Howard “Howie” Post, a mainstay of animation, comic books and strips since the mid-forties, passed away some time in the last week, reportedly due to Alzheimer’s. Howie was born November 2, 1926 and while no one has ever pinned down exactly when he got into comics, his work was turning up in books from most of the major New York publishers by 1945. He mostly did funny animal comics, such as for DC’s More Fun Comics, where he sometimes wrote for other artists but often drew his own wacky, energetic tales. He also worked in animation, at first as an in-betweener and animator for Famous Studios…later as a storyman and, still later, as the creative head of Paramount’s cartoon studio in the early sixties.

In addition to his comic book works Howard Post also drew a newspaper comic strip called The Dropouts, which ran for 14 years through United Features Syndicate. He was also a director of animated cartoons and created, among other things, Honey Halfwitch for Paramount Picture’s cartoon release.

“South Park” debuted in 1997. Currently the show is on its 14th season.

Milt Gross was a cartooning genius who was championed by Art Spiegelman in “Raw” and Dan Nadel in “Art Out of Time.” Gross wrote and drew what many consider to be the first graphic novel, “He Done Her Wrong,” and was a popular comic stripper (with hilarious cartoon-style Yiddish-isms), animator, and screenplay writer (co-writer of films with Charlie Chaplin). This beautifully designed book collects the complete comic book stories of comic genius Milt Gross, culled from rare, impossible-to-track-down comic books of the 40s, which have been lovingly restored. In addition to exhuming every one of Gross’ wild and crazy comic book stories, this tome shares rarephotos, sketches, and unpublished art, including the previously unknown cover to the Milt Gross Funnies #3!

Order it from Amazon here.

In what we would all acknowledge as typical animated films (Snow White, Toy Story), animation is production, not post-production. In films that have animated elements added (Jurassic Park), animation is done in post-production. This may seem like an esoteric distinction, but it’s the difference between what is central to a production and what sweetens a production. I am not in any way dismissing the importance of post-production. A film’s music score has a huge impact on how the film affects audiences and certainly Jurassic Park’s impact depended tremendously on the quality of the dinosaur animation, but in each case, the post-production elements are driven by what has already been shot.

-Alex will voice the show’s main character, who is female.
-The show will be developed by Alex and Gary Janetti, a television writer who helped in writing “Stewie B. Goode”, which later became the first part of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
-It will have a similar style to Family Guy
-It will feature a family once more, and some pets

Despite his long range of credits, he is without a doubt known among animation fans as the director of several low-budget Road Runner cartoons, which were made after Warner Bros. had shut down their animation studio and started subcontracting to outside, independent companies. The Road Runner cartoons were made at Format Films via DePatie-Freleng.

We’re still finishing up lots of good episodes. I think you’ll see that we hit a really good groove third season. My biggest worry before we were cancelled was what would happen to the crew, but luckily, a large chunk of them got hired over at Disney on a new project. It’s funny how many old CN faces I see over there now.

I’m gonna do an exit interview with Mr. Greenblatt for my blog. If anyone wants to ask him a question, send it to me by tomorrow (Saturday) at noon.

Lincoln Peirce is a creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip Big Nate.

“The reason I wasn’t here for the Academy Award was because I didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq,” he said. “At the time, my producer shut me up and did not allow me to say that, but I don’t see him around today. By the way, my producer also shared in that feeling.”