The for­mer direc­tor of the Miss South Car­olina pageant was sen­tenced to 14 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of lewd act on a minor.  The jury took three and a half hours to find Joseph P. “Joey” Sanders IV guilty of that charge, and they found him not guilty of crim­i­nal sex­ual con­duct with a minor.  Anita Gearhart was found guilty of unlaw­ful con­duct against a child. Inves­ti­ga­tors say she knew what hap­pened and didn’t report it.

(Via WSPA)

I just ran across this arti­cle on the web advo­cat­ing Car­toon­ist exer­cises. I have hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of legal pads, post it notes, and mis­cel­la­neous scraps of paper with car­toon­ing exer­cises on them. It’s a great way to stay sharp!

Check Out the Arti­cle Here

I really thought some­one was hav­ing a go at me when I heard they were mak­ing a Smurf movie. Maybe its just me, but I hated the car­toon when I was a kid. When­ever my younger brother would watch it on Sat­ur­day morn­ings, I would root for Gargamel.

Any­way, just so you don’t think I am “hav­ing a go” with you… May I present, from the bow­els of the Inter­net… The one… The only… Smurf Teaser Trailer:

The offi­cial web­site of the train wreck that will be the Smurf Movie can be found at www.smurfhappens.com.

Oh Smurf Me!!! There’s NO way I’m going to see this Smurfin’ movie!

Mark Hamill men­tioned recently that the upcom­ing sequel to Bat­man: Arkham Asy­lum will be his final per­for­mance as the Joker. Hamill has been pro­vid­ing the voice of the Joker for DC Comics ani­ma­tion and game projects for eigh­teen years, start­ing with the Emmy-winning Bat­man: The Ani­mated Series in 1992.

It’s great that Hamill has been given the oppor­tu­nity to do one last ‘hur­rah’ as the Joker, but I’ll be sad to see him go. Hamill and Kevin Con­roy (who has been voic­ing Bat­man to Hamill’s Joker) are my defin­i­tive stan­dards for how these iconic char­ac­ters should sound. Those of you out there who dis­like Chris­t­ian Bale’s growly Bat­man voice should check out Conroy’s per­for­mance, which has that per­fect blend of gravel and fierce mas­culin­ity, evok­ing ideas of noir, opera, and Jack Bauer.

Hamill’s Joker voice is bril­liant. He cap­tures that whim­si­cal, light-hearted inflec­tion of a man dressed in pur­ple suit, but infuses it with a mani­a­cal insan­ity that sends chills down your spine every time you hear him laugh. It’s the laugh­ter of a homi­ci­dal maniac who cel­e­brates his deprav­ity with animated giddiness.

Check out this video of Hamill explain­ing how he con­structed his mem­o­rable Joker laugh:

Regard­less of how Arkham Asy­lum 2 turns out, I’ll be pick­ing it up on release day just to hear the Joker’s laugh one last time.

(Via Words­Finest.)