Printed from www.digitalmediafx.com
Digital Media FX - The Power of Imagination
Digital Media FX News Archives
Saturday
- June 2, 2001
- Hank Ketcham Passes Away at 81
- Cartoon Tiger, Animated
Dragon
- Cats and Dogs: The Auction (B5 Too)
- News Link of the Day -
Executives Fight Over Credit for Pearl Harbor
Hank
Ketcham Passes Away at 81
(by digitalmediafx.com) The creator of Dennis the Menace, Hank Ketcham,
has passed away at the age of 81 after a battle with cancer and heart
disease.
Ketcham, whose full name is Henry King Ketcham, was inspired early on by the work of Lantz and Walt Disney. In the mid 1980's, Ketcham turned over the Sunday strip to cartoonist Ron Ferdinand. In 1994 he also retired from the daily cartoons, turning those duties over to Marcus Hamilton. In both cases, Ketcham maintained strict supervision over the quality and process.
Ketcham spent two years as an animator with Walt Disney studios where he worked on films like Pinocchio and Fantasia. That changed, however, on December 7, 1941 when the attack on Pearl Harbor drew America into the war. Ketcham's talent was then applied to creating cartoons, animated commercials, etc. for war bonds and posters for the Navy.
Ketcham's work after the war was regularly picked up by high-profile publications like The Saturday Evening Post and The New Yorker. In 1951, Ketcham gained inspiration for a new one panel comic strip through watching his son, who was four years old at the time. It started when his wife was upset that their son, Dennis, had torn apart his room when he was suppose to be taking a nap. She called the boy a "menace." Dennis The Menace was born.
Cartoon Tiger,
Animated Dragon
(by digitalmediafx.com)
The movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon may soon become an animated
TV series if a company in China has its way. According to Daily Variety,
"Taipei-based SMEC Media and Entertainment has acquired the rights
to produce an animated series adapted from Wang Du-Lu's "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' book series...SMEC is now shopping the series around
Hollywood."
Cats and Dogs:
The Auction (B5 Too)
(by digitalmediafx.com) Movie studios have discovered a new gold mine
- online auctions. While the process of movie studios auctioning off items
has been around for over a year, it is just beginning to gain in popularity.
Yesterday, Warner Bros. announced that it will be auctioning off several items from its FX-filled family movie, Cats & Dogs, which opens in theaters nationally on July 4, 2001. Some of the things being put up for auction include a trip for four to Los Angeles to attend the Cats & Dogs premiere, an animatronic beagle puppy complete with spy gear and autographed copies of the script, movie posters and sketches from the production.
In addition to Cats & Dogs, Warner Bros. is also auctioning off several Babylon 5 items.
You can access the
eBay auctions (from now until June 11, 2001) by clicking
here.
News Link of the
Day - Executives Fight Over Credit for Pearl Harbor
According to MSNBC:
"The process of making movies is a hugely collaborative one, with some pictures taking more than a thousand people to produce. But in almost every case, the initial idea comes from just one person.
In the case of Pearl
Harbor, which last weekend raked in $75 million at the box office,
the person who had the idea was a production executive at Disney named
Todd Garner…"
Click here for the full story.
> Return
to the Top of the Page
> Return
to Today's News
> Return to the Digital
Media FX Front Page
These news articles and all digitalmediafx.com content are ©copyright 2001 by Joe Tracy and may not be reused for any purpose without expressed written consent of the author and Digital Media FX. All rights reserved.
