Michael Barrier

Last updated

Michael Barrier
Born
Michael J. Barrier

(1940-06-15) June 15, 1940 (age 83)
Occupation(s) Animation historian
Comics historian
Awards Inkpot Award (2016) [1]

Michael J. Barrier [2] (born June 15, 1940) is an American animation historian.

Contents

Work

Barrier was the founder and editor of Funnyworld (October 1966 – Spring 1983), the first magazine exclusively devoted to comics and animation. It began as a contribution to the CAPA-Alpha amateur press association. [3] Beginning in 1970 it expanded to being a magazine of general circulation that eventually had a print run of several thousand before ceasing publication in the early 1980s.

Barrier was also an early champion of the work of comic book artist Carl Barks, in a period when comic book fandom was mostly devoted to the celebration of superheroes and tended to denigrate talking animal comics.[ citation needed ] Barrier serialized a bibliography of Barks' work in Funnyworld and in 1968 contributed an essay analyzing Barks' work to the seventh issue of the Don and Maggie Thompsons' fanzine Comic Art. The essay and bibliography installments were the genesis for Barrier's 1982 book Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book. [4]

In 1973, Barrier signed a contract with Oxford University Press to write a history of Hollywood animation. [5] The research and writing of that book extended over twenty-four years. With the aid of associate (and animator) Milt Gray, Barrier undertook research and interviews of all the key figures who played a role in the creation of classic American theatrical animation, mainly that of Disney ( Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse ), Warner Bros. ( Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies ), MGM (such as the Tom and Jerry series) and the Fleischer/Famous studios. That research provided the basis of his 700-page history of classic animation, Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age (published in hardcover in 1999 and reissued and revised as a trade paperback in October 2003). [5]

With writer Martin Williams, Barrier co-edited A Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics (1982).

In 2003–2007, Barrier provided several audio commentaries for the first five Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD box sets, his largest audio contributions being for the first volume. He has also appeared in documentaries about animation.

In 2004, Barrier engaged in a lengthy discussion on animation topics with John Kricfalusi that he was allowed to post on his website. [6]

Barrier's next book was a 2007 biography of Walt Disney, The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. [5] A review of the book by Jeff Ayers described it as "More of a critical slam of Disney's cartoons and films than a useful biography, this book will disappoint, bore, or anger fans of the man." [3] Disney historian Wade Sampson in a contrary view stated "If you are a fan of Walt Disney and want information that you know you can trust, then I definitely recommend you add this book to your collection." [7]

Barrier's next book was Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books (2014), "a book on comic books that will pay much less attention to superheroes than the usual comic-book history and much more to the likes of Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, and John Stanley—that is, to the mainstays of the Dell line, as well as to such significant creators as Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman." [8]

Related Research Articles

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Carl Barks was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck. He worked anonymously until late in his career; fans dubbed him The Duck Man and The Good Duck Artist. In 1987, Barks was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bugs Bunny</span> Looney Tunes character; mascot of Warner Bros.

Bugs Bunny is a fictional character created in the late 1930s at Warner Bros. Cartoons and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his featured roles in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films, produced by Warner Bros. Earlier iterations of the character first appeared in Ben Hardaway's Porky's Hare Hunt (1938) and subsequent shorts before Bugs's definitive characterization debuted in Tex Avery's A Wild Hare (1940). Bob Givens, Chuck Jones, and Robert McKimson are credited for defining Bugs's design.

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Silly Symphony is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the Silly Symphonies were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music. As such, the films usually did not feature continuing characters, unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts produced by Disney at the same time. The series is notable for its innovation with Technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera, as well as its introduction of the character Donald Duck making his first appearance in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Seven shorts won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

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Walter Crawford Kelly Jr., commonly known as Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Pogo. He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Dumbo. In 1941, at the age of 28, Kelly transferred to work at Dell Comics, where he created Pogo, which eventually became his platform for political and philosophical commentary.

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Isadore "Friz" Freleng, credited as I. Freleng early in his career, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, producer, and composer known for his work at Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from the 1930s to the early 1960s. In total he created more than 300 cartoons.

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Robert Emerson Clampett Sr. was an American animator, director, producer and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros. as well as the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil. He was born and raised not far from Hollywood and, early in life, showed an interest in animation and puppetry. After dropping out of high school in 1931, he joined the team at Harman-Ising Productions and began working on the studio's newest short subjects, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

"Pluto Saves the Ship" is a 51-page black-and-white comic book story scripted by writers Carl Barks, Jack Hannah and Nick George from a plot devised possibly by a publisher, and drawn by Disney animation layout artist Bruce Bushman. It was originally printed in Dell Comics' Large Feature Comics #7 in July 1942, and is one of the first American Disney comics ever made that was not reprinted from newspaper comic strips. It is Barks' first comic book work, and Pluto's first comic book adventure. This was followed in October 1942 by Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold, the Disney characters' first entry in Dell's Four Color anthology series.

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Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and Dell Four Color, was an American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962. The title is a reference to the four basic colors used when printing comic books. The first 25 issues (1939–1942) are known as "series 1". In mid-1942, the numbering started over again, and "series 2" began. After the first hundred issues of the second series, Dell stopped putting the "Four Color Comics" designation on the books, but they continued the numbering system for twenty years.

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References

  1. Inkpot Award
  2. US Copyright Office (April 9, 1999). "Copyright Registration No. TX0004965985" . Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  3. 1 2 Ayers, Jeff (April 15, 2007). "The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney". Library Journal . 132 (7): 92.
  4. "Books by Michael Barrier", Retrieved on September 19, 2007
  5. 1 2 3 "About Michael Barrier" Archived November 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine , Retrieved on September 19, 2007
  6. "An Exchange with John K.", Michael Barrier
  7. The Best Walt Disney Biographies
  8. "Help wanted", Retrieved on June 12, 2008