In 1987, John Halas wrote a book called Masters of Animation, which surveyed the top animation artists of the time, with a particular emphasis on international and historical talents like Osamu Tezuka, Karel Zeman and Jiri Trinka for example.

Watson-Guptill Publications has just released a new book with a similar concept and the exact same title (but it's completely unrelated). Masters of Animation by John Grant (author of The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney's Animated Characters) is just out at the bookstores, and it gives in-depth profiles of 37 top animation filmmakers, past and present.

And although Tezuka, Zeman and Trinka are missing here, and Grant acknowledges his oversight of other contemporaries like John Lasseter, Brad Bird and Katsuhiro Otomo, this book offers us a nice selection of animation notables with a slant toward U.S. and British leading lights.

Each chapter gives a biography of the selected animator, an illustration or two, and highlights a few of the filmmaker's best works in a sidebar spotlight. U.S. cartoonists featured include Tex Avery, Don Bluth, Bob Clampett, Harman & Ising, The Fleischer Brothers, Chuck Jones, Walt Disney, Paul Terry, Will Vinton and Bill Plympton, to name a few. Nick Park, Terry Gilliam, Richard Williams, Hayao Miyazaki and Bruno Bozzetto are some of the international names that each get a section.

His biographies are generally pretty good, but are laced with opinions, which I find unnecessary in a book called Masters of Animation. For example, Grant takes swipes at Chuck Jones' input in the creation of Pepe LePew and Wile E. Coyote. Is that kind of speculation required in a book celebrating "masters?" Grant gives fellow Warner Bros. cartoonist Robert McKimson a chapter, and defends him from other authors who have (justifiably) criticized his lesser work as a director. He then spends a paragraph pointing out mistakes about Speedy Gonzales' origin in Jeff Lenberg's Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. After questioning Jones' creation of Pepe LePew, Grant now gives full credit for Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy and the Tasmanian Devil to McKimson without further qualification.