Cartoon Graveyard: Can’t Stop The Motion

Confession time: I’m a total geek for stop-motion animation. The very idea of someone going to the trouble of building tiny detailed figures, props, and sets, putting them into dioramas, and then carefully arranging them so as to create the illusion of motion, and telling a story that way, is awesome. It has to be the most labor-intensive animation method on the planet, and it’s worth it because the end product looks so goddamned cool. So naturally I’m impressed by people like Nick Park and Henry Selick that make a living out of it. Hell, Wes Anderson reportedly directed Fantastic Mister Fox from thousands of miles away, just to show off (then again, it’s not like he’s the only acclaimed filmmaker with super powers. You know the real reason Scorsese wears those glasses? That’s right, heat vision). Making a stop-motion film tells me that the director cares enough about his or her story to put a great deal of time and effort into telling it. At least, it should. Unfortunately, sometimes it means that they think the effect will be cool enough that no one will notice if they just dick around for a while. And that, alas, is what we’re dealing with.

I'd like to think they're watching their own show in this shot.

Title: Titan Maximum

Network: Adult Swim (Cartoon Network)

Premise: Two words: shitty Voltron.

New Issue Dropping Right Here Ya Heard

Oh boy!  It’s the latest issue of the Squelch that came out a few weeks ago, finally available on the Internet.  Read it! It’s pretty good!

Vol 19, Issue 2: Gangbusters

It should be noted that this is probably my favorite cover, ever.  Good work, us!  Hooray!

Happy Halloween You Bunch of Goobers

Hey sorry I haven’t posted literally anything onto the blog in literally a month but I’m really very tired.  Also we had an issue a while ago which I haven’t put online yet because see prior statement (tired I am tired).  This will more than make up for it, I promise:

Cartoon Graveyard: Birthday Ba(k)sh

I don’t have anything in-depth written for today, so instead let’s all celebrate Ralph Bakshi’s 71st birthday by watching some of his classic insane work. God bless you, Ralph. Whenever America has need of really weird cartoons, you’ve been there.

And while we’re at it, another very happy birthday to one Dan Castellaneta. Keep the virtuoso voice work coming, Beelzebot!

Actual post next time, I promise.

IRL News: Cred and Circuses

I realize Sarah usually uses this header, but what the hell, this is real life. Anyone who’s walked by Sproul this week knows that the Anti-Abortion Gross-Out Roadshow or whatever is in town, with their huge pictures of aborted fetuses juxtaposed with photos of Barack Obama for some reason. I guess they want him to ban abortion, but you know, not being the Supreme Court, he can’t actually do that, so I’m not sure what the point is really. Anyway, normally I’d write it off as just another useless partisan shout-fest, but then I saw these signs.

This photo isn't from campus, but it's the same sign.

Now, being a Berkeley student, I’m more or less used to displays about genocide. “What could this be,” I thought to myself, not really but for the sake of this rhetorical device. “Perhaps something about Darfur, or a plea to recognize the Armenian victims of Turkey in 1915.” Lo and behold, what should I find but AbortionTownUSA, the traveling exhibit of Comparing Abortion To Things It’s Not. Now, I’m an open-minded kind of guy, but this got me thinking that perhaps these anti-abortion activists were playing fast and loose with their facts. So it’s time for some unsolicited advice.

Weekend Video Jamboree – 10/24/09 – REEEEEmix

hay guys so david hasn been doing this feature much lately actually i havn been blogging much either but you know i kind of just got busy with things like

anyways  WHO WENT TO TREASURE ISLAND LAST WEEK EEEEEEEEH?? it was pretty bombass wasn’t it?! i think i liked mstrkrft the best. i was kind of disappointed in girl talk, but they are more gimmicky than anything! so let’s look/listen to gimmicky music videos!

incidentally, all of these are best seen through the site yooouuutuuube.com (three o’s, three u’s, and three u’s again).

Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

I’ve linked this before, but it’s so much better with a huge fucking embedded video, ISN’T IT?! For some reason it is hard to find the full set of Feed the Animals videos, but THE INTERWEB CANNOT FOOL THE ELITE SQLOG CORPS. Here is the full set, taken from several different sets of uploads– hopefully the intranet po-po won’t get up on this shit. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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Alice

Fagottron has a number of awesome videos, but this is my favorite. Especially when viewed through yooouuutuuube.com.

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A Haaaaaandbaaag?! (Remix)

I love “The Importance of Being Ernest“, I love The Importance of Being Ernest, and I love A Handbag ?! Ergo, I love A Handbag feat. Edit Evans:

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Grey Video

If you don’t know The Grey Album, I just feel sorry for you. The Grey Video is fun despite (because?) it being so lo-fi and downright silly.

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We Will Rock and Roll Beverly Hills

Ehhhh fuck Weezer.

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People who go to Weezer concerts clearly want to have MGMT & Lady Gaga played at them

Yeah, seriously, fuck Weezer.

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WANT MORE MASH-UP GOODNESS?! Well, fortunately for you, TONIGHT is Bootie, a bimonthly mash-up themed party in SF. 21+, fortunately/unfortunately (18+ parties tend to be pretty annoying, IMO). Have a great weekend!

Cartoon Graveyard: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

The Squelch is nothing if not a hive of conformity and authoritarian oppression, so it should come as no surprise that our respective pop-culture obsessions tend to overlap. Much of the staff have spent the last year or so orgasming over The Wire, our mutual hatred of Family Guy is legendary, and sooner or later every new recruit must face the Dog Police, whom I shall leave a mystery to the uninitiated. Editors in particular tend to merge personalities after a while, and one of the many ways in which David and I are essentially the same person now is our slavish devotion to this week’s series and Best Show On Television candidate, The Venture Brothers, which started its fourth season this past Sunday.

Title: The Venture Brothers

Network: Adult Swim (Cartoon Network)

Premise (via David): What if Jonny Quest grew up and wasn’t as good as his father?

The Internet-in-Brief, 10/21/09: Multimedia Edition

Oh man, if only we had some kind of a feature where we posted nothing but internet videos!

Here is the current state of political affairs, told in hilariously bad youtubes:

International Affairs

Religious edition.

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Our Relationship With the Media

David Vitter! Remember David Vitter? What a moral compass.

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Healthcare, Pt. 1

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Healthcare, Pt. 2

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Fiscal Responsibility

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Campaign Strategy

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Post-campaign blues

Urge to Kill Rising: There’s low, and then there’s hideous.

This time, literally, the urge to kill.

See, a kid from my hometown killed himself last night. I didn’t know him, but that’s very sad. May he rest in peace. So I’m reading the news story from one of our local papers, and I come across this:

Wait… “Asian advantage dot net”? Is that poster’s name a website? Could some motherfucker really be sick enough to spam the comments section of a news story about a teenager’s suicide?

YES! Some college consultants have the unmitigated gall to spam a news story of a teenager’s suicide! I know that’s a competitive market, but really now? Well, I guess these guys are just some innocent businessmen trying to get some publicity. So I say we give them as much publicity as we can! I mean, according to this brilliant viral marketing agent, this guy wouldn’t have killed himself if not for Asian Advantage College Consulting LLC. So let’s let all our friends just what great service they can expect from Asian Advantage College Consulting LLC! That’s ASIAN ADVANTAGE COLLEGE CONSULTING LLC, ASIAN ADVANTAGE COLLEGE CONSULTING LLC, ASIAN ADVANTAGE COLLEGE CONSULTING LLC.

Take your own screencaps, cache the page. And if you have something you’d like to say, personally, to the fine folks who did this, here’s their contact information:

Asian Advantage College Consulting, LLC
Alameda, CA 94501

Phone: 415-608-2463

Email: info@asianadvantage.net

The Internet-in-Brief, 10/20/09

• What’s driving up college tuition? According to the Atlantic, the Atlantic has nothing but baseless speculation to offer.

• What with the 6.5% average increase in the cost of public education, at least we have our libraries back.

• WE HAVE YOU BY THE BALLS, REPUBLICANS! (and libertarians). “Presidential election outcome changed voters’ testosterone.”

• The Washington Post is dead: “The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.”

• The Clog is creeped out by the cyborg beetles project. Me, the Clog, and Professor Brian Harvey*? Dear boyfriend, the research project you’ve been assigned to is a priori creepy.

*”That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard of.” – Brian Harvey, from a totally legit source, bro!

Hey, and if any of you non-porn-surfing readers still care about Iran (or ever cared), the Iranian Student Alliance in America (what a mouthful) is holding a rally at 12 on Thursday, on Sproul Plaza (of course). Other happenings that day:

2-3:30 – Tilden Room, MLK Student Union, 5th floor – Panel Discussion with Dr. Arash Naraghi and Omid Memarian

6:30-9 – Chevron Auditorium, I-House – Documentary screening (subject matter: the June election), Theatrical Performance, Panel Discussion with Dr. Nayereh Tohidi, Reese Erlich, and Alireza Eshraghi

9-10 – Sproul Plaza – Social Justice Week Candlelight Vigil

These are some really interesting people they’ve snagged for the event, so if you were glued to your screen during the Week that Twitter Did Something Useful (… like I was…), you might want to check this out. That said, if you were glued to your screen during the Week that Twitter Did Something Useful, like I was, you are probably also a pale, fragile shut-in who can’t stand being around so many yelly people.

Haha just kidding I am totally awesome and cool I AM NOTHING LIKE THAT