Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

This post will stay up Saturday as well – until Verizon gets its stuff together.

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- John Canemaker contributed a two part article on J.P. Miller to Cartoons, the International Journal of Animation published by ASIFA Int’l. The two part article appeared in the Winter 2006 and Spring 2007 issues.

John Parr Miller was a designer who worked at the Disney studio from 1934 to 1942 as part of Joe Grant’s elite Character Model Department. After his service in WWII, he became a children’s book designer and author remaining in that field for the remainder of his life.

J.P. Miller’s career at Disney’s is not something we often hear about, and I think the information in John’s extended article is so valuable that it has to get out there even further and be shared more openly. Consequently, with John’s permission, I’m posting both parts.

This is part 1:

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(Click any image to enlarge.)

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- Last week I posted the first part of a two-part article written by John Canemaker for the magazine, Cartoons, the International Journal of Animation published by ASIFA Int’l. The two part article appeared in the Winter 2006 and Spring 2007 issues. (See Part 1 here.)

John Parr Miller worked at the Disney studio from 1934 to 1942 as part of the Character Model Department run by Joe Grant. After Miller’s service in WWII, he designed and illustrated many children’s books and he continued in that field for the remainder of his life.

This is an extraordinarily well-researched article by John Canemaker, and I’m pleased to post it here for all those who don’t have access to the magazine, Cartoons. Thanks go to John for his permission to post both parts of the article.

With more of a focus on his children’s books, this is part 2:

1 2
(Click any image to enlarge.)

3 4

5

6 7

8 9

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12

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- Last week I posted the first part of a two-part article written by John Canemaker for the magazine, Cartoons, the International Journal of Animation published by ASIFA Int’l. The two part article appeared in the Winter 2006 and Spring 2007 issues. (See Part 1 here.)

John Parr Miller worked at the Disney studio from 1934 to 1942 as part of the Character Model Department run by Joe Grant. After Miller’s service in WWII, he designed and illustrated many children’s books and he continued in that field for the remainder of his life.

This is an extraordinarily well-researched article by John Canemaker, and I’m pleased to post it here for all those who don’t have access to the magazine, Cartoons. Thanks go to John for his permission to post both parts of the article.

With more of a focus on his children’s books, this is part 2:

1 2
(Click any image to enlarge.)

3 4

5

6 7

8 9

1011

12

1314

- John Canemaker contributed a two part article on J.P. Miller to Cartoons, the International Journal of Animation published by ASIFA Int’l. The two part article appeared in the Winter 2006 and Spring 2007 issues.

John Parr Miller was a designer who worked at the Disney studio from 1934 to 1942 as part of Joe Grant’s elite Character Model Department. After his service in WWII, he became a children’s book designer and author remaining in that field for the remainder of his life.

J.P. Miller’s career at Disney’s is not something we often hear about, and I think the information in John’s extended article is so valuable that it has to get out there even further and be shared more openly. Consequently, with John’s permission, I’m posting both parts.

This is part 1:

1
(Click any image to enlarge.)

2 3

4 5

6 7

8
9

10 11

12 13

– Well, last night I got to see The Simpson’s Movie. By the time I was in the theater, I was almost tired of it already. There’s been so much publicity about this it’s been hard to avoid. I watched Matt Groening and James Brooks on Charlie Rose this past Monday evening, and I have to say that I fell in love with Brooks but was really irritated by Groening. Perhaps Matt Groening hasn’t done many tv appearances, but he answered every question in a manner that sounded rehearsed and not at all from the heart. His ego seemed front and present, but maybe it was just my interpretation of something that wasn’t really there, and I respect his work enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. TV always seems to add a few pounds.

About the movie. $71 million over the weekend. What more need be said?
A lot, I guess. Ratatouille didn’t perform as well as this one will, but it was a very much better film. This cartoon is the TV show on ones. It’s a laugh riot as expected, but I saw no hint of real character animation. No personality other than what the great voice work gave it. Just a lot of smooth movement mixed with cg movement.

In a sense, like the TV show, you can only judge it by its script. As A.O. Scott, in the NYTimes, wrote, the movie doesn”t live up to its best TV episodes. “It’s no “22 Short Films About Springfield” or “Homer’s Enemy” or “Krusty Gets Busted” or “Lisa the Vegetarian” — and it doesn’t strain to be.”

In short, the film didn’t get under my skin, and I don’t think it wanted to.
It was just a humorous diversion passing through the summer.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut did dig deeper and was a much better film, completely separate from the cable TV show.

One comment Groening made on Charlie Rose got me, though. He said that when they started the series, after the short inserts they did for The Tracie Ullman Show, James Brooks told them that audiences had to get caught up in the emotions of the shows and forget they were watching animation. To me this is the start of where the show changed and got smaller.

On the Ullman Show, the characters were graphic creatures that existed both emotionally AND graphically. When Homer strangled Bart, both characters distorted out of their physical forms. It was brilliant, hilarious and completely worked. (The image on the far left comes close to depicting my point but it’s still not quite as far as they’d go in the early days. The other image isn’t even as tame as the stranglehoods done in the movie.)

Once the show was pulled from Klasky-Csupo and sent to Film Roman, the show’s look got slicker, and the artwork suffered. No hint of that graphic distortion appeared again. The Film Roman crew actually tried to reproduce that distorted strangle-hold, but they wimped out and completely lost anything that made me laugh.

The show was best rough around the edges with hints of anything that was great about Groening’s Life In Hell strips. It was able to work emotionally, remind the audience that they were watching graphic hand-drawn distortions, and keep you laughing. Of course, this is just my preference. I’m annoyed by the ones and the slickness and the big-dollar look that removes any hint of the little-cartoon-that-once-could.

The show’s been on forever, and the movie has already made a fortune hitting the $$$ jackpot last weekend. I wish them well, and hope it furthers the success of other animated features. I just wish I had come home with something more.

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– Let me call your attention to what I think is a stunning piece of animation done for Greenpeace. Japanese director, Koji Yamamura has a beautiful short piece on line.
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This artist just keeps doing one great piece of animation after another, and this delicate film is enormous to me. I think this animator is one of our best artists.
Go here to view it.

Yamamura’s most recent film, Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor was in Cannes, Annecy, Karlovy Vary and will screen in competition at the Ottawa Animation Festival in Sept.

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John Canemaker writes to tell me that the second part of his article on former Disney story artist & children’s book illustrator, J.P. Miller. The article will appear in the new issue of CARTOONS, the International Journal of Animation (Vo. 3, issue 1 Spring 2007), entitled “In Search of John Parr Miller.”

The article is beautifully illustrated with photographs and illustrations by Miller. Several of these images appear below.

J.P. (Jack) Miller ( far right) in 1941 in Mexico with
(l.to r.) Disney publicist Janet Martin, Lee Blair and Herb Ryman.
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J.P. Miller Golden Book illustration from “What If?” (1951)
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“Dr. Squash the Doll Doctor” (Golden Book, 1948)

- John Canemaker wrote to tell me that he has a cover story in the new issue of CARTOONS, the International Journal of Animation (Vol. 2, Winter 2006), which is now available.

The story is about Disney storyman and beloved children’s book illustrator, J.P. Miller (1913-2004). “In Search of John Parr Miller,” which contains all new research by Canemaker and biographical material never before published on Miller, is the first of a two-part series (with 13 profusely illustrated pages).

This is the link to a “Remembrance” of Miller by his brother, George, on Cartoon Brew.

Other samples of Miller’s work are Part I and Part 2 and Part 3 and here and here.

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Humorist Art Buchwald died on Wednesday and was reported in yesterday’s late editions of the newspapers. The NY Times has their traditional obituary on the front page of the paper as does the Washington Post.

However, the Times gave Buchwald the opportunity of doing a digital streaming obituary, and he did. It begins with the lines:

“Hi I’m Art Buchwald, and I just died.”

I loved Buchwald’s column in the Washington Post; I’ve linked to a number of past articles by him if you’re in the mood for reading.

I used to spend a couple of weeks in the summers vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. The island has three small movie theaters, and they bicycle movie prints that rotate all three theaters within a week. My favorite of the three was the “Vineyard” theater downtown Vineyard Haven. One year we went to see In The Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood’s fabulous film of intrigue about a Washington security guard protecting the President.
I found myself sitting near Art Buchwald and Mike Wallis. Both lived on the island.

It was amusing that the two of them chatted almost constantly. Throughout the film, whenever D.C. exteriors were shown, the two of them pointed to this hotel or that, what streets they were filming now, what places are no longer there. That type of thing. It was great fun for me to listen in on the two celebrities, D.C. diehards, talk about their city.