THE DEMON DUCK OF DOOM ( or '3D' for short)
Various rantings from a raving lady cartoonist. "The world decorates its heroes with laurel, and its wags with Brussels Sprouts".
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Friday, February 23, 2024
Another Giant Leaves Us
Selby was a pioneer woman animator and a tireless campaigner against the discrimination that relegated her and other talented female artists to the anonymity of the Ink and Paint pool at the Disney studio.
Selby was the head of the paint mixing department at the studio at the time of SNOW WHITE. She is pictured in the original 1938 program from Radio City Music Hall.
Selby is also pictured in many of the 'strike' photographs at Disney in 1941; at the time, she was dating Art Babbitt and so was very active in the union.
She was once President of the Screen Cartoonists' Guild and ran her own animation studios in the USA and Mexico with Roger Daley, her first husband.
Selby was a published children's book illustrator when she applied to Disney in 1936 as an animator. "They laughed at me and told me to go across the street to the Ink and Paint department."
A conversation:
Selby: "They paid me $15.00 a week."
me: "It was the Depression."
"Well, I gave up a job at the drugstore that paid twenty."
She described Walt Disney as a 'benevolent despot' toward the women and told me that if a woman walked into the Animation Building for any reason, she would be fired. Animators could visit Ink and Paint.
"We were told that women can't animate."
"Why?"
"We just can't."
Inkers could not afford the commissary on their low salaries, so they had a 'sandwich wagon' instead.
"I met my first husband in Chuck Jones' unit, and I also met my second husband in Chuck Jones' unit."
Walt Kelly apparently used to watch Margaret Selby walk to the Ink and Paint building, but though they worked in the same studio, they never met until thirty years later.
Selby told me something once that I have never forgotten.
"My first husband was as talented as my second husband. But he was a perfectionist and was never happy with the result. Kelly was satisfied to get it 80% right, and leave it at that."
(Arguably, 80% of Walt Kelly is 150% of most of our efforts...the man was a drawing dynamo.)
Selby was a very good friend of mine for many years after we met at Zanders'.
I interviewed her in 1983 for Cartoonist PROfiles magazine. The interview will be posted on this blog.
Farewell, Selby. I hope in the Big Studio in the Sky, the women can and do work with 'the boys'.
Monday, November 07, 2022
ANIMATION ANARCHY ON SUBSTACK
Hey.
Frank and Ollie were right.
And I have a new blog on Substack. Why? Well, I might want to sell something there eventually. You can never tell.
Wednesday, October 05, 2022
Fantasy-Animation Interview October 2022
I was interviewed for this podcast and they asked excellent questions. Look at some of the others, too, it's a very interesting site.
The picture of me was my official Disney portrait, taken in 1995. If you look carefully at my shirt, you will see little Mickey Mouse hands and feet and pants in the pattern. Subtle.
Tuesday, October 04, 2022
A nice shout out from a nice site
If you aren't visiting the Animation World Network site regularly, you should be. It covers 'worldwide' animation, not just the usual suspects. There are articles, reviews, and blogs...and today, there's this: along with a review.
Writing a book or making a film and showing either one publicly means you listen to people who say its mom wrote it funny. (I left out the ugly part, and I want people to think I wrote it funny.)
So, we'll see what develops.
Monday, October 03, 2022
Leonard Maltin and Jessie Maltin were kind enough to mention HOW I FINALLY GOT TO LIVE A CAT'S LIFE on their October 2 HAPPY SUNDAY livestream. The review comes at 1 :01 :30. Thank you, Jessie and Leonard.
Sunday, October 02, 2022
No More Teachers...No More Books...except that last part isn't true.
The book launched on October 1, and since it is the weekend, some things only will appear on Monday.
The first: Shipping. This is already happening, or so I am told. Good. The second: Ebooks. Now, I know very little about the latter object, but they are the modern way to read a book. So, they are available. They are also listed at two different prices on ebook sites. This is a mistake. The higher price is the correct one. Just so you know. Ah, Mondays.
There are fifty 'diary entries' and four Pandemic Postage Stamps in How I Finally Got to Live A Cat's Life. I drew more than fifty cartoons during the past two years. Many more. There wasn't a whole lot else to do, and not all the scary stories involved viruses.