Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson | 
| Author: Tom Sito
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Category: Book
List Price: $32.00
Buy New: $19.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 80237
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 440
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 0813124077
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.881179143340973
EAN: 9780813124070
ASIN: 0813124077
Publication Date: October 6, 2006
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Product Description
As cartoons and animated features became an increasingly important part of the entertainment business, the production of cartoons industrialized to meet growing demands for the new global media. Artists adopted traditional union models to protect their jobs and working conditions, and a unique set of unions was born. "Drawing the Line" is the first labor history of an industry whose principal figures - Walt Disney, Chuck Jones, and Max Fleischer - helped define American entertainment. Author Tom Sito, Disney animator and former president of the Hollywood Animation Guild, draws on oral histories, archival information, and firsthand knowledge of the animation process to create an insider's history of a colorful group of labor unions. Sito describes the history and fiery personalities behind the formation of the Screen Cartoonists Union, the strikes and walkouts, the effects of Hollywood blacklisting, and the battles at the bargaining tables. He closes with a look at the changing nature of animation and the way in which current giants Disney and Dreamworks are again reshaping the relationship between studios and animators. Well illustrated with never-before-seen images from the backstage of classic "Hollywood", "Drawing the Line" will change basic assumptions about animation history and its place in the story of American labor.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Great specialized info July 28, 2007
I originally read about this book in a review from animation world network (www.awn.com) It is everything the review said. Great information about the start of the industry fighting for its rights. A great read if you are into animation history. All of the animation old masters are involved, and speaks of even though they were in competition, they all had the same goal.
Fills a Historic Gap March 12, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
As a Disney enthusiast, I have found one of the most delicate and hard-to-research periods in Disney history was the 1941 studio strike. Tom Sito fills this gap by providing a comprehensive narration. But more important to others, he provides a complete history of labor developments in the animation profession. I had no idea there had been so much turmoil! His account is very up-to-date, too, covering the most recent developments, like computer animation. This is a key reference tool for anyone seriously interested in the business of animation.
-"IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO"... illustrating not such a rosey picture of Toon Town! January 1, 2007
Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Mr. Magoo, Fred Flintstone, the Pink Panther and Bart Simpson, are the biggest stars in the business. But they couldn't make the slightest move or even open their mouths, without the help of the animation worker. Meaning no disrespect, I say worker and not artist, because that's what Tom Sito's book "Drawing The Line" is all about. The eternal labor struggle of men and women in the animation industry and their right to be recognized and treated as artists. Of course Hollywood is not the kind of town where that is ever likely to happen any time soon. And for all those that scoff and think that anyone who gets paid to simply draw for a living, let alone getting to work in Hollywood at all should be forever grateful. Well -you're about to have your eyes opened as you turn the pages of this well written and lovingly researched history, that dares to speak the truth and document it in precise detail. Through first-hand accounts of the animators that struck the studios, were fired and blacklisted, Sito has chronicled their plight and shown the effect it has had on working conditions today.
As an animator himself and a former declared labor cynic. Sito learned from personal experience why their really was a need to be unionized. So much so that he later went on to become an active president of the screen cartoonists local in Hollywood. Yes, animation was and still is a labor intensive assembly-line that even in this digital computer age, still relies on the artistic and professional skill's of it's of workers. It's a "must read" not just for anyone with the least interest in animation, Hollywood or social and labor studies, but for anyone who's keen to know just how their favorite cartoon characters came into being in the first place. Believe me, you'll never see them as just simple drawings ever again!
Many important insights on how the business evolved and how it affects today's working animators. December 14, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
DRAWING THE LINE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE ANIMATION UNIONS FROM BOSKO TO BART SIMPSON provides the first comprehensive history of animators' unions in modern times, from silent cartoons through today's big movie hits. Any involved in cartooning will find the business and industry insights essential to a thorough knowledge of their career choice: history and cultural observations blend with a survey of the entertainment industry as a whole, making for many important insights on how the business evolved and how it affects today's working animators.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
A one-stop shopping history of the American animation biz December 1, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Yes, this is a history of union activity within the American animation industry, but don't think for a moment that it is a dry, dusty treatise on labor practises. Tom Sito has written a lively, anecdotal, funny, hugely entertaining and magnificently informative history of the animated cartoon -- where it came from, who was responsible, and how far it has come. At a time when legendary figures like Walt Disney tend to be Rushmoreized, Sito presents them as real, living and breathing people -- enormously talented, even brilliant, and sometimes conflicted, yes; but real. In the process he tells the stories of these cartoon creators that are often as funny and endearing as the cartoons themselves. This is not simply the story of animation, however. It is also the larger story of Hollywood and how its traumatic, sometimes even violent unionization efforts reflected what was going on everywhere in America.
Sito has written an important story with panache, wit, and a unique insider's perspective, and has created a book that everyone interested in classic Hollywood and the Golden Age of animation must have.
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