Monday, July 25, 2011

DRAWING THE LINE (2006, Tom Sito)


Sito, Tom. Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson, Lexington, The University Press of Kentucky, 2006.

PDF / 7MB / Eng / 440 pages / 0813124077 / 978-0813124070

This one is a history of american animation unions. Tom Sito is said to be an important animator of the Disney "renaissance", and was once elected president of the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonist Union.

Something that we easily forget is that Animation is a colective art form, made by many, many individuals. And very often they are exploted by the bosses (I sound like a Red :P...)
I think that knowing about animation labor history helps you understand that. Like Tom says:
"Hollywood is a union town [...] Love them or hate them, for the last century the unions are the one undeniable fact of life in Hollywood animation. No one can hope to really understand the history of the American animated cartoon without knowing the union's story."

But, more than a boring list of union achievements this book is an intriguing history of american cartoon, right from it origins, to the latest CGI films.

If all this doesn't convince you, I would said that you should read this book just for the juicy anecdotes. e.g.: Dumbo was made during one of the fiercest animation strikes of american history, the 1941 Disney strike.
While more than half of the Disney workers were outside the studio raising strike signs, crossing the line, some of their colleagues depict them as clowns for posterity (in the scene where after their success the clowns plan to go see the boss and demand from him a raise; And you can imagine what was Walt answer when you realise that the other production made in 1941 was...
The reluctant Dragon.)


List of Chapters:

1. The World of animation studio: the cartoon assembly line / 2. Suits: producers as artist see them /3. Hollywood labor 1933-1941: The Birth of cartoonists unions / 4. The Fleischer strike: a union busted a studio destroyed 5. The great Disney studio strike 1941: The civil war of animation / 6. The war of Hollywood and the Blacklist 1945-1953 / 7. A bag of oranges: the Terrytoons strikes and the great withe father / 8. Lost Generations 1952-1988 / 9. Animation and the global market: the runaway wars 1979-1982 / 10. Camelot 1988-2001 /11. Animation... Isn't That All done on Computers Now: Where to now?

- Thousands of anecdotes and stories of the greatest artist of the age: Virgil Ross, Bill Tytla, Ub Iwerks, Tex Avery, Call Howard, Brenda Chapman-Lima, Bob Clampett, Grim Natwick, Don Bluth, Iwao Takamoto, Chuck Jones, Walter Lantz, Jay Ward, Winsor McCay, Fred Moore, Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Pete Burness, John Lasseter, Frank Gonzalez, Gene Deitch, Ward Kimball, Bobe Cannon, and more...
- The working conditions during golden age of animation.
- The daily life of the Big Shots, a tale of Tiranny... (Well, you know what they say, only a whip could put up this tribe of grown up childrens to work): Walt Disney, Max Fleischer, Ted Turner, Leon Schlesinger, Amadee Van Beuren, Charles Mintz, Eddie Selzer, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Margaret Winkler Mintz, Paul Terry, Fred Quimby, Pat Sullivan, Ralph Bakshi, James L. Brooks, Lou Scheimer... and many more.
- The Dirty side of animation business.
- Top cartoonist that were also Union supporters like: Bill Tytla, Chuck Jones, Steve Bosustow, Maurice Noble,Bill Melendez, Arthur Babbitt (hail to you troublemakers).

The original cover sucked so much, that I decide to make one by myself... My very first book cover,Is not that bad, is it? ... Hell, I think this one could sell the book infinitely better.

(by pelida77)

Would you like to read, this one? You could follow this link...

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