LPWire: September 2005 ToonFest Celebrates Disney and Cartooning
Disney Festival Will Celebrate Cartooning
Marceline, Missouri, hometown of Walt Disney,
will host internationally acclaimed cartoonists for Walt Disney's Hometown
Toonfest Sept. 16-17. The cartoonists and their fans will celebrate Disney's
boyhood in Marceline, the little rail-stop town where Disney lived from
1906-1911.
The Toonfest will recognize the influence that Marceline had on Disney's
animated cartoons and toast the accomplishments of today's all-star American
cartoonists. Disney returned to pastoral Marceline numerous times during his
legendary career for locale and lifestyle research for his films, and for
personal renewal.
Marceline, Missouri is located 120 miles northeast of Kansas City. The Toonfest
is sponsored in part by Andrews McMeel Universal, a Kansas City-based media
company, providing the world with books, calendars, newspaper features, film/TV,
online and wireless content and much more.
Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman will lead a contingent
of the world's most talented creators of cartoons and entertainment to
Marceline's vintage Uptown Theater where they will show and tell audiences what
they do and how they do it. Borgman is also co-creator (with Jerry Scott) of the
comic strip, "Zits," two-time winner of the National Cartoonists Society Reuben
Best Comic Strip Award (1998-99), and the 2000 "Max and Moritz" Medal for Best
International Comic Strip.
Glenn and Gary McCoy, National Cartoonists Society Reubens Awards winners, and
creators of the zany new "Flying McCoys" newspaper panel cartoon, (Glenn also
creates editorial cartoons and "The Duplex" comic strip), will join Jim Borgman
and more great talents to headline free humorous and informative presentations.
The McCoy brothers, whose banter rivals their cartoons, will be Toonfest theater
programs co-masters of ceremonies. Presentations at the Uptown Theater are from
9 a.m. - 2 p.m., Friday for high school students (including a lunch break), and
12:30 - 5 p.m. Saturday for the general public.
The all-star lineup at the Uptown, from which stage Walt Disney addressed the
community and showed his films, continues with Tony Baxter. Baxter began work at
Disneyland as a teenage grounds sweeper and rode his successful theme park and
ride ideas to the position of Senior Vice President Creative Development, Walt
Disney Imagineering. Among Baxter's visions realized in Disney parks worldwide
are Euro Disney, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Star Tours, Indiana Jones
Adventure and California Soarin'.
Cartoonist Tom Wilson Jr. will draw his naive star, "Ziggy," and share with
Toonfest audiences his insight into what makes America's most lovable comics
page loser a big winner with millions of readers. The multi-talented Wilson is
also president of Ziggy and Friends, Inc., founder of Character Matters, and a
creative consultant for Saunders International, a world renowned think tank.
Charles Solomon is an internationally respected animation critic and historian.
Among his published books are "Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation,"
and "The Walt Disney That Never Was." For Toonfest audiences Solomon will
explain the wiles, wills and attractions of Walt Disney film heroines. Solomon
has written about cartoon animation for "Rolling Stone" and "The Manchester
Guardian," among others, and lectured on the subject at U.C.L.A., School of
Visual Arts, Walt Disney Studios and Dream Works Feature Animation.
Three-time Academy Award Nominee Pete Docter is a Pixar Animation writer,
animator, director and more, whose credits include hits "Toy Story," "Toy Story
2," "A Bug's Life," and "Monster's, Inc.," and an epic in development he can't
talk about yet. Docter will show and tell Toonfest audiences "how we do that."
While attending California Institute of the Arts, Docter won a Student Academy
Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with his animated
film, "Next Door."
All Toonfest headliners will be Grand Marshals in a gala parade up and down Main
Street USA beginning Saturday morning at 10. Other Saturday events include a
cartoon exhibit sponsored by the National Cartoonists Society North Central
Chapter at the Masonic Hall. Included will be works by Toonfest headliners and
the opportunity to meet them in person. All professional cartoonists are invited
to submit their work for exhibition to the Toonfest Office, for arrival by Sept.
9. Cartoons will be returned to creators postage paid.
More activities available for Toonfest attendees include an original cartoons
and cartoonists' autographed books auction; the Walt Disney Museum, featuring an
outstanding collection of Walt Disney family life in Marceline memorabilia; live
entertainment, lots to eat, including apple pie eating contests, crafts booths,
the Barnyard Olympics, and a bait casting competition at Ripley Pond.
For more Toonfest information, including events, schedule, how to get there and
where to stay; and about submitting cartoons to the Toonfest exhibition, contact
a Toonfest Ambassador at
[email protected], 660-376-9258, or Walt Disney's Hometown Toonfest,
207 N. Main St. USA, Marceline, MO 64658. Visit
www.toonfest.net.
--Posted June 3, 2005
Source: Toonfest