History: Nat Falk's How To Make Animated Cartoons Part One

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



Today, we began digitizing an extraordinary book... Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons". Published in 1941, this book brings together information from all of the major studios of the day... Disney, Terrytoons, Screen Gems, Warner Bros, Fleischer, Lantz and Harman-Ising. It's wild to see Popeye on the cover right next to Andy Panda and Farmer Al Falfa... You'll never see competing studios cooperate to create a book like this today!



This particular copy of "Animated Cartoons" has its own history... It belonged to one of the pioneers of animation, Carlo Vinci, and it was given to him as a gift by Paul Terry himself. We will be posting more on Carlo Vinci in the coming weeks.



Here then, is the first installment of Nat Falk's "Animated Cartoons"... consisting of a forward by Paul Terry and a chapter on the history of animation. This chapter is fascinating, because it includes information from first hand sources about the early days of animation in New York. Learn who did the first double exposed effects, who was the first to use cels, who made the first color cartoons (no, not Walt Disney!) and who invented the pan background... Print it out and read it all!

HOW TO MAKE ANIMATED CARTOONS by Nat Falk












For more from this rare book, see Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate.

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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