BOOKS, MAGAZINES AND UNDERGROUND COMICS

ANIMATION NEWS, DECEMBER, 1996 AND JANUARY/FEBRUARY, 1997 The December issue is one you will either love or hate. Most of the magazine is self-serving statements by people in the industry discussing where they or their company is going. What makes this type of feature fun for me is knowing either the people who are featured in it or the work of their company. The contributors work in feature & TV production, distribution, on ads, CGI, digital effects, multimedia, post, ink and paint, etc.
The second big section is a list of "The Most Influential in Animation," and since they left out Nick Park, Bill Plympton, John Dilworth, Jan Svankmajer, John Krickfalusi, Brothers Quay and a lot of other great artists I think they need a different title for the list. They present a good cross-section of people who advertise in the magazine and/or who run animation studios. The Bay Area is represented by Ed Catmull and John Lasseter of Pixar (Pixar runs full page ads on the back cover), Carl Rosendahl of PDI and Jim Morris of Lucas Digital Arts. There is also a column on 10 hot companies to watch. They are not the exciting upcoming companies like Wild Brain, J.J. Sedelmaier or even MTV Animation which just produced a major financial hit. Instead the writer played it safe and stuck with DIC, Dreamworks SKG, Marvel, etc.
The January/Feb. issue also has several lists. One is 10 people to watch in 1997 including Paul Vester who closed his company in England and has joined Rhythm and Hues in LA. The list of "most creatives in animation" includes a lot of the usual suspects that have been featured in the magazine before (Peter Chung, Garbor Csupo, Mike Judge, etc.) plus some not so familiar faces to their pages including Henry Selick. A third section is "International Viewpoints," with comments by executives from Canada and Europe.
A feature I enjoyed in the issue was a well organized list of TV shows available at NATPE for syndication. They broke the list down into categories: Action-Adventure, Adult, Comedy, Educational, Family, and Holiday Specials. There was also an informative article on Medialab in Paris, a motion capture company.
Subscriptions are $45 a year from 30101 Agoura Court, Suite 110, Agoura Hills, CA 91301-9987

MOUSE UNDER GLASS: SECRETS OF DISNEY ANIMATION AND THEME PARKS by David Koenig, Bonaventure Press, 1997, $23.95. When I saw the title I thought of tricks of the trade plus details about how Disneyland effects are achieved and hot stories about the secret city under Disneyland. This is a fine, well researched book, but it has nothing to do with my fantasies about what it might contain.
Mouse Under Glass is full of details about the making of each animated feature from Snow White to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Each section includes details about the original story, information about how it was adopted for the screen (changes made in the tale, etc.), notes about scenes from the film that were left on the cutting room floor, and facts about holes in the plots, hidden images, and bloopers that appear on the screen. An example of a blooper from Snow White is Dopey suddenly
having a lantern in his hand on the way home. It wasn't there when they left the mine. The author also reports on strange reactions to the films by the public and/or press.
The mention of theme parks in the book's title refers to sections in the discussion of each feature that tell how the film inspired attractions. Some of them were built, others were never completed. One of his stories concerns the planning of Dumbo's Circus. It was going to be next to Discover Bay which was going to be an attraction based on the feature Island at the Top of the World. It seems the feature was a bomb at the box office so "it killed Discovery Bay and Dumbo's Circus along with it." One of the models for the Circus attraction was later used for the mold to cast the finials that surround the rebuilt Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride at Disneyland.
The author has a nice light writing style and his book is quite entertaining. In the discussion of Bambi he writes, "Fortunately, the Imagineers were wise enough never to give any of the rides a Bambi theme, since the most logical attraction would be the shooting gallery."
The book has several boxed sidebars that make it a bit more fun to read. There is a page of names Disney considered using for the dwarfs in Snow White. There is a trivia quiz. There is a list of voices that were considered for the characters in Alice in Wonderland. There is even a quiz about songs that have nonsense lyrics (who said "Bye-Yum Pum Pum" or "Biddle-dee-dee"? The answers are on page 129).
If the book is not available at your local bookstore, order it direct from Bonaventure Press, PO Box 51961, Irvine, CA 92619-1961. Copies are $23.95 plus $2 postage for one book or $3 for two.
The press also published the authors first book MOUSE TALES: A BEHIND-THE-EARS LOOK AT DISNEYLAND which sells for $13.95 with a softcover or $25.95 for an autographed hardcover copy. It tells all you wanted to know about the secret world at the park along with tales of where park employees go to make love without being caught and other fun information. I found the book entertaining. It contains lots of information nobody else has published.

ANIMATO! #36, The magazine is the best thing around for animation fans (Animation News is for people who want trade news and In Toon! is for animation art collectors).
There is a nice profile of Jeff Bennett in the issue. He is the voice actor who said the phrase "I hate my life" in the show Bonkers. He also is in Captain Simian, Gargoyles, the singing voice of Richard Dreyfuss's character in James and the Giant Peach, etc. There is also an article on voice actors for the 1930's and '40's.
There is a good article on "asset protection" (the term studios use for the preservation of film) by Jere Guldin of the UCLA Film Archive.
TV fans will enjoy the story on two new Nickelodeon shows, Kablam and Hey Arnold! There is an article on Captain Simian, an one that covers the history of Felix from his great silent shorts to the present. Gargoyles fans will love the large section on the series that includes an episode guide, a preview of future episodes, an article about Michael Reaves who writes for the series, information about the voice actors and more.
The issue is mostly written by fans who are not always totally informed. In a review of Web pages there are 3 sites mentioned and one is said to be the "International Animated Film Society," but actually it is only the ASIFA-Hollywood site which apparently doesn't bother to mention other ASIFA web addresses or the fact that it is just one of several chapters in the US. The author probably isn't aware of Animation World Magazine on the Internet that carries ASIFA news or aware of sites run by ASIFA-Central and other chapters around the world (see back issues for web addresses).
I also wasn't impressed by the review of Space Jam. The headline said it was going to be a mixed review, but the author was afraid to get critical. His only serious complaint is that there was too much Jordan and not enough animation. Guess the lousy script, lack of character development, etc. didn't bother him.
On the other hand there is a very long obituary of animator Gordon Sheehan, lots of reviews of recent tape releases, fan mail, news items and other stories that I enjoyed reading.
The nice thing about each issue of the magazine is that if one article doesn't hold your interest there are lots of others to read. Some magazines today have so few articles that they are not worth getting. Animato! on the other had should keep you busy for an hour or two.
Subscriptions are $16 for the next 4 issues of this quarterly from 17 Spruce Street, Springfield, Mass. 01105

STRANGE UNDERGROUND COMICS BY JASON SHIGA Don't bother to read this item if you believe in wholesome family values. I assume Shiga is the product of the Generation X and Punk culture and I guarantee you will hate his rebellious work.

Shiga describes himself as "the internationally acclaimed and award winning animator whose works have appeared in such fine festivals as The Annual Cacophony Drive-In Movie Festival." This is a tongue-in-cheek put-on, but he did win some sort of award at the Cacophony event (possibly the only event that has ever shown his work aside from last year's ASIFA-SF open screening). His animation is shot on 8mm or Super 8 and transferred to video by recording it on video while it is projected on a wall. His roughly drawn animation with crude violent humor is a refreshing break from the slick animation we normally see. He makes Roadrunner violence look like safe and sane ways to have fun.
Now you can buy 5 homemade comics by this talented teen from Oakland. Phillip's Head is a sick and twisted 18 page adventure. Some kids will dig it while most parents will hate it. It stars a demented man with a phillips head screwdriver. If Shiga's comics were in color, there would be lots of red ink in this opus.
The Family Circus (18 pages) is about a "charming" child named Billy and his "friend" Ida who is a mass murderer. The Adventures of Doorknob Bob (22 pages) is
about a man with a phobia and a deadly virus. It Could Happen to You (26 pages) offers a variety of ways to read the book as pages have rectangular panels cut in them so you can see the next page. There are instructions that tell you not to read the book in a logical way. Interesting idea, but I got lost when I tried to get into it. Another unusual format that sort of works is Every Dog Has His Day. It is an
unbound series of cards with four holes or slots at the top of each pages. Put a stick through one hole and let the cards with the slots fall away and them read the story that the cards on the stick tell. Since there are 4 holes their are at least 4 ways the story could be read.
If you are curious about Shiga's work the prices (including postage) of Phillip's Head, Doorknob Bob and It Could Happen to You are $2 each. Every Dog and Family Circus are $1.50 each. Order $3 worth of stuff and get a free Mortimer Mouse comic book. Send check, money order or cash to Jason Shiga, 680 Santa Ray Ave., Oakland, CA 94610.

[back | home | info@awn.com | mail | next]