The LA Times Festival of Books (4/28-29) is such a huge event - the Comic Con International of book fairs, if you will - that it cannot be held in any convention center or contained space. It takes over the campus of of UCLA and overwhelms it. If you love books of any type, on any subject, there is something here for you. Even for us animation fans and historians.

Mike Barrier (The Animated Man) will be a panelist on Biography: Icons on the Page which will take place at 10:30am on Saturday at Rolfe Hall (room 1200). Barrier will be around to sign books and chat afterward. Leonard Maltin will be signing books on Saturday at 12 noon at Dutton’s Brentwood Books booth #336. Neal Gabler, the author of the other recent Disney biography, will be a member of another panel of biographers, Biography: 20th Century Lives, at 3:30pm Saturday afternoon in Haines Hall (room 39). Charles Solomon will be on the panel Biography: Remarkable Lives on Sunday morning at 10:30am at Young Hall (room CS 24).

Most major book companies as well as small press and independent publishers, and book stores & major chains, have large booths selling back stock at discount prices (be sure to stop by the Chronicle Books booths #367, 804 and 901 for some great deals on their animation titles). Many big name real world celebrities—from Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor to Ray Bradbury appear on panels or do book signings. And it’s all free. For more information click here.

Van Eaton Gallery • Thursday night, 4.19.07, 9:30pm

Van Eaton Gallery • Thursday night, 4.19.07, 9:45pm

Last night’s Book Look at the Van Eaton Gallery in Sherman Oaks. Top photo is Mike Van Eaton himself, showing off a new acquistion: a background painting from Pluto Junior (1942). Bottom photo is of J.B. Kaufman and Russell Merritt, authors of Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies (a must-have new book).

Over 200 people attended, with a large crowd continuously in store from 6pm until after 10pm. Mike is hoping to turn this into an annual or bi-annual event. Authors in attendance included Nancy Beiman, Tom Sito, Steve Gordon, Stephen Silver, Dean Yeagle, Joe Adamson and Martha Sigall. A great time was had by all. Thanks to all the Brew readers who stopped by to say hello.

Inspired by Michael Sporn’s recent series of posts about his favorite animation books, I wanted to share this list I’d compiled a while back of autobiographies written by animation artists. The list is depressingly short considering how many hundreds of great artists worked during animation’s Golden Age. It amazes, and saddens, me that none of the A-list animators at Warner Bros. or MGM ever bothered to record their memories or offer insights into how they worked. Imagine how much richer the art form would be today if we could refer back to the thoughts of animators like Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Bill Melendez, Irv Spence, Rod Scribner, Emery Hawkins, Bobe Cannon and Ray Patterson. The one cartoon animator who did produce a couple of books, Preston Blair, is evidence of how much these artists had to offer to future generations; Blair’s book is to this day one of the most widely admired animation texts around

To be fair, there are many more biographies about animation artists, like Joe Adamson’s books on Tex Avery and Walter Lantz, John Canemaker’s volumes on Mary Blair, Winsor McCay and the Nine Old Men, and various bios of Friz Freleng, Max Fleischer, Charlie Thorson and Ub Iwerks, among others. But as far as artists writing about their experiences in their own words, it’s a meager library. That’s a shame too because as necessary and valuable as bios are, they are rarely (if ever) as entertaining or enlightening as the best of the autobiographies, like those of Shamus Culhane, Jack Kinney and Chuck Jones. If you can think of any other titles that should be added to the list, please mention them in the comments.

No, this isn’t a frame from the forthcoming digital restoration of the Max Fleischer Popeye cartoons. It’s an actual production cel and background from Let’s You and Him Fight (1934).

Original art from Fleischer cartoons is scarce, but this cel and hundreds of other super-rare pop culture artifacts are on permanent display at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore Maryland. I haven’t visted the place myself, but I just recieved a copy of the beautiful souvenir book, Pop Culture with Character and if this book is any indication, Geppi’s Museum is a place I must visit next time I’m on the East Coast.

It’s the history of pop culture told through artifacts and mementos dating back to the early 1800s and continuing up through 2007’s Spongebob and Shrek. The book is a catalog of cool stuff, and I can only imagine that seeing this memorabilia in person, at the museum, would be mind blowing. Thanks Mr. Geppi for collecting this material and sharing it with us.

Russell Schroeder has written and self-published an eye-opening (and ear-opening) book on the unused music for Disney films (both animated and live-action). The book, called Disney’s Lost Chords, is being published in a limited edition of 1000 copies, and is available solely from the author. The book features 77 (mostly) unheard songs and is illustrated with over 200 pieces of never before published developmental art.

Disney’s Lost Chords presents the Vocal/Piano arrangements for 77 unused songs originally written such classic Disney films as Song of the South, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, The Story of Anyburg, U.S.A., Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. As an added bonus this volume includes musical numbers from several projects like Rainbow Road to Oz and Chanticler that were eventually shelved after initial development. The cover art (by Mary Blair, at left) was created in 1948 for a souvenir program for an event benefiting the Hospitalized Veterans Music Service of the Musicians’ Emergency Fund.

Musician and Disney historian Alex Rannie has seen the book and has this to say:

Disney music is an area of personal interest and expertise; I’ve read most all there is to read about music at the Studio. But nothing could prepare me for the depth of research and breadth of artistry in Russell Schroeder’s book. I can’t offer enough praise for Russell’s labor of love, and once word gets out, Disney’s Lost Chords is going to disappear faster than you can say “Bob’s your uncle!”

DISNEY’S LOST CHORDS
Hardcover, 9 1/4 x 12 1/4
312 pp., illus.
A Limited, Numbered, Edition of1000 copies
$75
Available only through:
VOIGHT PUBLICATIONS
2055 Lower Tuskeegee Road
Robbinsville, NC 28771

Download order form here (PDF FILE)

Our friends at the Van Eaton Gallery are hosting an event that I want to invite you all to. On Thursday, April 19, 2007 from 6:00pm-10:00 pm the gallery is hosting a gathering of animation book authors for a meet-and-greet, book signing and I think a panel discussion. The gallery folks have gone out of their way to get many authors to attend, the guest list currently includes Tom Sito, Nancy Beiman, Dean Yeagle, Stephen Silver, Rik Maki, J.B. Kaufman, me, Mark Cotta Vaz, Disney Archivist Dave Smith, and several others to be announced. In addition to our books for sale, Stuart Ng will be bringing cool stuff from his incredible stash, and Van Eaton will have rare original animation art, related to the book topics, on display. And refreshments. Don’t forget the refreshments.

And it’s free. You have to RSVP because space is limited. More info here. At the Van Eaton Galleries, 13613 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 (818)788-2357. Doors will open promptly at 6:00 pm.

One of the more inspiring trends recently has been seeing book projects by animation artists being picked up for distribution by mainstream book publishers. For example, last fall, Pixar’s Sanjay Patel had his book The Little Book of Hindu Deities published by Plume, an imprint of Penguin. Then, Pixar’s Ronnie del Carmen and Enrico Casarosa (along with Tadahiro Uesegi) had Three Trees Make a Forest released by Gingko Press. And now, the boys at Blue Sky Animation have announced that their graphic anthology Out of Picture will be published by Villard/Random House. The first Out of Picture volume will be reprinted this winter and a second brand-new volume will also debut from Villard.

It’s no accident that mainstream publishers are increasingly looking towards the creative works of animation artists. There is an incredible wealth of talent working in our art form today, and most of them are not allowed to explore the full range of their creative potential in their day jobs. Today’s savvy artists, however, aren’t content to accept the realities of the current industry, and are pursuing new outlets of self-expression ranging from short films to comics to these book projects. If anything, I expect we’ll be seeing many more high-profile book projects from the animation community over the coming years.

Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle (creators of Disney’s Kim Possible) will be signing their new book Liar of Kudzu at Storyopolis in Studio City, CA at 3:00 on Saturday March 31st. They’ll also be appearing at Square Books Jr. in Oxford, Mississippi next Tuesday the 3rd at 4:00. The book is a “Southern-gothic-science fiction-teen-comedy, with a romance” and it was just optioned by the Disney Channel for a Disney Channel Original Movie. They told us that they’d be happy to sign any Kim Possible books for any fans of the show who come out and say “howdy”!

The cover of the book (above) was illustrated by the amazing Chris Turnham.