100 Books Like Creating Animated Cartoons with Character

This is the book- the one that helped me to understand why animation is and always will be important.

Maltin is thorough and impartial, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of classic animated films with clarity and skill. He has been the standard I have always sought to emulate in my own animation writing.

The autobiography of the co-founder of the legendary Hanna-Barbera studio is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the history of animation in the 20th century.

Barbera, who was as gifted as a raconteur as he was an animator, writes without flinching about many aspects of his career, and the difficulties he and business partner William Hanna faced in building and sustaining their careers.

Not boring at all but highly entertaining.

Bendazzi is one of the world's leading authorities on all aspects of animation.

This multi-volume set is his magnum opus, detailing the art of animation as it has evolved over the course of decades on multiple continents.

Thoroughly researched and documented, it is essential for any serious animation scholar's shelf.

We have long admired creators Jay Ward and Bill Scott, whose clever, pun-filled, irony-infused, supremely self-aware TV world is a delight to discover at any age.

Here, author Keith Scott (himself a voice artist and animation historian, and no relation to Bill) spins the story of Bullwinkle J. Moose, Rocky the Flying Squirrel, and their friends and fiends (Boris and Natasha) and also covers creations before, during, and after the Bullwinkle run.

We have also happily indulged in his fan’s eye for detail in 100 pages of end notes minutiae, including every punny episode title.

This collection of short stories are designed to be reminiscent of the old Twilight Zone TV series. As a huge fan of the show, I was interested to see how the interpretation to short story would work. It works very well. If you enjoyed the show (and/or the movie) you'll enjoy this book. Rod Serling would be proud.

While The Making of Star Trek was a miraculous and uncalled-for contemporaneous title focused on the creation and production of the series overall, David Gerrold’s subsequent release, The Trouble With Tribbles, took one script and broke it down from beginning to end on exactly how the sausage—or rather a television show—was made. Filled with his witty observations combined with a writer’s frustrations of dealing with production limitations, it’s a fascinating insight for aspiring writers and Star Trek fans alike. This book, based on one of the most popular television episodes ever made, was originally published just a few years after production ended so all the stories were still fresh in his head. This one made me want to write for television but warned me why I shouldn’t.

If I asked you whether you fancied reading the entire history of British television from its beginnings on the BBC in the 1930s to its position today, you’d probably tell me to get lost.

But the evocative writing of Lez Cooke makes this a far more pleasurable experience than it otherwise ought to be. I guarantee you will be stimulated yet entertained as you are walked through the key creatives, technologies, dramas, and genres that captured the imaginations of millions of avid British telly addicts each decade. You will put down this book as an immediate expert in the field, guaranteed.

David Gerrold had a lot to say about the experience of writing his first episode of television in The Trouble With Tribbles. But that wasn’t all the insight he had behind the scenes of the Star Trek series. So he wrote another entire book about the show and the fandom that adopted it. Once again filled with wit and wisecracks, this book is another must-have for fans of the Original Series. At the time it came out, it was a book about a show that had only just begun to make its mark on popular culture. So the production and studio “machine” was not yet in control of what could and couldn’t be said about the property. Another raw and fascinating book by someone who was actually in the room where it happened. And one that made my entry into Star Trek fandom more understandable.

This is a book for animation aficionados who really want to think about the nuts and bolts of animation. As someone with a tendency to revel in the world building of the finished product of animation, be it a Miyazaki movie or a Disney film, this book re-orients me to the materiality of the medium itself. And yes, traditional animation is a material medium! Frank looked at thousands of animation cells, literally frame by frame, and in her book provides us with a glimpse of the enormous labor, expertise, and occasional mistakes that go into creating even a seven-minute short subject. She brings back from the past the many women who were the inkers and in-betweeners in American animation studios and makes us realize the enormous effort (and tedium) that went into producing the fluid and flexible cartoons that Hollywood is known for.

Along the way, Frank touches on the… show more.

These are collections of writings by Miyazaki in translation: interviews, essays, production notes, doodles, and even poems. These are sometimes directly related to the films, and sometimes on general themes such as artistic integrity, the environment, and contemporary Japan. You get a picture of Miyazaki: deeply thoughtful, ethically engaged, and playfully child-like. Plus, lots of cool illustrations. The second volume goes up through Howls’ Moving Castle.