Please read my other review where I listed the wrong amount of stars

Anything by Frank & Ollie is golden with memories of the golden age of disney animation, and the part they played as part of walts top animators, "the nine old men" as they were lovingly known. Also be sure to get the documentary video "Frank & Ollie" to see for yourself what wonderful guys these two gents really are.

Though not as 'deep' as The Illusion of Life, the book Too Funny for Words is a must-have for all animators and story people who want to peek into the serious world of creating movie magic... It is THE book on the subject of 'sight-gags'. (Remember to also get Frank&Ollie's Greatest Disney Villains and The Making of Bambi books! - You already have The Illusion of Life, of course!)

this book is really very much demanded by the young animation student like my-self.so the publisher should try to reprint this kind of a goldmine of animation.and i am sure as the animation world is expandind day by day it will be demanded more and more.our library has a couple of book and some of the animators possess them but still every animator should carry this Bible the lifelong.

Finally, I found a used copy of this book in Chicago. I had heard it was the "Bible" of animation, but I was skeptical; I have seen too many glorified advertising campaigns sold in coffee table format. (Did we really need any background information on "Hercules?") But now that I actually own a copy and have been reading it - I am really blown away by how much I didn't know I didn't know.

This book gives a perspective on animation I have been searching for for a long time. Short of plunking down $10,000 to attend animation school, this book has helped me understand what is necessary to look for from an artistic angle when I am drawing. Over and over I have been told to draw more, but from what perspective, with what emphasis, to what end? All of that is covered in such an elementary way that I can't believe I never got it before now.

This book is worth all of the praise I have been hearing about it. It was also worth every ounce of energy I have used trying to find a copy to purchase. As for the negative comments I have heard about the reprint Hyperion version of this book, for me it simply doesn't matter. Can I see a difference in the plates? Sure I can. Is the information presented any less valuable or understandable? No. And that's the bottom line for me.

Amazing book. I can't believe it is out of print.

This fine addition to the Disney Sketchbook series has many of the wonderful sketches done by Disney's animation department for Lady and the Tramp, including many pieces from the storyboards, and several sketches of scenes that never made it into the final film.

Artists that would like to study the Disney style of drawing and animation should find this volume a terrific addition to their collection despite its rather high price. As a student of art, and a fan of the Disney style, I highly recommend any of these books for your library.

The Lady & the Tramp sketchbook is just a beautiful book to add to any Disney fan's collection. This book is HUGE and it is full of wonderful sketches of all of the characters (even minor ones) and full color photos from the movie. This is an excellent book for anyone who loves Disney animation.

This fine addition to the Disney Sketchbook series has many of the wonderful sketches done by Disney's animation department for Peter Pan, including many pieces from the storyboards, and several sketches of scenes that never made it into the final film.

Artists that would like to study the Disney style of drawing and animation should find this volume a terrific addition to their collection despite its rather high price. As a student of art, and a fan of the Disney style, I highly recommend any of these books for your library.

This is an exquisitely made book and if you are at all interested in animation or disney art, this or any of the sketchbook series books are a must. Each character has it's section where various sketch drawings are shown. There are also some background pictures. No text, but a delight to flip through. Beautifully designed and packaged.

The Rhetoric of Leviathan is a deep study about the systematic construction of Thomas Hobbes's political philosophy. The author leaves of an unusual analysis of the theory of history of young Hobbes and sustains, differently of classics like Leo Strauss, that effective rupture doesn't exist in uncoiling of the historical thought for the scientific-philosophical thought. Both base on the causal idea. Johnston notices Hobbes as the ideologist that indeed was. It demonstrates that the objective of its political theory was to do the common, ignorant and irrational man, to accept the idea of the state of nature, rational indicator of the need of an organized State. He sees the rhetoric of the political theory of Hobbes as a technique of cultural transformation that objectified to impede the sedition and the civil war in the England of seventy century. A fantastic and essential book.

Not as HOT as The Illusion of Life, but a MUST-HAVE anyway, this book gives a thorough insight into the making of one of the greatest animated feature films ever, by the animators of Bambi and Thumper...

I have, for several years, been a member of various computer animation lists, and that's where I'm coming from with this review. This is the one book which has consistently come up on those lists when dealing with general issues (the Principles of Animation, etc), simply because it is the best. It is not the best tutorial book, since it is not written as a tutorial: it is a history of Disney. If you want a tutorial on computer animation, go elsewhere. But that will probably NOT be as much help to you as reading this book, because after reading this, you will be inspired. I think this is why people are so religeously fervent when speaking about it - not because they found it useful for the large number of techniques and tips which are slipped in throughout (though very many of them are out of date or not applicable in the computer animation world), but because the book inspires. I thought it was expensive, but after I bought it and read it the first time, I realised it was cheap at the price. It is gorgeously produced, and filled with colour pics and examples of what it talks about. Worth buying if you are into animation, or if you are interested in the history of Disney.

The two Authors of "The nine old men" knew what went on at Disney Studios. "A Prime source, you just can't read a better source than these authors! Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's expertise, honored by the American Film Institute and other prestigious resourceszz; guide you through the characters in many animation movies; job descriptions of departments in the making of these movies, steps in animating a scence, ingredieants of a scene, principles of animation, story, character development, animating expressions and dialogue and more.

"Buy the book---no reservations"---the worst that can happen, you return the book to amazon.

Carl Santy.
C.S.

Not a professional animator, I bought this book as a young teen when I was into Classic Disney Animation, along with it's companion volume. I lost both of them in a house fire, and so when I saw The Illusion of Life at the Disneyland Gallery I put several other Disneyland items down to buy it. This book is that good!

Now that I do hand drawn line animation I have found this book to be very helpful and informative. It may not answer all your questions, but it brings up issues you have never thought of, and these small touches are what made Disney animation king for so many years. If you don't want your work to look like Saturday cartoons for the rest of your life, this is a must have.

With both color examples of the layers of animation along with many black and white examples of character movement, this book is for both the professional and Disney fan. More geared toward the professional than the Disney glossy books "The making of..." Illusion will be held dear on your bookcase for years to come.

I have browsed a copy of this book in an animation gallery and was impressed by the work within - certainly a marvellous way to explore the drawings that make up these films.

Let's hope Disney continue this series and quickly release Glen Keane's awesome character sketches and pencil development from 'Beauty and the Beast'! That is what I'm *really* waiting for!

Bambi is a nice drama of real life. It states how life goes. It shows that sometimes you have to go on without your parents that they wont always be there. It also states that your friends & loved one's can be there to lean on & help you get on your feet again. If you're looking for a good book to explain life to kids then this is it. It is a good book to start conversations about life to little kids as well.

This fine addition to the Disney Sketchbook series has many of the wonderful sketches done by Disney's animation department for Bambi, including many pieces from the storyboards, and several sketches of scenes that never made it into the final film. Artists that would like to study the Disney style of drawing and animation should find this volume a terrific addition to their collection despite its rather high price. As a student of art, and a fan of the Disney style, I highly recommend any of these books for your library.

In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul decreed a particularly ugly fate for males who proclaimed any gospel, other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Rev. Anderson need not worry about that punishment. In fact, the title of his book is a bit deceptive: This is not "The Gospel According to Disney," nor is it a theological treatise of any sort. Rather, it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as seen in bits and pieces, through the work of Walt Disney, et al. In each of the 20 short chapters, Anderson lays out a sermon illustration, Sunday School or Vacation Bible School lesson, as seen in one of Disney's films or leading characters. The book is amusing, engaging, and restates the unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ in a fresh way that is easily grasped by a modern audience. If there is any short fall to this valuable little book it is that the book can be a bit short on divine grace, and very long on perfectionism at some points. Ironically, sometimes (despite the title) rather than appealing to the Gospel, Anderson appeals to the Law. ...but a book that includes maxims, morals and ethical teachings is still a valuable text. Especially, when paired with opportunities to view the original films, this book can be a wonderful teaching tool for parents, Sunday School teachers, Vacation Bible School teachers, divinity students and clergy.

The Gospel According to Disney provides a wonderful, authoritative starting point for parents to teach their children Christian morals and values. In each chapter, Rev. Anderson skillfully points out the parallels between the early Disney animated classic movies and the important lessons of Christianity. Included at the end of each chapter are study questions which nicely serve to stimulate and facilitate family discussions. Using the Disney movies, beloved by all children, Rev. Anderson has provided parents with an easy, relevant means to make important Christian teachings a part of their childrens' everyday lives. Thank you, Mr. Disney, for making the beautiful animated classics, and thank you, Rev. Anderson, for showing us their important religious significance!

Rev. Anderson skillfully enlightens the reader to a higher level of Disney animated classics. He lifts up scripture from the Bible and shows the reader how its lessons live on in numerous Disney animated films, created during Walt Disney's lifetime. If Walt were alive, I believe he would highly approve of Rev. Anderson's insights. Exploring Christian values by comparing them to popular stories is a creative and fun way to get the entire family to study and learn from the Bible. Each chapter is a sermon for modern times; his insights are shared with humor, touching stories and wisdom. Rev. Anderson even includes study questions for adults (children of all ages) to continue their learning, on their own time. This book is a treasure for the whole family, a valuable companion to the Bible and represents a scholarly view into the world of animated art.

Okay. I am slightly biased in my review of this book, for reasons which will become clear later on. First off, it should be said that it looks great; glossy and well-manufactured, on acid-free paper, it will last a good long while (though don't put it in your windowsill - I put my copy of the first volume there and it's paled noticeably.)

Judy Friel's short essay on Patrick Mason's tenure as artistic director of Ireland's national theatre is very good about Mason's sense of historical mission. He opened the theatre up to younger writers and actors, giving lucrative and welcome jobs to the many talented people that had arisen from the fringe theatre scene that exploded in Dublin in the early 90s. He also brought plays such as "Angels in America" to an audience that might never otherwise have seen them. (Not many saw "Angels" - scared off by the rumour of Gay People On Stage, they stayed away in droves and it bombed, which was a shame as it was a fine production, albeit only of Part 1.)

Michael Harding is an Abbey regular and "Sour Grapes" is his jaundiced look at the modern priesthood. Not entirely unexpectedly, he finds it riddled with cynicism, abuse of power and faithlessness. The play was intensely topical, because at the time it went on, the country was swamped with revelations (sic) about sexual abuse in the clergy. I find Harding's tone a bit dour and depressed, but there's no doubting the power of the piece, and it certainly reflects a changing attitude in Ireland towards the Catholic church.

Thomas Kilroy's "The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde" is an elegant meditation on the marriage of Oscar and Constance. It's a bit of a shadowplay, highly stylised, with masked puppetteers manipulating all the bit parts - the only speaking characters are Ozzie, his lady wife and his nemesis Lord Alfred Douglas, a handsome devil but by all accounts a truly appalling human being. (A recent biographer thought differently, but then said biographer was only 21 when the biography in question was published, so me may forgive him his youthful...well, ignorance.) Kilroy's conclusion is that Constance was a woman well and truly wronged, and it's hard to argue with that, although I don't know if this piece has the richness and conviction of some of his earlier work.

Alex Johnston's "Melonfarmer" is a sprawling monster of a piece that goes on much too long, but then it's a first play. (That's no excuse, mind.) I think the author spends a little too much time showing off his neat ear for the evasions and ellipses of youthful speech patterns, but there's a basic emotional honesty and a certain beady-eyed unsentimentality that readers may find refreshing. It has some moments of completely bizarre humour and an extremely nasty scene involving a bullet in the foot, both of which were thoroughly up my artistic street. If this writer worked a bit more on his stagecraft, he could get somewhere. I liked it a lot, but then, like I said at the top, I'm biased, cause - I wrote it.

Lastly, Marina Carr's "By the Bog of Cats" is a truly weird, slightly kitschy attempt to rewrite the Medea story as a domestic tragedy set in the Irish Midlands. This would be a great idea, except that Carr goes on to mess it up with a lot of musty sub-Yeatsian symbolism (black swans, ghosts, bogs) and a plot that is so plotted that you only really need to see the first scene to guess how it's all going to work out. But then, this kind of thing is just not for me. Carr is one of Ireland's leading playwrights, but the ends to which she uses her great gifts are getting increasingly obscure to me.

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to have one of the writers review the book. All of these plays are eminently stageable, but I'll bet there's not a theatre out there that would want to do every one of them - except the Abbey, bless it.

NEW PLAYS FROM THE ABBEY THEATRE, Vol. 2, 1996-1998 is a welcome offering from editors Judy Friel and Sanford Sternlicht and from Syracuse University Press. Ms. Friel is a native of Derry, an alumnus of Trinity College, Dublin, and currently the literary manager of Ireland's National Theatre. Mr. Sternlicht is a professor of English at Syracuse University who also teaches Modern Irish Drama each summer at Trinity College. He has written extensively about English and Irish writers, and has many works in print, including A READER'S GUIDE TO MODERN IRISH DRAMA.

In NEW PLAYS... Vol. 2, the editors have provided a brief but informative introduction to modern Irish theatre. Ms. Friel gives an account of the revitalization of the National Theatre of Ireland in the 1990's by its artistic director, Patrick Mason, who examined the direction of the institution and returned it to its roots (those established by earlier Irish writers such as Yeats, J.M. Synge, and Lady Gregory), focusing on the responsibility of the Abbey Theatre to its Irish playwrights, who(to quote Yeats),
"bring to the stage the deeper thoughts and emotions of Ireland."

The book contains complete plays by four of Ireland's greatest modern playwrights - in this volume they are Michael Harding (SOUR GRAPES),Thomas Kilroy (THE SECRET FALL OF CONSTANCE WILDE), Alex Johnston (MELONFARMERS), and Marina Carr (BY THE BOG OF CATS). Mr. Sternlicht provides concise biographical information on each playwright as well as a brief overview of each of their plays. The copyright and contact information for performance rights is listed on the last page.

SOUR GRAPES (Harding) is a fascinating but very sad play about pedophilia, homosexuality and the abuse of power in a Roman Catholic seminary setting, and how it drives a young seminarian to suicide. The young man's case is defended by a sympathetic priest, but the priest, not adept at investigation on a good day, is thwarted by all the other priests in the play including the Bishop and the Canon. The reader is forced to think about the effects of enforced celibacy, and the unholy attitudes/actions of most of the clergy are upsetting. The play jumps around a good deal in a sort of Joycean style. Its realism is jarring(but not surprising, as Harding is a former Catholic preist). The plays powerful statements leaves this reader feeling rather beaten down and exhausted. It certainly speaks to modern issues.

THE SECRET FALL OF CONSTANCE WILDE (Kilroy), written by one of Ireland's most distinguished writers is a sensitive historical accounting of the tragic downfall of Oscar Wilde and his wife, Constance. She is brought out from beneath the shadow of her famous and brilliant husband, and the play clearly elucidates her grief -- over her own past (suggestions of abuse at the hands of her father); over her loss of Oscar to his lover, the cruel and unstable Lord Alfred Douglas; over Oscar's very public prison sentence and her own fall in society's eyes; over her own torment at keeping their own two children away from Oscar, who desperately wants contact with them. She died at age 40, a broken shell, and Oscar followed her in death two years after. The play is presented with a chorus of attendants, Greek-style, and with some scenes including puppetry and some Kabuki effects, as in Noh theatre. It is relentlessly honest in its portrayal of the love triangle, the ambiguities of sexual identity, and the pain caused when families are broken. It is a sad but very moving work.

MELONFARMER (Johnston) is not at all about melon farmers. It is a cinema-verite look at 1990's life in urban Ireland for eight young adults, all trying to find their way in our faster-than-light, information-drenched world. They are negotiating as best they can the new sexuality, the loosening hold of the Church and the old traditional values .. and getting by in life as best they can, which sometimes means just getting by. Sean Spencer, the central character, a would-be comedian, gradually descends into drink and depression. The play is fast-paced, and has moments of hilarity. The opening had me laughing out loud. The play is tragicomic, like life. Playwright Alex Johnston is the grandson of the O'Casey-era Denis Johnston,
and his talent shines through every scene. As in the other plays presented in this book, the realism is gritty and in-your-face.
It stays with you. As Sternlicht states, it's a revelation to a middle-class, middle aged reader such as myself. [Note: the script presented is the 1997 original version for the Peacock Theatre. It has since been revised for a 2000 production, and the latter is the definitive version, per the playwright.]

Last, but not least at all, is BY THE BOG OF CATS (Carr). Ms. Carr is Ireland's leading woman playwright, and a most successful one. After reading her play, I am not surprised. Its power was so strong as to be assaulting. I was horrified by the plot and the bloodiness, but mesmerized despite myself, and I quite literally could not put it down without finishing it.
I can only imagine how powerful this would be on stage, after having it jump off the page at me from a book! It gives you chills. I don't want to give the story away. I will say that it is as strong as a Greek tragedy, and is written that way. But the characters are so real!

This is a most welcome addition to the study of Irish theatre.