books, but the information about them is interesting.

And even more galleries of works to A Dish of Apple, Aesop Fables, Andersen Fairy Tales, Book of Pictures 1913, Christmas Carol, Compleat Angler, Comus, English Fairy Tales, Goblin Market, Gulliver's Travels, Irish Fairy Tales, King Arthur, King of the Golden River, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Little Brother and Little Sister, Midsummer Night's Dream, Peer Gynt, Peter Pan in Kensington Garden, Poor Cecco, Rip Van Winkle, Siegfried and theTwilight of the Gods, Tales from Shakespeare, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, The Book of Betty Barber, The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie, The Springtide of Life, The Vicar of Wakefield, Undine and Where the Blue Begins.

Posted by Bibi at 05:11 AM in Books, Illustration, Vintage | Comments (5) ||

Rastamanskiye Folk Tales is that title of that page according to the translator - and who really trust in them? Anyway, that site has funny illustrations with a medieval tapestry style of versions of famous Hollywood films as folk tales. Terminator, Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Spiderman, Star Wars, Harry Potter and War of the Worlds are among the neat illustrations there. (Thanks Bleak Mouse)

Update: finally I found a better site with many works of the artist, Andrey Kuznetsov. Enjoy.

Posted by Bibi at 10:55 PM in Cinema, Fun, Fun, Illustration ||

Happy Bloomsday Everybody!

From the beginning. If you have no idea of what it is, fix it reading this article. Ok, now follow some of my suggestions to Bloomsday of last year. If you never read Ulysses and you are in the mood to start a new book, start reading it at the Project Gutenberg and buy the book after, because it's a big and very interesting, and important book, but it's tough to read it.

Next step if you are planning to read it: buy an annotated version. When I buy books that had been translated I always do that, when I buy a complex classic in other language I prefer an annotated version too and Joyce is not for little girls that love ponies, he is complex. But don't give up. With the on-line version and a good search engine everything is possible. Those links that can help you:

- Ulysses : Concordance is a hypertextual, self-referential edition of Ulysses, prepared using the Project Gutenberg edition.

- The Internet Ulysses by James Joyce is a marvellous discussing site full of texts and links about Ulysses. And if that is not enough, visit also the Advanced notes for Ulysses.

Maybe you are not in the mood. So, start with something easy, like Ulysses for Dummies:

From Hunger smells an opportunity when we step in it. Herewith, our stripped-down, revved-up version of Joyce's great work, which we, with one eye on the marketplace, have called Ulysses for Dummies. Now you can thrill to the discussion of Shakespeare in chapter 9; weep with Simon Dedalus at Dignam's funeral in chapter 6; frolic with Bloom and Stephen in chapter 15's dreamscape of Nighttown; and join in Molly's optimistic vindication of the world in chapter 18. And it's in color, thanks to the 16-color palette of Windows Paintbox!

An impressive description with animations so good as the one above. Back to the Bloomsday, a few more links about it:

- BBC has two streaming videos about the Ulysses.

- Bloomsday - An unforgettable odyssey, the Economist article.

- Bloomsday - James Joyce Ulysses, at the Irish a Broad site, with Joyce's biography, his works, links, links to events, quotes and a very helpful schema for Ulysses.

- Bloomsday information and program at the Rosenbach Museum & Library.

- Bloomsday 2006: the site of the 30th running of the Lilac Bloomsday run and a video of the Bloomsday 2006 Running Race.

- On this cancelled Bloomsday, life imitates art, The Boston Globe article explains why it was cancelled.

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Há diversas comemorações do Bloomsday aqui no Brasil e em São Paulo, como sempre deve ter alguma coisa lá no Finnegans. Como está chovendo, eu estou com frio, cansada, meio deprê, tenho que estudar e não quero perder a parada gay amanhã, acho que vou ficar em casa. Quem não sabe exatamente o que fazer pode dar uma olhada nos posts em português sobre a data:

- O Biscoito Fino e a Massa vem com Ulisses, de James Joyce: Celebração do Bloomsday.

- O 2005 - Uma Odisséia Literária ataca de modo mais ferroz, com um dia inteiro de Joyce.

Mais alguém? Who else is blogging about Bloomsday today? Let me know ok? And Happy Bloomsday again!

Posted by Bibi at 04:40 PM in Books, Culture, Literature | Comments (6) ||

Say hi to my new blog: The Dodo Blog - The influence of dodos in the modern culture, in other words, a blog about dodos. Now I have a repository for the dodo stuff that I found and I've been collected in the last months: illustrations, pictures, books, news, links, animations and other interesting information or images with them. That's it.

Posted by Bibi at 09:57 PM in About me, Blogs, Culture | Comments (7) ||

The Map Projections site offers many printable versions of Polyhedral Maps and Map Fold-outs - Print, cut, fold and glue paper polyhedra to create your own pseudoglobe. Very cool! I'm planning to assemble a Truncated Icosahedron model, but I'm afraid that my cats are going to like it more than I.

Posted by Bibi at 07:01 PM in Craft ||

Before V for Vendetta there was A is for Atom. This curious animation by John Sutherland Productions in 1953 for General Electric Company. The animation presents an atom, how energy is released from certain kinds of atoms, the peacetime uses of atomic energy and the byproducts of nuclear fission. It's an obvious example of positive propaganda after the disgraceful use of atomic energy in the World War II. It's a well done and amusing animation, and watching an atom of radium dancing is priceless. (15 minutes).

Posted by Bibi at 06:18 PM in Animation, Science, Science, Vintage ||

Le bon roi is a very well done funny and ironic animation realised by the students of SupInfoCom Maximilien Chavot, Julien Donadille and Thibault Romero. The video was created using 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Illustrator and Combustion and Première. It's in French with English subtitles. Watch it here, here or bellow.

Posted by Bibi at 05:42 PM in Animation ||

Are you searching for new recipes? Try Books for Cooks! Book images, information, history and, of course, recipes, from the Medieval food until the 1900s food.

This unique collection of cookery books will transport you back in time. It will take you to medieval banqueting tables laden with peacocks and pastry ships; to the medicine cabinets of noblewomen; and to royal picnics in the jungle. It will show you how the poor were encouraged to re-use coffee grounds in Victorian London, and how a rationed population attempted to stay healthy during World War 2. You will find recipes for puddings and roasts, for beauty treatments and bed bug repellents, for pies made with live birds and frogs, and for dishes spiced with ingredients as valuable as jewels.

Related post: Gode Cookery.

Posted by Bibi at 04:20 PM in Books, Food, Food, History | Comments (2) ||

Why did I never posted about Jim Flora? My fault, all my fault, sorry. His works were fantastic: cheerful illustrations full of colours with a great style.

Jim Flora was ground zero for an illustration style that took the modernism of painters such as Miró, Klee and Picasso, blended it with a jazz sensibility and added a dollop of the Sunday funnies pages. He created an urbane and wiggy graphic beast that was ubiquitous in the immediate postwar years, throughout the 1950s and well into the following decade. Fifty years later, Flora's work (both old and new) remains fresh, breezy, smart and humorous.

That's my favourite: Mambo for cats

Posted by Bibi at 03:23 PM in Illustration | Comments (2) ||

Gallery of images from historic children's books: from the 1760's book A little pretty pocket-book intended for the instruction and amusement of little Master Tommy… to the 1881's book Clever cats. The gallery could it be bigger and it could have more images, but it's ok, I can find more images later. (via Hemaworstje)

Related posts: Children books, Children's Book Illustrations, Women Children's Book Illustrators and Children's Books of the Early Soviet Era.

Posted by Bibi at 02:55 PM in Books, History, Illustration, Vintage ||