My suggestion for a new Animated Batman series...

There have been quite a few Batman animated series's since the 1990s as well as several one off animated movies in recent years. Some of which I've enjoyed. Some of which I feel missed the mark. But I feel like its high time DC Comics and Warner Animation did a modern adaptation of Carmine Infantino's "new look" Batman from the mid-1960s.

I'm serious. If it wasn't for both Carmine Infantino's redesign of the Caped Crusader as well as the success of the television series starring Adam West, Batman would have most likely been cancelled and possibly been long since forgotten.

I think it's high time we give both their well-earned respect as either a television series or a one off animation the way they did Year One and the Dark Knight Returns.

I'm well aware some of you might say, "But didn't they already do that with Batman: The Brave and the Bold". Which, quite frankly, was a television series I greatly enjoyed. But the answer to that is NOPE!

Although there are nods to the Adam West series, the character design of Brave and the Bold is closer to the Dick Sprang/Sheldon Moldoff era of Batman. Dick Sprang's influence is apparent in the series's design of the Joker.

I would welcome a series that both took Infantino's design of the Dynamic Duo as well as adapted many of the stories which were written during that time period. It worked really well when they adapted The Laughing Fish for Batman: The Animated Series. They even managed to effortlessly add elements from an earlier Batman story The Joker's Five Way Revenge.

Perhaps if they were to do an animated series or movie of this nature, they could get Adam West and Burt Ward to reprise their respective roles as Batman and Robin.

Come on DC and Warner Brothers! Make this happen!

Dark Knight Returns: Part One

Warner Premiere has done some really great adaptations of the DC Superheroes over the past few years. Their treatment of New Frontiers and Batman: Year One immediately come to mind. Then again, DC had a bit of the upperhand on Marvel in the 1990's. They were releasing the Batman Animated Series while Marvel was trying to pass off terribly animated versions of both Spider-Man and The X-Men.

However, that cannot really be said anymore since Marvel has for the most part caught up with DC in both the animation and big-budget movie game. Aside, from Superhero Squad. In the case of the Summer Blockbusters, Marvel may have very well surpassed DC with hits like Iron Man, the Avengers and the recent Emo-mazing Spider-Man movie.

Although DC has had tremendous success with the Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy, movies like Green Lantern and the previous Brandon Routh Superman endeavor proved to be less than successful. However, their hoping to have success by hitting the reboot buttom on the next Superman movie sans Routh. Which was something they should have done in the first place instead of just making a continuation of the Christopher Reeves movies.

Time will tell.

With that said, I still feel DC has one up on Marvel at least as far as animated films are concerned. And the trailer for their upcoming (and I'm sure highly anticipated) animated movie based on Frank Miller's classic Dark Knight Returns looks like it's going to be another good one for them. After watching the trailer, I can't wait to check it out. Check it out for yourself below:

MTV Shows

Animation and Influences

When it comes to classic animation most people are either a Disney or Loony Tunes fan. You either love Disney's animation for the high production values on their beautifully animated epics or you prefer the screwball comedy and the individuality Warner Brothers allowed the directors to have when directing the various Loony Tunes cartoons.

Mind you, I'm not putting down the artists at Disney who produced such great artists as Carl Barks and Walt Kelly. Both of which I would gladly polish their shoes.

But as far as my personal tastes go, I've always been a Loony Tunes fan and as for cartoons produced by Warner Brothers I've always enjoyed the ones created by Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson the most.

But it goes further than that. What made those cartoons so great for me was not only the directors but also Carl Stalling who had a knack of producing memorable scores and a talent for fitting music popular at that time. Writers like Michael Maltese who wrote the scripts. And finally the vocal talents of both Mel Blanc, June Foray and Arthur Q Bryan.

I don't know if most people realize that he and not Blanc did the voice of Elmer Fudd.

Influence is something I try to stress when I am teaching my animation class. Because I know quite a few of the students taking the class have been influenced by a cartoon. Either classic or current.

One of the thing I try to do while explaining the whole concept of influences is how it pertains to animation. I usually start with a current cartoon:

C. H. Greenblatt who created the series Chowder worked on the show SpongeBob SquarePants. The look and feel of SpongeBob has a great deal to owe (in my less than humble opinion) to the series Ren and Stimpy. John Kricfalusi, who created Ren and Stimpy, was very influenced by the look and the feel of the television cartoons of the 1950's and 1960's. He is also very influenced by animator Robert "Bob" Clampett. Both the cartoons he produced in the 1950's and 1960's and the work he did for Warner Brothers in the 1940's.

Bob Clampett's use of "stretch and squash" as well as overly exaggerating the emotions of the characters (i.e. jaw dropping and eyes bugging out) is owed to Tex Avery's cartoons.

So while I try not to discourage the students from drawing SpongeBob, I try to encourage them to find ways to use what has influenced them in the style of SpongeBob's cartoons and how they can use that in their own cartoons.

Batman: A Death in the Family, Jason Todd and Warner Animation

Warner Animation has been doing some really amazing animated movies with the DC Comic Superheroes the past few years. Starting with their adaptation to Darwyn Cook's brilliant DC: New Frontiers as well as Green Lantern: First Flight and Batman/Superman: Public Enemies. Which brought back Kevin Conroy as Batman and Tim Daly as Superman who originally starred as the characters in the 1990's.

And most recently, Warner Animation has released their most recent adaptation Batman: Under the Red Hood. Which is based upon the story which returned Robin MK II Jason Todd to the DC Universe.


Jason Todd is kind of a forgotten man (or Boy Wonder) till recently. He was Dick Grayson's replacement as Robin after MK I decided to hang up the green shorts and Peter Pan boots and become Nightwing. Originally when Jason Todd was introduced into the DC Universe (as it's referred to nowadays by the hep kids) he was pretty much a carbon copy of Dick Grayson except he had strawberry blond(?!) hair. But his origin was almost note for note the same as Dick Grayson's. Circus performer. Parents (acrobats) killed by Killer Croc...

...which is slightly different since Dick Grayson's parents were not killed by an established villain from Batman's rogue gallery...

...Bruce Wayne becomes his legal guardian, dyes his hair black and becomes the next Robin.

Everyone seemed to tolerate the new Robin until after the whole DC Universe was revamped due to the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths story arc which erased the whole multiple Earths as well as killed off quite a few big name characters like the Barry Allen Flash and Supergirl. Both of which incidentally have returned in one form or another.

In the revised DC Universe, Jason Todd was recast as a street kid who is caught by Batman stealing tires off the Batmobile. Batman finds out the kid has no living relatives, takes young Jason Todd in hoping he can change the kid so he's not part of the criminal underworld. Trains him in the art of crime-fighting and shortly thereafter Jason Todd is the new Robin. But he's more rough around the edges. Has a temper and constantly defies Batman's orders.

And the fans hate it. And in a poll set up by DC Comics fan were given a chance to vote if Jason Todd will live or die. The fans vote death, Jason Todd is beat up mercilessly by the Joker with a crowbar, left to die in a warehouse and blown up.

Not too long after that Tim Drake becomes Robin MK III and Jason Todd is left to rot in the cold cold ground...

...until February of 2005 when Jason Todd returned from the grave as the Red Hood. Which had previously been the identity of the Joker before he took a swan dive into a vat of chemicals.

WHEW!!! That's your Jason Todd history lesson.

But that brings us to the present... FINALLY... and Warner Animation's release of Under the Red Hood which begins with the death of Jason Todd at the hand of the Joker in A Death in the Family and continues with the storyline from Under the Hood.

Which got me thinking. It doesn't take a lot. With all the adaptations they have in the past several years which also included The Death and Return of Superman (one of Warner Animations less successful efforts) I think it would be great to see them do a full adaptation of A Death in the Family.

But not only that. Do it in Jim Aparo's style.


Maybe I stand alone on this (I doubt it) but I think it would make for a great animated movie. As much as I do like the character design for Batman: The Animated Series (especially the later revisions they did with the characters when they renamed the series The Adventures of Batman and Robin)I think I've seen the style so many times with that series as well as the Superman and Justice League series, seeing something that is done in a different style, Jim Aparo's in particular would be great!! Especially if they kept it in the blue costume with the black shadow in the face of the mask.

I would actually love to see more animations actually tackle the Neal Adams/Jim Aparo Batman look for an animation or two.

As I have said countless times in the past, I rather doubt DC Comics or Warner Animation has my blog on their nightly reading list. However, I would love to see this story as well as tales like the Green Latern/Green Arrow story arc by Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, Justice League: The Nail and even the classic Nick Cardy style Teen Titans line-up adapted into animation.

Or even The Untold Legend of the Batman. Which is still one of my favorite history/origin of the Batman story.

And now for something (somewhat) completely different...

For those of you who have known me since way back when, I use to draw cartoons all the time. I did cartoon characters all the way up till my last year of college in the school newspaper.

I usually don't do cartooning much nowadays except for in the classroom. I suppose it's like riding a bicycle for me. Even though I do work that is vastly different from the stuff I did in High School or even college, I can still dig into that little storage locker in my brain and dig it out.

Which is what I had decided to do when I saw this contest Narragansett Beer was holding for their upcoming Father's Day Tie. I had chickened out last year but I decided to take a brave stab at it this year in the only way I know how.

And spending the day watching Looney Tunes gave me all the inspiration I needed.

Since I connect Narragansett with 1950's and 1960's Americana, I really wanted to tap into that. No puns intended. So, I wanted to create this Dad in the image of people like Steve Allen, Phil "Sgt. Bilko" Silvers or Arnold "Top Cat" Stang.

I really drew heavily upon Hannah-Barbera, Rocky and Bullwinkle, UPA characters, Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. Especially some of Frelengs more stylized and sometimes simplified designs from the 1950's.

And I threw in a little John K. just for good measures. Although, I know it doesn't show up in the results, I've always loved John K's stylized characters and had that in mind when I was creating this.

Also, another rule of the contest was to use Narragansett imaging for the design. So, I incorporated a great number of the bottle designs into the character. The design of the tie was taken from one of the old designs from the Narragansett cans. The color of the hair was also taken from the same thing as the tie. The shirt was taken from the colors of Narragansett Lite and the trousers were from the color of the label on Narragansett Bock Beer.

The glass he is holding is from an image on one of the older labels.

I created a background image for the character which will use the design from the Narragansett Lager.