http://www.michaelbarrier.com/ Exploring the World of Animated Films and Comic Art No Category en Copyright 2007 mbarrier@michaelbarrier.com (Michael Barrier) Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:42:06 GMT Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:42:06 GMT I'll be in the Washington, D.C., area for the next few weeks, visiting my old haunts in Alexandria and doing some comics-, Disney, and animation-related research at the Library of Congress. There'll be no new posts here until sometime in July. Before I go, though, let me alert you to the just-announced availability through amazon.com of the sixth volume of Walt's People: Talking Disney With the Artists Who Knew Him, the latest of Didier Ghez's indispensable interview collections. If you have any sort of serious interest in Walt Disney and the history of his studio, you need to own all of these handsome trade paperbacks; I'm proud to have my own interviews represented in each volume. Didier's Disney History blog is one of my daily stops, too. He links to lots of fascinating material that I wouldn't see otherwise, and he sometimes reproduces important items like today's Disney 1940 meeting notes on possible sequels to Fantasia. http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#hiatusandanalert Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:41:30 GMT manual:1213191726742:0:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml I'm in the very early stages of work on Funnybooks, a book on comic books that will pay much less attention to superheroes than the usual comic-book history and much more to the likes of Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, and John Stanley—that is, to the mainstays of the Dell line, as well as to such significant creators as Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman. (For very preliminary versions of what I expect to be in the book, see essays I've posted on Eisner and Barks.) I've accumulated a lot of information on some of the Dell artists, and on Western Printing and Lithographing Company, which actually produced most of the comics that Dell published, but I'm sure there's a lot more out there that I should know. I'd like to know more about Oskar Lebeck, for instance—he edited Dell titles in New York in the '40s—and I'd love to track down a copy of the photo of Lebeck and some of his artists that appeared in the program book for the 1976 Newcon convention at Boston (a convention I missed, to my lasting regret). Some of the better Dell-related Web sites seem to have disappeared. I've bookmarked others, like those of such Dell-savvy people as Mark Evanier and Maggie Thompson, but I'm wide open to suggestions as to where else I might look . There is so much on the Web now that even a Google search using multiple filters can't find it all. One thing I haven't found is a trace of any archival collection of Western Printing's paper records, at least none that's generally available to researchers; is there any such? Random House acquired what was left of the company in 2004 and then apparently sold off bound comic books from Western's files the next year; did it dispose of Western's paper records, too? http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#helpwanted Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:31:25 GMT manual:1213043522375:2682131514547641:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml If you had been scanning the Kansas City Star's classifieds in April and May of 1922, looking for some office space to rent, you would have seen this ad: ... http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#raisingtheroof Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:50:21 GMT manual:1212789108578:0:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml I've added a couple of very interesting messages, from Ricardo Cantoral and "Rubi-kun," to my Feedback page on Japanese animated features. Click on this link to go directly to them. Some intriguing ideas here, especially Rubi-kun's invocation of Stanley Kubrick as a prime influence on Japanese animation. Makes sense to me; does anyone know if that connection has been made anywhere before? http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#morefeedback Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:48:28 GMT manual:1212789108578:4148674426570159:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml I rely so heavily on RSS feeds that I sometimes forget how valuables links can be. In case you've missed them, here are some outstanding recent posts: * David Lesjak on Walt Disney's long association with the Boy Scouts. * Hans Perk on "Walt's Field Day." * "Wade Sampson" on what happened to Uncle Robert Disney's garage. * Michael Sporn on Ward Kimball's gag cartoons and his own work on the Broadway musical Woman of the Year (a fascinating show I'm very glad I got to see).. * Jaime Weinman on Friz Freleng's Racketeer Rabbit. * Jenny Lerew on the menus at the Disney Commissary. * Eddie Fitzgerald on Charlie Chaplin's The Rink. * Mark Sonntag on Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell. http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#linkin Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:47:55 GMT manual:1212789108578:5258927526993894:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml Bob Cowan, proprietor of the excellent Cowan Collection sites devoted to animation and the comics, has pointed out the connection between Pat Sullivan's cartoon character Felix the Cat and Winslow Felix, the auto dealer and polo player whose accidental death I mentioned yesterday in an item about Walt Disney and polo . Winslow Felix's Chevrolet dealership is still in business, after more than 85 years, and Felix the Cat is still the dealership's mascot, as he has been since 1923. The Felix sign above, at 3330 S. Figueroa Street, south of downtown Los Angeles (and across the street from the University of Southern California), dates only from 1959, so it is a mere stripling by comparison, but the city declared the sign and the showroom beneath it a Historic Cultural Monument in 2007. Loss of the sign during redevelopment is now less likely. To read the full story of the two Felixes, visit this page at the Web site of the L.A. preservation group called the West Adams Heritage Association. And here's another look at the Felix sign, this time an aerial view at night: http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#felixandfelix Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:33:41 GMT manual:1212608054812:3537147141752378:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml lthough this item is mainly about Walt Disney's involvement with polo, the photo above is of the Harman-Ising polo team, circa 1933. Polo was all the rage in Hollywood in the early to mid-'30s, at cartoon studios as well as with the flossy live-action set. From left, the H-I horsemen are Mel Schwartzman (who later changed his name to Mel Shaw), Rollin "Ham" Hamilton, Paul Smith, Tom McKimson, and Bob McKimson. A few days ago, Thad Komorowski posted on his blog a card from the 1985 Disney edition of Trivial Pursuit, which included this unusual question: "How many people died from injuries incurred playing polo with Walt Disney?" Trivial Pursuit's answer: two. Thad asked me to provide some more details, and I did, at this link. The two deaths were those of Gordon Westcott, an actor, in October 1935, and Winslow Felix, an auto dealer, in May 1936. Both men were fatally injured during matches at the Riviera Country Club. ... http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#thekillingfields Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:57:55 GMT manual:1212515922728:1188018:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml Above, a publicity still from Pixar's forthcoming feature Up, lifted from Cartoon Brew. I wrote five years ago about what I thought was the unfortunate tendency of John Lasseter, Pete Docter, and their colleagues to turn to the great Japanese filmmaker for inspiration. They've obviously chosen to disregard my warnings. In the immortal word of Duck Twacy: Unbelieva-bul! http://www.michaelbarrier.com/index.html#surelookslike Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:56:55 GMT manual:1212515922728:166:http://www.michaelbarrier.com/RSS/rss.xml