Last month in Spain was the Festival de Cine Fantástico de Bilbao 2006. CHF covered last year’s festival, in which Mr. Coo took 3rd place in the Nontzeflash Animated Film competition.

This year, ‘Bendito Machine’ took the first prize. This short by Jossie Malis is also up for an award at Annecy.

Several other Flash-animated films in the competition are worth a watch, including:

El naufragio del A4 by Javier Encinas

El provocador by Gabriel Ignacio Cortina

PLOK-The final David Berlioz

The NU adventures by Nacho Rodriguez

Fuggy Fuggy by the Brothers McLeod

Just Say I Didn´t Know by Joe Corrao

But don’t take my word for it – go and watch all of the 174 submissions at the competition’s website.

Hotwired’s Animation Express, which launched in October 1998, was one of the first (if not the first) web animation portals. The site, sadly, is no more.

Animation Express jumped on the Flash animation bandwagon early and offered a place for artists from around the world to display their work. It wasn’t a Flash-only site, but it often looked that way. Artists like Joe Corrao, Kirk Millett, Xeth Feinberg, Steve Whitehouse, Craig McCracken and Naoki Mitsuse showcased their shorts on the site, and it’s sad to see it go. The editors of the site were obviously seeking unique material, often hosting work that could even be labeled ‘arty,’ but that’s not to say they didn’t highlight work that was just plain good. One of my shorts, ‘Snail Detective,’ (which wasn’t particularly ‘arty’ nor that ‘good’) was amongst the first posted on the site way back in 1998, and it was one of the milestones in my career that gave me the confidence to keep pushing.

Thanks to Cartoon Monkey for spotting this story. If you haven’t checked out the Cartoon Monkey website yet, make haste. They’re posting pencil tests from the upcoming Cartoon Network show ‘Camp Lazlo.’

****UPDATE****

It’s not dead! It’s just hibernating. Reader ‘pcdoctor01′ spotted a new link to the Animation Express archive.