A Super Awesome Update! Alice in Wonderland

[star-phoenix]

I finally got in a HUGE wishlist of mine. An original animation artwork from Gertie the Dinosaur. Gertie the Dinosaur came out in 1914 by Winsor McCay and was one of the first hand drawn animation of a character with a personality and the first film to use live action with animation. I am soooo excited!

http://starphoenix.rubberslug.com/galle ... 126&Page=1

[BuraddoRun]

Definitely awesome! I saw your update yesterday while browsing Rubberslug and was honestly amazed! A big congratulations!

[Keropi]

That's neat! I didn't even know anything from it would be available.

I remember seeing it shown somewhere when I was a kid. Maybe it was on one of those Disney specials. I can't recall.

[sensei]

Congratulations! I've seen some of these sheets around on dealers' sites. This is pre-cel animation, in which all the images were penned in India ink on sheets of paper, then photographed on a light table. So all the background and non-moving parts had to be hand-inked onto every one of those images. According to Michael Barrier's history of American animation, McCay hired an assistant who projected the background onto the paper, then painstakingly traced it onto every sheet. Then McCay himself drew the characters onto the prepared sheets, every one of them. (And made deadlines for his various serials, such as Little Nemo in Dreamland and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, plus appearing on vaudeville tours, which included screenings of his films.)

So you have not just a piece of animation history, but a Winsor McCay original drawing.

BTW, the work-intensive nature of this process led to various inventions to eliminate the need to replicate the backgrounds and non-moving images on every sheet. Another cartoonist, Earl Hurd, submitted a patent in December 1914 for using translucent sheets of paper for the moving characters, then placing them over a background and photographing them. As it turned out, he found that sheets of celluloid would serve the purpose more effectively, thus leading to the first "cel-based" cartoons in 1915-16.

[star-phoenix]

Another interesting part about McCay is when he drew Gertie, he was able to do it without ever lifting his pen off the sheet. There is a DVD of Winsor McCay's works (in the extras section from what I was told) showing him drawing Gertie like that. I am going to try and see if I can find it on Youtube.

Does anyone know if there were any surviving animation drawings of Little Nemo (not the comic strip version, but the animation version that showed in 1911). If I remember correctly, someone showed me an original comic strip that survived (it has been a LONG TIME).

[star-phoenix]

Just got around to posting my piece from Alice in Wonderland cel
http://starphoenix.rubberslug.com/galle ... esID=46197

[sensei]

Congratulations! And like the rest of the scene a delightful use of Lewis Carroll's whimsical way of deconstructing language into logical nonsense. A beautiful background too, as was Disney's practice.

[Sui Kune]

Your updates continue to top one another! I'm always astounded at what you acquire, and love learning a little more animation history along with it.

I remember seeing the Gertie the Dinosaur short when I was a kid! I really had no idea it was nearly 100 years old now, I mean it's clear it's a very old short, I'm just always surprised at how earlier and earlier animation seems to go. I would've never guessed 1906 was the year of the first production! It's such a beautiful piece of artwork, I can only imagine how much painstaking detail went into each and every cel.

And Alice in Wonderland! For some reason I don't remember seeing much artwork from it, but I'm probably just looking in the wrong places. XD I really love the concept of a dogerpillar and a caterpillar, I bet they'd make adorable pets.

[BuraddoRun]

What a great Alice in Wonderland cel! Alice in Wonderland is my favorite Disney movie, and I can only hope to one day add a cel from it to my collection. Congratulations!