We're pulling an all-nighter trying to get a site done. It's definitely the last big AS 2/Flash 8 site we do. AS 3/Flex is making everything a lot easier/faster/better.

I suppose that I should wrap up the San Diego/LA trip before we go again next week eh?


DJ Lance Rock and Brobee sign at the con.


..and hangs with his biggest fans.


Would you buy a comic from this man? Rhode Montijo hammed up his booth this year.


Blade Runners.


Zander with his college pal Feedback.

I can't remember what we did that day but at the end of it I ran into Jon Schnepp, the director of Adult Swim's Metalocalypse, and a guy who gets stuff done who invited us to the Metalocalypse party. There we ran into Six Point Harness folks and met a bunch of animation people. The animation writer's guild party was pretty cool, lots of ex comic-book writers there. Then we took a long drive to...somewhere...for the Fox party. They had booked a whole restaurant with great food and drink and we spent most of the night chatting with Aaron Simpson who's was
an early supporter of the studio and all around swell guy. Matt Groening and Seth McFarlane were there, and I'm not used to the only people I recognize not being long time pals.

Julia and Cold Hard Flash's Aaron Simpson. Cold Hard Flash is a must read site for Flash animators. Look at the size of those bottomless wine glasses..Thanks Fox!

Julia with the Family Guy guy.


There was this great sign on the top of our hotel...


.with Yui and Tim on the top of it.

After midnight we all piled into the car and headed to the Giant Robot bonfire on the beach. It was kind of dying down so we all strip down to our skivys and went night swimming. The water was perfect and the night amazing and despite our taunts to the old gods of the sea, we all survived. It's nights like that where I fall in love with the studio again and a team that's always up for dancing and dares.

Afterwards they dropped me off at the Hyatt where I talked to people for a bit before my drying ocean clothes stank too bad for friendship.

We have a new developer named Cory sitting under the air conditioner. Cory recently earned a Computer Science degree from an East coast private school is a great addition to the brain-genius dept.

Amber also has joined the crew as an animator. She earned her animation degree from AI MN and is commuting from Wisconsin. She's animating some dancing butt wigglin' animals.

Welcome!

What are we working on?

Lots!

Wrapping up the first season of Yo Gabba Gabba over the next few weeks.
Developing modules for our top secret ambitious internally produced project.
Some Nesquik Bunny animations.
Target Halloween promotions for web and Channel Red.
Design/Devlopment for a production company site.
Some more design for an advertising site.
Finally wrapping up the new Jotto site.
Lots of animation for the "Above the Influence" anti-drug campaign.
Working with networks on some shows we'd like to do.
Producing an independent game.
Doing a law firm website in trade out for some legal stuff.

There might not be a lot of blogging over the next few weeks...

Oh, we also signed the lease on the space below us to get the print studio out of my basement and set up a set-building wood working shop. Set building..why why why???

TODAY TODAY TODAY is...theee.......daaaayyyyy.

Watch it on Nick Jr.! and go over to http://brobee.blogspot.com/ and congratulate the creators and team!

Hey! Look at this September/October issue of the design magazine PRINT featuring an article on Yo Gabba Gabba.

It talks a bit about the "Come Out And Play" short we did for Jesse Ledoux with music by "The Little Ones." We've been wanting to show this for months :)! We're big fans of Jesse so it was amazing to make this with him.





Watch it on Yo Gabba Gabba premiering August 20th.

And current SubPop/Yo Gabba Gabba action can be seen as The Shins performance on Yo Gabba Gabba on the Nick Jr. site. It need some little animated things running around them don't you think?

On the Friday afternoon of Comic Con Yui and I got bored so we went to the majestic SanDiego ZOO. Now I've been to a zoo or two in my day, but nothing compares to the shear size and quality of the zoo facilities. Here's a small sampling of the amazing creatures we encountered.





(the alpha male)





This snake was trying to intimidate me.


Yui took this photo while the bird was trying to eat him for lunch.

Day 2 was officially Day 1 of the con and there were plenty of sights. Highlights included the one-legged Grindhouse girl, the Pirate Ship, the Jabba The Hutt throne that you could sit on, and IRON MAN! Search flickr for lots of good stuff. The scale of the booths was a lot different than ten years ago when I was impressed with Dave Lap ham for making a Stray Bullets sign that didn't look like it was foam core hand colored photocopies.







Tim with the Ugly Dolls.

Tim and Yui took off to visit the Zoo and I wandered around to see comic-book folks before things got too crazy. Tom Spurgeon gave me a formal introduction to Dan Nadel whos Picture Box booth had loads of treasures. (...and recommended a great Persian dinner that I wish I had skipped lunch for.) I did most of my gift buying at Picture Box and discovered (through Julia) Jon Vermilyea's work. He's got a book coming out through Picture Box soon but the talk of the con were his pop-culture art prints:


I love things like this for taking me from who I was to who I am. I kept dragging people to his booth.

I also picked up a few hand-made books by John Broadley, some basement tapes from Brian Chippendale, and a Gary Panter shirt that is now my favorite T. Picturebox is sickeningly ignored by team comics..and puts out the occasional too preciously indy crap..but their gems are real gems and I hope to see them at future conventions where I'll try to bring a lot more cash...and for god sake Comic-Con..give them a better spot.

I also saw Jeffrey Brown, Rene French, a bunch of people from The Engine, Jordan Crane, Johnny Ryan, Steve Lieber, Chris Pitzer, Stuart Moore, and was complaining to Jim Ottaviani and Heidi McDonald about certainly not being able to run into Jeff Parker since he didn't have a table when they did that "uh..he's right over there" nod. Oh, and ran into Chris Jones and Melissa because I always do.

Welcome google artist's name searchers!

After the Persian feast we went to the CBLDF party where we ran into ol' studio mate Brian Ewing and Andrew Bawidamann, bought expensive beers, and joined in the "Drink and Draw" for charity. Which was a lot of fun and we might join Dave Witt in the local version some time.

Here's Yui completely unaware that he's drawing with Jim Lee and Dave Johnson.

Before we get too deep into our fond memories of the San Diego ComicCon trip, I thought I would bring to light some never before seen (by you) photos of what will go down in the record books as MY favorite convention of the year, CONvergence!

In July, we gave a flash animation panel bright and early on a Saturday that was a whole lot more lively than I had expected. The crowd was really welcoming and were a lot of fun. BEHOLD! the highlights.

Yui prepares the presentation.


Then demonstrates interactivity to the world.


This is Curtis when he realized that after our presentation, we were free to walk around the CON to see the sights. And see we did.














This kid was truly awesome, he was giving us the hard sell on these giant diamonds and jewels. And rock candy too.

Tim, Yui and I are always the last into the studio but did we get up at 6am for our flight, yes we did! We landed in LA, got a car and were off to San Diego...full of excitement for the days to come...



Our first stop was at the Yo Gabba Gabba studio to drop off some prints and mini-comics, say hi to Julia and Tony, and have a sushi lunch with Animation Producer Kevin Lee.

Tony and Julia work on-site during deadline day and look...ol TS!

"IT guy" from the comments section, Producer Justin Lyon, and show designer/illustrator Parker Jacobs get baskets of fruit and fancy chocolates and stuff. We got a basket of fruit once, but it was only a banana, and I had to buy it.

And check out Christian Jacob's greatest geek office ever.

Then we were off... We passed by the abandoned Santa Ana Naval Air Station with its two colossal blimp hangers, one of which is criminally set for demolition. It's difficult to describe the scale of these things, but if you know that blimps are huge....then you are on your way to imagining blimp-garage.





Tim is compelled to strip down and run into the ocean whenever he sees it but at the first beach we stopped at there ended up being a Marine Corp training ground between us and it.



But soon we found a beach with merely a mountain slope between us...



Which Yui and Tim conquered...though Tim gets a little bit of beat down from wave three.



While I took photos of things in the desert...



...soon after we arrived in San Diego and decided to stay despite all warning signs.

The comics site SANDBOX WORLD wrote a very nice review of That Salty Air. Please go read it.

Wow. Ten days in California being all fancy and fun. We have a ton of photos to post but a lot of catching up on work to do and a new person joining the team today.

WELCOME AMBER! Amber is a recent grad of AI's animation program and one heck of an animator. We're sorry that you don't have a computer or desk Amber. Welcome!

Here's a photo to kick off the trip. We got a good deal on a convertible upgrade from the rental car place so we took it and tried not to be too embarrassed driving it around. I kind of loved it and with a little SPF 75 sunblock on my dome; Tim, Yui and I were driving down the coast to meet Vinny, Zander, Curtis and later Julia at Comic-Con...

Well we have finally recovered from the blur that was San Diego Comic Con. Here are a few pictures for those of you still interested in the media mega monster extravaganza. We will return to our normal shameless self promotion in a few.

Neal Adams was around the corner from the booth, he spent the entire time working on storyboards starring the M&M dudes. He paused from time to time to shake a hand.



There where many amazing toy companies but this version of Captain America, Rest in Peace, was just beautiful. His uniform chainmaille was really layered and form fitted, there was more detail then we could have imagined possible. He looked so noble under the plexi.




and the rest