Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928

There was once a time when the utterance "Mickey Mouse" had no meaning and conjured up no images of vast tracts of decadent land saturated with sugary amusement. The word "Felix", however, would probably send a jolt through most living in this lost time. Just how popular Felix was is evident in a 1926 photograph of Ligget's Drug Store in Grand Central Station that Crafton included in "Before Mickey." The window is nearly filled to the brim with Felix paraphenalia, much like we've seen recently with the Powerpuff Girls, Spongebob Squarepants and Harry Potter. Felix was once just as ubiquitous and just as unavoidable.The events that led up to this incredible success are laid out in "Before Mickey." The saga of animation is an interesting and much neglected part of cinema history. The book covers something that is almost never discussed: animation's origins in stop-motion. Everyone should read Crafton's account of "The Haunted Hotel" - a stop-motion film where objects "float" through the air and objects move on their own. It terrified audiences and gave impendance to animation with its success. From this it was almost a natural progression to drawings that moved and funny characters in funny situations.Silent animation had its own life and own method of communicating. Everything was in the pictures, and early animation artists made the most of this. It remains, and will probably sadly remain, a very underappreciated art form. We're just too drunk with sound these days.Luckily, you can read this book and get a taste of what those days must have been like, the stories of the pioneers that made it all possible (those in America, at least) and how far we've come in some respects and what we've lost in others.Anyone interested in the early history of animation should read this(after all, there isn't much else out there right now). Also, if you can, buy the tape (is it available on DVD now?) that accompanies the book. It's filled with great animation but sadly missing "The Haunted Hotel." It does, however, include a GREAT Felix the Cat cartoon.

In histories of animation there is usually a very small amount of time devoted to animation that was released before "Steamboat Willie". This book fills this hole quite nicely. The book goes into exhaustive detail on James Stuart Blackton, Winsor McCay, Emile Cohl, Otto Messmer, the Bray Studio, and animation shops that emerged from the Bray Studio. There is one chapter devoted to commercial animation in Europe from this time period. But if you're looking for a more in depth study of early European animators like Ladislas Starewicz and Lotte Reiniger, you might want to check some place else (I'm not sure where). Though one entire chapter IS devoted to Emile Cohl, this mostly deals with American animation. Those looking for information about animation outside of Western society are looking in the wrong place. As its title suggests, this book is basically a history of events leading up to Mickey Mouse.