Quote of the Day

WHY MAN LEARNS FROM THE PAST
Now and then, someone will write in the comments that young artists don't need tools. They just need their own God-given creativity and their beautiful natural-born styles. They needn't hamper themselves with knowledge and techniques that were learned through trial and error by experts over decades. The young genius artist wants to start from scratch and make all the same mistakes that thousands of more talented artists had long ago learned from.

Every artist of course has the right to do whatever he wants. Every builder does too. You could poopoo hammers as cramping your creativity and try to punch nails into wood as you attempt to build a house in a completely new way without even a plan. It's not against the law or anything. - But good luck in ever finishing it or having it stand up by itself.

But it eludes my reasoning why anyone would want to choose to have absolutely no control over their finished products. Skills, practice, knowledge and tools put you way ahead of your competitors.

You have a much wider freedom of creative choices if you understand the basic tools of your trade.

-John Kricfalusi, Staging 3: Making Your Poses Read
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Meta: Some News

The Archive will be closed on Friday January 2nd so I can present a screening at the Anime LA convention. I'll also be presenting a screening there on Sunday. If you are visiting the convention stop by.

I've decided that we will publish the complete ZIM Correspondence School in Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature in two editions... a deluxe two volume hardback set at 8 1/2 x 11 inches, and a perfect bound paperback edition in four volumes at 6 x 9. I printed out a proof of the first half of the set tonight, and it looks wonderful! The entire course spans over 700 pages with nearly 1000 illustrations by ZIM. Wow!

We are also working on creating special content for this web for ASIFA-Hollywood members only. I plan to post a new cartoon Quicktime for members every week, and house a lot of the high bandwidth back dated content there. (The home page of the Animation Archive site will remain exactly as it is- accessible to all.) If you have any ideas for members-only features, let me know in the comments.

And as I always say... If you aren't a member of ASIFA-Hollywood yet, you should be. ASIFA-Hollywood members are eligible to participate in Annie Award voting (which means plenty of free screenings and "for your consideration" DVDs.) Ask any ASIFA-Hollywood member... the dues are a bargain.

Have a Happy New Year!

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Illustration: St Nicholas Magazine, Dec 1910

Sorry for the late posting on this... we had server problems that couldn't be corrected until after the holiday.


I would like to take this opportunity to wish you Happy Holidays on behalf of all of us at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive and the Board and membership of ASIFA-Hollywood. I'd also like to thank our latest Archive Hero, Caroline Melinger, and Archive Supporter Carlos Trijueque Albarran. Thanks to their generous Christmas gifts to the Archive, we are well on our way to purchasing the collection of St Nicholas Magazines for our library. To celebrate, here are more wonderful illustrations from nearly a century ago.

















If you find this post interesting, see our previous post on Reginald Birch and St Nicholas Magazine

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT
This issue of St Nicholas Magazine from December 1910 was sent to us as a sample from a larger collection. We have the opportunity to purchase a largely complete half century run of this influential magazine for our library covering the dates 1874-1930. The collection consists of 75 bound volumes, and is being offered to us at a very reasonable price. However, funding for this project is limited, and every penny goes to maintaining the facility in Burbank, hosting the website and the material and labor costs involved in operating the archive. We operate a very tight ship, but there is no slack in our operating budget. We don't have an acquisitions fund to cover costs like this.

If you think that it's important to have material like this in our collection, and you haven't donated before, please remember the Archive with a Christmas gift this year. Many thanks to those who have pitched in to help so far... Nicolas Martinez, Hardeep Kharbanda, John Stater, Amir Avni, Carlos Trijueque Albarran, and Caroline Melinger.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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