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Cohen’s Cartoon Corner: Sept 2018 by Karl Cohen
The wild cantina from 'Star Wars'. photo: courtesy G. Lucas
Drinking at Disneyland
For the first time in its 63-year history, guests will be able to enjoy an alcoholic beverage inside Disneyland, outside of the secretive, invite-only Club 33, which is hidden in New Orleans Square.
The new Star Wars Land, which will open in the summer of 2019, and at Florida's Hollywood Studios in late-fall 2019, will feature a cantina with alcoholic drinks. Cheers!
The Dogged Schulz Museum
An exhibit of working dogs is showing, now to Jan. 27th, at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. Schulz long payed tribute to them in his comic strip starting,of course, with Snoopy.
Snoppy was also a professor on occasion. image: G. Schultz
Snoopy had many hard-working personas including attorney, WWI flying ace, grocery clerk and hired hand. In his work, Schulz acknowledges how much better life is when we share the working day with dogs.
End of New Art Institute
The Art Institute of California, San Francisco, is closing. This is the for-profit chain of Art Institutes, not the old, well-respected San Francisco Art Institute, at 800 Chestnut in North Beach, which lost students over the last two decades but adapted and is fully operational.
Hundreds of faculty and staff are out of jobs, some 138 at the San Francisco campus on Market Street, near Civic Center, plus 78 at the Alameda campus of Argosy University, a general education school.
Dream Center Education Holdings, a Pittsburgh organization, acquired the schools last year and will be closing these campuses as well as some others in California, in December.
“Local demand at the physical locations,” Anne Dean, the Dream Center’s senior director of communications, wrote in an email, “has been far surpassed by the demand for online programs in these markets, as evidenced by declining enrollments.”
“We came to realize we would need to discontinue campus programs on a larger scale if we were to truly focus on investing toward a more flexible curriculum to meet student demand.”
Students unable to finish their degrees before the closures will be eligible for tuition reductions or grants, according to Dean. Transferring to another Dream Center campus will make students eligible for a 50% tuition reduction, while those transferring to a partner institution will be eligible for a $5,000 grant.
Scene from David Chai's 'Space Butthole'. photo: courtesy D. Chai
Chai's Space Butthole
David Chai, who teaches animation at San Jose State University, just had his eight-minute "Space Butthole" accepted into KLIK. Amsterdam’s major annual animation celebration, KLIK runs from Oct. 10th to the 14th.
Aside from what it sounds like, space butthole is a nickname for the various wormholes, time rifts, and other sphincter-like space anomalies encountered by Star Trek's Enterprise. Some buttholes have been penetrated by the Enterprise, or its various probes and shuttles, while others have discharged objects.
Make Your Own Western States Mutoscope
Western States Mutoscope is a Ludite animation machine that can work with hand cut stencils and plant fragments. John Fadeff, who studied animation at SF State, continues to create wonderful creative surprises on his mutascope. Perhaps you may even try your hand at creating one, see instructional video.
Student Loan Ripoff
The Guardian reports a Sallie Mae spinoff called Navient is trying to collect unpaid loans from people associated with deceased students. When the loans were made by Sallie Mae the debt was forgiven, but now that Navient has the paperwork they are trying to collect the debt. Forewarned is forearmed.
Karl Cohen is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached .Posted on Sep 27, 2018 - 03:40 AM