John Canemaker’s next book is available for pre-order on Amazon. Two Guys Named Joe: Master Animation Storytellers Joe Grant and Joe Ranft will be released in August 2010. John gave me a preview of the book a couple months back. It is an intimate look at the accomplishments and struggles (both personal and professional) of two animation giants. If you think you already know these guys, you’re going to be in for a surprise. Needless to say, it’s guaranteed to be one of the must-haves of next year.

Noteworthy new book about The Simpsons—The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History by journalist John Ortved draws on eighty new interviews to create an oral history about the creation and day-to-day production of the show.

Ortved wrote an interesting article for The Daily Beast in which he talks about how Fox and James L. Brooks refused to cooperate with him for the book:

Brooks sent a letter to every current Simpsons employee, and all the former ones he thought mattered, asking them not to speak to me. The writers’ agents sent denial after denial for interview requests and eventually stopped responding altogether…There was one “D’oh!” in James L. Brooks and the Gracie Films master plan: Many people don’t like James L. Brooks. No one gets as successful as Brooks in Hollywood without making enemies, but people carry a special dislike for the man whose power and smart media control has managed to project an image of an avuncular, loveable neurotic for the better part of 50 years.”

Reviews of the book—Entertainment Weekly, NPR—have generally been positive, with the biggest complaint being that it falls apart towards the end. This is an almost inevitable byproduct of writing a book about a studio or show that is still in progress. David A. Price’s otherwise well-researched The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company also suffered towards the end when it attempted to put newer Pixar efforts into context without the participation of key figures.

I’m still curious to read Ortved’s book for its documentation of the early years. No doubt, there will be many more histories of The Simpsons in the years to come. This is only the first, and it appears to be a solid start towards chronicling the most successful animated TV series of all time. If you’ve read the book, please share your thoughts in the comments. The book can be purchased on Amazon for the discounted price of $17.82.

The Three Caballeros will always hold a place in my heart. As a child of the 1960s and early 70s, at a time when my class mates were experimenting with mind-altering drugs, I was getting my high off screenings of early 30s Fleischer cartoons and Disney’s South American psychedelics. Is there anything trippier than the last 45 minutes of The Three Caballeros or the Blame It On The Samba sequence in Melody Time? I’ve always wondered what the thinking was behind these films and now, finally, I have all the answers.

J.B. Kaufman’s new book, South of the Border with Disney should be a permanent addition to your Disney or animation history bookshelf. It goes way beyond the basic information of Disney’s South American tour, as outlined in Ted Thomas’ recent film Walt and El Grupo. Thomas’ film was concerned with the trip, Kaufman’s focus is on the films. J.B. covers El Grupo’s tour more throughly and, more importantly, follows through to discuss each film that resulted from that initial trip, a complete examination from development to end product - from Saludos Amigos (1943) to Destino (2003).

The book explains things I had always wondered about (for example, why Saludos Amigos was also released under the title Saludos; or why Panchito was never used on screen again), and reveals new facts I had no idea of (such as definitive information on all the unfinished shorts and aborted feature concepts; and that half of the live action footage used in Saludos Amigos was actually shot in Burbank, months after the trip to South America). Kaufman (who has emerged alongside Canemaker and Barrier as a leading Disney historian) discusses in depth and in detail, not only the well known features and shorts, but the more obscure nontheatrical health films and rarely seen documentaries Disney made primarily for the Latin America markets. You will not find this information anywhere else.

The appendix includes a complete filmography, a discography and information on related South America themed Disney comic books. It’s not an “art book” per se, but there are ample color illustrations from the Disney Archive to illustrate the text, and overall a high quality job in all printing aspects. For me, this is the animation book of the year. A great read, and I highly recommend it.

VFX artist artist Ryan Leasher is writing a book about illustrator and animation artist Joseph Mugnaini. His book, Wilderness of the Mind: The Art of Joseph Mugnaini, contains a Forward by Ray Bradbury and is currently set for publication in early 2010 from Art of Fiction.

Mugnaini is best known in animation circles for his work on Icarus Montgolfier Wright, the 1962 animated short produced by Format Films, which received an Academy Award nomination. All the artwork for the film was done by Mugnaini, based on an original story by Ray Bradbury; It was produced by Jules Engel, directed by Osmund Evans with narration by James Whitmore and Ross Martin. The painting above is from the film.

Leasher tells us that he obtained “a lot of materials relating to Icarus. Lee Klynn had a great number of items—including orignal artwork, the shooting dialogue script, etc. We’ve currently slated approximately 50 pages in the book for Icarus artwork - including concept artwork for post-Icarus projects with Format that never materialized..”

Other notable animation projects for Mugnaini were Concept, a pitch film for the Hollywood Museum in 1964, on which he did all the artwork; as with Icarus it was a static art, animated camera affair but with better use of multi-plane cameras; and Room for Heroes, a 1971 Walt Disney educational film about American folk heroes for which Joe did background paintings

Ryan also tells us:

We’ve had unrestricted access to the estate’s archives and, most importantly, to Joe’s journals. What we’ve found is nothing short of amazing. The book will include many pieces from Joe’s journals and give an unparalleled view into Joe’s creative process.

Joe is best know as the illustrator for many of Ray Bradbury’s books, including their first collaboration on Golden Apples of the Sun, the iconic Fahrenheit 451, The October Country, and my personal favorite The Halloween Tree. No previous book has come even close to showing the depth of the collaboration between Joe and Ray Bradbury. We’ve got stunning concept work, including the very first and never-before published Fahrenheit 451 sketches. They were discovered during the research, hidden in a scrapbook in the estate archives, safely tucked away by Joe’s wife Ruth some 45 years ago.

The book will include Joe’s views and teachings on art. Although Joe was best known to many as an artist and illustrator, his greatest impact was as a teacher. His focus on the structure of form has found purchase in animation studies; Walt Stanchfield references Joe’s approach to form and structure in his lecture series.

We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that the reproductions will be as close to the original pieces as possible, with an emphasis on color reproduction. The book will also present many 1:1 reproductions of segments of Joe’s larger pieces so the reader can appreciate and closely examine Joe’s mind-blowing line work.

Sounds like a book we have to have. For updates, check the Wilderness of the Mind website.

This Thursday, October 15, Galerie Arludik (12-14 rue Saint-Louis en l’Île, 75004 Paris) presents a one-man show of the work of illustrator and character designer Peter de Sève. The opening, from 6:30 to 9:30pm, will feature published and upublished pieces by de Sève, some of which will be available for sale. A preview of the show’s artwork can be found at Peter’s blog here, here, and here.

The event also marks the official launch of Peter’s monograph—A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Sève—for which I wrote the introduction. I haven’t seen the finished product yet, but Peter tells me that it looks gorgeous, and I bet that he’s right.

I collect all the Pixar and Disney Little Golden Books because they usually feature incredible artwork by the studio’s best artists. And the price is right too, only $3.99. The uber-talented Lorelay Bove illustrated the latest one based on The Princess and the Frog and she’s offering a tiny sneak peek on her blog. It’ll go on sale October 13th - and I can’t wait.

One of the rarest children’s books illustrated by an animation artist is Philippe Halsman’s Piccoli (1953), with illustrations by Paul Julian. It’s rare no longer as Michael Sporn has scanned in John Canemaker’s copy of the book, and has made available all of Julian’s stunning artwork from the book. The painting of the boy hiding under the sheets reminds me of a similar scene in UPA’s The Tell-Tale Heart, which shouldn’t be surprising because Julian was creating his exquisite paintings for that film right around the time he illustrated this book. For more Julian animation art, check out these Warner Bros. backgrounds; Pete Alvarado told me that Julian set the WB house style (and the standard) that all the other painters followed at WB in the 1940s.

I’ve just read David Levy’s new book Animation Development: From Pitch to Production and it’s a must-read for anyone who plans to create a show for television. I am a huge fan of David’s first book, Your Career In Animation: How To Survive and Thrive and I particularly love Levy’s down-to-Earth, easy-to-digest writing style, peppered with humor and loaded with truth. This time Levy focuses in on what you should expect, how you should proceed and lots of sound advice on the animation development process - using his own experiences and choice quotes from all those who have been there - development execs, creators, artists and writers. It’s illustrated with examples of actual pitch bibles and development art, and he takes you through every step in the process - from securing legal services, through pitch meetings to producing a pilot.

I’ve been there myself, on both sides of the table, as both a development exec and as a creator and producer - so I can assure you that David has nailed the process from soup to nuts (the “nuts” being certain network TV big-wigs). If you can’t make the panel at SVA in NYC (mentioned in the post below), order the book and learn about the process from the inside. Highly recommended.