Congratulations to the entire, amazing Foster’s crew! I miss you all!
Over and out,
Mother Earth
The awesome Madame Foster/Emmy illustration by the incredible Ben Balistreri, who has previously won an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement for his character design work on Foster’s. Check out his blog where he has posted work he did on Destination Imagination.
I’m feeling much better now…. so here are the pics from Cosmic Con!! Our booth looked a bit different from last year, but I feel we were in a better spot. This year we actually sold out of stuff— the books, and several designs of the new buttons! Plus, we ran out of almost all of our postcard designs (which we were giving away, so I guess we asked for it.)
Dig the pics below, and don’t forget to check back soon. The new Saturn shirt and new buttons will be available on the G-girls Webstore in a week or so for your purchasing pleasure. I’ll post pics here soon.
In other Cosmic Con news, Craig and I were on a panel for both the 10 Year Anniversary of Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends along with several of the voice actors from both shows. It went quite well, I think! Not only was the room full to capacity, but apparently they had to turn more than 150 people away!!! Some one at the show recorded it, but edited out Craig’s and my comments— must be an aspiring voice actor. Don’t blame ‘em, the actors are a riot, as always! Check them out below…
Plus, I did a little interview for the gals at Chicago Animators. I’m amazingly awful at on-the-fly interviews, so please forgive my spazzy awkwardness. Being at Comic Con, I had comics on my mind, so when asked about influences I rattled off my favorite authors/artists in comics. If your familiar with any of them, you’ll be severely perplexed wondering how any of them influenced Milky Way. Truth is, I have so many influences from so many types of art. Galaxy Girls is inspired almost entirely by whatever artists (who don’t get credit but severely deserve it) did all those wonderful toys from the eighties. Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony— very different from Jaime Hernandez and Jamie Hewlett!! Oh well. One of these days I’m sure I’ll get better at this!!!
(Now that I think of it, someone way more organized than me should do some research and write a book about exactly WHO those eighties-girl-property designers are. I’d buy it!!)
Then last but not least, I just HAD to include this pic of our friend Carlos from Foster’s Fan Forum, Never Forgotten and his awesome Bloo costume!!! So glad he was able to share it with us this year!!
Special thanks to Janet, Laura and Jessica for all their help. And a HUGE thank you to brother, Ryan, for helping out so much he almost dropped dead alongside me— couldn’t have made it through without you all!
Tomorrow evening, MonkeyhouseToys in Silverlake will be holding an Art AuctionSale to benefit Soren Rogers (brother of our talented fan artist , Moira Rogers) to help raise funds to make the family mini van wheel-chair accessible. Soren is a sweet little 5 year old who has been diagnosed with a rare seizure disorder that has caused him global developmental delay. (You can read all about his progress over the years at his blog.) The show will feature a ton of artists mostly from the animation community. I’m excited to see what will be available, and most likely I’ll be walking away with some pieces myself.
I’ll be contributing two pieces. The first of which is a brand new Milky Way doll with a new face! She’s signed and numbered, the first Winking Milky Way to be made. I haven’t decided yet if I will make anymore.
Here’s an extreme close up of the hand-embroidered goodness…
My second offering is the original sketch for the cover of the book, signed and dated.
My husband, Craig McCracken, will be offering 3 pieces. The first two are original inked drawings of his “Wander Over Yonder” character who was featured in a limited edition sketchbook at ComicCon last July.
And last but not least, Craig just finished this Foster’s Group Portrait especially for the auction
Everyone is welcome, and it’s going to an EXTREMELY good cause. For those of you who can’t make it, there will be the opportunity to bid online. I will update this post as soon as I get the right info.
I just got back from Monkeyhouse, and they gave me some new info. It turns out that the show is not, an auction and the pieces will be priced to sell. Mayra, the owner hopes to have the pics of all the pieces up on the site for anyone who wants to purchase but can’t make it. Any pieces that don’t sell at the show will remain in the store until they are, and all the proceeds will continue to go to Soren. Lastly, Mayra said that anyone making a purchase is free to pay more than the price if they’d like to make a bigger contribution for Soren.
Stay tuned: I’ll post again when the items are online. –ME
The book features plush-art pieces that were shown at the 2006 Plush You show featured at Schmancy. (Milky Way, Venus and Pluto were included– see previous post.) Inside, not only will you find lots of unique/cool/cute/innovative plush designs, but insights from the artists who created them and even some patterns and tutorials on how to make your own! It’s a great book, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it!!
In other news: Look at what my new friend Amy made me!!!! Isn’t it AMAZING!!! A 100% hand-made, one-of-a-kind charm bracelet featuring the G-girls galactic symbols. Check out and buy lots of Amy’s stuff at her store, Amyville. I don’t know about you, but adorable hand-made food jewelery sounds like the perfect Christmas gift.
And speaking of Christmas, I’ve been getting lots of inquiries about the much anticipated, but, unfortunately, much delayed Galaxy Girls webstore. Sadly, we’ve experienced a number of set backs and won’t be getting it up in time for timely holiday delivery. However, I’ll be posting a home-grown catalog here on my blog in a few days, from which you can e-mail me your orders. I gotta Paypal account all ready to go. If you know what you want right now, e-mail me, and we’ll get your galaxy goodies out to you right away. All the stuff I had at CosmicCon will be for available for purchase, so if you want, peruse this previous post for another look.
Lastly, in case you missed it, the Foster’s float was in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade once again this year! Of course, Craig and I couldn’t go, so it didn’t rain like it did last year. Thpppbbt. Oh well. Check out Cheese serenade an irritated Bloo with his rendition on “Best Friend” by Queen. Yes, I know. QUEEN. I had no idea Queen did that song either.
My friend Debbie Reber has written a book for teenage girls that showcases the careers of 50 women, what they’re jobs are like and how they got there– and I’m in in it!
Find out what you really want to know about your career choices: Will I wear Prada or Old Navy? Play with kids on the playground, or with bigwigs in the boardroom? Power lunch at the Ivy, or bag lunch at my desk? What kind of education do I need?
This book has the answers. Fifty “day in the life” profiles will inspire you, while a ton of sidebars, indexes, and helpful tips will get you started right away on finding the career that’s right for you. Actor Maura Tierney, CosmoGirl! editor-in-chief Susan Schulz and Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes all grace the pages of this fascinating book!
Today’s girls are in desperate need of honest, down-to-earth information. In Their Shoes arms them with the tools to make smart decisions about their future, while inspiring them to realize their dreams.
So,if you have a teenage girl in your life who doesn’t know what to do with her life, go buy it and have her check out pages 231-238. She can read my one-week journal all about my adventures in producing animated television shows, including some nasty, nasty writer’s block trying to start writing “Good Wilt Hunting,” taking naps in the middle of the day and getting locked out of my office!! And then once she’s had enough reading about me, she can read about Barbara Boxer’s job, or the woman who created Grey’s Anatomy.
It’s a great book- I wish it were around when I was 16!
THREE– the number of Annie Awards Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends won last night!! Martin Ansolobehere (who designed my planet graphics) for Production Design, Jim Venable (who’ll be writing some Milky music someday soon) and Jennifer Kes Remington for Musical Score, and Foster’s in general for Best Television show!
THREE is also the amount of times Foster’s has been nominated for Best Show, so I guess third time’s a charm as well!
Just got back from NY and Janice and I actually got some Galaxy Girl work done (thank you again, Janice!!) Here are some Mars poses in both sketch and final form.
And for those of you who are curious, here are some pictures of the Foster’s float in New York!! We had fun even though it rained.
Mr. Herriman was on the back of float and couldn’t be seen on the performance on TV. Here he is trying desperately to keep dry before the parade.
Ed all wrapped up.
Coco!!
For those of you who didn’t catch it, here it is!! The camera work left a little bit to be desired, but the puppets turned out great and the house is GORGEOUS!! (Thanks to Sparky of Never Forgotten for recording and posting the performance)
Foster’s Float – Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 2006
