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WHO’S FIRST?
Steven Smith of Brackley, Northants (41639)
wants to know "What was the first cartoon
and who made it?" Strangely, no-one is quite
sure. But among the contenders are James
Stuart Blackton, a British-born American,
who made a film In 1906 called Humorous
Phases of Funny Faces, a Frenchman, Emil
Cohl, whose first animated film, Fantasma-
gorie, was made in 1908, and an American,
Winsor McCay, who made Little Nemo and
Gertie the Dinosaur in 1909.
There were also several earlier film-makers
who were using the principle of animation —
shooting frame by frame — to make trick films
and we’lI be showing some examples of
these In the next series.
Winsor McCay used his cartoon film as part
of a stage act where he would bet with his
audience that he could make his drawing of
Gertie the Dinosaur come to life. Even if it
wasn‘t the very first cartoon, It's true that
this one was the most remembered and the
one that most inspired others. We'll try to
include It ln the next series.
Jimmy McGee (Membership no 4443) who is
9 1/2 and comes from Moreton, Wirral,
Merseyside asks another tricky question -
“How did the word ‘cartoon' come about, and
when was it forst used?"
As you probably know, there are two current
meanings for the word "cartoon". lt’s how we
refer to drawn animated films, and it’s also
what we call funny drawings of people and
objects (often exaggerated). These are most
often found in newspapers and comics.
The word itself comes from the Italian for
paper - "carta". Before embarking on the real
painting or sculpture or stained-glass win-
dow Italian artists ln the 15th century, such as
Leonardo do Vinci and Raphael, would make
drawings on paper. These drawings which
were the same size as the finished art work,
were called "cartones". This word was later
adapted when political caricatures became
popular in English Victorian magazines.
Emil Cohl and Winsor McCay (see question
above) were both established illustrators
before they experimented with the first
animated "cartoons", so they were both
"cartoonists" before they made "cartoons".
‘Titan Books have recently published a book
reproducing Winsor McCay's Little Nemo
stories from the newspapers. This is a comic
strip classic and the book is a treasure. (The
complete Little Nemo In Slumberland Vol. 1.
l995—1907 £12.95).
I Want My M.O.M.I.
The Museum of the Moving image is everyone's
M.O.M.I. Opened last year it looks at the magical
history of cinema and TV and if you think of
museums as stuffy, boring old places you’II have the
shock of your life at M.O.M.I.. There are many
exhibits that you can operate yourself, you can even
read the news or audition for a movie, and, if you’re
keen on animation theres a special area devoted to
the "Drawings That Walk and Talk". There is an
animator in residence in a little studio and there's a
work area where you can draw your own animation
and view it in a zeotrope. (Fioif made one of these in
Programme 9).
The museum is in London, on the South Bank and
the entry costs are £2.50 for children and £3.50 for
adults. It's open from 10.00am to 8.00pm Tuesday -
Saturday and 10.00am to 6.00pm on Sundays and
Bank Holidays.
If you can't get to M.O.M.l. you might like to write to
them for a very good information pack that they
produce called “Making Pictures Move”. It deals in a
simple way with the principles of persistence of
vision and animation. The packs cost £1.00 each
(cheques made payable to MOMI) and you should
write to MOMI Education, Museum of the Moving
Image, South Bank, Waterloo, London, SE1 8XT
Nothing's Impossible
Nothing’s Impossible in Edinburgh
The Edinburgh Animation Workshop has been running animation
classes for children and adults since 1981. lf you live in the
Edinburgh area and would like more details on when the classes
are held and how much they cost, you should write to them at 29
Albany Street, Edinburgh EH1 3QN, BUT YOU MUST SEND A
STAMPED ADDRESSED ENVELOPE WITH YOUR LETTER!
They also produce an excellent booklet called “Nothing’s Impos-
sibIe”, a guide to making your own animation films. This booklet
costs £2.75 (including postage and packing) from the same
address. Cheques should be made payable to “Edinburgh Film
Workshop Trust".
Tin Toy Triggers Reactions!
If there was one cartoon in Series One that pro-
voked mere reaction than any other it was John
Lasseter’s Tin Toy. This supreme example of com-
puter animation won an Oscar as “Best Animated
Short FiIm” in the last Academy Awards. We
screened it in Programme 18 and in Programme 4
we screened a clip from one of John Lasseter’s
earlier Oscar winners Luxo Jnr.
Tin Toy features Billy, a baby (about 9 months old)
and a little musical toy. The film is really about how
the baby treats the toy. If you’ve got younger
brothers or sisters you ’ll know that they can be quite
rough with their toys. It was this aspect that John
Lasseter explored in Tin Toy, and most of our letters
came from mothers with young children who had
watched the film together. Their children responded
so positively to Billy that their mothers felt they had
to write to us to ask where they could obtain a copy
of the film. Unfortunately it isn’t commercially avail-
able in this country yet. When it is we’II let you know.
In the next newsletter we hope to have an interview
with John Lasseter who was in Bristol this year as a
special guest at the International Animation Festi-
val. This festival, which happens every two years, is
the most important animation festival in Britain and
attracts top animators from many countries.
We‘ll be asking John Lasseter about the baby in Tin
Toy. and about his new film Knick Knack. But keep
watching — you never know where a knick knack
might turn up!
In the meantime, here are some details about Tin
Toy for all you computer buffs. Tin Toy was computed
on 8 different computers and took up nearly 10
gigabytes of disk storage. (A gigabyte is a billion
bytes). The whole of this edition of Rolf's Cartoon
Club News would occupy about 10 thousand bytes
of disk space.
CARTOON COMPUTER, OUR AMIGA AMlGO
We have received many letters from members
enquiring about the cartoon computer that Rolf
uses and whether or not the animation can be
made to work on any other type of computer.
The system used on the show has been
designed around the Amiga 2000 series compu-
ter end the company that have developed the
software, Chromacolour, have prepared a leaflet
about the system. This will give specific details
about the equipment required. It you would like
this information send a STAMPED ADDRESSED
ENVELOPE to “Chromacolour Leaflet", Rolf's
Cartoon Club, P.O. Box 60, BS99 7HN.
For those of you who would like to know a little
more about Rolf's animation system, we need to
look at the diagram which shows all the equip-
ment and how it is connected together.
The camera points at the artwork and produces
a standard television type picture which is dis-
played on monitor (A). However, computers can-
not deal directly with a television picture so the
image is fed into a digitiser which converts the
television image into binary data which the com-
puter is able to process.
After the digitiser has done its job the computer
does the rest. The computer system, controlled
by the mouse, is able to 'grab' the images, store
them in its memory, dlsplay them in sequence
and store them on disc for future use if neces-
sary. The computer output is always displayed
on monitor (B). and this is the picture output that
is used in the studio.