The third and final essay written by noted historian, author, and educator Karl Cohen to bring awareness to the present state of indie animated shorts and to stimulate a discussion that might lead to improvements; we conclude with a collection of well-thought-out comments from members of the animation community.
Three Essays About the State of Animation in the U.S.
Forward:
Animation is a remarkable form of art that has gone through countless changes since pioneering filmmakers discovered that film can do more than just record the world around us. The three essays being published on AWN (one below, the next two every two weeks) are about works where artists have used this art to explore the world of imagination, free of time or content restraints.
I believe these precious creative moments are often ignored by our mainstream society that favors well-advertised and skillfully promoted Hollywood animated features and TV shows. While the seven-minute animated cartoon once played an important role in our moviegoing, entertaining you before the feature, today that role is obsolete. While there have been many attempts to establish new permanent homes for shorts since then, at present, there isn’t a great platform to find quality animation. The medium resolution of the internet is not the ideal delivery system, and it still lacks a sophisticated, satisfactory guide to help you find the films you might enjoy seeing.
The purpose of these three essays is to bring awareness to the present state of independently produced animated shorts and to stimulate a discussion that might lead to improvements. The first essay, “Help! I Love Watching Animated Shorts,” discusses some of the ways independently produced animated shorts have been shown to the public since the decline of theatrical cartoons.
The second discussion, “Why is the Nature of Animation in Europe So Different from What is Being Created in the U.S.?” covers why animation made in the U.S. and Europe evolved in different directions in the second half of the 20th century. I contend those changes eventually altered the mindset of U.S. animators, and I believe those differences are why international animated film festivals that once presented lots of animated shorts made in the U.S. are now largely ignoring them.
The third essay, “Insights from People in the Animation Community,” is a collection of well-thought-out comments about the current state of animation by members of the animation community. Those comments tend to support the thesis of this study.
Essay 3: Insights from People in the Animation Community
- Deanna Morse, International President of ASIFA, the International Animation Association
- Vince Collins, animator
- Jim Middleton, animator, teacher, writer
- Signe Baumane, animator
- Joanna Priestley, indie filmmaker (32 shorts, one feature)
- Ed Hooks, who teaches acting for animation and is now based in Portugal
- Sally Cruikshank, independent animator (Quasi at the Quackadero and other gems)
- Mark Kausler, independent and former Disney animator
- Jerry van de Beek and Betsy de Fries, Little Fluffy Clouds Animation
- Tsvika Oren in Tel Aviv fact checked the number of shorts shown from the US at Annecy
- The Many Directions Animation May Take in the Future
- Acknowledgments
Deanna Morse, International President of ASIFA, the International Animation Association
An animator who headed ASIFA Central for decades, Deanna taught at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan for over 30 years.
Yes, I have also observed the strength of animation shorts from countries in Europe. Over the past few years, I have noticed that some of the European undergraduate schools are really helping their students create sophisticated work that is technically proficient, intellectually rich, and features beautiful high production values, including symphonic music scores.
In the U.S., we still seem bound to that tradition of personal self-expression work by one filmmaker. Our schools do not seem to have anywhere near the technical support systems that the European schools seem to have. And, of course, we also do not have government grants to support graduates who want to make artistic work after graduation.
I noticed that this year at Ann Arbor, nearly all the titles in their dedicated animation program were not from the USA. They did show other animated films that were in other programs. I am still a screener for Ann Arbor, which allows me to see a lot of interesting work. I am also on their filmmakers’ advisory board. They are often looking for educated screeners in the fall. They have a three-tier process, so the films are looked at carefully. But so many entries – well over 3,000 – and so few are selected, like about 120 for festival screening!
Ron Diamond is also trying to get his Show of Shows on more college campuses. Perhaps that will serve more contemporary students with the same hit of animation inspiration that the Tournée of Animation did for us.
...And of course, we don't have the same kinds of animation festivals in the USA - we don't have a Zagreb or an Annecy. Ottawa is our closest. But we also do have lots of small festivals where folks get to see animation – Sweaty Eyeballs, AAFF, etc. I just read that Film Freeway now lists over 12,000 festivals... crazy!
And, of course, each fall, ASIFA offers the program exchanges for International Animation Day, October 28, that are sort of similar to the Tournée.
I thought that most schools teaching animation did have students do a personal film. Mine certainly did, and still does. Students make at least two or three short pieces, self-contained, small poems. Of course, this brings me back to the first point I made – unlike European undergraduate schools, where students work for a year or so, with resources behind them, in my school, you had to do it by the seat of your pants, fiercely independent. Which is what the USA films always sort of have been. Independent, one voice, exploration of a notion or technique, visual poems. Short, to the point. Frankly, those are my favorite films... just saying!
Thank you for sharing your essay, which may become a book!
Vince Collins, animator
When I started using YouTube many years ago, I thought it was amazing that anybody could put a movie up and the whole world could see it (postage-stamp-size movies at first). Years later, people started pushing to get paid for putting their movies on YouTube – sounded good to me, but any account with an X-rated movie like my Malice in Wonderland was not eligible, so that was that. I never expected to make any money from my animation, anyway. The U.S. government was the main supporter of independent film art, but that tapered away at the end of the 70s – AFI grants, NEA grants, government purchases of six prints of just about every independent film, etc., all gone...
I don't like making films for money – too much pressure trying to please somebody. I can't think clearly in that situation. One time I made a piece where they're saying, “make whatever you want to make," and then they're disappointed with it and it's ‘that's not what we meant when we said 'make whatever you want to make’”!!!
In the 70s, half the films entered in Annecy were from USA – it was difficult and expensive to make a movie on film. Now, there are thousands of entries from around the world and it is easy and no-cost to make a movie. You don't even have to mail it in a shipping case two months in advance to take advantage of the film rate. If a festival today is going to select 100 films for showing, in order to be truly international, sometimes for the sake of diversity, they show films from 100 different countries, instead of saying “we got entries from 100 different countries,” and showing only films from the same five or six countries every time.
Note: Since Vince’s Malice in Wonderland (1982) was posted on the internet, it has gone viral. Vince believes it has been seen millions of times. His statement that half the films shown at Annecy might have been from the U.S. is misleading. It may have seemed that way, but, as noted in the preceding essay, a fact checker found that at the 1975 Annecy festival, 115 films were screened in and out of competition, and 23 of them were from the USA, including one by Vince. At the next festival, in 1977, 120 films screened and again 23 of them were from the U.S.)
Jim Middleton, animator, teacher, writer
Jim Middleton, an animator, animation teacher, and editor of ASIFA-Central’s newsletter, is a proofreader and contributor to this report. He notes, “A factory-worker approach can make animation so joyless with its fierce competitiveness, where output is prized over the quality of the content or its vision. Creation by committee seems to produce a diluted jumble of voices. Bigger isn't always better.”
He continues, “In India, training for animation students seems to begin the day they enter school. By the time they graduate, with the equivalent of a high school education, they are producing half-hour projects ready for broadcast. We saw this during the KAFI festivals [Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, held in Michigan during the first years of this century], even 15 years ago. I’ve told my students in Michigan that a couple of years in a junior college isn’t going to make them animators – it’s going to just teach them how to walk. Their ultimate competition wasn’t going to come from their classmates, but from those experienced, trained kids in India. The advantage will go to someone with a story, so learn to be a storyteller, and work to make the story universal. If you have an axe to grind, or a personal tale, animation can provide the vehicle to present it metaphorically – save the literal for filmed documentaries and training films. Animation should transform a pedestrian message into a hero’s tale. Don’t try to make carbon copies of Disney, or Pixar, or the latest anime – those are being done already.”
Signe Baumane, animator
Signe has made dozens of animated shorts and two animated features. She was raised in Latvia and lives much of the year in NYC.
To answer your question why U.S. indie animated films are not great in quality in comparison to European animated films, you have to look where the money is for animation in the USA and Europe. There are two different models of funding, and they produce entirely different types of films. In the USA, money for animation is in the hands of studios. Studios exist to make money, and so they keep making films that they hope will bring them money – action films, or princess films for kids. In Europe, the money for films come from grants from foundations, and the foundations exist to foster the larger public good, educate and enlighten the society.
My reactions? Read between the lines: Just remember that Marcel the Shell (2021) was nominated for an Oscar. I think that that says it all right there. Ha ha ha. I was not a fan of that film, but American audiences loved it so much that the film got the most respected distributor (A24) and the film made loads of money. So it just shows you – by showing audiences certain films you condition them as to what they should expect from films in the future.
I had a conversation yesterday with a film group, people who watch a film together and discuss it afterwards. They had watched my film Rocks In My Pockets (2014) and some of the people in the group said they were against watching it because they don’t like animation. “In animation characters talk in agitated voices and it is too, too much of mindless action,” they said. But they loved Rocks. They had not seen a film like that, an animated feature film on a serious subject, almost like a live-action film.
If we had more animated films for adult audiences, on serious subjects, maybe we could change how audiences perceive animation.
I wrote that I had noticed that only two or three films from the U.S. were getting selected from the 80 to 100 films shown in major international competitions. Are animators so influenced here by TV’s talking heads that they no longer know how to create new original concepts as to what animation can be? It’s not that animators are influenced by TV, it’s just what they hope will get them financing. And often they are right.
After My Love Affair With Marriage (2022) premiered, lot of important people (distributors, agents, etc.) praised it for being so original. Did it help the film to get a distribution deal, or me to get an agent? No. They only say they look for originality, but in fact they don’t. They look for something that they know from previous experience may bring them money. A reasonable person – an animator – recognizes it and then makes a project that he/she knows will get funding. Rule one, no originality. [Note: Several months later, Signe did get a contract from a U.S. firm that included theatrical distribution.]
Why does American animation outside of major features seem to be ignored outside of the U.S.?
American animation is also ignored inside the USA. It’s like a neglected child that eventually is left to die on the sidewalk. Where are film festivals in the USA for animation only? Where are animation markets? Europe is full of festivals and markets, development programs for animation. Everywhere you look in Europe, animation is a booming enterprise. In America, animation is withering. It’s left in the hands of a few studios and in the hands of lone, crazy, stubborn animators, who, despite the odds, still make films with their own money. At some point, they'll have a family and have to stop this craziness of spending money on something that doesn’t bring money back. In Europe, people make films and they make money – not a lot, but they still make films.
Is the problem that U.S. animators are not seeing international animation today, or is there pressure to try and create a short or show for the internet/TV?
The problem is how to live and pay rent while making animation. Animation takes a long time and lots of work to make. You need to live someplace and eat something while doing it. A lot of animators in the U.S. are making rational choices to make films that they think will bring them money to pay rent and eat. The crazy ones, like me, just leap out of the window and hopes a wind will pick us up (and sometimes it does).
Joanna Priestley, indie filmmaker (32 shorts, one feature)
Why are American animated short films ignored outside of the U.S.?
First factor: money. In Europe, Great Britain, and Canada, short films receive major funding from their governments. Even student films can receive funding; there was a student animated short film a decade ago that had a million euro budget. In the United States, makers of short animated films receive very little or no financial support, unless they are being produced at a film or special effects company. American indie filmmakers self-finance their work and often cannot afford to hire talent to help them. The United States government defunded the National Endowment for the Arts, and most states, cities, and counties do not support arts organizations that support animation filmmakers. It all shows on the screen.
I remember an Annecy Festival when one of my films was shown right after a film by Nick Park. Oy. One film was made by 150 people for $1.5 million (both numbers are a guess) and the other film was made by two people for $4000. It all shows on the screen.
Second factor: schools. The state of Oregon recently went from three schools that taught animation (Pacific Northwest College of Art, Northwest Film Center, Portland Art Institute) to one. The Portland Art Museum recently eliminated almost all of their film and animation programming and classes. It is a tragedy. All over the U.S., colleges and universities that teach animation are strapped for cash and some are closing their doors. What is the first department on the chopping block? Animation. No one seems to understand the value of animation.
What is happening in Europe and the UK?
Year after year, the finest animation schools in the world are turning out fabulously talented students that receive generous financial support and win a great many prizes, including Student Academy Awards, Academy Awards, British Academy Awards and European Film Awards. Many other countries are rapidly building up their animation education, training and support for animated film production, including China, India, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Chile.
Ed Hooks, who teaches acting for animation and is now based in Portugal
My perception is that in European animation circles, there is a resistance to anything overtly “commercial.” And, at the risk of over-generalization, many European artists categorize anything and everything American as “commercial.” In the U.S., there is close to zero government support for the arts. In Europe, arts are an integral part of life. I read someplace – sorry, I have lost the reference – that the city of Paris alone spends more on the arts in a year than the entire U.S. government. I believe it.
There is an awful lot of experimental animation produced in Europe, and there is no market for it in the U.S. other than the festivals. It is, as you know, just about impossible to make a living producing experimental animation. Most artists that do it, wind up teaching in universities, helping other artists make experimental animation, which then goes to the festivals. Every EU country has funding for animation, I think.
You would learn a lot by listening to conversations I have had with Nancy Phelps:
Ed: I wish European animators would make more feature animation that might appeal in the U.S.
Nancy: Why should we compete with Disney and Pixar?
Ed: I’m not talking about competing with Disney and Pixar. I am talking about making films with universal appeal.
Nancy: European animators are happy like they are, Ed. Leave them alone.
Ed: But the public does not see many of their movies!
Nancy: It doesn’t matter. They receive subsidy. You can make a living in Europe without competing with Disney.
I wish it were different, Karl. I wish Hollywood studios cared more about good stories that are useful to the tribe’s survival. Hollywood wants the tribe to get out its wallet. Full stop.
I am sure you are familiar with Michael Eisner’s 1981 quote. Unfortunately, he spoke the truth. European festivals think that kind of approach smells like an artistic skunk, and they want little to do with it.
Sally Cruikshank, independent animator (Quasi at the Quackadero and other gems)
I wish there was a foundation or center, something like the Billy Ireland Center, but for independent animation, a place for study and exhibition. I'm sure you all have boxes and boxes of art, and sketchbooks, and maybe pencil tests. Wouldn't it be nice if they could be gathered together somehow?
Thinking more about a center for the study of independent animation. We all know there are so many animation students these days. We also know we were the big multi-generation, where the art was physical, not digital, so there still exists real stuff to look at and consider. And we know we inspired many.
I think we should expand the circle of this email. Think of all the great talent that came out of CalArts in the 1970s. Jules Engel set so many talents on the path. CalArts seems like a great possible place for a center like this. Do they still have Disney money? Mark Toscano is a major, major supporter of independent animation, restoring films at the Academy.
Where have Suzan Pitt's animation artworks gone? I'm not a person for organization, but maybe I can kick this along for someone else to consider. Make no mistake, we are part of film history, even if it's not entirely noticed yet. Your thoughts?
Mark Kausler, independent and former Disney animator
The way I see it, there is no animation anymore. Digital took its place. What they call "animation" now is no longer filmmaking frame by frame. In Maya, you set perimeters, then the program can take over, such as "batch rendering." In fact, there are no frames in streaming video, just "fields." Also, there is no government or public funding of short cartoon films readily available in the U.S. We send all our money to the Pentagon. Except for Kickstarter and GoFundMe, which can't usually raise enough to finance a full-on cel-animated film. We lack a National Film Board of the USA, nor do most states set aside funds for the arts, including cartoon films. We are talking about things that aren't here anymore, sorry to say.
Jerry van de Beek and Betsy de Fries, Little Fluffy Clouds Animation
Little Fluffy Clouds is a Bay Area animation studio that creates award-winning shorts that get shown.
Jerry van de Beek, LFC's creative director and animator says, “Animators in the U.S. don't get any funding or art grants in the way that animation is funded and supported in Canada and Europe. We all struggle to survive and have to make money, or at least create something that appeals to our corporate clients. It's very expensive to create an animation like our Yellowstone 88 - Song of Fire (2021), and then we find very little to no support in getting it out there. I think it's a very unhealthy climate for artists and it's starting to show. If the U.S. animation industry continues down this path, we will completely lose our creative voice in the world. At some point, people will get tired of the endless Disney-Pixar movies and shorts, and will we then still have the chops to come up with fresh and new ideas? Little Fluffy Clouds tries its hardest to come up with new looks and designs around interesting stories. I hope one day we will find the support we so need so we can concentrate on that even more than we do now.”
Betsy de Fries, Jerry's partner in Little Fluffy Clouds, says, “Yellowstone 88 - Song of Fire has now been in over 100 festivals, most of them international, so I would have to disagree with people who feel U.S.-based short animation is not worthy of competition programs. I will say that Zagreb and Annecy have a slant in choice towards European and more traditional animation. I'll also say that being an Oscar contender has a lot to do with a vast PR machine that lines up to promote a film, and perhaps with connections within the academy (Pixar/Disney) or with specific juries (Annecy, Zagreb).
Consider the message of each animation. Yellowstone 88 has a definite #climatechange #nature premise. It's also a good example of video poetry. It is now being used in schools in France, Greece, Italy, Scotland and the U.S. as an introduction to climate awareness for high school children. I'm not so concerned that Annecy did not choose it – Clermont-Ferrand, Jackson Wild Media Awards, The Environmental Film Festival of the Nation's Capital (DCEFF), and many other amazing festivals did - and frankly those festivals matter more for the message we have to impart and the audience we want to reach.”
Tsvika Oren in Tel Aviv fact checked the number of shorts shown from the US at Annecy
Annecy 1975: 115 films screened in and out of competition. 23 of them from the USA. Among these were The Beast of Monsieur Racine by Gene Deitch; Closed Mondays by Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner; The Club by George Griffin; Euphoria by Vince Collins; WOW, Women of the World by Faith Hubley and several commercials by Bob Kurtz.
Annecy 1977: 120 films screened. 23 of them from the USA. Among them: Martin the Cobbler by Will Vinton; Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa by Caroline Leaf; 100 Years of the Telephone by Saul Bass; Phases by Henry Selick; Robot by David Ehrlich; Second Chance: Sea by Faith Hubley; Viewmaster by George Griffin; 4 commercials by Bob Kurtz and two of Jeff Hale’s Pinball films for Sesame Street.
Annecy 1981: 128 films in and out of competition. 15 from the USA.
Annecy 1983 screened 119 films in and out of competition. 17 films were from the U.S.
You may enjoy knowing that Annecy 1971 Grand Prix was awarded to The Further Adventures of Uncle Sam by Robert Mitchell and Dale Case; Annecy 1973 Grand Prix: Frank Film by Frank Mouris.
During the 70’s and 80’s Annecy was a bi-annual festival. As well as I remember it received around 800 submissions every two years. Competition categories were: Shorts under 3 min. long (Many of the personal shorts were shot on 16 mm film. One reel of 16 mm film is 100 ft. Equals to a bit over 3 min.); Shorts over 3 min. Films for kids. Commercials. Commissioned films (Public service spots, music video, etc.). Educational or Scientific films. First film (Students, graduates, indie). TV series episode.
Zagreb animation festival was established in 1972 (Annecy in 1960). Zagreb 1974 screened 157 films in and out of competition. 50 of them from USA. Zagreb 1978 screened 410 films. 26 of them from USA.
The Many Directions Animation May Take in the Future
Spectacular Animation
Animation’s history has been full of surprises, including new kinds of animated experiences that have been created in rather unexpected ways. Instead of projecting works on a rectangular theater screen, companies are using high-tech digital projectors to transform the sails of Australia’s Sydney Opera House and other facades of civic buildings around the world into colorful “living” structures that seem to change shape and color, and even rotate. It requires big budgets and skilled artists to create these amazing shows. The public loves these spectacular events. After all, you are seeing impossible things happening.
Even more impressive are mysterious animated light shows that can take place in the open sky at night! No screens or projectors are used and they are not UFOs. Instead, all you see are dozens or hundreds of bright dots that can change in color as they move through space in carefully choreographed patterns. They are high-tech computer-controlled light shows using colored LED lights on drones. These amazing shows include magical moments that can be breathtaking.
This new art form is just beginning to take off. In the U.S., companies that create them are being hired by sporting events, county fairs, and other civic celebrations. The drone light show companies are just beginning to discover the possibilities of this remarkable art form. Some are trying to increase the number of drones they can fly at one time. A Chinese group claims to have used 5,200 drones in a show, a new world record.
Social and Political Commentary
Another kind of animation that is just beginning to emerge is the relatively simple computer animation that is done quickly to communicate messages to the public. Mark Fiore has pioneered this art doing one-minute political cartoons on a weekly schedule.
StoryCorps uses a variety of different computer 2D art styles to create their drawn characters that tell emotionally charged stories. Their work is seen frequently at the end of the evening news on public television.
Animation has a long history of being a great communication tool (war propaganda, public health messages, TV commercials, etc.). There are so many different kinds of stories that can be told using simple forms of animation that it is just a matter of time before other artists will be using it to create messages they believe in. It can give voices to people of any color, faith, political belief, etc. The works may not be refined Disney-quality art, but getting the message out in a timely manner may be more important than aesthetics.
New Amazing Technology
Animation plays a role in a major controversial issue – the dangers, as well as positive uses, of artificial intelligence (AI). Though AI can generate photoreal imagery, humans will still be needed to oversee the creation of the works. I don’t know if computers will be capable of making the subtle judgements and adjustments needed to make the content plausible. Those subtle decisions presently require sophisticated human minds.
In terms of the development of new technology, will somebody eventually develop a 3D system that does not require a large audience to wear glasses? Will AI computer scientists actually be able to create passable animation (cartoony or photorealistic) that is aesthetically pleasing and moves smoothly? If they do, they will have achieved, or will have come close to achieving, the Holy Grail of animation. Producers and industrialists have been dreaming for many decades of finding the ultimate way to reduce the cost of animation. It was thought a few years ago that motion-capture systems were going to do that, but they turned out to be expensive and labor-intensive, and the characters don’t look alive when they stand still.
In terms of content in the future, it seems there is no limit to what we might encounter. While the current Hollywood and TV approaches dominate what is seen today, we can expect that to change. Important current issues in the news should influence some projects, including animation that addresses global warming, race relations, cultural and economic diversity, and other issues. As we get closer to sending people to explore and live on Mars or elsewhere in space (and perhaps someday underground and/or under the seas of planet Earth), expect some aspects of the world of science fiction to become real. Animation will probably be called upon to visualize it. Expect animation to also visualize other visionary projects our government and corporations dream up. Those photorealistic visionary works will be propaganda needed to help justify the need for funds for these ultra-expensive projects. Examples of such films from the past include all the “public information films” made by NASA to promote their costly adventures into space, and the corporations they have worked with, to explain and fund those wonderful projects.
Animation will continue to be a remarkable art form well into the future. As animator Sally Cruikshank says, “Make no mistake, we are part of film history, even if it's not entirely noticed yet.”
I welcome your input, as I plan to continue writing about these issues. Feel free to send me things to add or argue over. Contact karlcohen@earthlink.net
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge several people who have spent many years promoting animation as a fine art including Ron Diamond, Garry Meyer, Spike and Mike, Prescott Wright, Jerry Beck, Dan Sarto (editor of AWN.com) Amid Amidi, Nancy Denney-Phelps, Harvey Deneroff, John and Faith Hubley, John Canemaker, Louise Beaudet, Curator of the Animation Section of the Cinémathèque Québecoise; David Ehrlich from Dartmouth College (he arranged for classic Chinese animation to be seen in the US in the 1980s), Charles Samu (he brought Eastern Block/Soviet animation to the US during the Cold War), George Manupelli (who founded the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1963), curator Adrianne Mancia at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Edith Kramer at the Pacific Film Archives (UC Berkeley), and Ron Haver at the Los Angeles County Museum.
I wish to thank the dozens of people mentioned who contributed their thoughts and memories to this study including Jim Middleton, Deanna Morse, Ed Hooks, Vince Collins, Jerry van de Beek, Betsy de Fries, Mark Kausler, Sally Cruikshank, Signe Baumane and Joanna Priestly, and the other people who sent me their insights for this three-part article.
There are also several people who have contributed to keeping ASIFA-SF going over the years including Marty McNamira, Eihway Su, Paul Nass, Scott Kravitz, Martha Gorzcki, Ben Ridgway, Karen Folger Jacobs, Gail Silva, John Hays, Laura Tullos, Marcy Page, Pam Stalker, Liz Keim, Shirley Smith, Emily Beck, Ralph Guggenheim, Steve Segal, Steve Ng, Dan McHale, David Chai, Nik Phelps, The G Man and… Thanks to all of you! And a very, very special thanks to Denise McEvoy, my wife for 1001 things.
For further reading, you might enjoy my article The Unnatural History of Independent Animated Films on 16mm. His library of AWN articles can be found here.
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Karl is a noted historian, author, educator, and President of ASIFA-San Francisco. He has contributed articles to AWN.com for decades; some were reprinted by The Guardian in the UK and other publications and websites. His most widely read article is on the CIA using animation as propaganda during the Cold War, first published on AWN. He taught animation history at SF State for 29 years and has lectured at other institutions and festivals in North America, Europe, the Middle East and China. He wrote “Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators” and hundreds of articles. He’s presently working on a book tentatively called “Amazing Animation” as he believes animation at times is a truly remarkable and great form of art.
