At that time, the people that were in the animated film business were mostly guys who were unsuccessful newspaper cartoonists. In other words, their ability to draw living things was practically nil.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You know, comics were created at the same time as the cinema. And the cinema very quickly became a major art. Cartooning didn't become a major art. There's a reason for that. People don't know how to deal with drawings.
When I was a freshman in high school, I read a book about the making of Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' called 'The Art of Animation.' It was this weird revelation for me, because I hadn't considered that people actually get paid to make cartoons.
Animation is different from other parts. Its language is the language of caricature. Our most difficult job was to develop the cartoon's unnatural but seemingly natural anatomy for humans and animals.
If you are going to describe the history of animation, you'd look at the early Disney work, then 'Bugs Bunny,' 'Road Runner' and other Warner Brothers theatrical productions. But when you got to 'Rocky and Bullwinkle,' you'd see they were unique: They assumed you had a brain in your head.
A lot of people feel that there is less artistry involved in cartoon making unless they have painstaking control of each frame.
Look what Disney's done to their animation department. There wasn't an animator in charge of their animation unit!
Disney was not a good animator, he didn't draw well at all, but he was always a great idea man, and a good writer.
Making cartoons means very hard work at every step of the way, but creating a successful cartoon character is the hardest work of all.
There is a relationship between cartooning and people like Mir= and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist, but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.
I realized that people make cartoons for a living. It had never dawned on me that you could do this as a career.