The Cartoon Brew website has posted this music video, “Superfan Unknown”, by Swiss animator Simon Eltz. Is it anthropomorphic? No, but it features a fursuiter.

The Cartoon Brew website has posted this animated trailer for Armello, an Australian anthropomorphic “digital card & board game ‘of swashbuckling, character-based high adventure, set in a fairy-tale animal kingdom’” which “should be released in 2013.”

The trailer is by Melbourne-based 12 Field.

The Cartoon Brew has posted Bare, a 2011 graduation film by Helen Dallat of the University of Wales, Newport, about an unusually fussy bear in the woods.

The only bears in the woods that I have known have s---, didn’t use any toilet paper, then sat down in their own mess – but presumably an anthropomorphic bear would be more fastidious.

It has begun. Oscar season is here; yes, it really starts this early. So, let's set the Ursa Majors on the backburner and take a look at 2012’s Best Animated Feature Oscar hopefuls.

On one hand, it’s going to be a full slate all but guaranteed. On the other hand, it’s such a weak year I am saying it’s a weak year. And, on the gripping hand, don’t expect three movies titled after talking animals in the final ballot this year. Maybe one, though.

Forgive me; there is nothing anthropomorphic about this latest animation of Rossini’s William Tell Overture, a graduation project by French student animator Louis Thomas, just hired by Pixar, posted on the Cartoon Brew website. But there has been before (The Band Concert, Disney, 1935), and there doubtlessly will be again.

Rossini’s complete William Tell has rarely been performed since its 1829 debut because of its complexity. I can see why.

So it’s not anthropomorphic. Sue me.

Word has come out of Florida a few days ago that Digital Domain are closing down their new animation studio, Tradition, effective immediately, and will instead focus their California and Vancouver, Canada studios on movie special effects. Tradition was an attempt by Digital Domain (a well-known special effects house created by Stan Winston, Scott Ross, and director James Cameron) to follow in the steps of another FX house, Sony Pictureworks, into the realm of animated features (as Sony did successfully with Open Season, Surf’s Up, and other films). Now, 300 people have been let go in Florida, and — from a furry fan perspective, perhaps another sad thing — work has stopped on The Legend of Tembo, Tradition’s first film, which would have followed the adventures of a young elephant. Cartoon Brew have been following this story closely, so check it out — but be prepared for some harsh words.

image c. 2012 Digital Domain

For those who missed it (or are too young), Rocko’s Modern Life was a Nickelodeon TV cartoon that ran for four seasons (52 episodes) from September 1993 to November 1996. The main characters, as described by Wikipedia, were Rocko, an anthropomorphic wallaby immigrant to America, “the gluttonous steer Heffer, the neurotic turtle Filburt, and Rocko's faithful dingodog, Spunky. The show is laden with adult humor, including double entendres, innuendos, and satirical social commentary.”

The Cartoon Brew has announced that on Saturday, October 6, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., there will be a voice cast and production crew reunion at the Downtown Independent L.A. Theatre (251 South Main Street, Los Angeles, Calif. 90012; (213) 617-1033; email).

Voice actors Carlos Alazraqui, Mr. Lawrence, Tom Kenny, Charlie Adler along with creator Joe Murray and couple of directors, Swampy Marsh, and Dan Povenmire will perform several episodes live and hold a panel discussion and a meet-the-cast autograph session.

Tickets are $30 each, plus $4 shipping & mailing if you order in advance instead of planning to buy them at the box office if any are left. “Parking can be a challenge.”

Anthropomorphism ain’t always pretty. Especially when it’s animated by Jim (Su)grue of NYC’s Titmouse Studios, and posted on the Cartoon Brew website. (Note: Graphic cartoon violence.)

The Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association, which administers the annual Ursa Major Awards, has updated the 2012 Anthropomorphic Reading List to include the titles recommended by furry fans through the end of August. This list is often used by fans to nominate in the next year's Awards.

All fans are invited to recommend worthwhile anthropomorphic works in eleven categories (motion pictures, dramatic short films or broadcasts, novels, short fiction, other literary works, graphic stories, comic strips, magazines, published illustrations, websites, and games) first published during 2012, if they are not already on the list.

Send in your recommendations and read the List to see what other fans have recommended. Have you read all twenty-one comic strips, for example? What have you been missing?

Whatever you’re for, Mulvar is for it, too. And he’s anthropomorphic, also. The Cartoon Brew website brings us this ultimate candidate, created by Montreal animator Patrick Désilets for this 2012 election year. (Note: Loud audio.)

The Cartoon Brew website has just posted this two-year-old eight-minute film by Swedish animator Jacob Stålhammar; written in 2004, painted in gouache on cardboard, and animated in limited animation to a public domain stock music score. Arguably less an animated cartoon than an animated children’s picture book. Still anthropomorphic.

Go crossie! It’s your birthday! We’re gonna party like it’s your birthday!

Okay, that’s enough of that, then. On to the column.

Animation Xpress #351 for 22 August announces that, “Chennai based HappyCloud Studios working on Talkative Tortoise, 26X11 Animated TV Series”, by Zeenia Boatwala. In the usual news story that looks just like a hyperenthusiastic press release, it is announced that:

With a mission to provide high quality animation content for all mainstream media, including Theatrical, TV, Web & DVD; Chennai based HappyCloud Studios is working on its In-house IP Talkative Tortoise, 26 X 11 CGI.

Talkative Tortoise is a humorous show which orbits around a talkative tortoise that always talks about the environment and educates about global warming.

The Cartoon Brew website has a preview of DreamWorks’ TV series sequel to its 2010 hit theatrical feature and Ursa Major Award winner: Dragons: Riders of Berk, a CGI series premièring on Cartoon Network on Tuesday, September 4.

The show will recount the further adventures of Hiccup (and Toothless) and his friends, and their dragons, of the Viking island of Berk, as they all learn to become expert dragon riders. (Comparisons with Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern are already being made.) The movie’s principal voice cast will re-play their characters, and new characters will include Tim Conway as Mulch and Mark Hammill as Alvin the Treacherous.

Dragons: Riders of Berk will keep the series fresh until the theatrical sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (or whatever it will be named), is released in June 2014.

Fans of the animated TV series Earthworm Jim (created, of course, by the one-and-only Doug TenNapel) can now rejoice as Earthworm Jim: The Complete Series has been released as a 3-DVD box set. “Jim was a multi-celled life form happily burrowing through the topsoil. His life changed in a flash when an extraterrestrial super-suit fell out of the sky. Instantly transformed from a 98 gram weakling into a muscular worm endowed with superpowers, extraordinary strength and the ability to leap incredible heights and distances, the suit renders him invulnerable. Earthworm Jim – daring defender of Earth, the cosmos and everything in between!” Got all that? Trust us it only gets stranger when you watch it. The Earthworm Jim DVD box set from Visual Entertainment Inc. is available at Amazon.com.

image c. 2012 Visual Entertainment