July 6th, 2010 | 
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“… its encyclopedic style will find it a place in the library of everyone interested in the subject.” — Kirkus Reviews”This exciting and informative encyclopedia… is a worthy and welcome addition to our library on world-wide cartooning… this is a marvelous compendium, one that belongs on the coffee-table and on the scholar’s shelf.” — Journal of Popular Culture”… this valuable effort… promises to be the basic reference on its subject for some time to come.” — Booklist”Enthusiastically recommended as both a fascinating story and an incredible reference resource for both scholars and aficionados of the art of film.” — Choice”Best of all, though, are the author’s unexpectedly clever insights.” … More >>
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As a brazilian animator I tried to start to read this book by the Latin american section, and comprehensively, by the one that shows the status of animation in my country, Brazil, a reality that I know very well.I don’t know where Mr. Bendazzi got his informations for this part of the book.What I know is that it’s full of strange or, at least unknown names of people for most of the brazilian animators, illustrators figuring as animators, besides the absence of five or six of the really most important animators in my country.Because of all that,I’m affraid the rest of the book, at least in those sections telling about the animation in Latin America still needs to be revised.
Rating: 2 / 5
It’s clear that the author derives the majority of his references from Europe’s history of Animation, which might explain why many people have not heard of the animators he talks about. But considering that these artists did take part in the history behind animation, it is good that Bendazzi made the effort to bring their names to light. He makes some remarks and does look at other countries, such as America’s infamous Walt Disney and Japan’s rising anime films, but for the most part, he concentrates on the growth within Europe’s artistic groups.
This book is less about the big names in cinematic animation and more about the independent artists and studios who worked in animation during a time when the animator’s names and the dates their works were created weren’t exactly recorded and copyrighted properly. Many of the animators here can also be identified as fine artists, often working experimentally within the media. This is how animation as cinema started (way before the time of Walt Disney and his overshadowing fame) and is continuing to be produced on the other side of Hollywood.
This book definitely has a text-book feel, but as far as a text book goes, it’s not too terribly dry. It’s informative and gives a very in-depth look at animation, from its beginning as optical illusions to the cinematic phenomena it has become today.
Also, as a final personal comment, this book is like a documentation of the independent films (as well as mainstream films) of the animation industry. Most people will not have seen them (unless they have access to an animation/video library), but that doesn’t mean the films aren’t important to history.
Rating: 5 / 5
I found this book filled in many gaps I had of my early cinema knowledge. Often making references to many little known events, it set the stage for what was to become mainstream animation.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is a must for serious fans of animation. It is a solid consideration of the work of animators from all over the world by someone who knows about animation. This is not like the lightweight, superficial dicussions that movie reviewers do when writing about Disney or Pixar; it’s a well-researched, inclusive overview. Yet the writing style is not stodgy or academic; it’s reader friendly. Animators from all countries and from all eras are included — Alexandre Alexeieff, Jiri Trnka, Norman McLaren, Chuck Jones, Walter Lantz, and many others.
Rating: 4 / 5
The American sections of this book are lighter than Maltin’s “Of Mice And Magic” and Barrier’s “Hollywood Animation” (and Japan is also weakly represented), but the balance is made with independent animators and many other countries you wouldn’t think were animation-oriented. Figures as diverse as Ladislaw Starewicz and Will Vinton get more attention here than in other books.
This is not something you read from cover to cover… instead you seek out the areas you’re most interested in first. However, skimming through it chronologically gives interesting insight on the effects of both politics and technology on cartoon-making. For example, sound was slower reaching Asian animation and had interesting consequences, while post-war Communism may have actually boosted eastern Europe’s “golden age”. Fittingly, the story ends in 1991-92, just as digital animation began replacing the more personal, time-consuming methods of cell and paper animation, puppetoon stop-motion and claymation, making it more difficult to distinguish cartoons made in different countries.
As with all film-related texts, it is easy to gripe about errors and unequal emphasis placed on different artists. Of course, some countries may be less well-documented for their animators than others. Nonetheless, this is one of those books you find yourself referencing frequently.
Rating: 5 / 5