What books do you recommend studying to learn cartooning?
HM, as in the actual art of making a cartoon or learning about the history of cartoons?
(...i say this and then proceed to list both anyway). for the actual act of making cartoons, books i'd recommend are
Joe Murray's Creating Cartoons with Character - this is the book that made me decide i wanted to get into the industry (and years later, i would learn that my director on Kamp Koral who WORKED for Joe Murray sold me the very book i own!!!). it's fantastic if you're a fan of Murray's cartoons and just wanna explore that history, but also offers a glimpse at a comparatively more modern cartooning landscape and what it's like to pitch a show. this is moreso on the pitching side though, and the industry is in different shape than it was the 15 years or so ago this was written.. but still EXTREMELY valuable.
Preston Blair's Advanced Animation - Blair was an animator for Disney and Tex Avery and an EXCELLENT guide on learning how to draw with solid construction. you got an animator from the golden age teaching you his method to his madness!
Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit - tbh this is a better book for if you wanna read about Williams' approach and about him as a person rather than an actual animation guide, as there's a LOT of subjective information in here IMO... this is all sculpted from his POV, and it's a POV that's veeeeeeery hyper-specific. even so, it's a great resource
books on the HISTORY of cartoons
Michael Barrier's Hollywood Cartoons - this is pretty much the animation historian's bible. absolute must if you're remotely interested in reading about the history of golden age cartoons and the figures involved.
Jaime Weinman's Anvils and Dynamite - excellent writeup on the history of LT cartoons, offers insight into the production from ALL eras but is also a really fun read for his point of view. i love the way he writes, and he brings up a lot of great points that've permanently stuck with my own philosophy in interpreting these characters and shorts
Keith Scott's Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Volumes 1 AND 2 - FASCINATING information about the voices in animation from the best researched man on the subject! every single review i've published since October 2022 (when i got these books) are owed to him, as he's singlehandedly stocked my voice credits list. lovingly written and researched and features some absolutely fascinating tidbits of information, such as there having been a "that's all folks" recorded for Porky before Mel Blanc--not by Joe Dougherty, his original voice actor, but an Italian actor by the name of Count Cutelli who would sometimes substitute for Dougherty in the cartoons when he couldn't do a line because of the stutter that got him hired 'n fired.
Christian Avender's The Animation Smears Book - MY FRIEND WROTE A BOOK AND YOU SHOULD BUY IT! jk. but no really. a VERY lovingly researched book about the history of animation smears and all of the techniques therein. and i know he knows what he's talking about, because i'm often there for the conversations where we discuss this very thing!! go support him!
Jim Korkis' Animation Anecdotes - exactly as it sounds, a hilarious collection of various animation anecdotes throughout the golden age. it's through this book that i learned Leon Schlesinger, upon the WB guys begging to make a movie after the success of Snow White, said "i need an animated feature like i need two assholes"
Martha Sigall's Living Life Inside the Lines - EXCELLENT and informative memoir by Martha Sigall, who was an ink and painter at WB in the '30s and early '40s! also filled with some extremely entertaining anecdotes, and worth it for a direct inside account
Chuck Jones' Chuck Amuck - i rec this with a roll in my eyes and a tongue in my cheek because there is a lot that is made up in this. there was never any "Road Runner rules list", etc. you have to take pretty much everything he says with a grain of salt, as he has a history of, shall we say, Exaggerating. BUT. it's a book written by Chuck Freakin Jones, it's definitely worth it if you're a fan of him and wanna read about his anecdotes and how he tells them, as he has a very interesting writing style. one that's full of himself LOL, but interesting
Mel Blanc's That's Not All Folks - i know it's not DIRECTLY as relevant as other choices here, and it warrants the exact same disclaimer as above, Mel is maybe worse than Chuck and Bob Clampett combined in making up fabrications (and even had to walk some of them back, like a story in which he used to say he was allergic to carrots--and you can see him saying so here!). he did not base Porky's voice off of a pig's grunt when there was a guy voicing him for two whole years before he came onto the scene. STILL, like Chuck Amuck, it's very interesting to read about if you're solely interested in the figure at hand. and it's Mel Blanc, so you should be!
....to name a select few!! i still need to branch out with my history, as a lot of these are obviously very WB centric. but i've read all of these and have enjoyed them all, and i carry the knowledge i got from many of these daily
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