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TAG FOR “Books”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
January 13, 2008 1:25 am
You read that right! Apparently you can purchase a hardcover copy of my book Pink Panther: The Ultimate Guide on Amazon.com for one copper penny (plus $3.99 shipping). Now you have no excuse not to own the only book with double page spreads on Hoot Kloot, Crazylegs Crane and The Blue Racer! 11 Comments » posted in Books 
January 10, 2008 9:05 am
Chris Robinson’s Canadian Animation: Looking for A Place to Happen is one more to add to the list of animation books I’m looking forward to reading in 2008, alongside Stepping into the Picture: Cartoon Designer Maurice Noble and Unfiltered: The Complete Ralph Bakshi. The book will be published in September 2008 by John Libbey Publishing. From the description posted on Chris’s blog, it sounds like an On the Road for the animation set, and if anybody can pull that off, it’s Robinson:
No Comments » posted in Books
January 10, 2008 5:13 am
I completely forgot to plug the “Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury” exhibit which just closed at the Orange County Museum of Art last weekend. What reminds me to mention it now is that I recently saw the accompanying exhibition catalog, and even though I only managed to flip through it briefly, it looks to be a fetching and attractive coffeetable book. Not having seen the exhibit, I’m curious to find out how they treated the “Cartoon Modern” look in the context of the larger West Coast contemporary art movement. I do know that the exhibit made some acknowledgment of midcentury animation by displaying shorts like Gerald McBoing Boing, Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom, and a Road Runner cartoon by Chuck Jones. If you didn’t see the show while it was in SoCal, the exhibition continues at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA (February 15-April 13, 2008). Then it’s on to the Oakland Museum of California (May 18-August 17, 2008) and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, TX (February 27-May 31, 2009). 1 Comment » posted in Books, Events
December 21, 2007 11:57 am
A happy note to close out this year’s animation book releases: Hans Bacher’s eagerly anticipated book about animation production design, Dream Worlds, is finally shipping on Amazon. I’ve yet to see a copy but animation director Michael Sporn has received the book and is quite pleased. He writes on his blog: “With the same ardent enthusiasm I had for Amid Amidi’s Cartoon Modern and Mike Barrier’s The Animated Man, I encourage you to buy a copy of this book if you’re serious about animation. It’s stunningly beautiful, filled with excellent art, attractively designed and it looks to be enormously informative. The book shows you what a production designer does in an animated film. I’ve seen no other book like it.” 13 Comments » posted in Books
December 16, 2007 3:23 am
Have enough animation books already? Here are ten books from the past year which, while not necessarily about animation, are well worth adding to any cartoon and illustration book collection.
Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life
Betsy and Me collects the rare syndicated newspaper strip of Plastic Man creator Jack Cole.
Where’s Dennis?: The Magazine Cartoon Art of Hank Ketcham
The Original Art of Basil Wolverton
The Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch just might be the best absurdist comic since The Far Side.
The Longest Christmas List Ever, a fine children’s book written by Jibjab founders Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, and illustrated by two up-and-coming talents Brandon Scott and Ian Worrel.
Follow the Line, an amazing children’s book by Laura Ljungkvist. See interior pages here. 9 Comments » posted in Books
December 12, 2007 12:05 am
Times Square Spectacular: Lighting Up Broadway by Darcy Tell, traces the story of the famous Times Square advertising signs, as seen in cartoons like Lights Fantastic. It’s illustrated with numerous rare photographs, maps, restaurant menus, theater programs, magazine covers, postcards, sheet music, and archival documents. What makes this especially interesting for animation historians is Tell’s special tribute to Douglas Leigh, the man who created such Times Square billboards as the legendary Camel cigarettes “smoke rings” sign – and more importantly, his animated light boards, animated by Otto Messmer for 37 years. A beautiful tribute to the Great White Way. (Thanks, J.J. Sedelmaier) No Comments » posted in Books
December 9, 2007 3:00 pm
I ran into Willie Ito at The Animation Guild Holiday Party on Friday night in Burbank. Ito, as you may know, started his animation career at Disney in the 1950s and has worked on Clampett’s Beany & Cecil cartoons (and did many comic books and merchandising art for same), on some of the last (pre-1964) Warner Bros. cartoons and had a lengthy stay at Hanna-Barbera from the ’60s through the ’80s. He gave me a copy of his hot-off-the-press, self-published children’s book Hello Maggie. The book is written by Shigeru Yabu and is a story taken from his childhood experiences in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. It’s a wonderfully upbeat tale about a difficult period in Japanese-American history. As far as I know, the only place you can get it (unless he hands you a freebie like he did to me) is at the Japanese American Heritage Source website. Ito is planning further publications and collaborations with Mr. Yabu through their Yabitoon Books (website to come). 5 Comments » posted in Books
December 5, 2007 7:04 am
One of my favorite animation books of 2007 is an unlikely choice: The Animation Pimp by Chris Robinson. Unlikely because the book is a collection of already-published articles that Robinson had written over the past few years for the online Animation World Magazine. But reading the entire body of work again in this more organized and accessible print format gave me a completely new impression of the “Animation Pimp” columns. The best way of describing the book is that it’s like having a wide-ranging cartoon conversation with a friend who appreciates and understands the animation art form as much as you do; you may not always agree with him, and sometimes you may want to punch him, but it’s ultimately fun and enlightening to hear his personal take on the art form. While the writing occasionally gets a bit too cute for my taste, for the most part Robinson offers some of the sharpest commentary and insights to be found anywhere about contemporary animation. The columns cover a lot of ground—everything from the animation festival scene and independent filmmakers to the mainstream likes of Shrek and Ren and Stimpy, all filtered through a refreshingly personal perspective. The pieces are supplemented by a bevy of often quite witty illustrations by German animation director Andreas Hykade (Ring of Fire, The Runt). It’s a one-of-a-kind animation book that’s well worth adding to any animation library. And only $19 on Amazon. |
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