Progress City, U.S.A.

There are a couple of new Disney-related books that have been released recently, and while I haven’t had a chance to read or review them yet I thought I’d let you know that they’re out there.

The first title is Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman, a “memoir biography” of the legendary Disney artist by John Stanley Donaldson. Donaldson was a friend of Ryman’s for thirty years, and the material for this 400-page biography was mined from his lifetime of notes, correspondence, diaries and audio recordings. In his career Ryman worked as an artist at both the Disney animation studio and Imagineering, and his concept art for EPCOT ranks among my absolute favorite pieces of Imagineering artwork.

The other new title, which just released last week, is Project Future, The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World by Chad D. Emerson. Emerson, a member of the faculty at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law, spent two years researching the clandestine process by which Walt Disney Productions planned “Disneyland East” and purchased their 27,000+ acres in swampy Central Florida. He also interviewed a number of key players in the process, including Disney consultant Buzz Price, former Florida Governor Claude Kirk, and key Disney players Bob Foster and Tom DeWolf.

Review copies of both of these titles are winging their way to me, and I’m looking forward to both of them. I’ll even hide my jealousy over Project Future, since it’s obviously the kind of book I was planning to write! But nothing can beat actual first-person testimony, and it’s obvious that both these authors have that in spades. Check them out via the links above, and you can look for reviews in hopefully the near future!

I’ve long wanted to start writing book reviews here on Progress City, as recent years have been filled with a slew of great new titles dissecting every aspect of the Disney empire. Hopefully I can make time to do that, but this year looks to be filled with just as many interesting new tomes that it might be impossible to ever clear up the backlog.

I’m perhaps most excited about the upcoming release, on May 6th, of The Art of Walt Disney World. A companion volume to the excellent The Art of Disneyland, the book has already received a rave review from respected Disney historian Didier Ghez. Authored by prolific Disney authors Jeff Kurtti and the late Bruce Gordon – who, thankfully, left us with more posthumous releases than Tupac Shakur – this illustration-heavy edition will contain lots of little-seen conceptual art from the creation of the resort.

I’m incredibly excited about this release, as conceptual art from Walt Disney World has been much harder to find over the years than art from the development of Disneyland. We all know the handful of renderings that were released repeatedly in 1971; perhaps the only park to have its development well documented publicly was EPCOT Center, thanks to the now-legendary Walt Disney’s EPCOT Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow.

The only problem is that, incomprehensibly, this book will only be made available in stores at Walt Disney World. Not online, not at Amazon… nowhere. Why? A large swath of Disney fandom has been waiting for this book for several years – it has been delayed many times – and not all of us can just pop down to the Emporium to pick up a book we’re interested in. This is another of those odd instances when I’m raring to give Disney my money but they refuse to take it. Of course, if they want to send me a review copy…

Staying in the theme parks, today marked the release of The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The next in a series of pocket-sized editions that contain brief histories of various Disney parks, these “Field Guides” rarely have any earth-shattering revelations for die-hard fans but they always have some nice artwork and provide a good primer to the park and its history. I do think they missed a chance, though, by not offering a more expensive version without the dreaded Hat on the cover. I know I would have chipped in a few extra bucks not to have to see that on my bookshelf.

Heading to the world of animation, we have several new titles relating to Pixar and its films. The studio’s forthcoming feature Up has quite a few tie-in releases, most notably The Art of Up by Tim Hauser (The Art of WALL.E). Up also gets a Little Golden Book, and two picturebooks based on the film’s canine character Dug: Beware of Dug! and My Name is Dug, featuring art by Pixar vet Ronnie del Carmen.

Finally there’s The Pixar Treasures, also by Tim Hauser. Amazon says:

The Pixar Treasures is a scrapbook of instinct and inspiration, experiences readers can touch, and visions that exist only in the imagination. It begins with a group of animators who were inspired by Walt Disney films. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, John Lasseter, Brad Bird, and Joe Ranft were hired into an apprenticeship program at Walt Disney Productions. The last of Disney’s golden age artists, including animators Eric Larson, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, and Ollie Johnston mentored the young dreamers, and as Pixar later developed, their work would draw heavily from this direct connection with Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men.” The tale continues with Pixar’s foray into computer animation, and the resulting success of Toy Story. With chapters on A Bug’s Life; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; Ratatouille; and WALL*E, Hauser’s narrative covers the struggles, growth, and successes of an incredible animation studio. And it gives readers a sneak peak at the newest Disney*Pixar film, Up. Filled with unique removable keepsakes, The Pixar Treasures is an essential collector’s item for every Pixar fan.

Happy reading…

UPDATE: Amazon has just listed Art of The Princess and the Frog, based on the next release from Disney Feature Animation. The book releases on September 1, and is authored by the omnipresent Jeff Kurtti. That guy is everywhere…

UPDATE THE SECOND: I smack my forehead as RandySavage points out in the comments below a very glaring omission from my post. On November 3, Disney will release Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making More Magic Real. This is a sequel to the popular 1996 edition, Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind-The-Dreams Look At Making The Magic Real. Also – and I really can’t believe I forgot this one – there’s South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program 1941-1948, an October release that will tell the story of the Disney animators’ research trips to South America during World War II and the package films that followed – Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, and the unproduced Cuban Carnival. This is one of my absolute favorite periods of Disney animation and I’m incredibly excited to see what never-seen surprises emerge from this book. Author J.B. Kaufman has discussed the project on the Walt Disney Family Museum site.

I also left out a couple of critical new animation titles such as June’s release of A Disney Sketchbook 1928 – 2008, a compilation of development art from the history of the Disney animation studios. October brings Walt Disney Animation Studios – The Archive Series: Animation, the next volume in the series of Disney Studios art that began with last year’s Walt Disney Animation Studios – The Archive Series: Story.

Feel the flow, here we go…

What better way to clear out my bookmarks than to start out with a nearly year-old post from Passport to Dreams Old & New? When Foxx originally posted this piece about the new souvenir guidebooks at Walt Disney World, I was excited to hear about the possibility of a return to the classy park guides of old. Sure as the world, I was able to pick these up in March and they’re a vast improvement over recent guides. And, as Foxx says, the fact that they’re not hardcover or printed on high-quality paper is offset buy their shockingly reasonable price. Big applause to author Jody Revenson, designer Steven Rosen and editor Wendy Lefkon.

Disney & Siemens team up to keep us safe.

Disney fans have long bemoaned the lack of merchandise for characters outside of the company’s mainstream. Thankfully, the folks at Electric Tiki have stepped up and obtained a license to produce figures, maquettes and statues of fan-favorite Disney properties. Early releases will include Darkwing Duck, Roger & Jessica Rabbit, maquettes based on Mary Blair’s Alice in Wonderland designs, the Rescue Rangers and – yay – the Rocketeer.

At last – a nice explanation of what, exactly, the deal is with the mysterious Bonnet Creek Resort.

The Financial Times has lunch with John Lasseter, featuring some interesting discussion of his 1983 firing from Disney. Why don’t I ever have lunch with John Lasseter?

Here’s a photo update from last month with some news regarding expansion at Disneyland Paris.

Word leaked last month that, considering Detroit’s current woes, General Motors might be unable to come to suitable terms to extend their sponsorship of Test Track. Their most recent ten-year sponsorship contract was set to expire at the end of March. A spokesperson for GM admitted in March that talks were still underway, and that the company very much wanted to continue the deal, but with the company’s financial future imperiled it might be difficult to explain the roughly $5 million annual fee to Congress.

Sources from Toyota admitted to the Orlando Sentinel that they have had internal discussions on whether to enter into sponsorship talks for the attraction, but as of March further speculation would be premature. It’s assumed that if a new company took over the attraction that, much like Siemens did with Spaceship Earth, they would want to put their own stamp on the pavilion. As I’m not much of a Test Track fan, I’m pretty much of the opinion that anything they’d want to do would be an improvement. Nothing against GM, but this is one rumor that I hope has legs.

You must read this. I wish it was mandatory reading at Team Disney.

Mickey’s Philharmagic will open at Tokyo Disneyland in 2011. While this is understandable, I will mourn their loss of the Mickey Mouse Revue. That and Meet the World were two treats that I was always excited about someday seeing in Tokyo.

More from Passport to Dreams – this time about Tomorrowland. There are interesting ideas here, and this is something I’ve written about myself. WDI needs to decide what Tomorrowland is going to be.

A great resource: Theme Park Paper.

What the?!

Progress City is a worker’s utopia, so we don’t often sell out to the man or shill for corporate interests. But sometimes, a deal is just too too sweet…

Anyway, thanks to this post by George at Imaginerding, I discovered some great Disney books with freakishly high discounts on Amazon. After a little sleuthing myself, I uncovered other titles that are on sale. Some of these titles are 80% off – sweet sweet savings of 20-30 devalued American dollars! So check below and stoke that economy before it collapses – at least we can burn the books for heat after peak oil hits!