Exclusive Preview: Richard Williams’ Life And Legacy Chronicled In ‘Adventures In Animation,’ Available Now

Clarification: This article is about the book’s U.S. release date. The U.K. version came out last year.

Available in the U.S. today, Faber has released Adventures in Animation, a richly illustrated new book chronicling the extraordinary career of legendary animator Richard Williams.

Written with his wife and longtime collaborator, Imogen Sutton, the volume offers an intimate look at the Oscar-winning creator whose artistry bridged the golden age of Disney and the dawn of the digital Pixar era.

Williams is perhaps best remembered as director of animation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), a paradigm-shifting classic that earned him two Academy Awards. His 1971 adaptation of A Christmas Carol also won an Oscar, solidifying his reputation as one of the most influential animators of his era.

Across a career spanning more than sixty years, Williams produced feature films, shorts, title sequences, and hundreds of commercials, all defined by his elegant draftsmanship and boundless imagination. His most ambitious work was The Thief and the Cobbler, a film he began in the 1960s and worked on for decades. Planned as a career-defining opus that would push the limits of hand-drawn animation, the project reached legendary status due to its intricate draftsmanship and near-obsessive attention to detail. Although the film was never completed as Williams originally intended, its surviving footage and pencil tests have achieved cult status among professionals and fans.

For generations of animation students, Williams was not only a sources of creative inspiration but he also served as a teacher. His manual The Animator’s Survival Kit (2001) remains a standard in animation schools and studios everywhere. He also hosted a global series of masterclasses that inspired countless artists to push themselves and their work to new levels.

Adventures in Animation offers the first complete narrative of Williams’ life and work, tracing his journey from the five-year-old boy enthralled by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to his status as a pivotal link between Walt Disney’s animators and the creators of Toy Story, The Incredibles, and beyond.

The book is also a visual treasure trove. Alongside Sutton’s text, it presents never-before-seen artwork from across Williams’ career: line tests, character designs, storyboards, and sketches that reveal the precision and energy behind his acclaimed films.

We’re thrilled to share several exclusive pages from Adventures in Animation, showcasing the wide range of rare material readers can expect from the book:

Adventures in Animation is available in hardcover here and on Amazon.

For animation professionals and fans alike, the book promises to be both a historical record and a treasure to be revisited time and a again for entertainment or inspiration.