Cartoon Saloon Hits SoCal...

Thanks for the intro, Tomm!

Hi everyone, I'm Jamie Kezlarian Bolio -- Cartoon Saloon's Representative in the US for Business Development, PR and Marketing...

I have been working with the guys since the very beginning of  the grassroots movement & promotion of KELLS in 2009 -- and was beyond thrilled to be offered an official gig with The Saloon about this time last year.
(Hooray!)

I am happy to help Tomm out with his blog  --  so below please find a post about our great trip to Comic-Con and around Los Angeles at the end of this past July.

Cartoon Saloon Hits SoCal with Sneak Peeks and Book Signings...

Cartoon Saloon co-founders, Tomm Moore & Paul Young came to SoCal last week for a whirlwind of events at Comic-Con and in Los Angeles.

Tomm (Director - THE SECRET OF KELLS, SONG OF THE SEA) & Paul (Producer - THE SECRET OF KELLS, SONG OF THE SEA) arrived on the 23rd of July - just in time for us to head off for a full 4 days at Comic-Con (& meet a friend for margaritas!).

From Thursday thru Saturday, the guys had book signings at Stuart Ng's booth - and each day, the line had to be capped in order to get through all of the patrons...

  And inscribe each book with a little drawing.

We even had a lovely Aisling cosplayer...

And a load of very special, highly gifted guests who came by to purchase a book...

(D'Oh!)

Friday, we also had a panel - a sneak peek of Cartoon Saloon's next film, SONG OF THE SEA (due for release later in the year).

A full house!

So many friends and colleagues came by to catch the panel...

Thank you to Stuart Ng and his merry band of outstanding helpers...

And to Comic-Con (and Laura J.)  for helping make our time in San Diego run smoothly and efficiently.
We had a brilliant time...!!

We returned to LA on Sunday for a host of events...

Monday we had another great signing & reception at The Animation Guild in Burbank...

We had lovely fruit & pasteries from PORTO's and displayed some of Cartoon Saloon's custom-framed SECRET OF KELLS limited edition prints...

(...which can be purchased via Cartoon Saloon's link below.)
http://www.secretofkellsstore.com/collections/limited-edition-print-gallery

At each event, Tomm got started on the drawings hours in advance to try and get ahead of the line.

Each person continued receiving beautiful drawings from both Tomm & Paul...

And the guys appreciated the time they spent with each new friend...

There was even a group who started lining up at 2pm - we were so happy to have them...

We also had some old friends stop by...
Pam helped us out on KELLS and she and her sons (pictured here with Tomm) are such huge supporters of The Saloon.
Was great to see her.

And a lovely young girl named Nicole whose wonderful dad took the day off of work to drive up from San Diego to have her book signed...(!!XO!!)

As she is a minor, I thought twice about posting their photo - but we were incredibly thrilled to meet them.  Thank you both for your support and tenacity!

We are so grateful to The Animation Guild for permitting us to use the meeting room.
http://animationguild.org/

On Tuesday we had yet another panel, book signing and a reception hosted by ASIFA-Hollywood and Woodbury University.

 More delicious Porto's (Uncle Ed's and nutjustacookie.com for the vegans)!

And more great talent came out to see us...!!

If you haven't had a chance to see MOONE BOY - it is a fantastic series out of Ireland which you can see on HULU. One of its very gifted writers, Kilkenny-native Nick Murphy (L), came by to lend his support & say hello... The series has animation done by Cartoon Saloon and stars (creator & co-writer) Chris O Dowd and (one of the stars of SONG OF THE SEA) David Rawle. Check out the series - it is HYSTERICAL!   

Everyone was so very patient - as Tomm & Paul continued to do such wonderful drawings in each book...

If you weren't able to join us (we will soon repost the broadcast via the Cartoon Saloon site), you may purchase DESIGNING THE SECRET OF KELLS directly from Stuart Ng Books: http://stuartngbooks.com/designing-the-secret-of-kells.html

Thank you to ASIFA-Hollywood, Stuart Ng Books, Woodbury University, Woodbury's IT Dept (Brandon & crew) - and Jonathan at Cartoon Saloon for helping us live-stream the event -- and to all of the ASIFA chapters worldwide and to the fans of Cartoon Saloon for joining us during the live broadcast...!!

[Dori, Woodbury's Chair of Animation (L) & Steven Ng of Stuart Ng books]

[Brandon, Woodbury's IT]

And a special thanks to the Woodbury students (Christian, Emily & Zare) who helped out - and to our dear Emma Claire.
[SONG OF THE SEA'S Consulting Editor, Darren Holmes & Emma Claire]

We were so lucky to have you all.

On Wednesday we were invited to DreamWorks to share the sneak peek with both the Glendale campus and the Redwood City campus at PDI...

And sign books for their amazing crew including Donnachada Daly, Marek Kochout, Kevin Lima, Dominique Louis, Christophe Lautrette and Cinzia Angelini.

What a treat it was for us...

Thank you for always welcoming us, DreamWorks...!!

We headed off to meet some other tremendously gifted Irish friends at Lightstorm, working on AVATAR [Colbert Fennelly (L) and Richie Baneham (C)].
We really appreciate that they squeezed us in...
HOLY MOLY -- what an incredibly inspiring afternoon!  

We topped the last evening off with a truly lovely, peaceful vegan meal with our dear friend Roger (THE LION KING, KAHLIL GIBRAN'S THE PROPHET).

The perfect end to a really great (crazy, busy) week...
It is amazing how quickly these 8 days have gone...

We thank all of our friends, colleagues, and Cartoon Saloon fans who came out to see us...

We had a truly wonderful time...