Warner Home Movies has released a new interview with Bruce Timm for the Wonder Woman animated movie, due to be premiered at the New York Comic Con February 6, and distributed on March 3, 2009.

QUESTION: What progression have you seen through the first four films in the DC Universe animated original movies series?

BRUCE TIMM: The thing I like most about this whole ongoing project is that each of these movies really does have a different, unique feel. It would have been very, very easy and frankly a lot simpler and cost effective to stay in that TV series design style and world view. But each of these movies really does have a unique feel – in the design, the score, the cast, even the title sequences. We’ve been able to expand creatively and that makes these productions fun. 

QUESTION:  You’re known for revolutionizing the animated look of DC characters in several landmark TV series. What was the thought process behind the character design in this film?

BRUCE TIMM: We didn’t want to do anything that even remotely looked like what we have done with Wonder Woman on Justice League. She presents a challenge because she needs to be drop-dead gorgeous, but also very, very strong both physically and emotionally. She’s a powerful presence and we had to find that balance between athleticism and glamour.

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The latest online episode of Naruto Shippuden has hit the web!

You can see the latest from Japan here. Viz is now offering the latest episodes of the sequel series featuring a slightly-older Naruto on their site in partnership with Hulu.com.

Currently, episodes 1 through 16 and the 3 most recent (80-91) are available to watch. In addition to putting up the newest episodes, they’ll be filling in the backmatter 8 episodes each week.

This is an interesting move, likely being done specifically to combat piracy and the “fansub” crowd, which features high quality rips of anime shown in Japan, complete with English (and many other languages) translations as little as 24 hours after it first airs. It will be interesting to see how well this attempt to instantly monetize their show internationally works.

Warner Home Video has released an interview with the Academy Award-nominated actress Virginia Madsen, who will play Hippolyta in the upcoming Wonder Woman animated film set to be released March 3, 2009.

QUESTION: Did you prepare for voicing the Queen of the Amazons in any special way?

VIRGINIA MADSEN:  Well, I prepared this morning by writing several edicts for my son (laughs). Honestly, I love when I get to play these characters that are bigger than life. There are roles in animation that I never get to do in real life – and it appeals to my ego as an actor to play the Queen of Everything (laughs) Hey, I’m honest. I admit it.

Hippolyta has a really wide range – I use a lot of notes when I play her. She has a larger, more regal voice. I liked the range we use to create her vocally, and the way that she was written. It’s not that she’s over the top, but she’s just a very, very big character.  And I don’t usually get to do that on onscreen.

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Legendary anime director Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, will be released in North America sometime this summer, according to the Anime News Network.

Disney will release the film, and Pixar’s John Lasseter will produce. Lasseter has had a long relationship with Miyazaki, having produced Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away.

The unfinished voice casting list includes Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, Lily Tomlin, Betty White, Frankie Jonas, Noah Cyrus, and Cloris Leachman.

Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that Hideaki Anno’s Evangelion 1.0: You are (Not) Alone, a remake of his highly popular Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series, may be coming to the U.S. courtesy of distributor FUNimation. A U.S. release has not been officially announced, but according to the series’ Wikipedia page, FUNimation has sent out cease and desist orders to fansubbers. Speaking from experience (I worked in the marketing department at ADV Films for three years), I can tell you that that pretty much guarantees that FUNimation has licensed the rights to the property. Otherwise, they wouldn’t legally have the rights to issue cease and desist orders. (Of course, the wiki page could just be a load of crap. We all know how reliable Wikipedia can be.)

I haven’t watched much anime in the four years since I stopped working at ADV. Spending forty hours a week surrounded by pissy otakus and being forced to watch a seemingly endless stream of poorly-animated, hackneyed shows starring robot maids and the pre-pubescent perverts who love them will not only kill all your interest in anime, it will destroy your soul. However, I would be interested in watching an Eva remake, since I’ve always thought it was a cool concept. I hated the original series though. It starts out strong, with lots of big robots killing lots of ugly monsters, but eventually devolves into a plodding, pretentious mess. And I seriously wanted to reach into my TV screen and punch Shinji every time he showed up and started endlessly whining. Dude was an annoying little punk. Hopefully, the new series is more palatable.

There’s been drama in the blogosphere over a recent decision ruling that a sexual Simpsons cartoon is child pornography and therefore illegal. It’s even spread into areas of the blog-world not normally known to discuss CBLDF issues.

I know Jeff plans to do a breakdown of the legal issues on this case, and so I’m not going to mess with that. My thought process is a little different, here. I know this will be a thorny issue, and I hope that if there’s discussion it can remain civil. There are very good arguments on all sides.

Ready? Then read on.

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ToonZone.net breaks it down in terms of the bonus features anticipated to be present when the Wonder Woman direct-to-DVD animated feature streets in March. There’s a range of purchase options, including single and double-DVD packages, and Blu-Ray. There are commentaries, a sneak at the next DC DVD, and three featurettes that deal with Wonder Woman’s historical import.

I wonder if any of them answer my biggest question about the trailer: why does it have such a chuckleheaded tagline? “Some heroes are made. This one was born.” Excuse me, but isn’t part of the point of Wonder Woman is that she was made? Out of clay? That’s like tagging a Batman film with “Bruce Wayne had one tragic night . . . then got to grow up in a mansion with no parents! And the party never stops!”

Imagi has released the first teaser for its computer-animated adaptation of Astro Boy, based on the classic manga and anime series by Osamu Tezuka. You can watch the trailer after the break.

Directed by David Bowers, the movie features the voices of Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, Eugene Levy, Donald Sutherland and Scarlett Johansson. Astro Boy opens on Oct. 23, 2009.

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Marvel has released what I believe is the third trailer for Wolverine and the X-Men, the animated series set to debut Jan. 23 on Nicktoons.

It looks surprisingly good — good enough that those tired of seeing Wolverine everywhere may overlook his front-and-center role in the cartoon. Hey, how else are they to capitalize on that Wolverine movie?

You can watch the trailer after the break. Marvel’s website also offers a brief behind-the-scenes video with some of the voice cast.

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Marvel’s god of thunder is hitting the big screen and the TV set.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel Animation is developing a 26-episode Thor series that will launch in fall 2010, a few months after the debut of the live-action film in theaters.

The trade paper reports the cartoon “will take place in various worlds — from mountainous landscapes to places of icy mists and fiery voids — and will include many of the comic’s supporting cast, including Balder the Brave, the Warriors Three and Thor’s evil adopted brother, Loki.”

Thor will join an animated Marvel roster that includes The Black Panther,  Wolverine and the X-Men, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Marvel Super Hero Squad and, in 2011, The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Plot synopsis released for X-Men Origins: Magneto

The latest issue of Production Weekly includes a plot synopsis for David Goyer’s planned X-Men Origins: Magneto — one that includes an altered role for a certain bald telepath:

“The original X-Men film began with a prologue that showed the character as a child being led to a concentration camp by Nazis and that is the period in which the Magneto film will take place. This setup will allow a future villain to at least flirt with the designation of protagonist since the character will be seen almost exclusively in his formative years. The storyline will heavily involve Professor X, the wheelchair-using X-Men leader. That character was a soldier in the Allied force that liberated the concentration camps. The professor meets Magneto after the war and while they bond over the realization that they are alike in their special powers, their differences soon turn them into enemies.”

According to David Bentley of the Coventry Telegraph, an early draft of the script featured Charles Xavier as a staff member at an Israeli hospital, not as an Allied soldier.

It’s unclear when Magneto will begin production. In August, Goyer said he hadn’t decided whether to tackle this project or The Invisible Man next.

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The Daily Cross Hatch offers the first of a three-part interview with the Black Hole creator about that seminal book and also his contribution to the new animated film, Fear(s) of the Dark:

In its most elementary sense, sequential art can almost be seen as a storyboard for animation. It seems like a fairly logical step to make.

Well, it was funny—at this point, I feel secure about writing comics. I’ve been writing comics long enough. It’s not easy, but it’s a domain I understand and feel comfortable with. So, when I started out, I came up with a storyline and wrote that out and broke it down into storyboards. All of that felt comfortable and familiar. But the minute we moved onto the next step, I felt like I was in deep trouble, because there’s an absolutely different sense about how a story is told when it’s moving. This is a very different process, which I quickly found out. That’s what was interesting too, was that there was an understanding that myself and other artists involved hadn’t done animation before. We hadn’t directed before.

• Entertainment Weekly’s Popwatch blog shares the Dr. Manhattan character banner from the Watchmen movie.

• In his weekly Q&A column on MySpace, Joe Quesada spends the entire column answering fan questions, as his regualr partner in crime, Jim McLauchlin, just had a new baby. Congrats to the McLauchlin family and their new son, Logan.

• Johanna Draper Carlson shares the process she went through in judging the Isotope Award For Excellence in Mini-Comics, and lists five other contenders she liked.

• SLG shares progress on the creation of their new retail store.

• This list of 50 facts about Barack Obama says the U.S.’s new president is a fan of Conan the Barbarian and Spider-Man.

• Early Star Wars storyboards. Via.

• 14 movies have been submitted for the Oscar’s best animated feature category, including Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda and the unreleased Bolt.

• Season premiere updates … Lost returns Jan. 21, and 24 returns Jan. 11.

Josh Brolin still isn’t sure about Jonah Hex

There was at least some truth to the rumor-mill report last month about Josh Brolin playing Jonah Hex in the upcoming Mark Neveldine-Brian Taylor adaptation.

Brolin, star of W. and No Country for Old Men, is mulling over the part but he hasn’t — in the words of the original story — “locked down the deal.” IESB says nothing has been signed, and Collider reports Brolin may end up working on a Tony Scott movie.

The Warner Bros. adaptation of the DC Comics Western anti-hero was announced in July 2007. In March, producer Andrew Lazar said he wants to film Jonah Hex in New Orleans, for a potential 2010 release.

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• Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons talks about catching Alan Moore’s typos, the miniseries’ colors, the movie adaptation, and audience reaction to seeing a naked Dr. Manhattan on the big screen: “He’s somebody who, by the force of his will, has reconstructed his body, so you’re not looking really at a naked man; you’re looking at a model of a naked man. I know that’s a rather fine distinction.” [Vulture]

• Cairo and Air writer G. Willow Wilson discusses those titles, superheroes, the Standard Attrition message board and group blog, and guerilla marketing. [Heavy Ink]

• The Dresden Files author Jim Butcher chats about bringing wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden to comics. [Sci Fi Wire]

• Best-selling author Stephenie Meyer rattles off some of the inspirations for her insanely popular Twilight vampire epic. Who would’ve guessed X-Men cartoons and and the Iron Man movie would be on the list alongside Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables? [EW.com]

• Ned Beauman celebrates Garth Ennis’ reinvention of Marvel’s Punisher. [Guardian]

• FEARnet profiles Devil’s Due Publishing, focusing on the company’s horror titles. [FEARnet]

Sure, you can dig out your DVDs of Great Pumpkin and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, but what if you’re jonesing for some Peanuts on the bus ride to work? Well, the Schulz family and Warner Bros. Motion Comics has anticipated the problem and produced 20 new three-to-four minute cartoons featuring Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the gang, and made specifically for the Web, cell phones and iPods. The Associated Press has the details:

The videos are all new, made with Flash animation and new voices. Even though it’s new technology, attention has been paid to maintaining the integrity of the strip and its beloved animation specials.

“You’re not trying to change it,” said Jeannie Schulz, widow of the Peanuts creator. “You’re trying to keep it the same and freshen it.”

For a limited time, you can download two episodes for free, but only at iTunes. Otherwise, individual episodes will be priced at 99 cents each, or you can buy the full season for $7.99.

NPR, meanwhile, has an interview with the late Charles Schulz’s son Craig, where he talks about how they found the voices for the new animated shorts and the strip’s legacy. He also talks about how he can see his childhood reflected in the strip, in the way that his father drew certain backgrounds and objects that mimiced their own home, a fact I found more fascinating than anything else in the interview.

Marvel Animation has canceled the planned Hulk: Gamma Corps television series, and will fold the work into the recently announced The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Marvel Animation Age reports the decision was made during Gamma Corps‘ pre-production because executives “saw the chance to tell bigger stories that reached far beyond Hulk’s universe.”

“It became apparent to us that the creative work that was being done to bring Hulk’s world and his villains to life was too good to relegate to his universe alone, and would be much better suited as part of an full-on Avengers scenario,” Marvel Animation’s Joshua Fine tells the fan site.

Hulk: Gamma Corps, which always was contingent on the performance of The Incredible Hulk movie, would have teamed the Green Goliath with other gamma-fueled characters, such as She-Hulk and Doc Samson.

The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is scheduled to debut in 2011.

Cartoonist Roger Langridge shares some comic strips from Nickelodeon Magazine, featuring Spongebob Squarepants reimagined as several different comic strips, like Terry & the Pirates and Peanuts (above).

Via Drawn

The new Cartoon Network show Batman: The Brave and the Bold swaps the traditional noir tinge of such Batman cartoons like the original animated series and Batman Beyond (we’ll just forget about the recent “The Batman” OK?) in favor of a more sunny, pop art approach, and I for one couldn’t be happier about it.

Not that I have anything against the previous series — I think they’re great fun — but I’ve really had my fill of uber-serious Batman. I was talking to a fellow blogger the other day who told me he feels like he never needs to read another Green Lantern comic again. I sorta feel the same way about gloomy Batman, the Dark Knight movie notwithstanding.

Which is a roundabout way of me saying that if you prefer your Batman grim and gritty, you’re probably not going to like this cartoon. If, however, you like fun, action-packed cartoons that avoid camp while still managing to not take themselves too seriously, you’ll enjoyBatman: The Brave and the Bold. (more…)

• The webcomic Bellen! by Box Brown has been dressing up as other webcomics for Halloween. The first week included homages to Pictures for Sad Children, Octopus Pie, Cat and Girl, Diesel Sweeties and American Elf (above).

• A Thomas Weisel Partners analyst upped Marvel’s rating to “overweight,” saying the company’s unexpectedly strong performances have been undervalued.

While Marvel’s stock is doing about as well as any other company’s stock right now, the analyst said the sell-off “discounts its strong movie performance this summer and an improved film distribution deal.” He also said that Marvel Chairman David Maisel has said there will be no disruptions to the company’s 2010 film slate as a result of the crisis in the credit markets.

• Colleen Doran provides a list of agents currently accepting graphic novel submissions.

• A Space Ghost episode is turned into a puppet show. Brilliant.

• Not comics: Rest in peace, Tony Hillerman.

• Hey, look: a free David Heatley comic strip. Via Bully.

• BuddyTV’s John Kubicek chats with Cassidy Freeman, who plays the female Lex Luthor replacement on Smallville.