Fall ’06 Animation Reading
I just realized that I never did an announcement here on the Brew to let everybody know that my book CARTOON MODERN: STYLE AND DESIGN IN FIFTIES ANIMATION is officially out. Judging from the amount of emails I’ve been receiving about the book, this is not exactly news to a lot of you. But just in case, I want to point out that the book is now available at most Barnes & Noble and Borders around the country. It can also be ordered online at the following places:
Chronicle Books (my publisher likes this ordering option best)
Amazon (you, the consumer, would probably like this option best)
Bud Plant (everybody loves Bud)
Barnes & Noble
Strand Bookstore in New York (they also have a good discount on the book)
Powells in Portland
There’s lots more Fifties artwork and book event info at the Cartoon Modern blog.
It’s shaping up to be a solid fall season for animation book fans. Besides my own book, there’s a couple other promising titles that I have to mention. The first is Neal Gabler’s nearly 900-page Disney biography called WALT DISNEY: THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION. Says Ray Bradbury, “We’ve all been waiting for the perfect book on Walt Disney; it has finally arrived and Neal Gabler’s done it. Wonderful!” I’m looking forward to reading Gabler’s bio and then comparing it to Mike Barrier’s thoughts in his ambitious Walt bio scheduled for release in spring ’07. These two bios promise to open up some interesting debates and provide new insights into the life of one of animation’s greatest geniuses.
The other title I wanted to write about is Tom Sito’s DRAWING THE LINE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ANIMATION UNIONS FROM BOSKO TO BART SIMPSON. I saw this at the bookstore last week and almost started reading the whole thing in the store. With a topic as volatile as the labor history of the animation industry, it’s guaranteed to be filled with lots of juicy stories. Back in the late-90s, I attended some of Sito’s one-on-one ASIFA-Hollywood chats with various animation legends, and they were always educational and lots of fun. At these chats, Tom not only exhibited a superb understanding of this art form’s history, but he also knew the personal stories of all the artists and was armed with a seemingly endless supply of hilarious anecdotes and behind-the-scenes tales. I’m confident that his book will be similar to those chats: informative AND a lot of fun.
