Category: Stephen Colbert

Chicago’s Animated Frames of Reference

I was born in Evanston, Illinois, bordering Chicago. Evanston was where Stephen Colbert attended Northwestern University, and where his sometime collaborator J.J. Sedelmier was born. On Facebook, Sedelmier recommends a new Web site, still under construction, about an illustrator and animator from a hundred years ago.

Edwin G. Lutz wrote a book on animation that was used as a reference by Walt Disney at the start of his slightly successful career, as explained by Sedelmier at this link. Note that animation insider J.J. refers to Mike Barrier’s book about Walt Disney, rather than Chicago native Neal Gabler’s much more widely read biography of Walter Elias, who was likewise born in Chicago.

(I strongly encourage reading Michael Barrier’s wonderful book, “The Animated Man” University Of California Press 2007. I’ve used Barrier’s book to put together a brief sketch of Disney’s early years.)

Despite the success ten years ago of “Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination,” and Gabler’s other books, he has been struggling financially, as featured on the PBS Newshour in 2016.