In Monday's Globe, I wrote up an appreciation of Ub Iwerks, the Disney animator who more or less invented Mickey Mouse. The occasion was Disney Home Video's release of the pre-Mickey "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoons, and in the piece I praised Iwerks' visual innovations.

Comes an email from an acquaintance, Summers Henderson:

Ty,

I enjoyed your review of the "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" DVD yesterday. It makes me curious to see it for myself.

But I have one quibble, on a point of film history. You say, "The shorts are full of cognitive leaps fresh with the delight of their own discovery: Oswald plucking a question mark from his own thought balloon to hoist a plane in the air, popping off his own leg to use as a hammer...." But I think that Ub Iwerks stole those visual gags from Otto Messmer's "Felix the Cat" series. When I taught a class on media history at Emerson College last semester, I did a little research into Felix. He was the most popular cartoon character of the silent cinema, before 1927. And I've seen Felix use his question mark as a tool, and pop off his tail to use as a cane.

I guess I can't prove it conclusively, by pointing to the specific films which show Iwerks copying Messmer. But if Iwerks deserves credit for creating Mickey Mouse -- which I'm glad you wrote about, because most people don't know it -- then Messmer deserves credit for being the model that people like Iwerks and Disney copied. These days more people know about Felix the Cat from his 1950s TV show, with his famous bag of tricks. But he was the first cartoon superstar, in the silent film era.

Thanks, Summers. So who got seriously surreal first: Felix the Cat? Or Oswald the Rabbit? Looks like a subject for further research on my part, although the dates favor Messmer, no slight intended to the protean Iwerks. If you want to do your own comparison, the early "Felix" cartoons are on DVD, and there are more details and links to RealVideo clips at this thoroughgoing fan page.

MIAMI, Jan. 9, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Simulated Environment Concepts, Inc. (Pink Sheets:FAVE) is successfully gaining recognition from distributors around the globe. The parent company of SpaCapsule(r) is partnering with New Zealand's Neil Peterken. According to Peterken, the distributor of the SpaCapsule(r) in New Zealand and Australia, the SpaCapsule(r) is showing up in airports, gyms, and healthcare centers Down Under (http://www.spacapsule.co.nz/news.html).

Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, ComicCon

While tooling around the internets yesterday, I came across this post on Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog which pondered what, if any, affect the ongoing writer's strike (as well as the potential DGA and SAG strikes) could have on this year's Comic-Con. We already know the WGA strike has shut down The Golden Globes, and folks will start talking Oscars next, but in April we have the New York Comic-Con and in July we have the biggie -- San Diego Comic-Con. Last year, New York didn't give us too much by way of Hollywood product. However, after all the complaining, one would think the studios would pay closer attention to New York and pimp out some of their summer fare, along with bigger flicks coming down the pipeline. If the writer's are still on strike in April, and if they decide to picket the Con in New York, that could potentially mean no talent showing up for panel discussions and the like.

Now I'm just talking about film here; TV is already f**ked. Even if all this strike nonsense is over and done with by early summer, I imagine the after-shocks will still affect the geeked-out TV presence at the San Diego Con. Remember, after the writer's cut a contract, we're still looking at deals that need to be made for SAG and the DGA. Both of their contracts expire at the end of May. Should SAG go on strike at that time, how on earth will Hollywood promote movies like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Watchmen, Star Trek XI and G.I. Joe if none of the talent will show up to partake in panel discussions? San Diego Comic-Con was perhaps the biggest fanboy-ish event of 2007, and I imagine there are plans to make it even bigger this year (in terms of Hollywood presence). The show will go on either way (after all, the convention is supposed to be more about comics than anything else), but I wonder how much of Hollywood will be there in 2008? Thoughts?

Permalink | Email this | Comments

NEWARK, Del., Jan. 9, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Theater Xtreme Entertainment Group, Inc. (OTCBB:TXEG), a nationwide seller and installer of real movie theaters for the home, announced today that it has appointed Mr. Hal Bennett, CEO of Third-Order Nanotechnologies, Inc. (Pink Sheets:TDON) to serve on the company's Board of Directors. Mr. Bennett's appointment reflects the company's ongoing effort to provide outstanding leadership at its highest level.

HOUSTON, Jan. 8, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The Ensemble Theatre, the oldest and largest professional African American theatre in the Southwest, welcomes Emmy Award winner Charles "Roc" Dutton to Houston for the Heart of the Theatre subscription drive celebration on January 27th, at the Wortham Theater for two special performances. As the Honorary Subscription Chair, Dutton is committed to helping The Ensemble reach its 3,000 subscription goal. The first show is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and the second show begins at 8:15 p.m. The first show is already at capacity. Current subscribers and those who purchase a subscription from now until the event will be invited to attend the 8:15 p.m. performance.

The Directors Guild of America has spoken. The 2007 DGA award nominees are:

Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood"
Joel and Ethan Coen for "No Country for Old Men"
Tony Gilroy for "Michael Clayton"
Sean Penn for "Into the Wild"
Julian Schnabel for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

The love for Sean Penn and Tony Gilroy seems to come at the expense of Sidney Lumet for the "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," Joe Wright for "Atonement," Tim Burton for "Sweeney Todd," and Ridley Scott for "American Gangster." They were all in the mix for DGA consideration, but the actor and the screenwriter beat them out. Meanwhile, since there is no front-runner (no decisive one, anyway), Paul Thomas Anderson is looking more and more like a winner. What this means for the Oscars is anybody's guess. But maybe the Academy's branch will hook up Lumet or even David Fincher ("Zodiac") or Todd Haynes ("I'm Not There").

The nominees for the American Society of Cinematographers are below. (Although, it actually helps to see the films themselves -- even "Atonement.")

Roger Deakins for "No Country for Old Men"

Roger Deakins for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"

Seamus McGarvey for "Atonement"

Janusz Kaminski for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

Robert Elswit for "There Will Be Blood"

Those are all fine choices. But these are extremely worthy:

Harris Savides for "Zodiac"

Agnes Godard for "Golden Door"

William Lubtchansky for "Regular Lovers"

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 8, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Directors Guild of America President Michael Apted today announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2007.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 8, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Continuing its distinguished 74-year association with the Academy Awards(r), PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP today announced that Brad Oltmanns and Rick Rosas will again lead the balloting process for the 80th Annual Academy Awards. Oltmanns and Rosas are the only two people in the world who will know the identity of the Oscar(r) winners before the live telecast on ABC at 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST) on Sunday, February 24, 2008.

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 8, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- In its 24th year, San Diego's ArtWalk Festival will return to downtown's hip and historic Little Italy neighborhood on April 26 and 27, 2008 from 12 noon to 6 p.m. on both days. The largest open-air gallery in the region, ArtWalk fills 14 city blocks with some of the finest painting, sculpture, glasswork, photography, music and dance by more than 400 artists from throughout Southern California, Arizona and Mexico.