I had asked back in November if Enchanted Drawings was worth a buy, for that book I'm writing. Has anybody read it, and can they help me? Did Charles interview the participants? Was it just from watching the crap? Help!
The writing of the book has started. Here's an excerpt:
Now that there was sound, and Disney was a literal overnight success, the other people-once at war with each other-now declared war on one man in Burbank. They did this by adapting to sound.
Two years after Steamboat Willie, the most successful cartoon studio of the Twenties, Pat’s Sullivan’s, decided to join the act. Their character, Felix the Cat, had paced and danced his way across screens with only a local theater organ to join him. But if he could survive sound was a legitimate question. Sure, Felix was a bona fide star, but he had reached his eleventh birthday that year, and it may become true that he was overstaying his welcome in a new world.
Felix’s creator and director himself, Otto Messmer, was not himself interested in the Disney films. “To me a mouse is a repulsive thing,” he said. But he had no choice but to see if Felix was going to turn out to be a fad, or Mickey instead.
Do you like it? Instead of starting with the Silent Era, I begin with Steamboat Willie, and introduce the other characters (Fleischers, Terry, Lantz, etc...) by telling their Silent histories. I think that's a lot better than dwelling on J.R. Bray and so on, when they will have no bearing on a narrative already overloaded with characters and stories.
Here's a drawing of Bink and Mandy. I'm currently trying my hardest to figure out what to do with them! I'd like to do them as a book, but I think their format (three-panel one-gag) would fit a magazine better. I'm thinking of a "fan periodical". But what?!
I have a new essay: "Childhood Cartoon Memories".
