Re: Online Drawing Lessons

Recently, John Kricfalusi decided to make his blog available to be viewed by invitation only. I am working with John to make the lesson posts from his blog available to students who want to work from his articles. It will take a few days to work out the details, so please be patient.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Meta: Over Three Million Served

Today, our hit counter registered the three millionth visitor to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

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Happy Birthday June!

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Director, Stephen Worth
and ASIFA-Hollywood President, Antran Manoogian
visit with June Foray at the 2008 Annie Awards after party
June Foray is the heart and soul of ASIFA-Hollywood. Everyone at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive would like to wish her a Happy Birthday. Here's wishing every day is just like your birthday, June!

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Comic-Con: Zim Cartooning Course Debuts

THE ZIM CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL OF CARTOONING, COMIC ART AND CARICATURE


For the first time in nearly a century, Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman's legendary 1914 cartooning course is available again in a deluxe two-volume edition published by the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 1,000 B&W illustrations and 22 hand-tipped color plates, this landmark course deserves a place on every cartoonist's bookshelf.

Edited by Stephen Worth and with a foreword by Ralph Bakshi, these books cover a broad range of subjects, from practical advice for aspiring artists to philosophical musings on what it means to be a cartoonist. Zim's infectious sense of humor and vividly observed caricatures leap off the page. This drawing course may just be the keystone document of American cartooning.

These two volumes will be available beginning July 23rd at ASIFA-Hollywood's booth at the San Diego Comic-Con. (Booth #5334: To the right of the main entrance, against the lobby side wall.) Quantities are very limited. Copies will also be available for sale on ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive website soon after. Also available is a series of high quality glicee fine art prints of some of Zim's finest cartoons produced by imagekind, a CafePress company.

The books are available to the general public for a donation to the ASIFA-Hollywood of $125 per volume. ASIFA-Hollywood members may receive the books for a donation of $100 per volume. (Non-members: Buy both books and join ASIFA-Hollywood and take the discount right away. This means that ASIFA-Hollywood membership is just an additional $25!) Proceeds from the sale of these books go to support the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. ASIFA-Hollywood is a 501(c)(3) California non-profit organization, so your contribution may be tax deductible. (See your tax accountant for details.)

ABOUT EUGENE ZIMMERMAN (1862-1935)
ZIM was a familiar a name to people in the early years of the 20th century; but today, he is largely forgotten. He was a pioneer of the art of caricature with over 40,000 illustrations published in his lifetime. ZIM was a mainstay of the magazines Puck and Judge, lampooning politicians of all parties and poking fun at the ethnic roots of America's melting pot. After his retirement, he created a correspondence school in cartooning that educated many fledgling artists who went on to follow his lead.

For more information on Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman and his cartooning course, see...
http://www.animationarchive.org/labels/zim.html

HELP US SPREAD THE WORD
An extensive electronic press kit is available upon request to members of the press and bloggers interested in spotlighting the books on their sites. Email sworth@animationarchive.org for a complimentary copy.
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Pop Cultural Literacy Screening Experimental Live Feed

The crack team of electronic physicists at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has been working day and night to make it possible to stream a small portion of the Pop Cultural Literacy 101 Program at Woodbury to all of you who couldn't make it to the show- but that's not all. Our engineers have devised a method to GO BACK IN TIME to Friday night for a LIVE STREAMING VIDEO. It's still a little glitchy, but click on the link for a technical explanation from our chief engineer, T. Frothington Bellows and a sample live feed direct from Woodbury!


CLICK TO LAUNCH LIVE FEED
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Story: 1930s Cartoon "Script" Discovered

The family of animator Ray Patterson brought some artwork by the Archive the other day for us to digitize. Included among the material was this "script" for a Charles Mintz Barney Google/Snuffy Smith cartoon. It's actually not a script- it's a premise, but this is as close to a script as cartoon gag men got in the golden age. It fits perfectly into the first of my articles on writing for cartoons, so I added it. If you haven't seen this series of posts, check them out...

Writing Cartoons Pt 1- The Gag Session

Writing Cartoons Pt 2- A Continuity Emerges

Writing Cartoons Pt 3- Structure

Writing Cartoons Pt 4- The Rough Board

I promise that I'll pick up these posts again and continue through the process later this Fall.

We will have more exciting treasures to share with you soon courtesy of the family of Ray Patterson.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Meta: Five Years Ago

It's been five years since the Board of Directors announced its intention to build an archive for the use of animators. Here is the speech that I gave at the reunion of the Lion King crew on June 16, 2004.

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Hello... My name is Steve Worth and my passion is the art of hand drawn animation.

For the past ten or fifteen years, I've been a member of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood, and I'm currently serving as the Director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project. Tonight's event is a fundraiser for the project, and all of the proceeds from this evening will be used to establish the Virtual Archive in the ASIFA Animation Center in Burbank. I'd like to thank Tom Sito for putting this event together. I'd also like to thank the Corporate Sponsors of the Animation Archive Project... Sony Pictures Classics and the Walter Lantz Foundation.

Before we get started, I'd like to give you a little background on the archive project, and let you know how it relates to the panel discussion you're about to hear tonight. Most of all, I'd like to share with you why this particular project is so important... perhaps more important now than at any other time in the history of animation.

Sir Isaac Newton was quoted as saying, "If I have seen further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." It's all too easy to become so involved with what we're doing "here and now", that we forget what came before us. Los Angeles is often spoken of as "a town with no history". Compared with cities like Athens, London or Paris, that may seem to be the case. But in its short period of existence, Los Angeles was the place that nurtured and developed one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, the art of cinema... and most importantly to the people gathered together in this room tonight, the art of animated filmmaking.

This sketch was given to me by an artist who knew that I was interested in the history of animation...


He found it in the trash dumpster at FilmRoman, obviously thrown out when someone cleared his desk. The animator that gave this to me had no idea who this was. No one else he showed it to at the studio knew either. In fact, 99.9% of the general public wouldn't even recognize his name, much less his image.

This is a self caricature of Ub Iwerks, the man who designed and animated Mickey Mouse... The man who invented process photography, enabling live action and animation to co-exist side by side... The man who revolutionized the industry with the invention of the multiplane camera and animation xerography. There are few people in the history of animation who have done more for us as animators than Ub Iwerks did. Yet his picture ended up in a trash can... completely unrecognized... at one of the most important TV animation studios in town. I'm not picking on FilmRoman when I point this out. The same could have happened at any studio, even the one this man made billions of dollars for over the years.

Think about that for a second and let it soak in.

How can we as artists "see further" like Isaac Newton if our collective memory is so short, we don't even recognize the pioneers who made everything we do possible? This is the sort of shortsightedness that's led to stories in the press announcing that hand drawn animation is obsolete. Hand drawn animation is no more replaceable by computer graphics than drawing and painting are replaced by photography. Cartooning is an irreplaceable artform, not an expendable technique.

Tonight, we're here to honor the creative achievements of a team of artists who pulled together to make one of the most successful hand drawn animated films of all time. I would bet that just about all of us here tonight have pretty much the same question on our minds... How can the art of hand drawn animation return to the creative peak it enjoyed just a few short years ago?

Again, I'm going to give you a second to think about that question and let it soak in.

The Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood has been thinking long and hard about that question. We've determined that, as an organization, it's time for us to go beyond just screenings and the Annie Awards. It's time for us to build something that ASIFA-Hollywood's founders, Bill Scott, June Foray and Bill Littlejohn envisioned as a goal for our organization nearly forty years ago... a museum, library and archive devoted to the art of animation... an institution dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting those broad shoulders we all stand upon.

The first step in achieving this goal is the establishment of something the founders of ASIFA could never have imagined... a "virtual archive"... A computer database containing hundreds of thousands of digital files representing animation drawings, model sheets, pencil tests, background paintings, book and magazine illustrations, cartoons, voice over reels, interviews, information and movies... all searchable by keyword. In short, the ultimate artist's clip file. We all know that the major studios in town maintain their own archives to preserve the documents related to their particular productions, ASIFA-Hollywood's archive will be unique, because it will be dedicated to documenting and serving the people who actually make animated films... the artists. ASIFA-Hollywood is in an unique position to be able to pull together a wide range of material for its archive... a much broader scope than any corporate archive could ever hope to encompass. If gathered together in one place, just the personal reference files of the Board of Directors alone would constitute the single most important collection dealing with this subject in the world... Think of having access to Jerry Beck's filmographic research, Tom Sito's notes on the history of the industry, and my own animation art reference library...

Our intial fundraising goal is to raise $50,000 to establish the virtual archive. When we reach $20,000 of that amount, we'll be able to begin to purchase equipment and begin building out the database. This may sound like a great deal of money. But if every member of ASIFA-Hollywood made a donation to the Archive Project equal to the amount of their annual dues of $60, we would not only have enough money to purchase the equipment, we would have enough to cover all of the operating expenses of the archive for the next two years. Once the archive is established and operating, the Board of Directors will turn its attention to creating a Museum of Animation.

Tonight, the Animation Archive is just a concept with only a few presentation boards here to represent it... but next time we gather together for an event like this, you'll see equipment and material on display... a functioning archive, instead of just presentation boards.

We realize that this is a lean time for animators. Money is tight. But we aren't asking for a great deal from any one person. What we are asking for is for the animation community to pull together to do something of great value for the artform. ASIFA has always been all about recognizing the achievements of individuals... whether through its screenings, events like this, or the Annie Awards. The Animation Archive will be no different. It will be a resource that documents the history of people like Ub Iwerks, and the people who will be speaking to you in a few moments. Best of all, the archive will provide inspiration and education to a new generation of animators, acting as the shoulders for them to stand upon. This is *exactly* the sort of project that will prove conclusively to the world that hand drawn animation isn't dead.

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

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Today, five years downstream from that night, we have accomplished a great deal. We have built an amazing database containing over 4,000 animated films and nearly 50,000 digitized images. The Archive is open to the public four days a week.


Read more about the archive in this great article by Stephanie Sapienza...

Projecting Animation's Past Onto Its Future: The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
By Stephanie Sapienza

PART ONE
• Introduction
• An Artist's Archive

PART TWO
• A Museum, Library & Archive Devoted To Cartoons
• The Genesis Of The Concept
• Filling A Need For Aspiring Animators

PART THREE
• Future Plans
• Do You Know This Man?
• Conclusion

Times are still tough, and the Archive still needs your support. If we have provided information of value to you, I hope you will contribute to the project using the PayPal button below.
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Congratulations

Danny Young, a technical animator at Rhythm & Hues, has become a familiar face volunteering at the Animation Archive and ASIFA events. Last night, the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood appointed him to join them on the Board. Danny will be representing ASIFA-Hollywood to the video game industry. Well deserved. Congratulations, Danny!


Henry Selick with Danny Young at the Annie Awards

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Thanks to Anime Los Angeles

Thanks to our friends at Anime Los Angeles the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive now has a terrific podcasting setup. Danny Young and Michael Woodside, the team behind the fantastic coverage of this year's Annie Awards have agreed to host and compile the podcasts. They have some wonderful plans. Look for the launch of the A-HAA Podcast later this Spring.
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Response To Comments

A couple of the commenters on my last post said that they were under the impression that the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog was an "official site", free from editorializing. I'm afraid that is incorrect. ASIFA-Hollywood is whatever its members make it. The collective opinions of the people who take the time to assemble this information for you are the opinions expressed here. It was also asked if our project had a mission statement. The goals of ASIFA-Hollywood are as follows...

• To support and encourage animation education
• To support the preservation and critical evaluation of animation history
• To recognize the achievement of excellence in the art and industry of animation
• To increase public awareness of animation
• To act as a liason to encourage the free exchange of ideas within the animation community
• To encourage journalism documenting current trends and activities in animation
• To encourage the social interaction of professional and non-professional animation enthusiasts
• To encourage the development and expression of all forms of animation

It's impossible to encourage the free exchange of ideas, support critical evaluation of animation history or encourage journalism without expressing an opinion. I'm encouraging the students that read this blog and the volunteers that help out at the archive to learn for themselves about critical thinking and analysis from my example. I'm definitely NOT telling them what to think. If you doubt that, just ask JoJo or one of the other animators who frequent the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Coraline Mystery Boxes!

Click to see the trailer.
The crew of Coraline has been sending out special handmade boxes as gifts to the bloggers they follow. We opened our own mysterious Coraline box tonight! Archive volunteers Michael and Brittany Woodside, Glenn Han and Danny Young (all wearing Coraline t-shirts they got as swag at Siggraph) were on hand to witness the event and capture it on video.



Here's our mysterious suitcase,
number Thirty-Seven!
Browse through the contents of this great gift. Many thanks to Henry Selick and his talented crew at Laika!














I'm afraid the letter in our box was addressed to deweymonster.com. But when they found out that the wrong note was in our box, the Coraline crew sent us this email...

"It warms our stop-motion hearts to see your team enjoying the fruits of this labor. You are right;­ we absolutely meant to send you a special box, just one with the right personal letter. Why? Because we noticed your passion for animation. Your site does a great service to the craft by documenting animation history and keeping a dialogue alive on this sometimes quiet passion. Archives are awesome."

Click through these links and take a gander at the contents of the rest of the Coraline boxes that have surfaced so far... Every one is different and has interesting artifacts from the making of the picture.


Box One: Tomopop
"We are pretty obsessed with animating and miniature models. Like you. That's why we admire Tomopop. Your contributions are fun and we like your devotion to discovery. We used old school craftsmanship and new 3D rapid prototype technology to build incredible detail into the props on our film. We hope someone like you will appreciate this."


Box Two: More Everything
"We are pretty obsessed with Neil Gaiman. Like you. No shame there. That's why we admire kissthelibrarian. It's weird. It's funny. It's got a wicked point of view and that's why we're writing to you. When your byline is 'How Neil Gaiman Changed My Life' you know you're dealing with an honest fellow devotee. Neil's been to the set of our movie and each visit has been inspiring. We've tried very hard to keep true to his magical vision."


Box Three: Stainless Steel Droppings
"We are real fans of Neil Gaiman. Like you. That's why we admire stainlesssteeldroppings. It's wise. It's articulate. It carries behind it a real sense of thoughtfulness toward the tenets of storytelling that we and Neil share. Neil's been to the set of our movie and each visit has been inspiring. We've tried very hard to keep true to his magical vision."


Box Four: Pink is the New Blog


Box Five: Fashion Piranha
"We are pretty obsessed with Neil Gaiman. Like you. No Shame there. That's why we admire Fashion Piranha. It's wise. It's sensitive. We like your point of view and that's why we're writing you. It carries behind it a real sense of thoughtfulness towards the tenets of storytelling that we and Neil share. Neil's been to the set of our movie and each visit has been inspiring. We've tried very hard to keep true to his magical vision."


Box Six: Wendy Knits
"We admire WendyKnits, and the fact that you are a pillar in the online knitting community. We also happen to know that because of your sock obsession, you have an appreciation for knitting things on incredibly tiny needles. Because we've got so much in common, we thought we'd give you an inside scoop because you've got a voice worth hearing."


Box Seven: Knitters for Neil on Ravelry,com
"We've seen your dedication to the Knitters for Neil group on Ravelry, and we love that you are bringing folks together over two such wonderful topics. Because we've got so much in common, we thought we'd give you an inside scoop because you've got a voice worth hearing. We like your passion."


Box Eight: Knitty Blog
"We admire Knitty, and all of the work that you do for the online knitting community. We also happen to know that you are a huge Neil Gaiman fan. Because we've got so much in common, we thought we'd give you an inside scoop because you've got a voice worth hearing."


Box Nine: Darkmattr
"We are pretty obsessed with stop-motion. Like you. That's why we admire Darkmatter. It's artistic. It's wise. It's got an unconventional POV and you've got a voice worth hearing. Henry likes to say the magic of stop-motion is, it is a live performance. 'You start someplace and know where you want to end but you can't say exactly how you'll get there.'"


Box Ten: Stop Motion Magic
"We are pretty obsessed with stop-motion. Like you. That's why we admire StopMotionMagic. Your contribution is artistic and inventive. Henry likes to say that the magic of stop-motion is, it is a live performance. 'You start some place and know where you want to end but you can't say exactly how you'll get there.'"


Box Eleven: Emmyme
"We are pretty obsessed with stop-motion. Like you. That's why we admire emmyymme. Your contribution is artistic and inventive. Way to keep learning and experimenting. Henry likes to say the magic of stop-motion is that it's a live performance: "You can start some place and know where you want to end but you can't say how exactly you'll get there."


Box Thirteen: /Film


Box Fourteen: Geeks of Doom
"Artistic, hilarious, unconventional... That's why we admire GeeksOfDoom (Greatest Name Ever)."


Box Fifteen: Lines And Colors
One of my favorite blogs just received a beautiful box full of concept art! "We are pretty obsessed with old-fashioned animation blended with new technology. Like you. That's why we admire LinesAndColors. We like devotion to discovery. And we share your cross-all-boundaries approach to finding artistic inspiration from everywhere. This is the mantra we took to heart in making Coraline. Our project began with the lucky collaboration with Tadahiro Uesugi's illustrations. Each set, every 3D prop detail tried to do his artwork justice."


Box Twenty-One: Notcot
O"We are pretty obsessed with craft. That's why we admire Notcot. It's informative and fun. And we like your devotion to offbeat discovery. In our film, we use old-timey craft. Like metalsmithing. And new techno-powered craft, like 3D rapid prototype technology. All to build incredible detail into the props on our film. We hope someone like you will appreciate this."


Box Twenty-Two: Toycutter


Box Twenty-Three: ToysREvil
Not much info yet on this one, but it appears to have Scotty Dog heads in it.


Box Twenty-Four: Despoiler
"We are pretty obsessed with mysterious storytelling. Like you. That's why we admire Despoiler. We like your devotion to discovery. And share your cross-all-bounds approach to following the trail from beginning to end. Enjoy the hunt. The braver you are, the more you'll see."


Box Twenty-Seven: Neatorama


Box Twenty-Eight: Cool Hunting


Box Twenty-Nine: Heroine Sheik
"We are pretty obsessed with old-fashioned animation blended with new technology. Like you. Maybe? We admire your posts on HeroineSheik. Maybe the connection from us to gaming seems weird. But we've noticed the scope of your analysis isn't limited by genres. We used old-school craftsmanship and new 3D modeling technology to build incredible detail into our film. Not to mention the girl in this film kicks ass. It's a classic fable. Moral questions and all. We hope someone like you will appreciate this."


Box Thirty-Three: Occupation Girl
"We are pretty obsessed with old-fashioned filmmaking and not-your-average-girl power. Like you. Sort of. We admire Cleolinda. We see a real connection to your passion for girl identity and the story of our film. Coraline isn't a typical movie and Coraline, the film's heroine, isn't your typical girl. We hope someone like you will appreciate this."


Box Thirty-Four: Miss Addams at Vampire Freaks
(Requires registration to read.) This box contains a piece of the Wybie character... a skeletal hand.


Box Thirty-Nine: Halloweentown
"We are pretty obsessed with The Nightmare Before Christmas. Like you. We admire Halloweentown.org. Your care and devotion to keeping The Nightmare Before Christmas spirit alive is awesome. It warms our little hearts to see a group of devotees who continue to seek out the weird and wonderful. We hope you'll like Henry's new movie. Equal doses joy and terror. He's kept the outsider-storyteller vibe alive."


Box Forty: Ironic Sans


Box Forty-One: Starlight Foundation
Sold at eBay. No permanent page with info on this box.


Box Forty-Two: Boing-Boing


Box Forty-Four: Make


Box Forty-Six: The Kreep
"We are pretty obsessed with dark stories. Like you. We admire your dedication to The Kreep."


Box Fifty: Creativity

There are fifty Coraline Mystery Boxes all together. If anyone finds more online, please let me know.

coraline.com
Secret passwords to access special content: otherworld (main menu), stopmotion, buttoneyes, puppetlove, armpithair, moustachio, sweaterxxs

Coraline Trailer
High resolution Quicktime


Gallery of Photos From the Set of Coraline
from the Los Angeles Times.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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Two New Archive Heroes... Thanks!

ASIFA-Hollywood members, Wes Archer and Kevin Dooley contributed to become "Archive Heroes" when they renewed their membership this month. We appreciate your support! I'm using their donations to purchase a very exciting addition for our library. More on that soon...


Stephen Worth
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Thanks to Larry Loc And His Animation History Students

This week, the students in Larry Loc's class in Animation History at Cal State University at Fullerton have been submitting biographies to our Cartoon Hall of Fame. Here are a few of them randomly selected for you to browse. They aren't formatted yet, so you have to scroll down to the comments to read them. If anyone out there with basic HTML skills would like to volunteer to format these into the body of the entry, drop me an email at sworth@animationarchive.org.

GROSS, Milt
COVARRUBIAS, Miguel
DEJA, Andreas
SWINNERTON, Jimmy
LOZZI, Art
FORAY, June
SNEYD. Doug
WINTER, Milo
TOTH, Alex
WILLIAMS, Gluyas
CRIPPEN, Fred
TARTAKOVSKY, Genndy
MESSICK, Don
CANEMAKER, John
SUTHERLAND, John

There are lots more great listings in the Cartoon Hall of Fame, like this one Mike Fontanelli recently did..

CAPP, Al

I'll be posting another great Al Capp article by Mike later this week. Keep your eyes peeled for it!
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Meta: Archive Hours

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday the 28th and 29th. We will be open regular hours on Thursday.

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ASIFA-Hollywood Student Animation Film Festival

The ASIFA-Hollywood Student Animation Film Festival went very well. Lots of people attended the screenings, portfolio reviews and seminars that went on all day.


Michael Woodside, JoJo Baptista and Danny Young worked on their Preston Blair lessons through the lunch break.

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Meta: Sorry For The Delay

Over the weekend, we had a serious hard drive crash. A nearly full 1.5 TB hard drive bit the dust. Thankfully, the material on it was backed up on a redundant drive and the disk that crashed is under warranty, so there is no permanent loss. However, it's going to take me a day or so to recreate the contents of the dead drive, so I won't be able to post today.

We had a few more contributors to the Marc Deckter Challenge over the weekend, so as soon as I am able, I will post more great newspaper comics. This momentary setback underlines the importance of the Marc Deckter Challenge. Without redundant backups, thousands of hours of work could be lost in the blink of an eye. Many thanks to those who have contributed this past week to help us buy more hard drives. (We still need more.)

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED THURSDAY AFTERNOON

We have some material being delivered on Thursday afternoon, and I could use a couple of strong hands to help move things around for an hour or so. Give me a call at the archive or drop me an email at sworth@animationarchive.org if you can help. Thanks!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Foreign Policy Briefing

Archive supporter Matthew Rankin sends us this surprise... The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is rubbing shoulders with George Bush and Kim Jong Il in this month's issue of Foreign Policy magazine. Blogger extraordinaire, Mark Frauenfelder (BoingBoing and Dinosaurs and Robots) lists his favorite websites, and the Archive is in there. Thanks, Mark, and thanks to Matthew for clipping it for us.
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Archive Closed Wednesday

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive will be closed on Wednesday August 20th. We will be back on Thursday the 21st.

Thanks!

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About The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Pt 3

Here is the conclusion of Stephanie Sapienza's great article, PROJECTING ANIMATION'S PAST ONTO ITS FUTURE: The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. This article runs in the current issue of ASIFA-International's CARTOONS magazine. -Stephen Worth


ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive Database contains many one-of-a-kind treasures from the estates of legendary animators like Les Clark and Grim Natwick.

FUTURE PLANS
You might wonder where the funding to accomplish all of the things the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is doing is coming from. "We're very much flying by the seat of our pants." Worth admits. "The Walter Lantz Foundation and Sony Pictures Imageworks have given us grants that take care of the office space. Dreamworks SKG has donated equipment. And luckily, there are a lot of great people who believe in this idea who are willing to support it through individual donations. The student volunteers are enthusiastic too and are willing to roll up their sleeves and make it happen. Everything is on an achievable level and momentum is building to allow us to take on even more in the future."

Future plans include syndicating the archive database to satellite workstations at museums, libraries and universities around the world. "I'd like to see every chapter of ASIFA get a digitization setup so they can contribute their own reference material to the database." Worth says. "That way, animators all over the world could contribute and gain from the accumulated knowledge."


ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive contains information on influential women animators like Lotte Reiniger, the creator of the oldest surviving animated feature, and the acclaimed illustrator and designer, Mary Blair.

Right now, the database is only available at the archive offices in Burbank, California; but the Stephen Worth has also been utilizing the archive's blog to get a massive amount of their fantastic collection online. He dedicates much of his time writing articles on the website to generate interest in the materials and to clearly state how interested parties can become involved in the project. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog, which can be found at www.animationarchive.org, contains thousands of images and streaming videos, along with biographical articles and information on the progress of the project itself. According to Stephen Worth, the blog serves over a quarter of a million articles a month to over 1.5 million unique visitors. "Our web traffic comes from around the world. We've heard from artists as far away as Japan, Kazakhstan and Italy who follow our progress on the internet every day."


In the "golden age" of animation, production designers didn't look to other cartoons for inspiration on how their films should look... they looked to classic illustration, like that of Gustaf Tenggren. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive collection includes hundreds of illustrated children books, each one bursting at the seams with new ideas for how animated films can look.

"The next step for us is to establish a steady stream of revenue to fund the sustained growth of the project," says Worth. "I see in my head a full brick and mortar museum dedicated to animation with satellite facilities all over the world. I'm willing to do whatever I can to make this a reality. There are a lot of other people here who love animation and are happy to help. I don't think it's an unattainable goal."

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DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
Though few would recognize his name, and even fewer his face, nearly every person on earth knows of this man's work. This is Ub Iwerks, the man who created Mickey Mouse.

This self portrait from 1931 was found in a trash can at a local TV cartoon studio. No one knows how the drawing got there and no one at the studio could identify him. At a reunion of animators from the most successful animated feature of recent times, this sketch was shown to a hall full of employees from the studio this man made famous- not a single person recognized him.

Read more about why we need an Animation Archive.

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CONCLUSION
Part of what makes the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive so unique is that they are so progressive and yet so willfully different from other archives. Their unique vision is encapsulated in a remark from Worth, "I'm not a library science person, I'm an animated film-maker, so I don't know what normal is for a facility like this. I do know what animators need and how they need it organized so they can use it. That's what I'm trying to build." Their pro-access and pro-digital approach is refreshing.


A rough animation drawing by the legendary Milt Kahl. The animation of the past is being put back to work, educating and inspiring the animators of the future.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is designed by and for animators. This is a group of artists who not only understand the basic elements of form, design, and nuances of character performance, but have to rigorously time and structure the creation of their art down to 1/24th of a second. Certainly the professional world contains a scattered sampling of people as dedicated as ASIFA-Hollywood is to documenting their own profession and educating the newcomers, but it's extremely rare to find such a concentrated few in any one place. As an archivist myself, I think my peers might have a lot to learn from these animators, and in time I think the archiving world will take notice of ASIFA-Hollywood's efforts. It is rapidly becoming the model of what the "21st century archive" must become. -Stephanie Sapienza 2008


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive depends on the support of the people who benefit from it. If you feel that this resource is of value to you, we encourage you to contribute using the PayPal links on this site and become a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. With your contributions, the Archive can grow. Together, we can take the project forward.
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About The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Pt 2

Today we post the second part of Stephanie Sapienza's great article, PROJECTING ANIMATION'S PAST ONTO ITS FUTURE: The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. This article runs in the current issue of ASIFA-International's CARTOONS magazine. I'll be posting the conclusion to this article soon. -Stephen Worth



A MUSEUM, LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE
DEVOTED TO CARTOONS
The archive component of the project exists in both physical and digital form. Artwork and production files donated to ASIFA-Hollywood over the years by individuals and studios is being inventoried and prepared to be made available to the public. The collections of legendary animators like Grim Natwick, Les Clark, Michael Lah, Herb Klynn and John Kricfalusi are already housed among the archive's holdings. And nearly every week, more artists and collectors stop by to lend their personal reference files for digitization.


The family of legendary animator, Carlo Vinci has been sharing artwork from Vinci's fifty year career in animation. The collection includes a number of class assignments from his studies at the prestigious National Academy of Design, documenting the education of a golden age animator.

Animation historians like John Canemaker, Leonard Maltin, Jerry Beck and Mark Kausler have been supporting the project as well by sharing valuable research and helping to acquire rare animated films for digitization. And the archive staff is hard at work assembling digital collections related to influential artists like Milton Caniff, Carlo Vinci, Milt Gross, Gustaf Tenggren and Al Capp.


Milton Caniff at work in his studio in the late 40s. The estate of Caniff, the creator of Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates, has shared original artwork and biographical material with the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

The archive has assembled a digital database consisting of biographical information, images and filmographic data, culled from from a variety of sources. In less than two years, the archive database has grown to contain over 3,000 digitized animated films and over 50,000 high-resolution images. These assets are searchable by keywords, and all of the data is cross-linked. This means that it is possible to search for an artist's name and find his biography and filmography, then click through to watch a digitized movie file of a film he worked on, and one more click reveals animation drawings by that artist from that particular film. "It's a way of organizing information that's never been attempted before," says Worth.


David Hofmann views an exhibit of early Disney animation drawings at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.

The Burbank facility also houses a small exhibition space and library, where it has hosted exhibitions of animation drawings from the collections of Les Clark and Grim Natwick, a show devoted to the art of the storyboard, and an exhibit featuring the work of Mexican caricaturist Ernesto Garcia Cabral.

Plans are underway to assemble a world-class collection of books and periodicals on the subject, under the guidance of ASIFA-Hollywood Board Member Jerry Beck, rounding out the research arm of the project. And Jere Guldin from the prestigious UCLA Film and Television Archive heads up ASIFA-Hollywood's film preservation efforts, rescuing films in danger of being lost to the ravages of time.


Katie Rice, Stephen Worth and David Gemmell refer to artwork in the collection of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. (photo: Lori Shepler)

THE GENESIS OF THE CONCEPT
The idea behind the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive goes back to the early 1980s when voice actor and story man Bill Scott was the president of the organization. "I remember when I was in college, I volunteered for an ASIFA fund raising event, and I got a chance to chat with Bill." Worth remembers. "He asked if I was a student, and when I told him I was attending UCLA, he excitedly told me about his idea for an Animatheque- a museum, library and archive devoted to the art of animation. The resources just weren't there to pull it off back in Bill's tenure as president of ASIFA-Hollywood. But a few years ago, I remembered Bill's idea and realized that computers had made organizing images, text and video much easier. When Bill passed away, his passion for the idea was transferred to me."


Bill Scott, the voice of Bullwinkle J. Moose, came up with the original idea of an archive, museum and library devoted to the art of animation.

After twenty years as an animation Producer, Stephen Worth decided that it was time to give back to the muse. He went to work full time to try to build support for Bill Scott's concept of the Animateque. "The animation business in Hollywood is in dire need of inspiration and new ideas." Worth explains. "I kept reading in the trades that hand drawn animation was a dying medium, and would soon be replaced by computer animation. But I know from working with innovative filmmakers like Ralph Bakshi and John Kricfalusi that the principles that created Pinocchio and Bugs Bunny are the same ones that will lead new technologies to the same heights."


Ralph Bakshi, the animator who was responsible for bringing about the modern age of animation has written several inspiring articles for the Archive project blog and has contributed material to the collection. The storyboard section above is from Bakshi's "Cool World" and was drawn by Louise Zingarelli.

FILLING A NEED FOR ASPIRING ANIMATORS
In Hollywood, there is a wide age gap between the current generation of animators and the ones that created the classic cartoons of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. During the golden age, animators were trained on the job as part of apprenticeship systems. They relied on the study of classic illustration for inspiration, and the studios even employed inspirational artists to draw concept art. Between 1955 and 1980, very few new artists came into the business. Studios were downsizing and sending work overseas. This meant that the "old timers" who possessed the accumulated knowledge of decades of experience retired without being able to pass their techniques along to the next generation. A few animators, most notably Eric Larson, Ralph Bakshi and Richard Williams acted as the bridge across that gap, training the animators who are now the leading lights in the business.


Studio gag drawing of Grim Natwick at the Ub Iwerks Studio with his "kid assistant" Chuck Jones. Jones would go on to become one of the most influential directors in the history of animation.

Today, the employment of an animator frequently lasts only for the life of the project, and the ladder for upward mobility is either weak or nonexistent. Art schools have largely shifted towards teaching with trade school pedagogy, focusing on technical skills for programs like Flash and Maya. Typically they are not focusing on fundamental classical arts training. In light of the changing face of technology, where today's hot animation software could be tomorrow's dinosaur, design and illustration concepts are crucial currency for the true animator who seeks to learn his or her craft.


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive hosts an online drawing course led by John Kricfalusi based on Preston Blair's "Advanced Animation".

"The Archive is the place for artists to grow through self-study and research." Worth explains. "Everything an animator needs to know to perfect his craft and grow as an artist is in those old films and sketches. It doesn't matter if they animate using a pencil or a computer. All a student of animation today needs is access to the material, a mind for analyzing what makes a scene work, and lots of practice." Art colleges may continue to be dictated by what students want to learn, but in the long term students need an external support mechanism for self-study. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is trying to bridge these gaps by providing a place for artists to study core art skills, helping artists improve themselves and carry the art form forward.


Students at the National Academy of Design in the early 1920s. Traditional art studies from the past form the foundation for artists of the future.


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive depends on the support of the people who benefit from it. If you feel that this resource is of value to you, we encourage you to contribute using the PayPal links on this site and become a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. With your contributions, the Archive can grow. Together, we can take the project forward.

Continue to Part Three of this Article
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About The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Pt 1

Members of ASIFA-International will soon be receiving their copies of CARTOONS magazine in the mail. In it is an article on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive by Stephanie Sapienza. For those of you who are not yet members of ASIFA, we will be posting the story here on the website in three parts. I'll annotate the article with links to past posts with more info on our project. -Stephen Worth

PROJECTING ANIMATION'S
PAST ONTO ITS FUTURE:
The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
By Stephanie Sapienza



INTRODUCTION
I've spent the last two years of my life in a rigorous academic environment, studying moving image archives. This includes the history of the industry, case studies with many different archival repositories, and the administrative and technical issues involved with storage, cataloging, access and preservation. The sticky term in the previous sentence is ACCESS. There has traditionally been a palpable tension between preserving moving image material and providing access to it, and preservation has typically taken precedence in the end.


This is all changing in an era fueled by YouTube and Google, where researchers have come to expect immediate access to material. Archives tend to become overwhelmed by the technical resources and knowledge of copyright laws needed to provide such access, and so they close their doors and say "You come to us. We have a flatbed! Or a rolling cart with a VHS player and headphones!" Luckily, I finally came across an archive that is boldly straddling the realm of digital collections without fear. This archive exists in Burbank, but will be coming soon to a library near you!



AN ARTIST'S ARCHIVE
If an archive can be defined by its users, then the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is an artist's archive. And although this facility is an animation historian's dream, it doesn't exist primarily to serve them. The ASIFA-Hollywood Archive's primary focus is on serving creative professionals working within the business and students of the art form who want to acquire the necessary skills to become animators. These future animators have a tough road to haul; they are facing an industry where technical knowledge is valued at a level that is equal to, if not more important than, artistic prowess. But if the archive continues to grow and improve at the same exponential pace that is has in its first two years, it will grow to become a significant catalyst for change within the art of animation.


Story artist Eddie Fitzgerald offers storyboarding tips to archive volunteers Michael Fallik, Max Ward and Art Fuentes.
The facilities are supervised by archive Director Stephen Worth and housed in storefront offices in Burbank, California. Burbank is an ideal location due to its proximity to all the major animation and television studios, as well as all the local colleges and universities with prestigious animation programs- most notably CalArts, UCLA, USC, Woodbury University, CalState Northridge and Art Center College of Design.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Archive consists of three projects- an archive, a library and a museum- all of which are now operational and open to the public. This in itself is reason enough that ASIFA-Hollywood is more progressive than most archives. Librarians and museum curators are notorious for being champions of open, free access, so a hybrid repository is a step in the right direction for archives. Archivists are known to take a very careful (and therefore slow) approach to processing collections, establishing elaborate and often restrictive access procedures, and are especially cautious about setting up an infrastructure for digitization. But it took ASIFA-Hollywood a mere two years to complete its proof of concept phase and make its database available to the public. This only accentuates the archive's commitment to open accessibility.


Gary Francis and David Hofmann study one of the over 3,000 animated films in ASIFA-Hollywood's Archive Database.

Stephen Worth explains, "This isn't an archive OF animation. It's an archive FOR animators. That means that in addition to material related to animated films, our collection covers allied fields... comic books, newspaper cartooning, illustration and art instructional material. The archive is basically the world's largest artist's clip file- children's book illustration by Rackham and Dulac, magazine cartoons by Virgil Partch and Erich Sokol, superhero comics by Jack Kirby and Jack Cole, classic newspaper comics by Cliff Sterrett and Milton Caniff, drawing instruction by Preston Blair and Willy Pogany... a whole world of inspiration."


The animation related material in the collection includes storyboards, animation drawings, production correspondence, exposure sheets, publicity materials, production photos, model sheets, pencil tests, background paintings, and more.


Digitized films in the collection include rare cartoons by the Fleischers, Terry-Toons, Iwerks, Lantz and Columbia studios. "These are primarily films that have never been released to home video. Many of them haven't been broadcast on television since the 50's or 60's. We're specializing in the studios that don't currently have extensive commercial distribution." says Worth.


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive depends on the support of the people who benefit from it. If you feel that this resource is of value to you, we encourage you to contribute using the PayPal links on this site and become a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. With your contributions, the Archive can grow. Together, we can take the project forward.

Continue to Part Three of this Article
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Meta: Amir Visits The Archive

Amir Avni just posted about his recent trip to Los Angeles to volunteer for the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Read the post.
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Meta: Archive Hero

Many thanks to our latest Archive Hero, David Wilson. Your support is greatly appreciated.
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Donation: David Apatoff's Boyhood Collection of Newspaper Comics

There was a time when heroes arrived on your doorstep each and every morning... Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Tarzan, Terry and the Pirates, and dozens of others... every day without fail. On Sundays, they were in COLOR.


It was a great time to be a kid. For a nickle, you could travel to Dogpatch or Mars or Shanghai. Kids across the country commandeered the comics page at the breakfast table and carefully clipped their favorite stories. They filled scrapbooks, pinned them up on their walls, stashed them in neat little piles under their bed until their mothers complained of the fire hazard.


Moms never understood... they'd use most amazing image of a pterodactyl attacking a sabre toothed tiger to line the birdcage and not even see the irony. Moms are like that. But kids knew that the funny papers were a treasure trove for people with the imagination to appreciate them. Especially kids who loved to draw.



Newspaper comics were an encyclopedia of cartooning styles, and the heroes weren't just the characters in the strips... there were heroes on the other side of the pen too. We've profiled a few here in the past... Milt Gross, Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff, George McManus, Al Capp, Rube Goldberg and Walt Kelly, to name just a few. These men were the direct descendants of Thomas Nast. Their drawings had power.


Some of those kids grew up and never forgot the power of cartooning. David Apatoff is one of them. His blog, Illustration Art is a terrific resource for cartoonists and illustrators interested in all aspects of the artform. David was one of those kids who carefully collected the work of his heroes. And he just donated his boyhood collection of comic strips to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.


The collection includes hundreds of comic pages, mostly from the late 30s and early 40s. David collected complete Sunday sections, as well as prime examples from his favorite comic strips... Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon and Tarzan. There are also special poster size pages that ran as specials in the 60s featuring Pogo, Dick Tracy, Peanuts and Dennis the Menace.


If you'll excuse me, I have a little digression to make at this point. I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me a couple of weeks ago...

There's a boy who's a big fan of the archive. He saw the article on us in the L.A. Times and made his mom bring him in for a visit. He lives in San Francisco, but he has family in Los Angeles and visits several times a year. He's only eight or nine, but he can discuss the differences in directoral style between Freleng and Jones, he knows the true story of the creation of Bugs Bunny, and he's interested in the Ub Iwerks Mickey Mouse cartoons. On his first visit, I gave him a copy of Leonard Maltin's Of Mice and Magic as a gift. He devoured it from cover to cover, and sent me a copy of the book report he did on it for class. On his visits he never fails to impress me with his enthusiasm for animation.

Last time he was here, he asked me if we could sit down and talk. He said he had an important question to ask me, and he had asked his family and teacher, but he wasn't satisfied with their answers. He wanted my opinion. He looked me straight in the eye and asked me, "Mr. Worth, was I born too late?"

I was stunned.

That's a question that every cartoonist I've ever met has asked. That same realization hit me like a ton of bricks when I was in college. Ralph Bakshi called me the next day, and I told him what this nine year old had asked me, and all he could say was "Oh my God."

The kid was waiting for my answer. I sat quietly for a second to gather my wits. I looked back at him squarely in his eyes. "I'm not going to lie to you." I said. "The short answer to your question is 'yes'. We were both born too late. The 20th century was one of the most interesting times to live in all history. The world will never be the way it was ever again. I just got a taste of the very end of that golden age myself."

"But that doesn't mean that you can't do great things. You've got a whole life ahead of you. Study hard. Work hard. Always try to improve yourself. Learn from the past and apply it to your own work. Try to be better than the rest, and leave the world a little better than you found it. With any luck, you and people like you will build a new golden age."

That answer satisfied him. He knew it was the truth.


OK. I'm speaking to all you cartoonists out there now... Look at these amazing comics that David Apatoff so generously donated. I'll be scanning them for this blog very soon. While you study them, never forget that the dreams of a million kids resided in those yellowed pages. Compare these comics to the comics in your newspaper. What happened? Why are we cheating our audience so shamefully? Cartoonists have an obligation to go out there and give kids today new dreams that are just as great as the old ones.


Many thanks to David Apatoff for this incredibly generous and thoughtful gift. I'm sure it will inspire great things.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Meta: Meet David Chai's Students

Today I got a letter from a group of students from the San Jose State School of Art and Design. They've been following our progress on the website, and stopped by on a recent trip to LA to see what we were up to...



These kids are on fire for the artform and they've got a great instructor pointing them in the right direction. They're going places.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

P.S. Also in the photo on the left of me are Assistant Archivists Kelsey Sorge-Toomey and Alex Vassilev, and over my shoulder on the right is my right hand man, JoJo Baptista. They're from the Animation program at Woodbury and they're going places too!
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Meta: Beyond The Blog- Need Your Input

Normally, this is the time of year when we take a week to do our bi-annual fundraising drive.We still might do that at a later date, but we're facing some new challenges and I want to get the input of our regular readers regarding the best way to address them. There are no pictures in this post, but if you value what we provide here, you'll read every word. This may be the most important post I've ever written.

From the very beginning, the Animation Archive project has been navigating uncharted territory. In the past, collections were organized in physical warehouses and history was published in books... But new technology demands new approaches. Today, we aim to organize large amounts of information in databases, and our commentary and analysis is presented in a blog, not a published physical book or magazine. We need to continue to think on our feet to be able to make this new process work.

Currently, there are two challenges to be addressed... The first one is purely practical. How do we insure that our progress continues to expand the way it has over the past two and a half years? Our rate of growth is governed by three things: the archival material contributed for digitization, the "sweat equity" provided by our volunteers, and cash flow. Thanks to great people like Mike Fontanelli, Marc Schimeister, Kent Butterworth and John Kricfalusi, we have more material in for digitization than we can keep up with. Dedicated volunteers like Gemma Ross, Kelsey Sorge-Toomey, JoJo Baptista and Alex Camarillo have made tremendous contributions in building out the structure of the collection. The chief problem we face is the same challenge many organizations face... How do we finance growth?

At this point, 95% of the sustaining budget for the Archive comes from contributors to our physical location... the Archive office in Burbank. The Walter Lantz Foundation, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Dreamworks Animation have provided grants and equipment to keep the doors open. We also receive funding from the thousands of general members of ASIFA-Hollywood, most of whom reside in Southern California. But although the contributions we have received through the PayPal link on the website are greatly appreciated, they don't come close to supporting the large amount of material we provide on the internet. We receive very little in the way of digitized contributions, volunteer help or funding from our internet readers- most of our support comes from people who have an interest the Archive facilities in Burbank. But I spend nearly half my time preparing material for the blog. That imbalanced division of resources just isn't fair.

The second challenge is conceptual... We're moving towards providing something entirely different on the internet than what we originally envisioned. When I first started this blog, my intent was simply to report on the progress of the project. But the postings here in the last year or so have gone far beyond that. The blog has become an important tool for distributing the information we are collecting. As the focus has shifted, my posts have become more in depth. The series of posts on Grim Natwick, Gustaf Tenggren and Milt Gross essentially constituted books, written "straight ahead" chapter by chapter as blog posts. I'm currently working on two more series that will prove to be just as comprehensive... Writing For Cartoons and a reappraisal of the art of Al Capp.

The other day, I went back and looked at the first post on Al Capp, and I realized that to fully absorb all the information there, it would take the better part of an hour. Most blogs, like Cartoon Brew and Boing-Boing are broken into bite sized chunks designed to take no longer than three minutes to read. What I'm creating here is evolving beyond being just another animation blog. I need your help to define what you want that to be.

Our primary purpose at the Archive is the creation of the Animation Database. Currently, our database contains over 3,000 animated cartoons and 40,000 high resolution scans. It would be ideal to be able to provide all of that material online, but the database currently measures in the terabytes. Serving all of that would require technical and financial resources that aren't even on the horizon yet. We need to come up with an achievable plan to work towards that goal.

The question to be answered is simple...

How do we increase the level of participation of the internet community through contributions of digitized material, volunteer labor and monetary donations?

I'm going to throw out a few ideas as suggestions. I would like to hear your opinions on these options. If you have any ideas, please feel free to offer them in the comments below.

1.) SUBSCRIPTION MODEL

Shane Glines' excellent Cartoon Retro site provides lots of material to subscribers behind a password gate. Users pay a monthly fee for access. This blog could shift to providing short teasers for larger scale content behind the subscriber wall. If the subscriber base and subscription cost was high enough, we could eventually serve up significant chunks of the Archive Database.

2.) SALES BASED SUPPORT

We recently offered an eBook of Zim's Cartoons and Caricatures. The proceeds funded the purchase of a 1.5 TB hard drive, which was pretty good for a start. Every month, we could have a different digital product for sale, or provide subscriptions to packages of products, delivered over the course of a year.

3.) ADVERTISING BASED FUNDING

We've been struggling with this option for some time without a great deal of success. Currently, we receive about $100 a month from our banner advertising- not nearly enough to be able to fund content creation. In fact, when the banners were installed, traffic fell 10% and continues to be sluggish. I believe the advertising is an annoyance to many viewers.

4.) SOLICITATION OF DIRECT DONATIONS

We have been struggling with this model for the past couple of years as well. Every six months we do a "pledge drive" where we outline our accomplishments and ask for support. Response has been below the level we need to continue to grow the project. I've avoided doing more than two pledge drives a year to keep the focus on the project, not fundraising. I doubt if we could increase that without alienating our readers.

5.) REPURPOSING CONTENT

We currently have over 500 articles in our archive of posts. Although we provide related links at the bottom of each post and maintain a jump page with links to every post organized by subject, I don't think many readers are using them. If I reduced the number of new posts I do each week and filled in with "reruns", I could continue the blog pretty much the same as it is now.

6.) DIGITAL VOLUNTEERS

I have been trying to encourage readers to help build out the biographies in our Cartoon Hall of Fame. However the lion's share of the biographies there have been written by local animation students from ASIFA-Hollywood Board member, Larry Loc's classes. I would welcome ideas for how to get more volunteer support from the internet readers.

7.) DIGITIZED CONTRIBUTIONS

Every day, I see posts around the "blogosphere" with wonderful scans of articles, illustrations and artwork that would be terrific additions to our collection. I have contacted many of these bloggers asking that they scan at archival resolutions and contribute their images to the Animation Database. Very few of them do this. I would welcome ideas for how to encourage more digital contributions.

Those are the ideas that have been bouncing around in my head lately. I would appreciate your suggestions. If you consider this blog to be a valuable resource, please take the time to add your own thoughts to the comments below.

Thank you
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Illustration: A Visual Feast

I'm in the process of revamping our Jump Page in anticipation of our bi-annual fundraising drive which begins May 1st. The massive amount of posts linked there are bunched into poorly organized clumps, so it's time for some housework. As I revise the sections, I will post them to give you a chance to check out all the incredible things we've brought you over the past two and a half years. I hope this will inspire you to support us with a contribution in May.

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Illustration


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive isn't just an archive OF animation... it's an archive FOR animators. There's a subtle but important distinction there... One of the aspects of modern animation that could stand improvement is design. Too many current animated films ignore the importance of appealing design, or lean too heavily on the designs of other animated films. There's absolutely no reason why every princess, king or mouse should look like princesses, kings and mice from previous films. There's a wide world of design inspiration to be found in the history of illustration. Here's just a sampling of the important material related to illustration contained in the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Database...

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CLASSIC ILLUSTRATION


One of the primary projects of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is to gather together the reference materials that inspired the artists who made animated cartoons in the golden age. It's a little known fact that every animation studio had a library of children's books for the reference of the background painters and designers. Rare editions of Rackham, Dulac and Wyeth sat on the shelves at studios in both New York and in Hollywood. Many great children's book illustrators worked for a time in animation, including Kay Nielsen, Gustaf Tenggren and Willy Pogany.

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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

ARTHUR RACKHAM: Grimm's Fairy Tales Part One / Part Two

EDMUND DULAC; Hans Christian Anderson Part One and Part Two / Poe's Poetical Works / Tanglewood Tales

MILO WINTER: Aesop For Children


GUSTAF TENGGREN (CLASSIC STYLE): Small Fry And The Winged Horse / D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales, Good Dog Book / Heidi - Wonderbook - Juan & Juanita / Grimms Fairy Tales Part One and Part Two (See also Gustaf Tenggren under Golden Book Style below.)

WILLY POGANY: Willy Pogany's Drawing Lessons / Sketchbook / Mother Goose

OTHER CLASSIC ILLUSTRATORS: Maxfield Parrish's Arabian Nights (1909) / N. C. Wyeth's Legends of Charlemagne / Mabel Lucie Attwell's Peter Pan and Wendy / Frank Reynolds Paints Pickwick / W. Lee Hankey's Quiet Village Part One and Part Two / Monks By Eduard von Grutzner

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MODERN ILLUSTRATION


From the 1920s through the late 1950s, magazines featured the work of some of the top talents in the art world. Leindecker, Artzybasheff, Szyk and Hurst were all great artists whose work has a lot to offer today's cartoonists and character designers. Thanks to Archive Supporters Mike Fontanelli and Kent Butterworth, we've been able to bring many of these great names to your attention.

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BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF: As I See: Neurotica, Machinalia and Diablerie

LAWSON WOOD: The Monkey Painter Part One and Part Two

WARTIME PROPAGANDA: Arthur Szyk: The New Order / WWI Propaganda Posters / WWII Propaganda Posters

COLLIERS MAGAZINE: Mid-1930s Illustrations and Advertisements / WWII Era Illustrations / Late 40s Illustrations

CORONET MAGAZINE: Bugs Bunny: A Hare Grows In Manhattan 1945 / Disney's Casey At The Bat / Harper Goff's Blood On The Moon

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GOLDEN BOOK STYLE


Thanks to a generous donation by Archive Supporter John Kricfalusi, we are able to share the beautiful work of the great artists who made a fortune for Western Publishing's Little Golden Book line. The style was created by Disney concept artist, Gustaf Tenggren and reached its peak in books by Mel Crawford. Many animation artists moonlighted as children's book illustrators... among them Norm McCabe, Harvey Eisenberg, Mary Blair and J. P. Miller.

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GUSTAF TENGGREN: Tenggren's Tell It Again Book Part One and Part Two / Sing for Christmas / The Little Trapper (See also Gustaf Tenggren under Classic Illustration above.)

FEODOR ROJANKOVSKY: Frog Went A-Courtin'

TIBOR GERGELY: A Day In The Jungle

MARY BLAIR: Mary Blair's Baby's House / Little Verses Part One and Part Two / The New Golden Song Book Part One, Part Two and Part Three

MEL CRAWFORD: Rootie Kazootie Joins The Circus

AL WHITE: Rocky & His Friends / Huck Hound Builds A House

DISNEY: Early 50s Disney Christmas Cards / Disney's Uncle Remus Stories Part One and Part Two

RECORD ALBUMS: 50s & 60s LP Covers Part One and Part Two / Bozo And His Rocket Ship

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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 a lot of cartooning today. These cartoons have style in abundance.

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ERICH SOKOL: Early Sokol Cartoons / More Erich Sokol / A Passel of Sokol

ELDON DEDINI: Introducing Dedini / Satyrs & Nymphs / Dedini in the Swingin' 60s

HARVEY KURTZMAN & WILL ELDER: Little Annie Fanny Part One, Part Two and Part Three

OTHER PLAYBOY CARTOONISTS: Jack Cole And More Great 50s Playboy Cartoonists / A Jack Cole Valentine / Meet Doug Sneyd / Doug Sneyd - Phil Interlandi / More Phil Interlandi Playboy Cartoons

PINUP ARTISTS: Alberto Vargas / George Petty's Ridgid Tools Calendars and the 1947 Petty Girl Calendar / John Held Jr's Flappers
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Meta: ASIFA-Hollywood Mini Documentary

A group of video production students from Cal State Northridge interviewed animation historian, Jerry Beck and Antran Manoogian, the president of ASIFA-Hollywood about the art of animation. Check it out!
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Meta: A Visit To The Archive

We had a visit from a cartoonist named John the other day. He wrote about his visit in his blog, Faso Latido. Check it out!

Photo: That's the desk that Les Clark used at Disney from Oswald the Lucky Rabbit through Snow White!
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Meta: Traffic

As of today, we have reached 1.5 million unique visitors with this site, and we have served up 3.5 million articles.

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Archive Hero

We received a contribution today for Rik Maki. Many thanks for your continued support of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

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Meta: Advertising

Currently, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive site is nearing 250,000 page impressions a month. That's a remarkable amount of traffic. Our contributions through the PayPal links are not sufficient to offset the cost of hosting a high traffic multimedia site, so I have engaged a new internet advertising service called The Rubicon Project to manage our banner advertising. There will a learning curve while the ad network analyzes our site's traffic and determines the most appropriate ads to serve up. Until then, I appreciate your patience and support as we navigate a few bumps in the road to making the web presence self-sustaining.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive site is available for banner and skyscraper advertising on a month to month basis. If you would like info, please email me at sworth@animationarchive.org.
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Meta: Three Years Ago

I received an email today that reminded me of an important evening three years ago. Tina writes...

The site is great. I was at the launch of this idea at the Glendale library a couple of years ago and you guys are doing a GREAT job. Keep up the good work. It is very valuable and needed.

Thanks for the kind words, Tina. That was a pretty amazing event. It was the reunion of the crew of The Lion King. The top names in the business were there that night, but it was a strange time. Reports in the trades were announcing that hand drawn animation was dead. A lot of animators were out of work. This was the event where I first announced ASIFA's intention to create the Animation Archive. The transcript of the speech I gave that night is linked over to the right in the sidebar, but you may not have ever clicked on it. I'm going to reprint it here to give you an idea of why we created this project...

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Hello... My name is Steve Worth and my passion is the art of hand drawn animation. I'd like to give you a little background on the archive project, and let you know how it relates to the panel discussion you're about to hear tonight. Most of all, I'd like to share with you why this particular project is so important... perhaps more important now than at any other time in the history of animation.

Sir Isaac Newton was quoted as saying, "If I have seen further, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." It's all too easy to become so involved with what we're doing "here and now", that we forget what came before us. Los Angeles is often spoken of as "a town with no history". Compared with cities like Athens, London or Paris, that may seem to be the case. But in its short period of existence, Los Angeles was the place that nurtured and developed one of the greatest artistic achievements of the 20th century, the art of cinema... and most importantly to the people gathered together in this room tonight, the art of animated filmmaking.

This sketch was given to me by an artist who knew that I was interested in the history of animation...


He found it in the trash dumpster at FilmRoman, obviously thrown out when someone cleared his desk. The animator that gave this to me had no idea who this was. No one else he showed it to at the studio knew either. In fact, 99.9% of the general public wouldn't even recognize his name, much less his image.

This is a self caricature of Ub Iwerks, the man who designed and animated Mickey Mouse... The man who invented process photography, enabling live action and animation to co-exist side by side... The man who revolutionized the industry with the invention of the multiplane camera and animation xerography. There are few people in the history of animation who have done more for us as animators than Ub Iwerks did. Yet his picture ended up in a trash can... completely unrecognized... at one of the most important TV animation studios in town. I'm not picking on FilmRoman when I point this out. The same could have happened at any studio, even the one this man made billions of dollars for over the years.

Think about that for a second and let it soak in.

How can we as artists "see further" like Isaac Newton if our collective memory is so short, we don't even recognize the pioneers who made everything we do possible? This is the sort of shortsightedness that's led to stories in the press announcing that hand drawn animation is obsolete. Hand drawn animation is no more replaceable by computer graphics than drawing and painting are replaced by photography. Cartooning is an irreplaceable artform, not an expendable technique.

Tonight, we're here to honor the creative achievements of a team of artists who pulled together to make one of the most successful hand drawn animated films of all time. I would bet that just about all of us here tonight have pretty much the same question on our minds... How can the art of hand drawn animation return to the creative peak it enjoyed just a few short years ago?

Again, I'm going to give you a second to think about that question and let it soak in.

The Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood has been thinking long and hard about that question. We've determined that, as an organization, it's time for us to go beyond just screenings and the Annie Awards. It's time for us to build something that ASIFA-Hollywood's founders, Bill Scott, June Foray and Bill Littlejohn envisioned as a goal for our organization nearly forty years ago... a museum, library and archive devoted to the art of animation... an institution dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting those broad shoulders we all stand upon.

The first step in achieving this goal is the establishment of something the founders of ASIFA could never have imagined... a "virtual archive"... A computer database containing hundreds of thousands of digital files representing animation drawings, model sheets, pencil tests, background paintings, book and magazine illustrations, cartoons, voice over reels, interviews, information and movies... all searchable by keyword. In short, the ultimate artist's clip file. We all know that the major studios in town maintain their own archives to preserve the documents related to their particular productions, ASIFA-Hollywood's archive will be unique, because it will be dedicated to documenting and serving the people who actually make animated films... the artists. ASIFA-Hollywood is in an unique position to be able to pull together a wide range of material for its archive... a much broader scope than any corporate archive could ever hope to encompass. If gathered together in one place, just the personal reference files of the Board of Directors alone would constitute the single most important collection dealing with this subject in the world... Think of having access to Jerry Beck's filmographic research, Tom Sito's notes on the history of the industry, and my own animation art reference library...

Our intial fundraising goal is to raise $50,000 to establish the virtual archive. When we reach $20,000 of that amount, we'll be able to begin to purchase equipment and begin building out the database. This may sound like a great deal of money. But if every member of ASIFA-Hollywood made a donation to the Archive Project equal to the amount of their annual dues of $60, we would not only have enough money to purchase the equipment, we would have enough to cover all of the operating expenses of the archive for the next two years. Once the archive is established and operating, the Board of Directors will turn its attention to creating a Museum of Animation.

Tonight, the Animation Archive is just a concept with only a few presentation boards here to represent it... but next time we gather together for an event like this, you'll see equipment and material on display... a functioning archive, instead of just presentation boards.

We realize that this is a lean time for animators. Money is tight. But we aren't asking for a great deal from any one person. What we are asking for is for the animation community to pull together to do something of great value for the artform. ASIFA has always been all about recognizing the achievements of individuals... whether through its screenings, events like this, or the Annie Awards. The Animation Archive will be no different. It will be a resource that documents the history of people like Ub Iwerks, and the people who will be speaking to you in a few moments. Best of all, the archive will provide inspiration and education to a new generation of animators, acting as the shoulders for them to stand upon. This is *exactly* the sort of project that will prove conclusively to the world that hand drawn animation isn't dead.

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

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Three years down the road from that night, I think all of us can be proud of what we've all accomplished. The art of animation is in better shape than it was back then. The archive is up and operating, with a reach that extends around the world, and the first steps are being taken to create our museum of animation.

Thanks for your support.
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Meta: Year End Traffic Report

Our readership and number of articles read has more than doubled in the past twelve months. Help make 2008 even bigger. Link to the archive from your blog or website and help us spread the word.


Typical locations of visitors to this site.
To see how far our reach is, see This Translation of Bakshi on 2D vs 3D!
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Year In Review: The Top Ten Topics of 2007

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. Click on the links to read more on the topic.

THE TOP TEN TOPICS OF 2007

• 01 Carlo Vinci
• 02 Grim Natwick
• 03 Clair Weeks
• 04 Advice For CG Animators
• 05 Originality vs Ripoffs
• 06 Milton Caniff
• 07 Modern Animation
• 08 Writing Cartoons
• 09 Cultural Literacy
• 10 Milt Gross

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NUMBER 10: MILT GROSS

Milt Gross is one of the greatest cartoonists who ever lived, but most of his work has been out of print for many years. He was a master of both words and images. His books Nize Baby, Dunt Esk, and De Night In De Front From Chreesmas are classics of ethnic New York dialect humor. His masterpiece, He Done Her Wrong, which Gross described as "The great American novel- and not a word in it- no music too", tells a story entirely in funny pictures... Read More

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NUMBER 9: CULTURAL LITERACY

Zutty Singleton, Cootie Williams, Zoot Sims, Bubber Miley, Papa Jo Jones and Dizzy Gillespie weren't just guys with funny first names... they were some of the most creative individuals who ever walked the earth, working in the greatest new artform from the past 100 years... Jazz. And they weren't the only ones worth studying. The 20th century sparked an explosion of creative expression in the fields of filmmaking, music, the performing arts and dance. All of these have a direct relation to your work as an animator... Read More

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NUMBER 8: CARTOON WRITING

One of the principle catalysts for discussion on the net is John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff. A series of John's posts on writing for animation created a wave of comment across the "blogosphere". A prominent cartoon scriptwriter vehemently disagreed with John's opinion that cartoons should be written by cartoonists. But when he was asked to name his favorite golden age cartoon writer, the scriptwriter was unable to come up with a single name... This isn't particularly surprising because THERE WERE NO CARTOON SCRIPTWRITERS prior to 1960... Read More

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NUMBER 7: MODERN ANIMATION

Amid Amidi's great book, Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation stirred up a recent revival of interest in 1950s stylized animation. Just about every animation related blog had posts dealing with the subject. Back in May, a firestorm of controversy erupted around a fascinating series of articles on John Kricfalusi's blog, All Kinds of Stuff. The informed and impassioned arguments on both sides of the issue spilled over into Michael Sporn's Splog and Amid's Cartoon Brew... Read More

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NUMBER 6: MILTON CANIFF

Milton Caniff has been referred to as "The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip", and oft by himself as "an Armchair Marco Polo", but in fact this whirlwind of a comic strip innovator and writer was essentially a sincerely nice man who loved to draw. He created and drew Terry and The Pirates from 1934 to 1946, which set the standard for the adventure comic strip. He raised the bar with Steve Canyon, which unlike Terry, he owned lock stock and barrel from the first daily strip in January 1947 through to June 1988, the final installment published shortly after his death. Caniff worked rain or shine, seven days/strips a week for 54 years, even from his hospital bed, the deadlines never ended... Read More

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NUMBER 5: ORIGINALITY vs RIPOFFS

Ethics may not be the first subject that comes to mind when you think of the challenges facing cartoonists, but it's an important issue. I addressed the students who read this site and gave them some useful advice on thinking for themselves in an article titled "Chaplin's Shadow"... Read More

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NUMBER 4: ADVICE FOR CG ANIMATORS

In 1914, Max Fleischer invented the rotoscope as a time and labor saving way of producing animation. He soon came to realize that although the device was a great aid in effects and technical animation, it was a poor substitute for character animation...


In 1986, engineer Ernie Blood developed motion capture techniques as a time and labor saving way of producing animation. A decade and several mocap features later, many CGI animators are coming to the same realization that Max Fleischer and his staff had more than a half century ago. Read More

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NUMBER 3: CLAIR WEEKS

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to the family of Disney animator, Clair Weeks. Weeks was a missionary's son, born in India, who moved to America in the early 30s and ended up working as an assistant animator on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Weeks went on to work on Bambi, Cinderella and Peter Pan. He eventually returned to Bombay, India to establish the animation community there... Read More

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NUMBER 2: GRIM NATWICK

Grim Natwick is undoubtedly one of the most influential animators who ever lived. His career spanned the entire history of animation- from its earliest days in New York to Richard Williams' Cobbler and the Thief in recent times. He animated in every style, but was able to maintain his own personal flavor, regardless of whether he was animating for modern studios like UPA or cartoony ones like Fleischer. If one had to define the single element that set his animation apart, it would have to be that his characters always seemed to have a genuine spark of life... Read More

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NUMBER 1: CARLO VINCI

The history of animation is populated by scores of remarkably talented animators. But Carlo Vinci was much more than just an animator. "Legend" is a word that has been overused in recent times, but when applied to Vinci, it's perfectly apt. Carlo Vinci left behind a lot more than just classic cartoons. He left behind a legacy that will inspire and enlighten artists for generations to come... Read More

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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2007 Review: 2 Grim Natwick

As the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive completes its second year in operation, it's time to review the accomplishments of the past year. Here's a countdown of the ten most important subjects we've covered in 2007. See if your list matches mine. (View the complete list.) Click on the links to read more on this topic.



NUMBER 2: GRIM NATWICK

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is pleased to present an exhibit of material from the collection of legendary animator, Grim Natwick. If you are in the area, stop by to see the exhibit.

Grim Natwick is undoubtedly one of the most influential animators who ever lived. His career spanned the entire history of animation- from its earliest days in New York to Richard Williams' Cobbler and the Thief in recent times. Grim worked at many of the major studios- Hearst, Fleicher, Iwerks, Disney, Lantz, UPA, Jay Ward, Melendez and Richard WIlliams. He animated in every style, but was able to maintain his own personal flavor, regardless of whether he was animating for modern studios like UPA or cartoony ones like Fleischer. If one had to define the single element that set his animation apart, it would have to be that his characters always seemed to have a genuine spark of life.

Grim was a friend of mine. I spent many entertaining afternoons with him on his porch, listening to his memories of "the old days". Grim remembered everything. I once mentioned the name of an assistant animator he worked with at Fleischer. Grim not only recalled working with him more than half a century before, he remembered his bowling scores! When Grim passed away at the ripe old age of 100, his family asked me to organize his artwork. Whenever Grim left a studio, the contents of his desk was emptied into boxes and sent off to his storage locker in Missouri. When all of the boxes arrived for sorting at his apartment in Santa Monica, I was astonished to find thousands and thousands of drawings- amazing examples from a career that spanned more than 75 years.


The drawings that were most precious were the gag drawings and caricatures that grew on the walls of the studios like leaves on a tree. There were also many important sketches documenting Grim's thought process- the roughs that were usually thrown in the trash after a job was completed. These are the drawings that make up this exhibit. I hope this exhibit gives you a clear idea of who Grim Natwick was as an artist and as a person. -Stephen Worth

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THE ONLINE EXHIBIT CATALOG

• Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook


• Part One: Grim's Early Years In New York (Hearst/Krazy Kat/Fleischer)
• Anatomy Studies
• "Swing, You Sinners" (1930)
• "Mariutch" (1930)


• Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks/Disney/Lantz)
• Disney's Offer
• Natwick on Iwerks
• Iwerks Model Sheets


• Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)
• UPA Model Sheets
• Post-UPA Commercials


• Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings and Caricatures)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Follow this series of posts over the course of this coming week. I think you'll be amazed at the versitility and creativity of this great artist. Stop by and see the exhibit soon.

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Go To Number 1 on the list of Top Ten Subjects of 2007

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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A Gift From The Los Angeles Film Festival

The holiday spirit is working wonders! We just received a Christmas present from Miles Flanagan of The Los Angeles Animation Festival... A giant box packed full of wonderful software! Final Cut Studio 2...

We're working on upgrading our ability to capture and process broadcast quality video. For the last couple of months, we've been limping along with outdated software, but thanks to Miles and LAAF, we will be working with the best software available.

We're currently saving our pennies for a digitizing station dedicated to video capture. If you can help out, please donate through the PayPal link or mail us a donation. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is a 501(c)(3) non profit, so your donation may be tax deductible. (See your tax accountant for details.) For more information on donating to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, see our CONTRIBUTIONS Page.

All of us at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive send our thanks and wishes for a wonderful holiday to Miles Flanagan and all of the folks at LAAF!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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A Gift From Anime Weekend Atlanta

Today, we received a Christmas present from Lloyd Carter of Anime Weekend Atlanta... Four Maxtor One Touch III Turbo Edition 1TB 7200RPM Firewire/USB Hard Drives...

Lloyd visited the Archive a little over a month ago, and he asked if there was anything we needed to help take the project to the next level. I explained that up to now, everything we digitize is backed up to two DVD-R copies. This is inexpensive, but consumes a tremendous amount of volunteer time. If we had enough hard drives, we could load the drives with images and movie files quickly and not spend hours and hours burning and verifying DVDs. Lloyd remembered us and put us on his Christmas list. The four drives he donated will get us started backing up to drives instead of DVDs, and will free up the volunteers to work on building the database, instead of running backups.

We still need a dozen more of these drives to back up all the material we've digitized so far. If you can help out, please donate through the PayPal link, mail us a donation, or arrange to have this particular model of hard drive sent to us. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is a 501(c)(3) non profit, so your donation may be tax deductible. (See your tax accountant for details.) For more information on donating to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, see our CONTRIBUTIONS Page.

Thanks to Anime Weekend Atlanta for their generous support!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Exhibit: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook Index

Feel free to bookmark this page as a "jump page" to read the articles on Grim Natwick in order.

• Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook


• Part One: Grim's Early Years In New York (Hearst/Krazy Kat/Fleischer)
• Anatomy Studies
• "Swing, You Sinners" (1930)
• "Mariutch" (1930)


• Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks/Disney/Lantz)
• Disney's Offer
• Natwick on Iwerks
• Iwerks Model Sheets


• Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)
• UPA Model Sheets
• Post-UPA Commercials


• Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings and Caricatures)

Please help us spread the word about this exhibit. Tell your friends. Post about it to your blogs. Thanks!
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Exhibit: Grim Natwick's Caricatures And Gag Drawings

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.


Grim Natwick with his "kid assistant",
Chuck Jones (Iwerks/1933)

PART FOUR: THE GREATEST ANIMATOR
WHO EVER LIVED
Like most animators, Grim Natwick had a unique sense of humor. He was famous for his limericks, scribbled in on the margins of his animation drawings. Here are a couple of doozies by Grim...

I've broken my friendship with Babbitt
Because of his slovenly habit
Of eating out loud
And I've never been proud
Of his nibbling bones like a rabbit!

"It's true!" said the painter to the prude
"I sketch all my ladies in the nude
A dress is OK
For a window display
But on my girls, it wouldn't improve."

A nail sitting Hindoo said "I
Have perched here and gazed at the sky
Till I've punctured my hide
Fillagreed my back side
I'm damned if I've ever known why!"


Grim prized his studio gag drawings above all the others in his collection. He described how they came to be for me one day...

"At Lantz, we all worked very hard. But occasionally, we would need to take a break and have fun. One of us would draw a quick caricature of one of the other animators, or do a cartoon on a funny situation that had taken place. He'd tiptoe out into the hallway and pin it up on the board and sneak back to his desk. Pretty soon, someone else would come along and see the drawing and run back to his desk to answer the gag, pinning up their sketch on the board alongside the other one. By the end of the day, the board would be covered with funny drawings. We'd pull them all down and start all over again the next day."

THE ANIMATOR & HIS ASSISTANT
A Series Of Studio Gag Drawings From UPA NY (ca. 1955)
As an "animation historian", I've never been as interested in the dates and figures related to animation as much as the process- and how it felt to be a part of a golden age studio. These sketches give a clear indication of that, better than words could ever tell...











CONCLUSION
Well... It says "conclusion" up there, so I better get to telling you why Grim Natwick was the greatest animator who ever lived. I don't know how many readers of this blog have had a chance to digest all of my articles from this week. It certainly has been very difficult to summarize a career as long and varied as Grim Natwick's. I had always intended to write a book on Grim, but the weblog may actually be the best format for telling his story.

Books on animation history are usually organized by studio. If you read Leonard Maltin's great book, Of Mice & Magic, Grim Natwick's name is sprinkled throughout six chapters. That might give you the idea that Grim was a marginal figure who moved around a lot. But when you read his life story chronologically- not inserted into six separate chapters- you realize that Grim's life story IS the story of the history of animation. The history of animation isn't the story of studios and characters- it's the story of the artists whose talents created the magic up there on the screen.

Grim Natwick was the greatest animator who ever lived. But I still haven't told you why yet!

Grim loved to tell long, convoluted stories that would inevitably ramble back around to his point. Here's a story like that...

ASIFA-Hollywood heard that Grim was in town and was celebrating a birthday, so we threw a party for him. As he was blowing out the candles, Grim announced that he was pleased to spend his 100th birthday in such fine company. Everyone in the room gasped. No one had any idea that it was Grim's 100th birthday. The room burst into applause. Antran Manoogian, the president of ASIFA-Hollywood drove Grim home after the party. In the car, Grim was uncharacteristically quiet and sheepish. He finally said, "Young man, I have a confession to make... I told everyone that I was 100, but I'm only 97." Antran laughed and promised Grim that ASIFA would throw him an even better party in three years- the best birthday party ever.

Antran kept that promise. when Grim turned 100, ASIFA threw a huge celebration at the Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. Hundreds of people attended, including co-workers from every studio Grim ever worked with. Grim described it as "the most illustrious gathering of animators since Winsor McCay's testimonial dinner in the late 1920s". At the end of the evening an announcement was made for all of Grim's former coworkers and assistants to gather on the stage for a photo. Animator, Michael Sporn recently posted this photo...



Three of Grim's former assistants were chosen to address the audience that evening... Walter Lantz (Hearst), Chuck Jones (Iwerks) and Marc Davis (Disney). All three spoke of Grim's generosity and friendship. They credited Grim with teaching them their trade and inspiring them to become better artists. Those three men weren't alone in that. Dozens of other great animators... Bill Littlejohn, Irv Spence, Willard Bowsky, Berny Wolf, Tissa David, Shamus Culhane- too many to mention- all traced their own accomplishments back to Grim's example when they were just starting out. Grim's "kid assistants" went on to form the artistic core of every major animation studio in the United States.

Grim is the greatest animator who ever lived, not just for his own accomplishments, but for what he shared with the people he worked with. Animation was never just a job to him. It was his passion. He instilled that passion in his assistants, and those assistants went out into the world and became great themselves. Grim Natwick was the catalyst who made the entire history of animation possible. That's why he is the greatest animator who ever lived.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM NATWICK'S CARICATURES & GAG DRAWINGS


Top Row: Caricatures of Grim (left to right) Self caricature* (ca.1926/Hearst) / Self caricature with assistant, Chuck Jones* (1933/Iwerks) / Caricature of Grim on studio outing to Catalina by Chuck Jones (1933/Iwerks) / Caricature of Grim in his fancy suit (ca. 1942/Lantz) / Caricature of Grim at his "studies in Vienna" possibly by Art Heinemann (UPA ca.1955)

Middle Row: (left to right) Two sketches depicting the love/hate relationship between Emery Hawkins and Grim Natwick* (ca. 1944/Lantz) / Bill Nolan at the Krazy Kat Studio* (ca. 1926) / Studio gag drawing (ca. 1959/Robert Lawrence) / Studio gag drawing* (ca. 1936/Disney)

Bottom Row: Tony Sgroi and "Bugs" Hardaway (ca. 1947/Lantz) / Manny Gould* & Sammy Stimpson* (ca. 1926/Krazy Kat Studio) / Bill Nolan with a cold* (ca. 1919/Hearst) / top: Dick Lundy* (ca. 1936/Disney) bottom: Freddie Moore* (ca. 1936/Disney) / Studio gag drawings* (ca. 1929/Fleischer) / Caricatures of Jack Carr* (ca.1923/Krazy Kat Studio)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Thanks to Archive Hero, Brandon Johnson

Thanks to Archive supporter, Brandon Johnson for becoming an Archive Hero. We appreciate your support.
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Exhibit: Grim Natwick In The Modern Age

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.

PART THREE: GRIM NATWICK AND MODERN ANIMATION


It's important to keep in mind Grim's age when you look over his career. When he animated Snow White, he was one of the oldest artists at the Disney studio- 49 years of age. When his former assistant from Iwerks, Stephen Bosustow convinced him to join UPA in 1950, he was sixty. Most animators of his generation were thinking of retirement, or coasting on their past accomplishments until their pensions came through... but not Grim. He dove into the stylistic revolution of UPA with both feet. Grim animated on the early Magoo cartoons, as well as one-shots like "Rooty Toot Toot" and "Gerald McBoing Boing". In the early 50s, he was sent to New York as the keystone animator for UPA's East coast office, where he animated many commercials and industrial films for the company, along with his assistant Tissa David.


When UPA NY shut its doors, Grim worked at various New York commercial studios like Ray Favella and Robert Lawrence Productions. He animated on the first television cartoon series, Crusader Rabbit, and later took in work from Jay Ward and Bill Scott on the George of the Jungle program. He freelanced for Melendez and Duane Crowther's Duck Soup Producktions, eventually settling in with director, Richard Williams. He animated on Raggedy Ann & Andy and travelled to the UK to teach while working on Cobbler & the Thief. He continued to draw into his early 90s, until his failing eyesight made it difficult.

One afternoon, as I sat with Grim on his front porch, he casually mentioned that he had been told that there were machines that animated- computers. He wondered aloud "how they manage to get the machines to hold a pencil" and expressed an interest in finding out more about it. So I called my friend Charlie Gibson, who was a partner at Rhythm & Hues in Hollywood. I arranged for Grim to take a tour of their studio the following week.

When we arrived, we found the entire staff of R&H standing in the lobby waiting for us. Charlie showed Grim their machine room and demo reel, and sat him down at a workstation to see how wireframe characters are posed. After a few minutes working with the mouse, Grim leaned back in his chair and said, "I've seen some amazing things here today that I never would have imagined possible. I don't pretend to understand everything I've seen, but I have a basic idea of what you do here. I have just one question to ask you... When I animated Snow White or Mickey Mouse, I had certain tricks to put the personality of the character across... a gesture, the raising of an eyebrow, a bit of acting... How do you do that sort of thing with your computer?"

The room went silent. Charlie paused for a moment and replied, "Well, Grim, you just put your finger on the thing we struggle with every day... Computer animation is still very new. We're constantly learning as we go. To answer your question, we study classic cartoons to learn those secrets from great animators like you."

In the space of an afternoon, Grim had gone from "How do they get the machines to hold a pencil?" to putting his finger on the main issue facing CGI animators. He was truly a remarkable man.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM NATWICK IN THE MODERN AGE


Top Row: A Selection Of Natwick Animals (left to right) Chicken character designs from "Solid Ivory"* (Lantz/1947) / Lion doodle (after Jones' "Inki & The Lion")* (ca. 1947) / Tiger studio gag drawing* (ca. 1944) / Character design for Lantz Wartime cartoon (ca.1943) / Concept for children's book* (ca. 1947)

Middle Row: 1950s Commercials (left to right) Character design (ca.1959) / Self caricature of layout artist Art Heineman (UPA ca.1952) / Studio gag drawing depicting an animator being replaced by children cutting out paper dolls (UPA ca.1952) / Model drawing of Bert Piels (Piels Beer) by Tissa David from Grim Natwick animation (UPA ca. 1955) / Model drawings from unknown commercial by Tissa David from Grim Natwick animation (UPA ca.1955)

Bottom Row: Studio Gag Drawings Self caricature by Bill Melendez (ca. early 60s) / Studio gag drawing depicting Bill Scott explaining to a West coast animator how to dress like an East coast animator (UPA NY ca. 1952) / Three studio gag drawings by Bill Scott depicting the relationships between Grim Natwick, John Hubley and Scott (UPA NY ca. 1952)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

Next Chapter: THE GREATEST ANIMATOR WHO EVER LIVED (Studio Gag Drawings & Caricatures)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick- Golden Age Animator

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.

PART TWO: GRIM NATWICK IN ANIMATION'S GOLDEN AGE


In California, Walt Disney had seen some of Grim Natwick's animation of Betty Boop in "The Bum Bandit" and sent his brother Roy to New York to convince him to join them in Hollywood. Ub Iwerks had just left Disney to form his own studio, and an experienced animator was sorely needed to take his place. Roy Disney made Grim a remarkably generous offer, but Grim wasn't sold on going to work for the Disney brothers. He spoke to his friend Ted Sears on the West coast and was advised that Walt Disney was just a businessman- Iwerks had been the real creative core of the studio. So Grim decided that Iwerks' new studio was the place for him.


Click to read Disney's offer to Grim.
Several of Grim's former assistants and co-workers from Hearst and Fleischer were already working for Iwerks. Grim phoned Ub and offered his services, agreeing to work for less than half what Roy Disney had offered him. When Grim arrived at Iwerks, he was so accustomed to leading the crew of young animators, he hit the ground running. Ub had lost interest in animation at this point, and willingly handed over the day to day direction of the cartoons to Grim, while he focused on tinkering in his workshop behind the studio.

At Iwerks, Grim got the opportunity to direct, making a clear mark on films like "Jack Frost", "Room Runners", "Stratos Fear" and "Aladdin's Lamp". But he always loved a challenge. When Grim heard that Disney was planning a feature length cartoon based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he knew he had to be a part of it. Ub offered him a full partnership in the studio to entice him to stay on, but money wasn't Grim's primary concern. Animation was. Grim reluctantly said goodbye to his friends at Iwerks and joined the Disney studios.


Grim's first animation for Disney was the female lead in "Cookie Carnival". He received great praise from Walt for his work, and was assigned the female lead in the upcoming feature, Snow White to animate. Grim was given some of the studio's top assistants to work with- most importantly, Marc Davis, Les Novros and Jack Campbell. By the end of the picture, he had animated over 120 scenes, with six assistants working under him, producing as much as 35 feet of finished animation a week!

Grim's tenure at Disney was not without turmoil, however. Ham Luske had been promised the character of Snow White before Grim arrived at the studio, and he considered Grim's assignment to be an incursion on his territory. Although Luske had the directing animator credit on the film, he had little direct interaction with Natwick's unit. There was considerable tension on the lot between Walt's boys- the animators who had been with Disney for years- and the East coast animators who had been hired for the feature. Grim paid no mind to it, focusing on his work, but the bad feelings would eventually boil over.

Grim's assistant, Jack Campbell showed promise and wanted to animate, so he was allowed to move to Luske's unit as an animator. There are three Snow Whites in the finished picture... Luske's, Campbell's and Natwick's. Luske's girl is doll-like and close in style to the female leads in the Silly Symphony series (the scene with the bluebird in the forest is a good example), Campbell's girl showed a strong influence of rotoscope (the scene at the wishing well). Natwick's Snow White is the most lifelike and alive (the sequences where she investigates the Dwarf's cottage, the house cleaning scenes, the dancing scenes and the "Someday My Prince Will Come" sequence).


While Grim was putting in many hours of unpaid overtime, Dave Hand, the director, had promised a him bonus if the picture was a hit. But when the bonus checks went around, Grim was passed over, despite the fact that he was one of the key animators on the film. He contested the oversight with the paymaster and requested a copy of the draft to make a list of the scenes he had animated. He was disgusted to find that Luske's name had been substituted for his own on scenes Grim himself had animated. When Max Fleischer called to invite Grim to join him at his new studio in Florida, Grim left Disney without a second thought. The paymaster had arranged for a token bonus, but Grim didn't even bother to pick it up.


Looking back on the situation many decades later, Grim felt that perhaps he should have swallowed his pride and stayed on with Disney to work on Fantasia and Pinocchio. Gulliver's Travels wasn't Natwick's best work. He didn't have the support of talented assitants like Marc Davis, and the application of the rotoscope was much more limiting than it had been at Disney. But after the political struggles at Disney, the Fleischer Studio felt like home, and Grim enjoyed the company of his co-workers.


Grim Natwick Concept Drawing
For "Flies Ain't Human" (1941)
One afternoon, Max Fleischer visited Grim in his office and asked him to animate a sequence of Betty Boop for "old time's sake". He explained that Betty had been a great asset to the studio, but the series had run its course, and this was to be the final Betty Boop cartoon. (The cartoon in question was most likely "Musical Mountaineers".) Max expressed his appreciation and offered to make a gift of the character to Grim upon the completion of the film. Not knowing anything about the legalities of transferring ownership of a property, Grim did nothing about it. But years later, he read in the trades that the rights to Betty Boop had been sold by the Fleischers to King Features Syndicate for a great deal of money. Grim sued, but he had nothing in writing and lost the case. Although some writers have tried to belittle Grim's contribution to the creation of Betty Boop, saying that his part was minimal, history bears out the fact that the character was 100% the creation of Grim Natwick.


World War II made it difficult to find work as an animator, but Grim's old friend Walter Lantz was producing animated training films for the War Department. Grim returned to Hollywood to work for Lantz, where he had the opportunity to reunite with longtime friends like Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy. In fact, Grim picked up his lunchtime game of horseshoes with storyman "Bugs" Hardaway right where they had left it when he left Iwerks ten years earlier! Lantz's friendly, family atmosphere appealed to Grim, but he didn't become complacent. He reinvented his style to suit the brash, slapstick style of animation at the time, and succeeded in creating some of the finest animation ever produced at Lantz.


Lantz Animators in 1944 (Back Row: Paul Smith, Grim Natwick, Sidney Pillet, Bernard Garbutt Front Row:Les Kline, Shamus Culhane, Pat Matthews, Dick Lund, Emery Hawkins)
Grim's earliest work at the studio included "Take Heed Mr. Tojo" starring Hook, and "Enemy Bacteria", one of the most successful Wartime training films. His great animation for Dick Lundy and Shamus Culhane stood out in films like "Who's Cookin' Who", "Bathing Buddies", "Ski For Two" and "Solid Ivory". In his autobiography, Walter Lantz cited Natwick as the best animator he ever had the pleasure of working with.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM NATWICK GOLDEN AGE ANIMATOR


Top Row: (left to right) Girl doodles* (ca. 1936) / Snow White Animation Rough* / Left: Character designs from "Funny Face"* (1933) Right: Animation drawing from "Stormy Seas"* (1932) / Studio gag drawing from Iwerks / Tracings from Natwick Animation of Wally Walrus from "The Beach Nut" (1944)

Middle Row: (left to right) Girl doodle (ca. 1936) / Girl doodle (ca.1940) / Studio gag drawing depicting Ub Iwerks as a boy playing hookey from school* / Studio gag drawing for Art Turkisher* / Character designs from "Enemy Bacteria"*

Bottom Row: Character design for Miss X from "Abou Ben Boogie"* (1944) / Caricature of Lantz Ink & Paint girl / Character designs (ca. 1940) / Character design for "Sliphorn King of Polaroo" (1945) / Animation drawing from "Abou Ben Boogie"* (1944) / Animation drawing from "Who's Cookin' Who?"* (1946)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

Next Chapter: GRIM NATWICK IN THE MODERN AGE (UPA and beyond)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

Meta: Many Thanks To Paul Dini

Thanks to Paul Dini for becoming an Archive Hero. We appreciate your support!
.

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick In New York

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.

PART ONE: GRIM NATWICK'S EARLY YEARS


Grim Natwick's career in animation began in 1917 at International Film Service Productions, managed by Gregory LaCava. The studio was owned by William Randolph Hearst, who wanted to exploit his comic strip characters in the new medium of the animated cartoon. LaCava had been lured away from Raoul Barre's studio where he had been working as an animator. His organizational skills were put to good use setting the studio on the right track, but he was having trouble finding experienced animators. He did however, know of a great draftsman who was working as a sheet music illustrator- a classmate from art school...

LaCava enlisted Grim to help out for "for two weeks or so" until he could locate experienced animators. Grim's first task was to animate a racehorse in a Happy Hooligan cartoon. He spent more than a week on the sequence experimenting and struggling, and at the end of the two weeks, he was ready to quit. But LaCava told him that Hearst would pay him the unheard of amount of $100 a week if he would stay on. Money talked, and ultimately, Grim took to animation like a duck to water. The two weeks ended up stretching into over seven decades.

Around 1920, Grim took a few years off to study art in Vienna- drawing from life, landscape painting, portraiture- a full classical art education. He returned to New York a much stronger artist than he had left. International Film Service no longer existed, but Bill Nolan had organized a studio to produce Krazy Kat cartoons. The series bore little resemblence to George Herriman's classic comic strip. The animation was done using the "slash system" and animators were expected to not only assist their own scenes, but to ink them as well. The artists at the Krazy Kat Studio at this time included some of the best in New York, two of whom- Walter Lantz and Jimmie (Shamus) Culhane- would work with Grim again much later in his career.

In 1929, Grim joined the Fleischer Studios. Fleischer had just made the transition from silent films to sound, and was abandoning the high contrast inked look of the Out of the Inkwell cartoons for a more rounded style with a full range of gray tones. Disney had just raided the studio for talent, taking several key animators, including Dick Huemer, back to California with him. A few months later Ted Sears headed West. Grim was left with a group of inexperienced, but enthusiastic and talented young artists. He quickly whipped the crew into shape and provided the Fleischers with some of the most imaginitive animation ever produced at the studio. We've featured two cartoons from this period here in the past... Swing, You Sinners and Mariutch, both from 1930.

One day, Dave Fleischer handed Grim a photograph of singer, Helen Kane and asked him to design a caricature. Fleischer had found a sound-alike, and planned to use her in the upcoming Talkartoon, "Dizzy Dishes". Grim exaggerated Kane's wide eyes and rosebud mouth, creating a slightly coarse, but strikingly original design. A few weeks later, Dave asked Grim to design a girlfriend for Bimbo to star as the "fair young maiden" in a cartoon adaptation of the popular song, "Barnacle Bill the Sailor". Grim streamlined and refined his caricature of Kane for the part. But Dave Fleischer objected, insisting that since Bimbo was a dog, his girlfriend should also be a dog. Grim quickly sketched Betty Boop's head on a four legged canine body. He held up the drawing next to the pretty girl design, and asked, "Which would you rather have as your girlfriend? A girl? Or a dog?" Dave laughed and agreed that the pretty girl was the right choice.

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EXHIBIT CATALOG: GRIM'S EARLY YEARS


Top Row: Animation From Hearst & The Krazy Kat Studio (left to right) Drawing from "Judge Rummy" cartoon* (ca. 1918) / Concept sketch for unproduced series based on Cliff Sterrett's "Polly & her Pals"* (ca. 1926) / ibid* / ibid* / Self portrait of Grim Natwick* (ca. 1926)

Middle Row: Animation From Fleischer (left to right) Animation drawings from "Mariutch"* (1930) / Animation drawing from unknown film* - Animation drawing from "Mariutch"* / Animation drawings from "Swing, You Sinners"* (1930) bottom dwg- collection of Kent Butterworth / Character designs for Bimbo* (ca. 1930) / Character designs for Bimbo in "Barnacle Bill The Sailor"* (1930) / Caricature of Grim Natwick by Rudy Zamora - Self portrait of Grim Natwick* (ca. 1930)

Bottom Row: Anatomy Studies After Bridgeman* (ca. 1920)

* denotes a drawing by Grim Natwick

Next Chapter: GRIM NATWICK, GOLDEN AGE ANIMATOR (Iwerks, Disney, Lantz)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK
An Exhibit Presented By The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506
Now Showing, Tuesday through Friday 1pm to 9pm

Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

Exhibit: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook Introduction

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 4 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great biographies of important artists.


The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is pleased to present an online exhibit of material from the collection of legendary animator, Grim Natwick. If you are in the area, stop by to see the exhibit.

GRIM NATWICK'S SCRAPBOOK

INTRODUCTION

Grim Natwick is undoubtedly one of the most influential animators who ever lived. His career spanned the entire history of animation- from its earliest days in New York to Richard Williams' Cobbler and the Thief in recent times. Grim worked at many of the major studios- Hearst, Fleicher, Iwerks, Disney, Lantz, UPA, Jay Ward, Melendez and Richard WIlliams. He animated in every style, but was able to maintain his own personal flavor, regardless of whether he was animating for modern studios like UPA or cartoony ones like Fleischer. If one had to define the single element that set his animation apart, it would have to be that his characters always seemed to have a genuine spark of life.

Grim was a friend of mine. I spent many entertaining afternoons with him on his porch, listening to his memories of "the old days". Grim remembered everything. I once mentioned the name of an assistant animator he worked with at Fleischer. Grim not only recalled working with him more than half a century before, he remembered his bowling scores! When Grim passed away at the ripe old age of 100, his family asked me to organize his artwork. Whenever Grim left a studio, the contents of his desk was emptied into boxes and sent off to his storage locker in Missouri. When all of the boxes arrived for sorting at his apartment in Santa Monica, I was astonished to find thousands and thousands of drawings- amazing examples from a career that spanned more than 75 years.


The drawings that were most precious were the gag drawings and caricatures that grew on the walls of the studios like leaves on a tree. There were also many important sketches documenting Grim's thought process- the roughs that were usually thrown in the trash after a job was completed. These are the drawings that make up this exhibit. I hope this exhibit gives you a clear idea of who Grim Natwick was as an artist and as a person. -Stephen Worth

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THE ONLINE EXHIBIT CATALOG

• Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook


• Part One: Grim's Early Years In New York (Hearst/Krazy Kat/Fleischer)
• Anatomy Studies
• "Swing, You Sinners" (1930)
• "Mariutch" (1930)


• Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks/Disney/Lantz)
• Disney's Offer
• Natwick on Iwerks
• Iwerks Model Sheets


• Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)
• UPA Model Sheets
• Post-UPA Commercials


• Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings and Caricatures)

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Assistant Archivist, Joseph Baptista views the exhibit.
Many thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for providing the facilities for this exhibit, and to the Walt Disney Animation Research Library for providing the mattes.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
,

Stumble It!

We've Accomplished A Lot In Two Short Years!

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


THE ARCHIVE IS TWO YEARS OLD
The ASIFA-Hollywood Archive has been in operation now for two years. Every six months, we 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'll appreciate the work being done here and find value in it. If that's the case, you'll want to contribute, so we can accomplish even more.

To date, we have digitized well over 15,000 images and 2,500 animated films. There are nearly 450 articles available here on the Archive blog covering a wide range of subjects. The blog is followed by readers all over the world. We recently had our 1 millionth unique visitor; and in the past two years, we have served 2.5 million articles. We've mounted several exhibits in the archive space, which has been visited by artists from all corners of the globe. The animation database has now completed its proof of concept phase, and volunteers are working nearly every day to build it out as quickly as possible. What kind of an impact is the Archive having on the art of animation? Read our Feedback and find out!

We're now ready to begin work on the second phase of our project- creating a stand-alone workstation version of the digital archive that can be syndicated to museums, libraries, universities and studios around the world. To accomplish this, we need your help.

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

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HOW YOU CAN HELP

There are a few things you can do for us that will help us reach our goal more quickly:

• Contribute
  
  If you have found the posts here useful in your work, please give back to help us continue to bring you more inspiration and information you can use. Please look over the Donor Catagories and help as much as you can.


• Link To Our Posts
  
  In order for this project to succeed, we need as many "eyeballs" as we can muster. Search engine ranking depends on incoming links. If you see a posting here that you think is great, please link to it from your own website or blog.


• Volunteer Your Time And Skills
  
  The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive depends on the generosity of its volunteers to move the project along. If you are willing to help, stop by the Archive offices in Burbank, or contribute to the Hall of Fame over the internet. Every little bit of effort is appreciated and helps us further the cause.


• Share Your Collection
  
  If you have material that would be an asset to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, consider loaning it to us for digitization or contact us for information on how you can digitize it yourself. Everything you see on this blog was contributed by artists and collectors who want to share their treasures with you. Return the favor.

NEED CONVINCING?

Well, the best way to prove the value of our efforts is to show you what those efforts have produced over the past two years. Keep in mind that what you see here on this blog is just a fraction of what we've entered into our rapidly growing database. Click through these links and be amazed at the rich resource we are all working together to build.

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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

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; Alvin Show Pilot Board 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)

Another special event... An Evening With Andreas Deja and Follow-Up

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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 Part One and Part Two (See also... George Petty's Ridgid Tools Calendars & his 1947 Calendar / John Held Jr's Flappers)

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8.) Art Instruction Materials



Founded by Norman Rockwell 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 / Carlo Vinci: The Training of a Golden Age Animator / Willy Pogany's Drawing Lessons Part One and Part Two / W. L. Evans Cartooning & Caricaturing Course Part One / Bill Nolan: Cartooning Self Taught / Grim Natwick on Animation Design / A Drawing Lesson From Walter Lantz / Ralph Bakshi Speaks To CGI Animators Part One and Part Two / 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 / John K Advice and Eddie's Boney Finger and John K on Character Design / 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, Part Five: Sketching, Part Six: Magazine Cartoons

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7.) Classic Cartoons To Study



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 / Van Beuren: The Little King in On The Pan 1933 / Famous Studios: Chiquita Banana / Terrytoons: Barnyard Actor, Farmer Al Falfa's Prize Package, Pink Elephants, The Temperamental Lion (1940), Gandy & Sourpuss in Aladdin's Lamp & 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, Tex Avery's KoolAid Spots: UPA Done Right

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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, D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales, Good Dog Book, 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 / Monks By Eduard von Grutzner / Artzybasheff: Neurotica, Machinalia & Diablerie / Arthur Szyk: The New Order / WWI Propaganda Posters Part One and Part Two / Mid-1930s Colliers Illustrations / Late 40s Colliers Illustrations / Coronet Magazine / Lawson Wood- The Monkey Painter Part One and Part Two

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5.) Historical Info & Interviews



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) Terrytoons Studio Tour 1939 / 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) and Pioneer of Indian Animation / Bob Clampett's Swimming Pool 1962 / Ward Kimball: Escapader Cum Laude and Will Finn's Letter From Ward Kimball / Building Of The Disney Studio In Burbank / Dispatch From Disney's 1943 Part One and Part Two / Milton Caniff: A Remembrance

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4.) The Cartoon Hall Of Fame



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... Mel Blanc on Advertising / Milton Caniff and Norman Rockwell in Coronet / Bakshi Phone Doodles) / Oskar Fischinger / Ollie Johnston / Osamu Tezuka

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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'

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2.) Vintage Newspaper Cartoons And Comics



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, The Wild, Wild Women Part One Part Two and Part Three, & Man The Beast / Milt Gross: Cartoon Tour of New York, Dave's Delicatessen Dailies, Sunday Pages Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six / Cliff Sterrett: Polly And Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three / Otto Messmer's 1932 Felix Sundays and Felix in Mother Goose Land / Dudley Fisher's Right Around Home / Hanna-Barbera: Huckleberry Hound Weekly / Harrison Cady: Bird's Eye Views / Jim Tyer: Funny Animal Comics Part One and Part Two / Basil Wolverton: Powerhouse Pepper / Chic Young's Blondie and More of Chic Young's Blondie / Boody Rogers: Babe Comics Part One, Part Two & Part Three / George Lichty's Grin and Bear It and Even More Great Lichty Grin & Bear It Comics / Rube Goldberg's Side Show / Milt Stein's Supermouse Comics No. 4 / Harvey Kurtzman's Comic Books / Dan Gordon's Superkatt / Parody: Whack Comics (1953) / Basil Wolverton on Cartoon Sounds Part One and Part Two / Milton Knight's Great Brown-Pericord Motor / Harvey Eisenberg's Foxy Fagan 1946 / Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon and More Steve Canyon Dalies / Walt Kelly's Pogo / People on Paper (MGM/1945)

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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

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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 / Carlo Vinci's Terry-Toons Notes / Vincent Waller Spumco Drawings and Jim Smith Spumco Layouts / 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

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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.


It's impossible for me to thank everyone who has helped this project in such a small space. But I'm going to make an effort to try. (excuse me if I don't mention you!) Thanks to the Walter Lantz Foundation for its support of this project from its inception. I'd also like to thank our project sponsors, Sony Pictures, Dreamworks, and The Animation Guild. A big thank you to our celebrity supporters, June Foray, Leonard Maltin, Andreas Deja, John Kricfalusi, and Nancy Cartwright. We owe a debt of gratitude to the schools that have rallied behind us, Woodbury University, Brooks College and LA Valley College. So many people have come forward to share their treasures with us... Jerry Beck, Mark Kausler, Van Eaton Galleries, NoCloo.com, the Vincis, the Milton Caniff estate, Digital Funnies, Mike Fontinelli, Kent Butterworth, the family of Clair Weeks, John Canemaker, Rich Borowy, Marc Deckter, and Marc Crisafulli. This project would not be possible without the support of the Board of Directors and members of ASIFA-Hollywood. My biggest thanks go to the handful of volunteers who patiently work their way through the files day after day, turning bits and bytes into useful information that will make a difference for the better long after all of us are gone. You know who you are. You're all heros.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Event Oct 21: Treasures Screening in Hollywood

Milt Kahl, Carlo Vinci, Grim Natwick, Ed Benedict, Rod Scribner, Tex Avery, Warren Foster, Mike Lah, Max & Dave Fleischer... You've read about them on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog. Now, here's your chance to see some of their rarest and most wonderful cartoons on the big screen in the heart of Hollywood. You won't see these cartoons on TV! Meet the special guests! Networking party after the screening!

Treasures of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
Sunday October 21st at 2.00 pm
Tickets $10 (includes after party)
Silent Movie Theatre
611 N Fairfax Av
Los Angeles, CA 90036


The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood is embarked on an ambitious project-- building a library, museum and digital archive dedicated to the art of animation. On Sunday October 21st at 2.00 pm, ASIFA-Hollywood will be presenting a screening at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax as part of LAAF 2007, the Los Angeles Animation Festival. The program is titled "Treasures of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive", and it will include rarely seen cartoons covering a wide spectrum of animation's rich history.


"Hollywood was the place animation reached its absolute peak" says ASIFA-Hollywood President, Antran Manoogian, "and it's still the place to be for an artist looking to break into the business. Technological advances and an upsurge in interest in the medium indicate that cartoons will be even be even more a part of our lives as time goes on. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is making that happen by providing much needed resources to students and artists working in the field."


"The goal of our project is to help artists build on the accomplishments of the past, rather than reinventing the wheel." says Stephen Worth, Director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive. "There's no better resource for doing that than our archive." Located on Burbank Bl. in Burbank, ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive is open to the public four days a week, with thousands of animated cartoons and images available for viewing in an interactive computer database. "Something like this has never been attempted before." says Worth. "Our archive is like the Library of Alexandria or the Louvre- just for cartoons!"


The program of animated films will include classic cartoons by many of the most famous names in animation. It will also put the spotlight on artists you might not have ever heard of, but who were responsible for creating the cartoon characters you know and love. After the program, there will be a reception in the Silent Movie Theater's beautiful Spanish Patio with special guests. Proceeds from this event will be going to support the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive project.


Because of the limited number of seats available, it is suggested that you purchase admission in advance. Any remaining tickets will go on sale one hour prior to showtime.

Treasures of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
Sunday October 21st at 2.00 pm
Tickets $10 (includes after party)
Silent Movie Theatre
611 N Fairfax Av
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Advance tickets are exclusively available online.
(Click on Program 5 for the Archive Screening.)

For the full schedule of the Los Angeles Animation Festival 2007, visit...
www.laafest.org/

For more information on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, contact...
Stephen Worth, sworth@animationarchive.org
.

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Meta: Over One Million Served

A little over an hour ago, our hit logs registered our one millionth unique visit. By next week, our page view count will reach 2.5 million articles served. We started counting traffic on November 11th, 2005, and our traffic more than doubled in our second year. It's poised to do so again this coming year.

FEEDBACK TIME!

Many thanks to everyone who wrote in with their feedback. Click on "feedback" in the list of labels at the bottom of this post to read all of them. If you would like to send in your message, please respond in the comments to this post or email me at sworth@animationarchive.org...

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your interests

Post a link to your work and/or website

Pick your favorite Animation Archive post from the past two years

Tell us how the Animation Archive has helped or inspired you

Let us know if you have any suggestions

...I'll post some of your comments below so everyone can see them.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

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Feedback: Julian Fumagalli

Hola! My name is Julian Fumagalli and my blog is at julianhoek.blogspot.com. I'm 24 and I'm from Argentina. I'm a cartoonist working my way up to be an animator. Luckily for me we still do production for movies here 'cause it's not as cheap as Korea but it's cheaper that the States; so there are some jobs for inkers, inbetweeners, assistants and animators. I started doing inbetweens and now i'm working as an asistant animator. It's a great way to learn by working close to an experienced animator. That's how they used to do it in the old days, working every step of the chain up. Also, to increase my learning process, I practice the advice that John K gives in his wonderful blog. I also appreciate the great resources you guys put here for everybody- like the first edition of Preston Blair's book. The Carlo Vinci post about his training blew me away and made me want to seek out the best way to improve myself.


Since the beginning of this blog I've been carefully and obsessively watching all the cartoons that were done from the 30s until middle 60s and I think other people are too because of the archive. My suggestion would be to expand the site and try to post most of the archive here. The archive website is very global and for most of the people who read it, it's almost impossible to go to Burbank, CA to check out all that great stuff you guys have there. I know it's hard, but I hope in time you will start to upload all those cookies you have there!

I'm very thankful to the archive for all the knowledge and inspiration that have gave me for the past two years! So thank you, Steve and please keep it going! Best of luck! -Julian

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Feedback: Rogelio E. Toledo

Hello, My name is Rogelio E. Toledo. I am 27 years old and work doing technical jobs that have absolutely nothing to do with art/drawing. I've been fascinated by animation, cartoons, comics and illustration since I was about 5 years old. I enjoy drawing for my own personal amusement.

I've always wanted to improve my drawing skills and I really have tried to but I didn't have any idea where to start. I've never had the opportunity to take any art classes and most of the instruction books I had access to weren't very helpful. I looked around the internet to find some sort of GOOD drawing/cartooning instruction. The only really good thing I found was a couple of pages on drawing backgrounds that John Kricfalusi had put together and somebody had posted on a forum. I found them to be really helpful. I did a google search for John Kricfalusi which led me to his blog, his Preston Blair book advice and finally to the Animation Archive's website.



Fundamentals of Composition is my favorite of the archive's blog posts. It's exactly what I had been looking for. I always knew about stuff like compostion but I never knew enough about it to actually be able to plan, arrange and use it. Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning also had a ton of good information in it too. Seeing each artist's methods of organizing and their techniques for putting everything together really broke the cartooning process down and simplified it for me. I also liked the People on Paper, Makin' 'em Move and A Drawing Lesson From Walter Lantz video posts. It's one thing to read about how these people do their work but actually seeing them at work makes it much nicer.The artist profiles, illustrations and comics posted here are really great too.

The past several months I've been busy re-teaching myself how to draw. I'm doing it correctly this time with the Preston Blair book. There's a lot of things on this blog that I just haven't had the time to get around to practicing and using. I would like to go through the W L Evans Cartooning And Caricaturing Course and actually practice the storyboarding in Chad's Design For Television, I do plan to go through those eventually. -Rogelio E. Toledo

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Feedback: Kali Fontecchio

I'm Kali Fontecchio, 21 year old female American (of Italian decent just like Carlo Vinci and Art Lozzi) cartoonist (character design, animation, and background painting) hopeful. I sure am glad this place exists, seriously. I feel honored that I get to be an example for everyone, considering John Kricfalusi has put up a lot of my stuff on his site in his lessons. A while back there sure was some pretty embarrassing artwork of mine on display (I'll say that down the line of what I am doing right now, no doubt). But being apart of the Mel Crawford painting analysis, Bosko animation studies, Roger Ramjet and Bugs Bunny construction lessons has made me feel I am not only improving myself, but showing others that they can too. And you guys can! It is all here for you! Take it! Go ahead! Don't be shy!


Could this possibly be true? A site dedicated to all things pure in this world? ASIFA is just that, somewhere you can go and stumble across Mary Blair golden books, Milt Gross funnies, Maxfield Parrish illustrations, and get a free education via John K! Not just little dopey scans either, Steve Worth makes sure of that! Well I can't speak for everyone, but I'd like to think I could at least represent my fellow practicing-to-be-a-real-cartoonist demographic. The Animation Archive is a wonderful resource for us, and here is my true example. A while back I needed reference of some Mary Blair furniture for some paintings I was doing, where do I go to get it? The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive of course! How lucky am I? What would I have done without it? I don't even want to think about it! -Kali Fontecchio

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Feedback: Dennis Hyer

My name is Dennis Hyer, and by day I am a laborer for the government. By night, I am a cartoonist and blogmeister at Atlantic County Cartoons. All the rest of my spare time is devoted to high art and fine culture: for music, I turn to Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters, for old movies I turn to James Cagney and Barbara Stanwyck, and for old cartoons and comic strips, I turn to the Animation Archive.


I am always thrilled to see great examples of classic animation, but my main interest lies in comic strips. For me, it was a revelation to see early Sunday pages of Cliff Sterrett's "Polly and her Pals" (which I had never heard of before),Chic Young's "Blondie", George Lichty's "Grin and Bear It", and Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper comics. But the biggest thrill for me was when the Archive posted a stack of Dave's Delicatessen strips by Milt Gross. I read them all, and was instantly desperate for more. It made my day!

This is a short piece of feedback, but I am not much of a writer, so here are my closing comments. I used to think the world of classic comic strips started and stopped with Walt Kelly's "Pogo", but thanks to all the hard work being put into the Archive by Steve and the volunteers and supporters, my horizons have been broadened way beyond any level I could reach on my own. I owe you. A suggestion-- how about a future post dedicated to Owen Fitzgerald, king of cute comic book girls? -Dennis Hyer
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Feedback: Daniel Poerira

My name is Daniel Poeira, I am a substitute teacher and doctorate student at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. I teach character design, special effects and general animation production techniques (storyboarding, scriptwriting, etc) at the Cinema, Photography and Drama department. I am also an independent animator, and am currently working on a 2d short titled "Flashback". Here's my blog, Diario De Flashack and my website danielpoeira.org

My main interests in animation are general design, storytelling, and techniques that I don´t work with, like stop motion and paint on glass. I am decent on 2d and digital 3d, and also cut-outs, but mastering paint on glass and puppet animation are still a long-term process to me.


It´s hard to pick my favorite Animation Archive post, I love everything you guys put out. But if I was to name only one, maybe it would be Basil Wolverton On Cartoon Sounds. He was just too much of a genius, and that rare article was pure gold!

I strongly believe that, the more we advance into the future of animation, the more we must understand its past. The disciplines involved in cartoon drawing, illustration, comic books and animation in the past must never be forgotten- it would be too damn stupid if we just started all over again, rediscovering the wheel in every generation. Understanding the knowledge of the great masters of the past will make our work much better and will let us concentrate on the new stuff we have to think about when dealing with this new technologies we have in hand.

You guys do terrific work and I always learn something new in your website and blog. I hope someday I´ll manage to visit you in person. Thanks for everything! -Daniel Poerira
.

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Feedback: Nicholas Martinez

My name is Nicolas "Nico" Martinez, and I'm 19 years old. I am a budding artist who is not only interested in cartoons, but in drawing, painting, art, old movies, music, and photography. I work and I go through my college classes, and on the side, I draw and paint. I LOVE animation, and I don't know what to do without it. My favorite cartoons include many classic cartoons by Walt Disney, Warner Bros, the Fleischers, Terry-toons, even several obscure cartoons are beginning to grow on me. I like to collect old videotapes or laserdiscs of the cartoons, as well as albums of old comic books.

My favorite posts are the ones with Katie Rice's drawings, Steve's posts on the Fundamentals of Composition, John K.'s posts on the $100k Animation Course, The Original Preston Blair Book. Any posts of old cartoons as movie files, "Swing, You Sinners", "The Bodyguard" and "Bad Luck Blackie", Tex Avery's Kool-Aid Commercials, The Little King in "On the Pan", Ralph Bakshi on 2D vs. 3D, Carlo Vinci: Education of a Golden Age Animator, the Donald Duck model sheets- Gosh! I have a ton of favorites.

During the archive website's run, I have contributed a bit of information to the Cartoon Hall of Fame on several artists such as Richard Williams, John Kricfalusi, Art Babbitt, as well as commenting every now and then, and volunteering once at the archive. Through those experiences, several things dawned on me. To me, it's all about self-discovery. Through many times in my life, I, like most people, start liking the same old artists, just because it was a trend. Seeing what the archive has to offer has completely liberated me, and made me very well aware of what I really like. It has been like an amazing experience learning about artists and styles that are completely new to me.

As a suggestion, can you upload your videos in bigger formats with a faster framerate and a function to step through the frames? The cartoons you've already posted look really great, but I think that would help the learning process a lot.
Iit's cool to have a place with actual UNMANGLED cartoons. Also, you could sell those Thunderbean DVDs if that's possible on this site.

Thanks a lot Steve (the guy who told me to "practice, practice, practice.") People like you and John K. are essential to the advancement of the medium. -Nicolas Martinez

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Feedback: Art Fuentes

My name is Art Fuentes. During the day I work a lousy desk job, but every chance that I get, I draw. This is my blog, Kartoon Biscuit where I post all of my meager attempts at animation and drawing. I've always loved cartoons and decided a long time ago that I wanted to have a hand in making them. Life being what it is, I had to put my animation dream on hold for a while as I became a proud father and attained a "regular" job to provide for my daughter.

I found out about the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive while searching for information on old comic strips. I never realized until then, that there was such a huge repository of great, great, animation art to be seen in one place. I began to volunteer at the archive on Saturdays in 2006 and was so happy and excited to meet Steve Worth. I remembered him from my favorite cartoon studio, Spumco. Steve is very generous and knowledgable about Animation history, and I was astounded at all of the material available at the Archive. It literally blew my mind.


My favorite Archive post is the The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course. It has really changed my drawing skills for the better. It was also through the Archive that I had the best day of my life, when I got to meet my animation hero, the great John K. He has really helped and inspired me to achieve my goal of being an animator. If it wasn't for Steve and the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, I would have never met John and such great people as Eddie Fitgerald, Mike Fontanelli, Jim Smith, Vincent Waller, Marc Deckter, Kali Fontecchio, Katie Rice, and so many other people that I count among friends.

The Animation Archive has opened whole new artistic and inspirational possiblities for me and I'd like to thank Steve for sharing all of these treasures with us lowly, wannabe Cartoonists. Thank you Steve, from the bottom of my heart! -Art F.

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Feedback: Bruce Watkinson

My name is Bruce Watkinson. I’m 19 years of age, and I work at Wal-Mart, unloading trucks and stocking shelves, while continuing to pursue my goal to work in the animation industry. Besides drawing, I enjoy swimming, analyzing world history, and watching the Walter Lantz, Warner Bros, Fleischer, and occasionally Terrytoons cartoons. I also read a lot- comic strips and paperback novels. My blog is Understanding Animation, where I recently posted a tribute to Ub Iwerks, along with the History of Popeye. I listen to music from the 1900’s to late 1960’s- big band music, the rock group Queen, The Coasters, Wilbert Harrison, The Champs, Percy Sledge... I also have a swell taste in jazz music.

I have a host of artistic inspirations, mostly from the golden age of children’s illustration to the Playboy artists of the 50s/60s, as well as John Delaney, Jessica Borutski, Ed Benedict, Carlo Vinci and Will Finn. I study the paintings of Maxfield Parrish, Gustaf Tenggren, Einar Norelius, Kay Nielsen, and my favorite one of them all, John Bauer, whose trolls, compositions, and color values have expanded my horizons. I enjoyed reading most of the posts on the ASIFA site, but the three that I continue to read for study are...


The Famous Artists art lessons, which have assisted to improve my drawing and painting ability, that with hours of practice, no college course has yet to achieve.


Bakshi’s discussion about 2D and 3D animation- He gave some valid points to both camps, all the while giving us artists a kick in the pants for falling prey to repeating the same stuff.


The post that blew my mind the most was Carlo Vinci: The Training of a Golden Age Animator, especially the following quote: “Vinci's job was to animate, but his occupation was ARTIST. The same was true of most of the other great talents in animation- Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Grim Natwick... The reason they were great animators was because they were great artists.”

Now I’m doing my damn best to be the best, to best the best, and maybe one day to teach what I know to anyone who is interested. I’m planning to go on a two-week vacation to L.A., and besides visiting and donating to the
archive, to meet most of the artists from blogger land. Thank you for making your passion available to us young eggs, and hopefully, we might one day become cocks of the walk. -wannabe artist/cartoonist: Bruce Watkinson

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Feedback: Andy J. Latham

I'm 24 and live in the United Kingdom. I started my professional career as a physicist, spending five years studying the subject at the University of Manchester. However the pull of my childhood longing to be an animator was strong enough to make me give up the physics and move on. I currently work for a corporate video company as an editor and videographer- not quite animation, but it's a start! I have been trying to improve my drawing techniques over the past year or so and am beginning to use what I have learned to start animating. It's hard work putting in hours of drawing as well as a full-time job, but when you see a good result on your page it's worth it! Other than physics and art, my interests lay in the areas of photography, music and movies. I play the guitar and am a keen amateur photographer. My drawings and animations can be seen at www.andysanimation.co.uk where you will also find a link to my animation blog.

I'd say my favourite Animation Archive post would have to be the one about Disney's version of the Uncle Remus Stories book. The illustrations there are beautiful in terms of how the characters are drawn, how the scenes are painted and the general composition of each picture. It's inspirational!

That is the power of the Animation Archive- to inspire. These images are rarely seen, and it's so important that they are presented to those of us wishing to learn. My knowledge of animation has for a long time mainly revolved around Disney and Warner Bros. The archive has helped to broaden my knowledge and let me get to know a little about the animators behind the pencils.

I do have a couple of suggestions. Firstly, it would be good if you could include some video clips of animations you have in the archive, particularly if they are rare ones that we can't see on DVD. Secondly, what would be really great (but I don't know how feasible it is) is if any top animators of the past or present could write posts from time to time. These posts could form a series of drawing/animation lessons from the masters.

Fantastic stuff though, Steve! -Andy J. Latham

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Feedback: Jorge Garrido

My name is Jorge Garrido, I'm 18 years old. I'm a grocery clerk (currently night crew) at the Real Canadian Superstore. I can stock 90 cases in one hour. I'm currently attending Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada for a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration, with which I hope to become a Chartered Accountant. I'm obsessed with OLD cartoons and comics, every since I was a kid. I want to be a cartoonist/animator, which I can hopefully practice and study in my spare time. My other interest is Christian rock and hard music. Here's my pitiful blog where I have a tons of half written posts for waiting to be finished and posted.

My favourite Archive post was Preston Blair's first edition. It's really hard to pick, though!

The Animation Archive has helped me mainly in two ways. One, the images and manuals posted give respectively visual inspiration, ideas, and artistic influence and practical advice on cartooning and composition. I want to be able to draw like Milt Canniff and Milt Gross and Milt Knight and Milt Stein and the other Milts the archive has covered. Not to mention the Walts. The images themselves help me study what these guys do and how tehy did it. The manuals show me how to do so ever better. The second way is more intangible. It's satisfying to know that there's people out there as obsessed with old cartoons and animation as me. It's also great to see that the Arhcive is saving films from being deteriorated by digitzing them, and also saving images in high resolution that owuld otherwise be forgotten to history.

The only suggestions I'd offer are more theories about the images that are presented. Also, you should do fundraisers by selling the films you have copies of on DVD. The Archive, for example, apparently has all the Popeye and colour Clampetts. I'd rather buy from the archive than from WBHV. No DVNR, no colour changing, and I could get the films in chronological order by director. Keep up the good work, Steve! You are as kind as you are wise! -Jorge Garrido

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Meta: Scanning, Traffic & Intern Opportunities

Magazine cover by Vernon Grant.
Thanks to Gabriel Valles
for sharing this with us!

• If you are digitizing rare material from your own collection, please consider scanning at a resolution 600dpi or higher and send your scans to us to add to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.


• Last month, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog served over 200,000 articles. This is our all time record for traffic. In a few days, our SiteMeter button in the sidebar will register its 1 millionth unique visitor! Many thanks to all of you who have linked to us from your websites and blogs, and those who have told their friends about all the amazing art to be found here.


• Now that school is starting up again, we are looking for interns who are interested in helping out at the Archive. Hours are flexible, depending on your class schedule, and you might be able to arrange class credit for your work through your school. Call me at 818 842 8330 during our regular hours (1pm to 9pm Tuesday through Friday) if you are interested.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Our Latest Newsletter

The latest issue of The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Email Newsletter just went out. It includes quick links to all of our articles from the last month. Feel free to post this newsletter to your own website or blog or forward it to your friends. Help us spread the word about the Archive!

Sign up for our email list today, so you won't miss any of our postings...

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Name
	Subscribe
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Meta: Archive Angel

Thanks to Tom & Jill Kenny for becoming Archive Angels. We appreciate your support.

Sincerely
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Walter Lantz Foundation and Archive Heros

On behalf of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood, I'm pleased to announce that The Walter Lantz Foundation has decided to become a Benefactor of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. This sponsorship will be instrumental in helping us maintain and expand our operations in the Burbank, CA space. Everyone who benefits from the Archive owes a debt of gratitude to the charitable foundation established by Walter and Gracie Lantz.

OUR LATEST ARCHIVE HEROS

Many thanks to our latest Archive Heros, Thorsten Bruemmel, Tom Kenny and David Soto. We appreciate your support of the archive project!

Sincerely
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: What Is ASIFA-Hollywood

Don't Be Left Out! Join ASIFA-Hollywood!

Those of you who have been following the progress of the Animation Archive may not be familiar with the organization behind it... ASIFA-Hollywood. If you love animation and live in Los Angeles, you have no excuse to not be a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. The benefits far outweigh the cost of the annual dues. Even if you don't live in LA, there are plenty of reasons to join, or to seek out a chapter of ASIFA near you. (There are ASIFA chapters all over the world.)

Bookmark the ASIFA-Hollywood Homepage and read on to find out...

What Is ASIFA-Hollywood?

We are the Los Angeles chapter of the international organization, ASIFA: The International Animated Film Society. Founded by a group of animators in 1957, and chartered by UNESCO in 1960, ASIFA encourages the art of animation and futhers international understanding and goodwill through the medium. Today, there are about thirty chapters of ASIFA all over the globe. ASIFA is a French acronym... "Association Internationale du Film D'Animation".

ASIFA- Hollywood was established over thirty years ago as a 501(c)(3) California non-profit organization. It is the largest chapter of ASIFA in the world. We are self-sustaining through our membership dues and the proceeds from our various projects and events.

Can I Please Be A Member?

Certainly! ASIFA-Hollywood membership is open to animation professionals, students and fans of animation. Anyone who loves animation can be a member of ASIFA!

There are three types of membership categories... General Member, Patron and Student Member. To find out about these and read about our goals and ongoing projects, read on...

What's The Concept Behind ASIFA-Hollywood?

ASIFA-Hollywood is the place where professional animators and fans, employees from competing studios and artists of different disciplines can join together on neutral ground where the common denominator is a passion for animation.

ASIFA-Hollywood's Goals

• To support and encourage animation education
• To support the preservation and critical evaluation of animation history
• To recognize the achievement of excellence in the art and industry of animation
• To increase public awareness of animation
• To act as a liason to encourage the free exchange of ideas within the animation community
• To encourage journalism documenting current trends and activities in animation
• To encourage the social interaction of professional and non-professional animation enthusiasts
• To encourage the development and expression of all forms of animation

So What Does ASIFA Do?

If you love animation, you'll find lots to do as a member of ASIFA-Hollywood. Here are just a few of our ongoing projects and programs...

MEMBER EVENTS AND SCREENINGS

Throughout the year, we host a packed calendar of events, including screenings of rare cartoons, members-only sneak peeks at current animated features and shows, lectures and workshops by noted animation professionals and social networking meetings. For up to date info on our activities, bookmark our Calendar of Events for more info.

THE ANNIE AWARDS

First held in 1972, the Annie Awards have grown to become animation's highest honor. The Annies are dedicated to honoring the best animated films of the year, as well as recognizing individual achievement. All members of ASIFA-Hollywood may vote for the winners. See AnnieAwards.org for more info.

THE ANIMATION ARCHIVE

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has been collecting material related to the art of animation for over thirty years. Recently, the Board of Directors resolved to create a world-class archive, library and museum dedicated to the artform. Work is underway to build a digital archive- a database containing hundreds of thousands of image files, biographical sketches, filmographic data and animated films- all searchable by keyword. You can read about the day by day progress of this project on the Archive Blog located at AnimationArchive.org.

AND THAT'S NOT ALL FOLKS...

ASIFA-Hollywood is at the forefront of the LA animation scene. We preserve films in danger of being lost to nitrate deterioration through our Animated Film Preservation Project. We maintain a charitable fund, The Animation Aid Foundation, and we foster education through the Stephen Bosustow and Art Babbitt Educational Endowment Funds.

Okie Doke... Sign Me Up!

ASIFA membership is available in three levels...

Patron Membership includes International Membership and provides a donation for the Animation Archive and Film Preservation projects.

General Membership ($75/year within the US/$100 outside the US) includes International Membership

Student Membership ($30/year) does not include International Membership. Student ID required.

Volunteer opportunities are available in the following areas: Annie Awards, Comic Con, Publicity, Animation Archive, Events & Screenings and the Animation Rescue Team. Please let us know if you are interested in volunteering by sending an email to... volunteer@asifa-hollywood.org

Print Out The Membership Form

• PDF Membership Form

Mail It With Payment To...

ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506

Inquiries about membership status should be directed to... membership@asifa-hollywood.org

ABOUT ASIFA INTERNATIONAL
Find out about what ASIFA does all over the world.

ASIFA INTERNATIONAL CONTACT DIRECTORY
Find a chapter of ASIFA near you.

JOIN ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD
Join us.

Drawings on this page by Grim Natwick and Tissa David.

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Meta: Fundraiser Update

I would like to thank the people who helped spread the word about the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive last week... Craig D, Zep, Lee, NateBear, Jorge Garrido, Paul Etcheverry, P-E Fronning, Amir Avni, Loon, James Suhr, Dungeon Warden, Childewolf, In-Sect, Calmspirit and Max Ward. (excuse me if I missed anybody!)

As you know, every six months we take a week to promote the Archive project and encourage those who have benefitted from it to contribute. ASIFA-Hollywood is a non-profit arts organization, and the Archive project depends on donations to fund its operations. Unfortunately, last week's fundraiser didn't generate a single donation.

I'm working on other ways to generate funding, but it is going to take some of my time away from digitizing and drafting new posts. Instead of three posts a week as I have been doing, I am going to go to two posts a week. I am working on a series of charity auctions that will include occasional ebay lots as well as a live auction event this Summer. We have plans for fundraising events tied in with upcoming screenings and celebrity appearances in the Los Angeles area. And I am looking into ways to publish art prints and books based on the material in our collection. We continue to look for corporate sponsors and advertisers to cover the expenses of the website content creation and hosting.

If anyone out there has fundraising ideas, or if you are willing to help us generate funds to operate and expand the archive, please let me know at sworth@animationarchive.org.

Thanks for your support.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: It's Time To Support The 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.

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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)

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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)

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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

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7.) Classic Cartoons To Study



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

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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

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5.) Historical Info & Interviews



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

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4.) The Cartoon Hall Of Fame



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

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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'

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2.) Vintage Newspaper Cartoons And Comics



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)

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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

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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

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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

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Contribute: Ralphs Card Program

DO YOU HAVE A RALPHS CARD?

If you shop at Ralphs, you can contribute to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive automatically as you shop for your groceries... and it doesn't cost you a cent! Ralphs will contribute a portion of your purchases to the Archive every time you use your Ralphs Card. Sign up to help us out online today!

It's easy, just follow these simple steps...

• Go to www.ralphs.com/ccprogram.htm
• Click on the button that says "PARTICIPANT: SIGN UP"
• Read the popup window and click on "I AGREE"
• Enter this NPO NUMBER: 83902
• Fill in the number on the back of your Ralphs Card, your name and address
• Click on the SUBMIT button

That's all there is to it! Now, every time you shop, you'll be helping out the Archive. Thanks very much for your support.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

P.S. If you don't have a Ralphs Club card yet, you can sign up for one online.

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Meta: New Name- Cartoon Hall Of Fame

We've changed the name of the website devoted to our biographical encyclopedia. It's no longer the Biopedia... Now it's the Cartoon Hall Of Fame cartoonhalloffame.org!

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY
We are looking for people who can help us research and enter information on the artists in the online Cartoon Hall Of Fame. This is a good way to volunteer if you aren't in the Los Angeles area, and you'll find out about a lot of amazing artists at the same time. If you're interested in helping out, drop me a line at... sworth@animationarchive.org

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Volunteer: Thanks Gemma! / Sign Up To Help Build Out The Database

Three Cheers For Gemma!


ASIFA-Hollywood President, Antran Manoogian gets a demo of the Animation Archive Database from Intern, Gemma Ross
If you have visited the Archive over the past couple of months, you've gotten to know our intern, Gemma Ross. She's an animation student from Dartmouth, who decided to take a break from school to come out to Los Angeles to help us design and build our Archive Database. Today is Gemma's last day with us. The database structure is all built out and she has done a fantastic job of taking my structural concepts and making them a functioning reality. We all appreciate how much help Gemma has been over the past couple of months and we will miss her. Thanks Gemma!

WE Need YOUR Help!

Now it's up to our crew of dedicated volunteers to enter the thousands of images and media files into the database and specify all the cross links. If you want to help out, you'll get a front row seat to the action before anyone else has a crack at it as a beta tester/data entry volunteer. If you have a little bit of knowledge of animation, and have some time during the week (Tuesday through Friday anytime between 1pm and 9pm), drop me an email at...

sworth@animationarchive.org

...and let me know your availability.

You Don't Have To Live In The Area To Help

We need internet volunteers to help build out the biographical sketches in our Biopedia. If you have some time to do some simple html formatting of entries, or if you would like to do the research to write a biography of one of the names on our list, let me know.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Chris Allison Writes

Chris Allison writes in his blog, Katzenjammer Studios: Think Tanked about his first visit to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive...

Talk about the sweetest place ever. There are tons of old drawings all over the walls (which all these studies I'm posting are from), cases of Spumco storyboards including cartoons that were never made, and fully grown (yup, you heard me) FULLY GROWN ADULTS were sitting around watching old Oswald the Rabbit cartoons, laughing out loud...

Read the rest of Chris' post...

If you live in Los Angeles and you haven't stopped by the Archive yet, you are missing out! The Archive's hours are Tuesdays through Fridays from 1pm to 9pm.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Join Our Mailing List And Never Miss Out

Just a quick reminder for everyone to join our email newsletter list. Every two weeks, we send out a newsletter with a capsule feature on each one of our main blog posts, so you never miss a single one.

Here's a sample newsletter that went out recently...

Click To Sign Up Now!

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: John Kricfalusi Writes...

Our cartoon heritage is quickly disappearing from history. You don't see many classic cartoons on television anymore- certainly not black and white cartoons. The Golden Age of Cartoons, classified by historians to be generally from 1928 to 1960 is dominated in most people's minds by Walt Disney's features and the Warner Bros. cartoons, which are often seen in "restored" edited, cut and recolored versions that don't look like the films as they were created by the original artists.

There's a lot more to the story... There were many lesser-known studios that contributed to the development of cartoons as well: the Fleischers, Terrytoons, Famous Studios, and Columbia. Wonderful cartoons made by these studios and many others are almost completely impossible to see anymore. You can find a few bad prints of public domain cartoons on cheapie DVDs, but the vast library of classics has practically vanished from history and worse, from the attention of new audiences that could enjoy them and young cartoonists that could benefit from them.

Animators today have a very hard time finding the best cartoons ever made to help them learn and be proud of their craft.



The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is coming to our rescue. Stephen Worth, with the help of private collectors, is amassing a huge collection of classic cartoons and logging them by studio and chronology to make these lost films available to the public, while the owners of the cartoons are just letting them collect dust in vaults.

At the Archive, not only can you view the cartoons, you can also see a great collection of cartoon related art- art that inspired many of the animators of the past. Children's book illustrations, comic books, comic strips... it's all there. ASIFA-Hollywood is also collecting interviews and articles about cartoonists, animators and illustrators to tell the history of animation through the stories of the artists who created it.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is something I wish I had when I was a kid. It's an invaluable storehouse of lost techniques from an artform that developed to its highest peak during the 30s to the 50s.

If you can't physically visit the Archive facility in Burbank, the Archive has a great blog that features samples of all the stuff and informative articles about the artists. The address of it is www.animationarchive.org.

To a cartoonist or cartoon fan, the archive is our Louvre! Thanks to Steve and all the collectors who have contributed and to all the good folks at ASIFA-Hollywood for making it happen!

John Kricfalusi

To contribute, please see the... Contribution Categories Page

Donate online using our PayPal button...

To join ASIFA-Hollywood, please see the Membership Page

Contributions can be sent to...

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

When contributing to this project, please write ARCHIVE DONATION on the subject line of your check.

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Blogcast: A Quick Tour Of The Archive

Today, I pulled out my trusty MacBook and decided to shoot a quick video to show you what the archive offices look like. You'll have to forgive the shaky camera, my unshaven mug and our off the cuff remarks... We did this very quickly.

A lot of people are under the impression that the "archive" is this website. That isn't the case. We have a storefront in Burbank, CA that we work out of and it is open to the public. Click on my head to take a look at this (sloppy!) video to see what we're up to...



Archive Tour Blogcast
(Quicktime 7 / 12 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

If you'd like to see more Blogcasts from the Archive, let me know in the comments below.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: An Important Note From June Foray

Dear Friend of the Art of Animation,

When Bill Scott and I served as officers of ASIFA-Hollywood, we had big dreams for the organization. My goal was to recognize the people who create animated films by hosting an annual award ceremony. Today, my idea has grown into the Annie Awards, animation's highest honor. I'm very proud that the seed I planted has grown and flourished the way it has.

Bill's vision for ASIFA-Hollywood involved the establishment of an Animateque... a world class research facility devoted to animation, complete with an archive, library and museum. For many years, ASIFA-Hollywood has wanted to begin work on Bill's idea, but the right people and resources were not yet in place. Happily, today ASIFA-Hollywood has grown to the point where Bill's dream can finally become a reality.

The Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood has taken the first step by creating a Virtual Archive full of resources that will benefit artists, students and researchers, as well as providing important information about the art of animation to the general public. ASIFA-Hollywood has leased storefront space in Burbank, in the heart of the media district, and has opened the archive to the public. We need YOUR help to expand and sustain the project.

The membership rolls of ASIFA-Hollywood have grown tremendously since I served as President. Many studios are providing memberships to their production staff as part of their benefits package. There's strength in those numbers....

If every member of ASIFA-Hollywood donated an amount equal to their yearly dues, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive would be fully funded for the entire year. This isn't a great deal to ask for such an important project. If you are not yet a member of ASIFA-Hollywood, please sign up with double dues and you will be a part of our groundbreaking efforts to build this valuable resource for the animation community.

If you are able to, I hope you will consider becoming a Project Hero or Angel. Your generosity and support will go a long way to develop and expand this project.

Bill Scott would be proud of the great work being done by ASIFA-Hollywood. I know I am.


To contribute, please see the... Contribution Categories Page

Donate online using our PayPal button...

To join ASIFA-Hollywood, please see the Membership Page

Contributions can be sent to...

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

When contributing to this project, please write ARCHIVE DONATION on the subject line of your check.

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Meta: The 34th Annual Annie Awards

This Sunday at the historic Alex Theater in Glendale, CA, The International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood will be hosting the 34th Annual Annie Awards.

The Annies recognizes excellence in animation from the past year, along with career achivement honors. This year's Winsor McCay Award winners are Andreas Deja, Bill Plympton and Genndy Tartakovsky. I'm proud to say that I was selected this year for the June Foray Award for benevolent service to the art of animation.

Click to see the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive's full page color ad in the Annie Awards program book,

For more information, see the Annie Awards Homepage. I'll have a report on the event for you on Tuesday.

Thank you
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Celebrate!

Tonight, the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood voted to fund the full time operation of the Animation Archive in 2007. Beginning in March, the archive will be open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 1pm to 9pm. It will continue to be open to volunteers on Saturdays for the same hours.

Thanks to all of you who sent letters of support and donations. We are doing great things here, and all of you can be proud of what we are accomplishing together.

UPDATE: I just wanted to let everyone know that our traffic figures have been rising. Thanks for linking to us and spreading the word. We are now at the level (100-120,000 page views per month) where we can look for a banner ad agency. If you know of any good ones, please drop me an email at sworth@animationarchive.org.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Thanks For Your Help

We have a new Project Angel... Andreas Deja. Andreas will be recieving the Winsor McCay Award at the Annie Awards this Sunday. Congratulations, Andreas! It's well deserved.

Many thanks to everyone who responded to our Call For Help. The meeting of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood is this Wednesday night. I've gathered together all of the donations and letters you sent, and I will be presenting them to the Board then. I'll let you know the outcome on Thursday.

If you would like to send a letter or donation to encourage the Board to fund the archive for full time operation this year, 5 days a week, please email your letters to... sworth@animationarchive.org 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

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: The Archive is Cool and Abstract!

Jerry Beck sent me an emal this morning with a link to the webpage of a musician/photographer friend of his, Kim Shattuck. If you are one of our "regulars" who hang out at the archive on Tuesdays and Thursdays, check out her gallery page and take a look at the photo titled "Orange and White"... Look familiar?

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Meta: Thanks!

People are starting to respond to our Call For Help. I'd like to thank two new Project Angels, Rita Street and Jorge Garrido. I'd also like to thank a new Project Hero, Keith Lango. All of us at ASIFA-Hollywood appreciate your support.

I hope everyone who values the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive will come to our aid and do what they can to open the doors of the archive full time.

Please LINK TO US!

Thanks!
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: A Call For Help

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has been in operation for a little over a year. We have accomplished great things in that short time. Everything you see on this blog is the result of a part-time effort by me and a handful of dedicated volunteers. But what you see on the blog is just the tip of the iceberg... our database at the archive facility in Burbank contains much, much more. And there's a lot more to be done.

The past year has been very productive, but it's time to move the project up to the next level.

In the coming year, I would like to be able to have the Archive in operation five days a week. In order to do that, I will need your help. If you can, please contribute to the cause. Donations large and small will bring us closer to the goal of having the doors open full time.

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

Donations by check can be mailed to the address below. (Please make payable to "ASIFA-Hollywood" and write "Archive Donation" on the note line.)

If you can't afford to contribute, write a letter to the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood to let them know how important this project is to you, and encourage them to make it possible for the Archive to be open five days a week. You can send your letter to...

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
Attn: Board of Directors
2114 W Burbank Bl
Burbank, CA 91506

Please link to the Archive blog from your own webpage or blog. The more people who know about our efforts, the more support we will get. If we all pull together, we can reach the next stage of the project.

Thank you,
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Frederator Blog

Floyd Bishop wrote a nice piece on the Archive Project for the Frederator Blog. Thanks, Floyd!

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Meta: Annie Award Ad

Antran Manoogian, the President of ASIFA-Hollywood, asked me to write an article for the Annie Award program book reporting on all the great things the Archive Project has achieved in the past year. I asked him if I could tell the story in pictures, rather than words. Here is the image that will be running full page in the book...


Can you name the artist behind each one of these images?
I recieved this note from a reader today...

I wish your organization much of luck, for not only the future of your foundation, but to continue to strive, survive, and share freely your archives to the public. Since the majority of people believe where, by all accounts, it's the norm to be as bland and repulsive as possible in the input of their artwork. I had found not only your archives a great source for study, but to also take a peek of what it would have been like to work with some of the greats not only in animation, but in children's illustration as well. Plus, your free "$100,000" animation drawing course had increasingly increased not only my skill, but also my knowledge of how to draw "natural". Keep it up! >From a wannabe animator

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Meta: 2006 Thanks

As we enter a new year, it's time to look back and thank the people who made everything that the archive accomplished in 2006 possible...

ANIMATION ARCHIVE SPONSORS







ANIMATION ARCHIVE ALLIANCES







ANIMATION ARCHIVE ANGELS

John Kricfalusi, Nancy Cartwright, Fred Seibert, Fred Ladd, June Foray, Mike Van Eaton

ANIMATION ARCHIVE HEROS

Margaret Kerry-Willcox, Joseph Campana, Myrtis Butler, Tom Sito, Stephen Worth, Leonard Maltin, B. Paul Husband, Flying Saucer Animation Studios, ToonHub.com, Gerard Miller, Ragnar LittleCartoons.com, 80sCartoons.net, David Soto, Mervyn Meyer, Willard Wolfshohl, Fred Grandinetti, Vincent Waller. Clarke Pencer, Rita Street, Steven Gordon, Jeramy Bray, Angus Glashier, Brian Behlendorf, Fred Hatfield, Fred Wolf, Paul Dini, Tom Kenny, Christian Ziebarth, Ron Clements, Candi Milo

ANIMATION ARCHIVE VOLUNTEERS

Jon Reeves, Jason Jones, Marc Deckter, Paul Abramson, Victoria Schwerin, David Gustafson, Chuck Pennington, Milton Knight, Louis Zee, Theron Trowbridge, Anita Pacheco, Julian Narino, Michael Eusey, Lois Keller, Marc Crisafulli, Chad Coyle, Richard Crowther, Jeremy Crowther, Jim Mortonsen, Claudio Riba, David Gemmill, Ryan Khatam, Dan Gizzi, Eric Graf, Annette Zilinskas, Art Fuentes, Michael Fallik, Matt Taylor, Max Ward, Corbett Vanoni, Clarke Snyder

We all owe these people and organizations a round of applause for helping make the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive a reality in its first year of operation.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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Meta: Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from the officers and volunteers of the International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood.

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Meta: Annie Awards

The list of honorees for this year's Annie Awards has been announced, and I have been awarded the June Foray Award for Benevolent Service to the Art of Animation. It's a tremendous honor. ASIFA holds a very special place in my heart, and June is an inspiration to me in my work. I appreciate the support of the ASIFA-Hollywood membership and all of the readers of this blog. Thank you.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Scroll down for links to the treasures of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive...

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Meta: How To Contribute

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

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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...

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