Cartoons

A Lassie animated movie? A new Casper cartoon? It's all speculation, but DreamWorks has just purchased licensing company Classic Media for $155 million. Classic Media, which was founded by ex-Marvel CEO Eric Ellenbogen and ex-Broadway Video's John Engelman in 2000, has long been one of the biggest behind-the-scenes media entities, amassing a huge library of legacy characters including the Harvey and Western libraries, in addition to The Lone Ranger, Lassie, and many many more.

Check out Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward signing comics for the kiddies at San Diego Comic Con

Some linkage from today's Google News feed! So much stuff, I had to split it in twain! Here's the media stuff, along with some pictures and video!

We already told you about the big Adventure Time display and interactive adventure at the Children's Museum during Comic-Con. For those who are inside the con, there's also a big scavenger hunt with maps and stamps and prizes. WE WANT ONE. In case you haven't figured it out, Adventure Time is this year's Scott Pilgrim!

We've been to a few parties over at the Children's Museum in SD, located right across the tracks from the Hyatt—notably a concert by Cheap Trick a few years back—and often wondered why it wasn't used more by party-givers. Well, what with the original Tr!ckster venue going to the studios, and now this, it seems "right across the tracks" is the new DUMBO, as Cartoon Network is taking over the Children's Museum for an Adventure Time exhibit and a "fully immersive" Adventure Time experience! That won't be popular, oh no. The exhibit opens on Wednesday of the con.

Surely if you're anywhere near the comics biz you are guzzling vats of weapons-grade caffeine in order to get you through to The Big Show. Well this cartoon by the great Gary Leib may make you think twice. Plus, The New York Times is making cartoons now?

Blow me down! It looks like Popeye may be on his way back to the big screen, and with animation master Genndy Tartakovsky at the helm: Avi and Ari Arad are producing it for Sony Animation from a script by David Ronn and Jay Scherick.

Although it is branded as a Pixar movie, "Brave" is more like a Disney feature. Is the Golden Age of Pixar over?

Charles Yoakum has posted some storyboards by himself and Paul Gulacy for an animation featuring country singer Toby Keith.

Wild party man Andrew W.K. is known for his high energy rockin' anthems, his white attire...and now that he is a Brony. It seems that he has signed on as a speaker for Canterlot Gardens, an Ohio convention for My Little Pony Fans, where he'll deliver an inspirational speech.

French speakers will enjoy this the most, but for Mysterious Cities of Gold fans—and we know there are a lot of you—the impact of this trailer will be a bit like seeing THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK for the first time...only 25 years later instead of 3. It's all there: Kukapetl, Mendoza, the Golden Bird airship, the theme song...and the promise of many, many more civilizations to be destroyed by our trio of young heroes.

This will only excite about three dozen people, but those three dozen souls will be stricken mute with wonder and paralyzed by glee. Twenty-five years later, there is actually going to be a sequel to Mysterious Cities of Gold, the 39-episode cartoon that debuted in 1982 as a US-Franco-Japanese co-production. Using Japanese animators and DIC and Studio Pierrot writers and talent, I guess you could say this was a forebear of the current "world style" of comics and animation.