ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

WARNING! This post contains concentrated cartoon goodness! Link to it from your website or blog. Tell your friends!

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive / 2114 W Burbank Bl. Burbank, CA 91506 / 818.842.4691 / Office Hours: Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

IT'S TIME TO SUPPORT THE ARCHIVE

The Archive has been in operation now for a year and a half. Every six months, we recap and look back on everything we have accomplished to date and remind you that this is all possible because of your support. We hope that you will appreciate the work being done here and find value in it. If that's the case, you will want to contribute so we can accomplish even more.

So far, we have digitized well over 7,000 images and 2,500 animated films. There are over 300 articles hosted here on the Archive blog covering a wide range of subjects. The blog is followed by readers all over the world, and our traffic is averaging 150,000 articles a month. We've mounted three major exhibits in the archive space. The animation database is now up and operating, and volunteers are working nearly every day to enter and cross link all the movie files, images and data. Most importantly, we have brought a wealth of information to you... information you can use, like the $100K Drawing Course... information about the history of the medium we all love... and perhaps most importantly, information about the pioneering artists to whom we owe our gratitude for creating the art form of animation.

As you browse through these links, keep in mind that the material presented on this website is just the tip of the iceberg... for every image or cartoon you see here, we have digitized a hundred more just as amazing. The amount that has been accomplished in the past year and a half is impressive. It's time to roll up our sleeves and take it to the next level. To do that, we need your support.

Here are the top ten reasons the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive deserves your support...

10.) Special Exhibits At The Archive

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has mounted several major exhibits. At our facility in Burbank, you can see a collection of animation drawings from the Fleischer Studios, including Grim Natwick's first character designs for Betty Boop. Also on display is the desk that Les Clark used at Disney's Hyperion studio from 1927 to 1938... from Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Steamboat Willie to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs... they were all animated on this desk. Come down any day between Tuesday and Friday and take the tour...

DISNEY DRAWINGS (ending soon!)

THE ART OF THE STORYBOARD
(See also... John K's Stimpy's Invention Part One and Part Two, Ren & Stimpy in Big House Blues Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Alvin Show: The Whistler)

THE GOLDEN AGE OF MEXICAN LOBBY CARDS
(See also... Ernesto Garcia Cabral Part One / Part Two / Sci-Fi and Horror Lobby Cards / Mexican Lobby Card Fiesta)

9.) Features On Playboy Cartoonists

In the 1950s and 60s, Playboy magazine employed many of the most talented cartoonists of the day. There's a lot to learn from these beautiful and deceptively simple cartoons. Many of them are models of color harmony, composition and staging. There's also a wide variety of styles, from the fast watercolor washes of Eldon Dedini to the carefully rendered airbrush work of Alberto Vargas. Style is something sadly lacking in theatrical animation today. These cartoons have style in abundance. We were lucky enough to be able to digitize a collection of vintage magazines courtesy of Archive supporters, Mike Fontanelli and Chad Coyle. Here are some of the artists we've profiled so far...

Eldon Dedini Part One / Eldon Dedini's Satyr's & Nymphs / Early Erich Sokol Cartoons / More Erich Sokol / Jack Cole And More Great 50s Playboy Cartoonists / Doug Sneyd - Phil Interlandi / More Phil Interlandi Playboy Cartoons / Alberto Vargas / Harvey Kurtzman & Will Elder's Little Annie Fanny (See also... George Petty's Ridgid Tools Calendars & his 1947 Calendar / John Held Jr's Flappers)

8.) Art Instruction Materials

Founded by Norman Rockwell and Albert Dorne in the early 1950s, Famous Artists had three courses... Painting, Illustration/Design and Cartooning. Each course consisted of 24 lessons in three oversized binders covering a wide variety of subjects. To design the courses, Rockwell brought together the top artists of the day... Albert Dorne, Stevan Dohanos, Rube Goldberg, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Willard Mullen, Virgil Partch, and Whitney Darrow Jr, among others. The result was a correspondence course that puts many current university programs to shame. ASIFA-Hollywood has been digitizing these powerful lessons and sharing some of them with you on this website. In addition, we have provided a wealth of educational material written by top cartoonist educators like Grim Natwick and Gene Byrnes; as well as invaluable articles on art theory.

Chad's Design For Television / Willard Mullin On How To Draw Animals / Clair Weeks' Disney Animal Studies 1940 / Fundamentals Of Composition: Part One and Part Two / Bill Nolan: Cartooning Self Taught / Grim Natwick on Animation Design / A Drawing Lesson From Walter Lantz / Owen Jones' The Grammar of Ornament Part One, Part Two and Part Three / Musical Timing Rediscovered / Originality vs. Imitation: Chaplin's Shadow / Incorporating Natural Forms: Haeckel's Art Forms In Nature / Nat Falk's How To Draw Animated Cartoons Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Animated Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate / 1938 Disney Artitst Tryout Book / Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One: Newspaper Strip Cartoonists, Part Two: Studying Comic Strips, Part Three: Single Panel and Sports Cartoons, Part Four: Editorial Cartoons and Comic Books

7.) Classic Cartoons To Study

Swing You Sinners

Through our Film Preservation Program ASIFA-Hollywood has rescued dozens of cartoons in danger of being lost to nitrate deterioration. The volunteers at the Animation Archive are hard at work digitizing cartoons for inclusion in our database. This will allow students and cartoonists to instantly access animated films that are not available commercially. To date, we have digitized over 2,500 cartoons... Fleischer Popeyes, Bouncing Ball Cartoons, Terrytoons and many more that haven't been seen in decades. Here are just a few of the cartoons in our collection...

Fleischer Studios: Swing, You Sinners, Mariutch, Betty Boop in Snow White & You're Driving Me Crazy / Famous Studios: Chiquita Banana / Terrytoons: Barnyard Actor, Farmer Al Falfa's Prize Package, Pink Elephants, The Temperamental Lion (1940) & Catnip Capers, Bill Tytla's Mighty Mouse Meets Jekyll & Hyde Cat / H-B's The Bodyguard and Avery's Bad Luck Blackie / Uproar In Heaven (China/1961) Part One, Part Two / Ruff and Reddy and Pinky the Pint-Sized Pachyderm

6.) Golden Age Illustration

One of the goals of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is to gather together the material that provided inspiration to animators in the 30s and 40s. Artists like Kay Nielsen and Gustaf Tenggren made the trip to California and ended up working for Disney. These books contain a wealth of inspiration for color, design and technique. We are also archiving the work of great illustrators from the 40s and 50s, like Arthur Szyk and Boris Artzybasheff. Click on a few of these links and be amazed at what you see...

Bland Tomtar Och Troll: John Bauer 1915 / Einar Norelius 1929, Einar Norelius 1934, Bauer & Norelius 1944/1949 / Kay Nielsen: East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Twelve Dancing Princesses & Hansel & Gretel / Gustaf Tenggren: Small Fry And The Winged Horse, Heidi - Wonderbook - Juan & Juanita & Grimms Fairy Tales / Edmund Dulac: Hans Christian Anderson, Poe's Poetical Works & Tanglewood Tales / Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights (1909) / N. C. Wyeth's Legends of Charlemagne / Frank Reynolds Paints Pickwick / Artzybasheff: Neurotica, Machinalia & Diablerie / Arthur Szyk: The New Order / Mid-1930s Colliers Illustrations / Late 40s Colliers Illustrations / Lawson Wood- The Monkey Painter

5.) Historical Info & Interviews

Hanna Barbera Freleng

We are in the process of publishing an important interview with three of animation's pioneers... Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera and Friz Freleng. Interviewed by cartoon director, John Kricfalusi, they speak with candor about their careers and the state of animation in the modern age. The interview is illustrated extensively with pictures and videos of cartoons so you can instantly see what they are talking about. This sort of interactive presentation takes full advantage of the power of the internet as a learning tool. There are two installments now online, with more to come in the near future. We also posted an interesting audio clip of Grim Natwick discussing his friend and former boss, Ub Iwerks, a fascinating article on Bill Tytla by animation historian John Canemaker, and a documentary on China's pioneer animators, the Wan Brothers...

Bill-Joe-Friz Interview Pt. 1 / Bill-Joe-Friz Interview Pt. 2 / Natwick on Iwerks / Three Interesting Documents / Berny Wolf (1911-2006) / Louise Zingarelli: Cool World / Biography: The Wan Brothers- Cinese Animation Pioneers / Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five / Life Magazine: Disney Studios at War / John Canemaker on Bill Tytla / Lotte Reiniger's Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) Part One and Part Two / Clair Weeks' Goodbye Book (Disney/1952) / Bob Clampett's Swimming Pool 1962 / Building Of The Disney Studio In Burbank

4.) The Cartoon Hall Of Fame

Biopedia

ASIFA-Hollywood has been recognizing the important figures in the history of animation for over three decades with the Annie Awards. We continue that tradition with our online biographical wiki, the Cartoon Hall Of Fame. Thanks to the hard work of the students in Charlie Lawing and Larry Loc's animation classes, the Hall Of Fame is beginning to take shape. We still need volunteers to help us edit and format the entries, as well as people to draft the biographical sketches of their favorite artists. If you would like to help, please email me at sworth@animationarchive.org. In the meantime, check out the wonderful biographies of these greats...

James Stuart Blackton (See also... Animation Centennial 1906-2006) / Carlo Vinci / Art Babbitt (See also... Pencil Test of Art's Best Scene) / Shamus Culhane / John Kricfalusi / Ralph Bakshi (See also... Bakshi Phone Doodles) / Oskar Fischinger / Ollie Johnston / Osamu Tezuka

3.) Classic Golden Books

We've collected and digitized an amazing library of images from the classic Golden Books of the 1940s through the 60s. Some of the finest artists in the business worked for Western Publishing on this series, including Gustaf Tenggren, Mel Crawford, Mary Blair and J.P. Miller. We are still working on digitizing the collection donated to us by John Kricfalusi, but so far, we have scanned the following books...

Tibor Gergely: A Day In The Jungle / Gustaf Tenggren: The Little Trapper / Mary Blair's Baby's House, Little Verses Part One and Part Two, The New Golden Song Book Part One, Part Two & Part Three / Al White: Rocky & His Friends & Huck Hound Builds A House / Mel Crawford: Rootie Kazootie Joins The Circus / 50s & 60s Album Covers Part One and Part Two / Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards / Disney's Uncle Remus Stories Part One and Part Two / Rojankovsky's Frog Went A-Courtin'

2.) Vintage Newspaper Cartoons And Comics

Milt Gross

Along with our Archive Alliance member, Digital Funnies, comic collector Kent Butterworth and the Milton Caniff Estate, we've brought you some wonderful newspaper strips, magazine cartoons, and comic books, many of which have never been reprinted. Here is just a small sampling of the material we've added to the archive database...

The Father of Cartooning: T. S. Sullivant / Virgil Partch: Here We Go Again & Man The Beast / Milt Gross: Cartoon Tour of New York, Sunday Pages Part One, Part Two and Part Three / Cliff Sterrett: Polly And Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three / Hanna-Barbera: Huckleberry Hound Weekly / Harrison Cady: Bird's Eye Views / Jim Tyer: Funny Animal Comics / Basil Wolverton: Powerhouse Pepper / Boody Rogers: Babe Comics Part One, Part Two & Part Three / Rube Goldberg's Side Show / Milt Stein's Supermouse Comics No. 4 / Dan Gordon's Superkatt / Parody: Whack Comics (1953) / Milton Knight's Great Brown-Pericord Motor / Harvey Eisenberg's Foxy Fagan 1946 / Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon / Walt Kelly's Pogo / People on Paper (MGM/1945)

1.) The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course

How much would it be worth to you to learn to draw for animation from two masters... one from the "golden age" of animation, and one of the top talents in the industry today? Well, you can do that right here on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog with our online drawing course. Overseen by Ren & Stimpy creator, John Kricfalusi and using the long out-of-print original edition of Preston Blair's handbook on animation techniques, you can't find a better resource for honing your drawing skills. The individual lessons are in the sidebar of this site, but start out with the...

Introduction to the $100K Drawing Course
Preston Blair's Animation 1st Edition Part One / Part Two

And That's Not All Folks...

Not surprisingly, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has one of the most extensive collections of animation artwork in the world- material from every studio and era, from the earliest silent cartoons all the way through current television productions. Our focus is on artwork not archived elsewhere... drawings and cels from 1950s commercial animation houses, extinct New York studios and obscure cartoon producers from the golden age of cartoons. Here is just a small sampling of our collection...

Mike Lah and Quartet Films / Ray Patin Studios Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six / Vincent Waller Spumco Drawings / Herb Klynn's Unmade Animated Feature / Ralph Bakshi Phone Doodles / Katie Rice's Designs / Chuck Jones Layouts / Grim Natwick's Post UPA Commercials / Early 50s UPA Model Sheets / Reluctant Dragon and Pinocchio Model Sheets / Jules Engel's Alvin Show Color Keys / Model Sheets by Hurter and Thorson, Mice and Duck Model Sheets, and More Disney Model Sheets / Artwork from Disney's Bambi / Terrytoons Model Sheets / Herb Klynn's Pitch For The Shrimp / MGM Animation Drawings / Alex Toth Model Sheets

Please donate whatever you can to support this important project. Your generosity is what keeps the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive going. If you aren't financially able to contribute or if you already made a donation, please tell your friends about the Archive Project Blog. Link to this post from your website or blog, tell everyone you know about the ten good reasons to contribute to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Labels: contribute, donate, meta, volunteer

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Our goal for a sustaining annual budget for the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is $250,000 a year. Although this may seem at first glance to be a difficult goal to achieve, it isn't impossible if all supporters of the project would pull together and contribute to the cause. If every member of ASIFA-Hollywood and every regular reader of this blog became a Project Partner, the goal would be reached and the project would be fully funded.

You can donate right now with a credit card using PayPal...
If you would like to donate by mail, please make your check payable to ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD, write "Animation Archive Project" on the note line, and mail it to...

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506

Donor Categories

We ask all members of ASIFA-Hollywood to contribute. We have created an annual donation structure that will fit any member's budget.

BENEFACTOR ($25,000 and up)
Credit and logo appear with primary positioning on all publications and press releases regarding the Animation Archive Project for one year.

CORPORATE SPONSOR ($10,000)
Credit and logo appear on all publications and press releases regarding the Animation Archive Project for one year.

PROJECT SPONSOR ($5,000 and up)
Credit and thanks appear on all publications and press releases regarding the Animation Archive Project for one year.

PROJECT ANGEL ($500)
Credit and thanks appear on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive webpage and in the next Annie Awards Program.

PROJECT HERO ($100)
Credit and thanks appear on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive webpage.

PROJECT PARTNER ($50)
We are asking all members of ASIFA-Hollywood and everyone who follows the blog regularly to contribute $50 a year to help us expand our offerings. If everyone who uses this resource contributed in this way, we would be fully funded for the entire year.

PROJECT SUPPORTER (any amount)
Any donation, large or small is greatly appreciated and all funds collected will be used exclusively to establish the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

You can donate right now with a credit card using PayPal...

Labels: contribute, donate, meta

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