Outside of anime, there were the usual mix of papers exploring the familiar and unveiling the little known. Thus, Mark Langer revealed his researches into the silhouette films of Canada's Bryant Fryer, while John A. Lent provided a historical overview of Korean animation (which, not surprisingly, has been heavily influenced by anime). At the same time, Hank Sartin talked about "Bugs Bunny and the Problem of Stardom" and Christopher Sieving presented "A Social Analysis of MGM's Tom and Jerry Cartoons."

Lelsie Bishko shared her experiences in using Laban's dance notation system in helping explain to computer animation students what the hell squash and stretch is all about--something which is perhaps not as obvious as it may seem. Sybil DelGaudio explored the almost forgotten training films which gave UPA and John Hubley their start, while Mikhail Gurevich looked at the nature of "Literary Animation" in a series of Russian films based on the drawings and writings of Aleksander Pushkin.

This year's screenings did not offer the rarities provided in years past by the likes of the UCLA Film & TV Archive and the George Eastman House, but some (like the Popeye retrospective) proved useful. The James Whitney Retrospective, though, proved much more than that, especially given William Moritz' thoughtful accompanying lecture.

But above all, the conference once again proved a great place to meet friends, find out what's going on and even do business. (Editors from five academic journals were present, including myself.) In other words, SAS is doing exactly what I was hoping it would do when it began nine years ago.

Next year's conference will be hosted by the Nederlands Institute for Animation Film under the direction of Ton Crone, and will most likely be held in Amsterdam; in 1997, the venue will switch to California's Orange County, up-the-road a bit from Disneyland at Chapman University, under the guidance of Maureen Furniss (editor of Animation Journal).

For more information on SAS check out its home page at: http://www.awn.com/sas/index.html.

Harvey Deneroff, in addition to his duties as Editor of Animation World Magazine, edits and publishes The Animation Report, an industry newsletter, which can be reached at deneroff@pacbell.net. He is also Editor-In-Chief of Animation Review, AWN's new peer reviewed academic journal and serves on the Society for Animation Studies Steering Committee.