Author Archive

Tuesday, February 7th, 2023

RefPack050: Celebrate A Decade With 50 Reference Packs!

Reference Pack

Animation Resources is shouting out a big THANK YOU to our members, volunteers and fans. We are celebrating two big milestones… our 10th anniversary as a membership organization, and our 50th Reference Pack. To thank the people who have helped us get this far, we’re pulling out all the stops to create the best RefPack EVER! It includes the best e-books and videos from our past 50 RefPacks, and a massive podcast that charts hundreds of years of cartooning in both the West and Japan. Please tell your friends about Animation Resources. The Best of E-Books and Best of Videos will be available for anyone to download, and we will be live streaming the podcast a dozen times over the next month. Spread the word! More members mean we can provide more treasures to our members!

REFPACK050: February / March 2023

PDF E-BOOKS:
Best of 25

Best of The E-Books
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A Sampler of the First 10 Years of RefPack E-Books

The creative world of animation has its roots in the art of cartooning, and the history of cartooning extends back centuries. Over the past decade, Animation Resources’ e-books have included thousands of pages of classic cartooning, illustration and art instruction, ranging from 16th century woodblocks to newspaper comics from the 1920s, to powerful political cartoons from around the world, to complete courses teaching the fundamentals of cartooning and caricature… all designed to broaden the horizons of both professional and student artists.

Best of RefPack 1-50 E-Books
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Click the link to go to the Public Download Page

VIDEO PODCAST:
Best of 25

Best of Videos 1 to 50
Sampler Reels of the First 10 Years of RefPack Animation Videos

Some people are under the mistaken impression that animation is a genre, best suited for children’s cartoons. They think that specific established styles and techniques are the only way cartoons should look. It’s easy even for animators to fall into the trap of making cartoons that look just like all the other cartoons on TV and in theaters. But Animation Resources encourages film makers to think of animation as a medium, capable of breaking new ground by doing innovative and great things. We encourage our members to think outside the box by sharing unique examples of powerful animated film making that exploit the best aspects of the medium.

Best of 1-50 Video Reels
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Click the link to go to the Public Download Page

PLEASE NOTE: These video files are large. Please download them one at a time to avoid timeouts.

Bonus Download

As a special thank you to our annual General and Student members, we have created a special page where we will archive past Reference Packs. There will be a new rerun of a complete RefPack between the new ones.

If you are currently on a quarterly membership plan, consider upgrading to an annual membership to get access to our bonus page with even more downloads. If you still have time on you quarterly membership when you upgrade to an annual membership, email us at…

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membership@animationresources.org

…and we will credit your membership with the additional time.


ANNUAL MEMBER BONUS ARCHIVE
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Available to Student and General Members


Gustave Dore Grotesque Caricatures

ANIMATION RESOURCES ANNUAL MEMBERS: Reference Pack 019 is now being rerun and is now available for download. It includes a PDF e-book of a rare book of grotesque caricatures by Gustave Dore, a Famous Studios Popeye cartoon in high definition, and two wonderful stop motion films by Charlie Bowers! These downloads will be available until March 1st and after that, they will be deleted from the server. So download them now!

Famous Popeye

Click to access the…

Annual Member Bonus Archive
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Downloads expire after March 1st, 2023

Stop Motion Charlie Bowers

Get your friends to join Animation Resources!
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More members mean we can bring you more special downloads.

Podcasts

Animation Resources has embarked on a podcasting series with informal screenings, interviews and seminars. Check back to this page regularly for the latest episodes.

AUDIO PODCAST:
Animated Discussions Podcast

History Of Cartooning From East To West
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Animated Discussions 010 / Hosted by Davey Jarrell with Stephen Worth, Danny Young & Michael Woodside

NewNewHave you ever dreamed of traveling the world and going back in time in a time machine to find out when cartoons began? Well climb aboard this very special episode of Animated Discussions. We’re going to do just that!

Animation Resources’ Programming Director, Davey Jarrell hosts a broad reaching look at the history of cartooning in both the Western world and Asia. Nearly two decades in the making, this podcast is perhaps the most important resource we’ve ever shared. Along with Danny Young and Michael Woodside, Animation Resources president, Stephen Worth traces the breadcrumbs of cartoon history back from the present day to the 15th century… and then with the help of Davey Jarrell, Stephen traces the history of Japanese cartooning from the 12th century back up to the present day.

By tracing the branches of history, we can see the outlines of what cartooning is and where it came from. Best of all, learning about the artists from the past will inspire cartoonists to take back their art form and build on the incredible foundation they built for us.

You won’t want to miss this podcast. Take notes and google names you hear us talk about. You’ll find lots of wonderful things to research that will change the way you think about cartooning.

AD010: History Of Cartooning
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Click the link to go to the Members Only Download Page

Animation Resources 10th Anniversary

It’s Members Appreciation Time again at Animation Resources, and For the past decade, Animation Resources has been serving artists working in the fields of animation, cartooning and illustration. Our volunteers and members have pulled together to raise the bar for our art form, and it’s time to celebrate… It’s Members Appreciation time again!

During the month of February, Animation Resources expresses our appreciation for to members with a very special Reference Pack, and we invite you to become a member too. For the next 30 days, we will be sharing reasons why you should join us. Our benefits of membership far exceed the cost of our annual dues. You can find out what our members get at the Member Appreciation Page. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

Members Appreciation Month

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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Monday, February 6th, 2023

COMING SOON!

Animation Resources 10th Anniversary

Wednesday is a very important day! It’s the day Animation Resources is launching its Member Appreciation Month. This year’s event is extra important, because this year marks our 10th anniversary and our 50th Reference Pack!

In honor of all this, Animation Resources has pulled out all the stops to share with everyone the treasures in our archive. Here are the things you’ll be able to see beginning on Wednesday:

• We have prepared two huge downloadable e-books with a sampling of the best of the e-books in our fifty RefPacks. Totaling over 550 pages, these two books will be available for download by the general public.

• Animation Resources’ Board Member, David Eisman has edited over 2 1/2 hours of clips of videos we’ve shared with our members over the past decade. It includes classic animation, foreign films, anime, documentaries, slapstick comedy and more! These two videos are introduced by Davey Jarrell and will be streamed many times over the next month, and will be available for download by the general public.

•Davey Jarrell and Stephen Worth have completed a monumental audio podcast that has been in the works since 2007. In it, Stephen traces the history of cartooning through time step by step from the present day all the way back to the 15th century. And if that isn’t enough of a leap, Steve then traces the history of cartooning in Japan from the 12th century back to the present! This podcast is almost 3 hours long and it’s packed with breadcrumbs for you to follow. The cartoon history podcast will be streamed multiple times over the next month, and will be available for download by Animation Resources members.

• Between February 8th and March 17th, we will have live streams of the Best of RefPack 1-25 video, the Best of Refpack 26-50 video and the Cartoon History podcast. And beginning Sunday February 19th, we will be hosting a series of three Discord Discussions where you can meet the people behind the scenes at Animation Resources and find out more about the 10th Anniversary offerings.

• On Sunday March 19th, we will be hosting an online party in our Discord server. Everyone is invited to join us in celebrating our tenth anniversary. Mark it on your calendar and come visit with all of us then.

We will have more information on all this starting on Wednesday, and we have more surprises too, so keep your eyes peeled for our announcement.

We want to offer a big THANK YOU to our members and volunteers for supporting our important work over the past ten years. Without you, none of this would be possible.

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Friday, January 6th, 2023

RefPack049: A Peek At The Early Anime Section

People who aren’t members of Animation Resources don’t understand how comprehensive our Reference Packs are. Over a couple of weeks, we are posting what each section of our current RefPack looks like. Today we are sharing the Early Anime section. If you are a member of Animation Resources, click on this post to go to the Members Only page. If you aren’t a member yet, today is the perfect time to join! Our current Reference Pack is one of our best yet, and General and Student Members get access to a special Bonus Archive with even more material from past Reference Packs.

What are you waiting for?
Download Page
JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/


MEMBERS LOGIN To Download

JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content


Early Anime

Lately, Animation Resources board member JoJo Baptista has been researching the early history of Japanese animation. He has searched out video copies of 1960s anime to add to our Animation Archive. Over the past year, he has accumulated hundreds of hours of rare television programs. We will be will be sharing some of them with you in our Reference Packs. Our members have asked us to share complete films and publications with them, not excerpts, so we will be sharing complete half hour episodes with you. We don’t claim that everything here is great. But there are great bits. You can sift through them and discover the gems for yourself.

SD VIDEO:
Golden Bat

Golden Bat
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Curated by JoJo Baptista
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Ep.16 / Ep.39 (1967)
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Golden BatGolden BatThe character of Golden Bat goes as far back as 1930, and is, by some, considered to be the first superhero. He was created by Suzuki Ichiro and Takeo Nagamatsu, who named the character after a popular cigarette brand of the time. His appearance has undergone several incarnations, but he is most easily recognizable by his golden skull. He made his first appearance in a kind of traveling show called a kamishibai, also known as paper theater. The performances were not unlike a Punch and Judy puppet show. However, instead of puppets, what was presented in the miniature stage were illustrations accompanied by the narration of the showman. This form of entertainment remained quite popular in Japan until television took over the eyes and imaginations of Japanese children in the early 1960s.

Golden Bat
Golden Bat

First came a live action film. Then in 1967 it was time for Golden Bat to make the jump to the medium of television. This version of the character replaced his original 17th century swashbuckler attire with more traditional superhero attire— golden tights and a black cape with red lining. His appearance was likely streamlined to make drawing him easier for the animators to manage. He also lost his original cross-eyed expression, derived from Japanese warrior prints, replaced by mostly empty eye sockets. Not to be outdone in the optics department, in the redesign the villain, evil Dr. Nazo was given an extra set of new eyes!

While unfortunately, I don’t have much to say about the animation in this series, I can appreciate the fun ideas that went into it. There isn’t a lot of filler in this series. It’s wall to wall action most of the time. Golden Bat’s maniacal laughter is infectious. He makes you want to laugh like that! He cackles away at every opportunity as he beats his foes into submission. I found myself feeling a little sorry for his enemies because of it. It’s got to be humiliating to be laughed at like that when a bomb has just blown up in your face!

Golden Bat
Golden Bat

In episode 16, Golden Bat whacks a robot off a cliff and watches him plunge hundreds of feet into the ocean. Golden Bat stands triumphantly at the cliff’s edge laughing his ass off. It turns a dramatic scene into something funny. I think the following scene with Dr. Nazo slamming his claw down in anger and scolding his subordinate is funny too. Nazo slams his claw a few more times, each time accompanied by the exact same pathetic sound effect.

By the way, the robot in this episode roars like a lion. I don’t why. Maybe they didn’t have a lot of sound effects to choose from. But it’s a nice touch. Perhaps the most disturbing sound effect is used in episode 39, where a monster is bloodily devoured by a pack of sharks. There’s a visceral wet chewing noise that made me feel very squeamish!

Golden Bat
Golden Bat

This series delivers exactly what kids in the 1960s wanted… giant monsters, superheroes, robots, evil villains and tons of stuff exploding into bits. Enjoy!

I’ll have more early Japanese TV series to share with you in our next Reference Pack.

REFPACK049: Golden Bat ep16
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MP4 Video File / SD / 24:06 / 251 MB Download

REFPACK049: Golden Bat ep39
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MP4 Video File / SD / 24:05 / 269 MB Download


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Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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