Here's an interesting 40-second clip of Genndy Tartakovsky's SYM-BIONIC TITAN animated series. The series will debut on the Cartoon Network September 2010. With Genndy's great success creating hit animation shows including DEXTER'S LAB, POWERPUFF GIRLS, and SAMURAI JACK, there's sure to be high expectations for the project.

On the one hand, I am very excited by the concept. As a fan of Japanese Mecha, I am in full support of a US-developed Super Robot show! I am also a big fan of Tartakovsky's angular illustration style.

On the other hand, this show seems to be taking some conventional choices that hide the more radical stylings that Tartakovsky's animations are known for. The Titan robot's animations are based on computer renders. This gives the show a 3D feel that is not typically associated with Tartakovsky's previous shows.

I love the robot design. I just hope some of that Genndy Tartakovsky "style" is better showcased when the show debuts in September.

If you know Muttpop products, then you are familiar with the amazing design work of Gobi, Bill, and Mense. The 3 talented artists were our inspiration for creating Muttpop. When Jerry was showing me the amazing character designs Gobi, Bill, and Mense were doing for his various Lucha Libre comics I demanded that we find a way to make toys of those characters. As with all talented people, the 3 artists continue to grow in skill and imagination. So much so that they've decided to share some of their wild ideas via their newly dubbed site CATFISH DELUXE.

I had the pleasure of helping them out with the English on the website. It was really fun reading descriptions of the different universes... and even crazier to later see those universes realized in their beautiful illustrations. I recommend... no, I COMMAND you to check out their site! :-)

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE CATFISH DELUXE WEBSITE.

As you all know, AVATAR came out today. And, it's guaranteed to be a humungous hit. Why? Because it's got blue people in it. Hear me out, everything with blue skinned people is beloved by the masses. Smurfs devoured our childhood. Tron, even though it was far from being a perfect film, burned our brains with funny looking neon glow pajamas and blue faces (I'll admit, that crazy cool motorcycle scene helped a bit). Fantomas, despite being a sociopath, thief, and sadistic murderer, is one of the most popular French characters in crime fiction; and he has, you guessed it, a funny looking blue face/mask. The Las Vegas Blue Man Group? Um, what the hell?! I heard they even have a school for children! Is that Indian deity Vishnu behind this odd occurrence? I have no idea. For some reason a green faced guy is scary (damned martian!), a red faced guy is scary (demon!), but a blue faced guy? We freakin' love him!

We'd like to give much love and respect to Nuno Santos for the amazing Dr. Destruction computer polygon animation he did. The polygon rendered figure does a wonderful job of capturing the Doctor's proud attitude and flair. Muttpop Nico first discovered the video this past weekend and immediately shared it with the rest of the Muttpop team. Great work Nuno! Thanks for the love.

CLICK HERE to see Santos' Dr. Destruction model in its various stages of development.

Dr Destruction from Nuno Santos on Vimeo.

Rakin/Bass Production was an unknowing ambassador of Japanese Animation to the United States and Global consumer market. As the co-developers and financier of THUNDERCATS, SILVERHAWKS, and TIGERSHARKS during the mid-1980s, Rakin/Bass hired a team of animators in Japan to help develop and animate these syndicated shows. The key animation team producing these shows eventually formed Studio Ghibli under the tutelage of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

All three shows were an interesting mix of American and Japanese approaches to animation. The various characters depicted took a more American approach to proportion and emotive expression. The dynamic action and repeated animated sequences (such as Lion-O's sword growth and SilverHawk transformations) felt incredibly Japanese with it's dynamic mixture of melodramatic music and use of unconventional perspective in animated movement.

The formula was a basic one: create a group of characters based on a cool animal and exciting adjective (although 'tiger' as an adjective doomed TigerSharks show at inception!). ThunderCats is the first and most recognizable of the three series. SilverHawks never reached the fever-pitched reception of ThunderCats... but may have a more cult appeal these days (I attribute that to the swanky silver hairdos!). At 1 petty season of mediocrity, TigerSharks is dully remembered by a small handful of people.

As with any cartoon from the 1980s, all 3 series came with a slew of action figures. The ThunderCat action figures are easily the best of the bunch. Sculpts are large (a little bigger than the He-man figures). The construction and materials are of high quality. The SilverHawk figures didn't get the likenesses quite right but hide their flaws with the bling of chromed plastic. The TigerShark figures had a neat transformation trick but suffer from a cast of inferior character designs (a dolphin-nosed dude and "sexy" octopus lady!? Come on!).

Intros to all 3 series can be seen below:

THUNDERCATS

SILVERHAWKS

TIGERSHARKS

TIGERSHARK images taken from the Classic Articulation Blog.

My love of Japanese Mecha began at the influential age of 4 years old. I had just finished my day of schooling at Pinecrest Preschool and my mom generously switched-up the picking-up ritual with 2 super-thick cardboard full color children's books starring the Yuusha Raideen. I was instantly transported to another world. As a half Japanese-boy, I felt a bit of pride whenever I could connect with something remotely Japanese. Considering how cool and exotic the world of Raideen looked, it was fairly easy to dive right in. I remember being particularly attracted to all the pseudo-mechanical diagrams explaining how Raideen's armor and weapons work. There was also an amazing cut away drawing showing what the electronic and mechanical innards of the Raideen robot looked like. I could spend hours staring at that stuff and imagining how it'd all work in the real world.