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Funnyworld No. 19

Smithsonian Book

Library of Congress catalog

Archives

Click on one of the links below to view a particular archive.


2017

January 2017: Thoughts on Race, Tyrus Wong interview, tying up loose ends in the New Year.


2016

December 2016: A Carl Barks concordance.

November 2016: Moana, a new Barrier book, Bob Clampett on Mars.

October 2016: On Carl Barks and Nobel prizes.

September 2016: Garry Apgar on Mickey Mouse's birthday, the unavailable Carl Barks, visitors to the Vast Barrier Archives, the toons of summer.

August 2016: "Duck Eyes," the end of the search for Walt Kelly's disappearing FBI files, Sir Thomas Beecham visits the Disney studio, two new Disney books, return from the San Diego Comic-Con.

July 2016: Return to the San Diego Comic-Con.

June 2016: Frame by frame with Michael Hodous, the "live action" Jungle Book, rediscovered Moe Gollub art.

May 2016: More on Walt Kelly's missing FBI file, a visit to the Will Rogers Memorial.

April 2016: Zootopia, celebrating Mickey's fiftieth at the Library of Congress.

March 2016: Talking with Jack Kinney in 1986.

February 2016: The search for Walt Kelly's FBI file, guest posts by Garry Apgar and Patrick Garabdian, Jack and Jane Kinney interviewed in 1976.

January 2016: Some notable animation books, and feedback from some of their authors.


2015

December 2015: Walt Kelly's fairy tales on records and in print, The Good Dinosaur reviewed.

November 2015: Back on the Barks beat after a trip to London.

October 2015: A 1973 interview with Jack Kinney, reading comic-book stories by Gaylord DuBois, the Bodrero family, thoughts on Carl Barks, a post-mortem on PBS's "Walt Disney."

September 2015: Notable new books on Disney by Canemaker, Kaufman, and Ghez, and on Jay Ward by Darrell Van Citters, a 1976 interview with Wilfred Jackson, "Walt Disney" on PBS, more Song of the South drafts.

August 2015: On the road with Jim Bodrero, John Culhane's missing book.

July 2015: A West Coast expedition and a Comic-Con report, Wilfred Jackson interviewed in 1973.

June 2015: Western Printing's pay rates, Tomorrowland, a note from Harvey Kurtzman, Dell comics at Disneyland.

May 2015: Amos 'n Andy as a source of Pogo's brilliance, Walt Disney in London, Little Lulu and other Dell comics.

April 2015: On the road with Walt Kelly and Carl Barks, a Funnybooks roundup.

March 2015: Gunther Lessing, Michael Sporn on the radio, Funnybooks in review, Gerry Geronimi interviewed.

February 2015: Walt Kelly takes the Disney gang to the circus, Michael Sporn remembered, Strange Magic, Ted Bonnicksen identified.

January 2015: More on Funnybooks, "Those Aggravatin' Animations," The Sweatbox.


2014

December 2014: Christmas with Moe Gollub.

November 2014: Funnybooks struggles into print, Frank Frazetta's animation art, Bob Hope and Bugs Bunny, what jazz's history has to say about animation's, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston interviewed in July 1987.

October 2014: Reviews of new Disney books, including A Mickey Mouse Reader, how animation became the confusion of life, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston interviewed in October 1976.

September 2014: Being puzzled by Deja and Keane, the difference between Disney and "Disney."

August 2014: More on the Dell pinups, vintage photos from my 1971 visit to Disneyland.

July 2014: The Dell Comics Club, a batch of book reviews, the passing of Sody Clampett, a better picture of Carl Barks, "internal" versus "instrumental" motives in the animation industry.

June 2014: The Fairest One of All reviewed, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Carl Barks's first published work, Walt and Diane Disney in Chicago in 1943, more on "concept art," the myth of the missing Disney credits, Felidae.

May 2014: Disney's Grand Tour, "concept art," Little Lulu's cinematic debut.

April 2014: Sick Little Monkeys, a Funnybooks update, a memorial celebration for Michael Sporn, Walt Disney's skeptical supervisor at Kansas City Film Ad.

March 2014: John Stanley's 100th birthday, remembering Michael Sporn and Robin Allan, seeing Frozen and Saving Mr. Banks.

January 2014: The death of Michael Sporn.


2013

December 2013: Walt Disney and Phil Monroe (and Walt's mustache) in photos.

November 2013: The death of Diane Disney Miller.

October 2013: Checking in after a long absence.

August 2013: Walt Kelly's centennial, Willie Ito on Corny Cole, Floyd Norman on Saving Mr. Banks.

July 2013: Saving Mr. Banks.

June 2013: "Walt Disney Sings," Furr and Purr.

May 2013: Bob Clampett's 100th birthday.

April 2013: Barks on ice, where Walt was on February 28, 1957.

March 2013: Fess Parker in Norway, watching The Perfect American, a day in the life of Walt Kelly in 1969.

February 2013: To the lobby with Dave Fleischer, treats for animation history buffs, filming Third Man on the Mountain.

January 2013: The Perfect American opens in Madrid, the Chuck Jones Experience in Las Vegas.


2012

December 2012: Walt Disney meets French chef Sam Letrone.

November 2012: The Kimball book controversy, John Stanley's last workplace.

October 2012: Walt Kelly's Bridgeport, Bob Clampett and "Tarzantoons."

September 2012: Caricatures in Dell comic books, the Fred Harman Art Museum, Chuck Jones in Santa Fe.

August 2012: More on the flypaper sequence, several books of note.

July 2012: Leon Schlesinger builds morale, Phil Monroe interviewed (1987), Brave.

June 2012: The Milky Way, Walt Kelly in hard covers, Phil Monroe interviewed (1976).

May 2012: The Avengers, Michael Sporn's Poe, a UPA Christmas card, Disney's Enchanted.

April 2012: Philip Glass' Disney opera, Walt Kelly's mystery caricatures, UPA on DVD.

March 2012: Michael Sporn's Poe, Hal Horne's gag file, the Walt Disney Family Museum, why Dr. Wertham had a point.

February 2012: The Perfect American opera gets a premiere date, where Walt Disney was on March 30, 1957, "arrested development" in cartoon fans, fire at Børge Ring's.

January 2012: Børge Ring on Stan Green, when Walt Disney said "I don't think we can continue" feature animation, the new Crystal Bridges museum.


2011

December 2011: Fred Moore's Three Caballeros, Bob Clampett as Hollywood tour guide, reviewing the comics-reprint reviews, Walt Disney's 110th birthday anniversary, more on the MGM cartoon studio.

November 2011: A bumper crop of comics reprints, a day in the life of the MGM cartoon studio in 1953, Gunther Schuller on Fantasia, speaking truth to the Mouse, My Dog Tulip.

October 2011: Helen Aberson and the writing of Dumbo, comic books and color, a caricature of Dick Huemer.

September 2011: Oskar Lebeck and John Stanley and friends.

August 2011: New collections of classic Disney comics, the Corny Cole interview, Chuck Jones enshrined at a casino, Dave Hand on ones and twos, is innocence bliss when watching cartoons?

July 2011: Mystery men at Disney's Hyperion studio, The Illusionist.

June 2011: Inking at Disney's in 1931, the Fred Kopietz interview.

May 2011: New Disney books, problems with interviews, the passing of the great collector Bill Blackbeard.

April 2011: More on Walt's church in Chicago and the Dumbo Roll-A-Book, Lynn Karp interviewed.

March 2011: John Hubley and Milt Kahl interviewed, Roger Armstrong remembers life at the Lantz studio in 1944-45, Walt Disney visits Evanston, Illinois, on the Fourth of July 1957.

February 2011: Tim Walker and Mark Kausler, the Bob McKimson interview and more McKimson matter, the Huffington Post stirs up a storm.

January 2011: Flogging the Dell/Disney comic books, Tangled, potpourris of items about Walt Disney and Bob Clampett and new books, Glen Keane speaks about Tangled in French, a "Flying Gauchito" mystery, Walt meets Princess Margaret and suffers under a double standard.


2010

December 2010: Home again, with a memory of True Grit's author.

November 2010: Carl Stalling on acetate, lost Laugh-O-grams found, Børge Ring on Alice in Wonderland, Tim Susanin's book.

October 2010: Books: Jim Korkis's Vault of Walt, Craig Yoe's Felix, John Canemaker's Two Guys Named Joe and J. B. Kaufman's South of the Border with Disney.

September 2010: John Benson on Avatar and IMAX 3-D, Mike Maltese and his Bugs Bunny painting, Craig Yoe writes, Satoshi Kon, The Ducktators in the flesh, Chronicle Books' animation volumes.

July 2010: Toy Story 3, Milt Gray's web comic strip, sad news about Roy Rogers and Harvey Pekar, my 1997 interview with John K., more on the mysterious Mortimer Mouse, reprinted comic books.

June 2010: Dave Smith retires, more on the Dumbo Roll-A-Book, Barks on a T-shirt, Waking Sleeping Beauty.

May 2010: "Mickey Mouse" and D-Day, animation: the delusion of life, Børge Ring on Jack Kinney, my visit to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, George Sherman's Barks painting, more on the Dumbo Roll-A-Book.

April 2010: How to Train Your Dragon, Carl Barks tells how he worked, Fantasia and the fundamentalists

March 2010: More on the Dumbo Roll-A-Book, questions for Walt Disney, the "family tree" of animation, a 1967 gathering of pioneers at Montreal, Dumbo's premiere, Dumbo in print, Walt's adventures in the Ivy League, Fess Parker remembered.

February 2010: The mysterious Dumbo Roll-A-Book, Oscars and Annies, Disney and Tolkien.

January 2010: More on The Princess and the Frog, Kurtzman's Humbug, Dumbo's crows, The Animated Man in Italy, Richard Todd and Walt Disney on the set.


2009

December 2009: The Princess and the Frog and Fantastic Mr. Fox, a cel fire at the Mintz studio, Richard Todd, Roy Edward Disney, Hal Sintzenich's diaries, more hot air from an "archivist."

November 2009: On the sidewalk with Charlie Mintz, a visit to Saint Louis, when Fantasia spread out, on the barricades with Art Babbitt.

October 2009: "Sincerity," Ward Kimball photographs R. Crumb, Walt Kelly writes to Walt Disney, losing illusions in today's Hollywood animation business, more on Walt Disney at Harvard (and Yale), Art Spiegelman in Arkansas, the Walt Disney Family Museum opens its doors.

September 2009: What Walt Disney was doing in London in 1935 and New York in 1940, George Winkler and Andrew Stone and Charlie Mintz, Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell, Dr. Seuss' advertising films, Li'l Eight Ball's disappearance from comic books, shipboard with Walt and family in 1949, the curious case of Mortimer Mouse.

August 2009: Carl Barks on exhibit in Baltimore, the mystery of Barks's Donald Duck, Lillian Disney speaks in public, early omens on The Princess and the Frog, Classic Children's Comics, Walt Disney in Ireland, home again from a long summer journey.

June 2009: Taking a summer break, Egghead and Elmer, more on Sita Sings the Blues, Pixar's Up, the role of words and drawings in early Disney story work.

May 2009: Reading the funnies in bulk, Keith Lango's ideas about "visual harmony," Walt Disney goes to Harvard, John Canemaker goes to Kansas City, Sita Sings the Blues, Disney and Columbia, fictitious "Walt Disneys" on stage and screen, David Gerstein's blog, Monsters vs. Aliens, more on Dave Hand, Milt Kahl as "the animation Michelangelo."

April 2009: Easter greetings from Warner Bros. Cartoons, Børge Ring on David Hand, Ken Annakin, Dick Huemer, Floyd Norman, Ferguson's flypaper sequence revisited, Disney's walled garden, Don Bluth, the Walt Disney Family Museum, Bob Clampett's secret life.

March 2009: Walt Kelly comics from Fairy Tale Parade, Chuck Jones on TCM, Walt Disney at Dumbo's premiere, Emil Flohri, Coraline, Watchmen, in the Disney music rooms in 1931, a case of mistaken identity, ten years of Hollywood Cartoons.

February 2009: Acting in animation, with a riveting memory of Bill Tytla, Coraline, 3-D pro and con, cartoon cocktails, the first Disney annual report, Marceline faces from Walt Disney's time, a Marceline myth.

January 2009: "The Three Little Pigs" as drawn by Walt Kelly, Ted Eshbaugh's studio in 1931, "card check" in 1941 and 2009, The Tale of Despereaux, Walt Disney sails from Chile to New York on the Santa Clara.


2008

December 2008: The Spirit on the screen, cartoon directors' Christmas cards, trying to identify a mystery man, books: Spirited Away, Popeye, and The Animated Man, Bolt and Madagascar 2, Dave Hilberman's FBI file.

November 2008: Back from Italy, live-action Disney on Turner Classic Movies.

October 2008: The Wall Street Journal on Pixar and Disney,Walt at the keyboard, Chuck Jones and Eddie Selzer, Chuck at MGM, "Directors and Directions," salvaging Disney's California Adventure, Walt Disney's attitude toward women, "Of Cabbages and Kleins," The Perfect American as novel and opera, on the set of Invitation to the Dance.

September 2008: Visiting J. R. Bray, Ben Sharpsteen and his museum, Elias Disney in his own words, the ancestral Disney lands in Ontario, a book ban in Burbank.

August 2008: Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising remembered, Michael Sporn's role on The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, more on Wertham, Sporn DVDs.

July 2008: More Looney Tunes on DVD, WALL•E and Kung Fu Panda, Walt Disney's stump, Bill Tytla's voice, Disney anniversaries, Wertham's locked vault, Schulz and Peanuts demolished, more on Walt and Dolores.

May-June 2008: Walt Disney's Kansas City building, Walt and polo (and polo-related deaths), Japanese features, Walt and Dolores Del Rio, late-period Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett in Canada, Walt Disney meets Robert Taylor in 1938 and visits Marceline and Saint Louis in 1946, the post-modern Goofy, The Colored Cartoon.

April 2008: The Jones-Avery letter, what Walt Disney really thought about Goofy, the "Censored 11," Borge Ring on Hans Perk, remembering Ollie Johnston, Two Days in the Life: Kansas City, 1922, more on Walt Disney's 1922 want ads, Walt's skeptical supervisor at Kansas City Film Ad, Bob Clampett and Ollie Johnston share a table, the Schulz kidnaping, Nick Cross and The Waif of Persephone.

March 2008: Walt Disney's want ads in 1922, Dick Huemer's Buck O'Rue, A Day in the Life: Disney, January 1930 and February 1927, A Day in the Life: Walt Kelly, 1955, The Animated Man in trade paper, Walt Disney meets Yma Sumac and visits Atlanta, responding to complaints about negative criticism, Bob Clampett at work, "What Would Bob Do?"

February 2008: Walt Disney and Joan Bennett in 1942, an interview with Elias and Flora Disney, debate about Buckaroo Bugs, Emery Hawkins at Lantz, Walt Disney in England, Carl Barks's first issue of Uncle Scrooge, Jim Bodrero interview, photos of Warner story man Lloyd Turner, remembering Roger Armstrong.

January 2008: Dell comic books, Ward Kimball, Chuck Jones, Joe Grant and hero worship, more on writing for animation (and why some people spread falsehoods about it), Walt Disney's 1934 trip to Hawaii, Hanna-Barbera celebrated in a book, Bob Clampett, Satoshi Kon, more on the voices of Walt's Alice.


2007

December 2007: Writing for animation, Margaret O'Brien and Walt Disney's Alice, Jack Zander, more on UPA, Rod Scribner at work, Borge Ring, a "mystery studio," Byron Haskin and Disney's Treasure Island, more on Coal Black, Walt and Lillian on the town, revisiting Raggedy Ann & Andy and Wizards, Satoshi Kon's budgets.

November 2007: Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, Mickey's birthplace in New York, the UPA book, the Michael Sporn retrospective at MoMA, the ideas that interviews can stimulate.

October 2007: Carl Stalling interviewed, Dick Huemer remembered, more on Walt Disney and Zorro, the controversy over the Schulz biography, Joe Penner and the "Agony, agony!" catchphrase, Walt and The Art Spirit, Walt in Hawaii, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, The Jungle Book revisited.

August 2007: Walt and the librarians, independent animators, the mystery of Walt's Goldwater button solved, Diane Disney Miller blasts Neal Gabler, Paprika, interviews with Clarence Nash, Jim Macdonald, and Billy Bletcher, Pete Emslie's guidelines for animal characters, Ratatouille.

July 2007: More on Harry Reichenbach, Walt Disney and Igor Stravinsky, Surf's Up, Walt at Smoke Tree Ranch, Dave Hilberman, The Iron Giant revisited, Michael Sporn and Walter Lantz on DVD, Ratatouille.

June 2007: More on Walt Disney's Goldwater button, more on the flypaper sequence, Roger Armstrong, Disney in Deutschland, Ratatouille, Walt and Zorro, more on Walt and T. H. White, Harry Reichenbach and Steamboat Willie, the auctioning of Carl Barks's estate.

May 2007: UPA wars on the blogs, Ferguson's flypaper sequence, Walt Disney's employment contract, Harry Reichenbach, Disney art at Montreal, Walt writes to T. H. White, selling The Animated Man in L.A.

April 2007: The Animated Man, Fergy ruffs, Meet the Robinsons.

March 2007: The Animated Man, Cartoon Brew Films, a Cock Robin mosaic and documents, a Dumbo essay, the Goldwater button again, Walt and the space program.

February 2007: More on writing v. drawing, Paul Hindemith meets Walt Disney, Fantasia, Van Beuren dolls, Bob Clampett and Edgar Bergen.

January 2007: Walt's Goldwater button, Neal Gabler's errors, writing v. drawing cartoon stories, a Disney exhibition at Paris, Happy Feet.


2006

October-December 2006: Photos of Walt Disney's church, Neal Gabler's Disney biography.

September 2006: Walt's Field Day, Song of the South drafts, thoughts on DVD audio commentaries.

July-August 2006: Cars, blogs.

June 2006: Cars, Over the Hedge, Coal Black, Fischinger.

May 2006: Cars, various books.

April 2006: Pixar, "Masters of American Comics," Walt Disney on the radio.

March 2006: Animated acting, "Masters of American Comics," Disney biographies, Disney drafts, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Miyazaki.

February 2006: Walt Disney Concert Hall, WonderCon, the CGI glut, Disney and Pixar.

January 2006: Miyazaki, Disney and Pixar, Art Babbitt, lots of posts on animated acting.


2005

December 2005: Barks on DVD, Mary Poppins, Michael Sporn.

September 2005: Animated acting, Miyazaki.

June-August 2005: Animated acting, Bugs Bunny the copyright infringer, Walt Disney's gravesite, Richard Fleischer on Max.

April-May 2005: Madagascar, Joe Grant, Marceline (Mo.), Barks versus Stanley, Robots.

March 2005: Secular Disneyism, Barks versus Stanley, changes at Disney, Polar Express.

February 2005: Loonatics, Looney Tunes on DVD.

January 2005: David Hand, The Polar Express, live-action Walt Disney.


2004

December 2004: Fess Parker and Frank Tashlin interviewed.

November 2004: SpongeBob SquarePants, the illusion of spontaneity in computer animation, The Incredibles.

October 2004: Roy Rogers in Branson, The Polar Express, Richard Todd, "ViewMaster Animation."

September 2004: Frank Thomas, the Barrier-Kricfalusi debate continues.

July-August 2004: The Barrier-Kricfalusi debate, John Fawcett, Walt Kelly.

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