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#1 | ||
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
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Sticking one’s favourite strips into a scrap book was also something I did as a child. Quote:
But nothing in American illustration that I am aware of fits with Tolkien’s fear of American children’s illustration being influenced by Disney, unless he had seen books incorporating Disney art and other art derived from American animated cartoons. Further research shows that Whitman’s Giant Midget Books® line based on their North American Big Little books was founded in 1940, and so they also were likely not seen by Tolkien in 1937 or before. The customs of those days was that a U.S. publisher often partnered with a U.K. firm to publish the same book, as happened with The Hobbit. I find that some early Whitman books starring Mickey Mouse are also listed on the web as being published by Collins in London. See https://www.google.ca/search?q=%22Mi...use%22+collins for some of these books on some of the pages listed. As far as I can find almost all animated shorts in the early days of film animation were produced in the U.S., and none at all in Britain. So this would have created a demand in Britain for books based on the animated films seen, which Collins was able to fulfill thanks to Whitman. I do not know whether the Mickey Mouse daily strip was published in any British newspaper. |
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#2 | |
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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What is the exact date of his first comment about Disney?
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#3 | |||
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
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They did not take off in the States either, proof being that each book soon went out of print. Same as Britain. But they sold well enough that new ones kept being printed, same as Britain. Their sales market would have been the real fans, the same as the Doctor Who books currently (and formerly) being produced which likewise are mostly not reprinted, even within Britain.
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… as long as it is possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all of whose works I have a heartfelt loathing.)The word works may cover various animated cartoons or may cover animated cartoons and books. That Disney is here connected by Tolkien with book illustration suggests to me that Tolkien had seen both cartoons and books and had loathed both. The books were published in Britain in the 30s. They existed in Britain. Tolkien need only have spotted some of them at least once in a sale bin to have convinced him that American children’s book illustrators were sometimes influenced by Disney. In fact, so far as I know, the only American children’s books of the 30s that could be said to be “from or influenced by the Disney studios″ would be books containing material derived from the American cartoons or inspired by them. Tolkien might not know this. I don’t find an early Disney animated eagle, but here are some early Disney owls: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4...ney%201931.jpg . Here are some cartoon eagles in general: https://www.google.ca/search?q=eagle...=u&source=univ , mostly much later from various sources. Imagine almost any of these used in the illustration “Bilbo Awoke with the Early Morning Sun in his Eyes” and it should be obvious what Tolkien feared. However eagles drawn in this style are unlikely to appear in any book, save funny (supposedly) comic books or a few with pictures that are intentionally in similar style. |
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#4 | ||
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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I'm just weighing up the likelihood of where he encountered Disney is all!
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#5 | ||||
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
Posts: 479
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Note the many items on the right-hand side of this blog, each of which lists still more Disney publications in Britain. Your belief in the rarity of Disney print publications in Britain of the 30s is only your own incorrect personal beliefs which are not born out by the facts. Quote:
Nothing posted by anyone but you even suggests that Tolkien ever bought any Disney books for Priscilla or anyone else. Why do you persist in this absurdity? Quote:
Evidence shows that he would have had numerous chances to be aware of Disney publications in book stores, if you just look for the evidence. As a would-be children’s book writer who had written The Hobbit, Mr. Bliss, and Roverandom Tolkien would be likely to be more interested in perusing children’s literature in bookstores than most adults, especially as Tolkien was not able to get Mr. Bliss and Roverandom published. Quote:
You seem to contend that Tolkien’s fear of influence by Disney on Amercan children’s book animation was almost solely paranoid fantasy. Arguing solely from likelihood, it seems to me very likely that Tolkien, as well as having seen Disney animation, had also seen at least some of the many, many Disney articles on sale in Britain at the time. |
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#6 | ||
Illustrious Ulair
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: In the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names,and impossible loyalties
Posts: 4,240
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Found this: http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Home%2...hivesFeb10.htm
Interesting reference to a 1964 letter by JRRT himself: Quote:
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#7 | |||
A Mere Boggart
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: under the bed
Posts: 4,737
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Sorry, but I will persist that Tolkien's most likely exposure to Disney was from cinema. It's based on experience and knowledge of culture here. These books clearly weren't that popular, as borne out by the lack of them in the thousands of hours I've spent in second hand bookshops (and you can buy all kinds of raggedy old comics and chewed books from the first half of the 20th c so unless they have all been squirelled away they can't be that common). However, cinema going was something everyone did - going to see a mixed bag programme that would maybe have a film, some news, a couple of cartoons etc. There's also the 1930s British book shopping experience to take into account. Bookshops weren't shops conducive to casual browsing, in common with most shops in the UK until the 1950s stock was mostly kept out of reach of 'casual browsers' and you would normally need to ask to view items. Books were expensive and most borrowed them from the public library. Browsing in the modern sense would only have happened in more casual shopping environments like markets or Woolworths (in fact Penguin paperbacks were first sold here). Tolkien's wife was more likely to have come into contact with the cheaper end of publishing doing her Saturday shopping (not something men ever got involved with); an Oxford bookshop would have been extremely unlikely to have ever lowered itself to stock comics, kids' books and paperbacks and the like. In 1937 the place Tolkien is most likely to have seen Disney in print would be in the newspaper. I have access to the British Newspaper Archive and have been looking what's held there. Hype for Snow White in 1937 was all over, and some titles carried Mickey Mouse strips (just found one now in a 1930 edition of the Hull Daily Mail after a quick search of the British National Newspapers archive). There's also an item about one of the books in a 1934 Gloucestershire Echo - priced at 2s 6d, a whole day's pay, which might explain rarity. It's also recommended as a special gift item for children (which shows that it was regarded as expensive) - and it's always possible the two younger Tolkien children were given suchlike as special Christmas or birthday gifts by other relations in the 30s. In 1964 T refers to Disney's 'pictures', which in the UK would always have meant his films. 'Pictures' is what British people called films until recently. Quote:
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#8 | |||||||||
Shade of Carn Dűm
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Toronto
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The period would end in May 1937 and begin approximately in 1935 or even earlier. There was only one Rupert the Bear annual during that period, the first, issued for Christmas 1936. There were some earlier Rupert the Bear books, but no annuals. Your so-called facts appear to be as imaginary as your previous mention of The Dandy, and The Beano, which only began publication in late 1937 and 1938 respectively. The extent of Disney fandom is one explanation why perhaps Disney books don’t make it down to second-hand bookshops or stay there very long if they do. I have never suggested that any particular Disney book was “that common”, whatever that means exactly. I have only presented information gathered by others that indicates that the number of Disney books from the period indicates that publishers in Britain were making money from Disney books during the period, or they would have stopped publishing them. Argue all you want that Disney books weren’t, taken one at a time, common during that period. I never claimed that any individual book was common. It is futile to attempt to refute arguments I have never made. What I did note is that Tolkien thought that there was a real danger that illustrations in the American edition of The Hobbit might be influenced by work issued from the Disney studios. I have pointed out that, so far as I can tell, there was no influence on children’s book illustrators from the Disney studios other than that books had begun appearing that were directly based or taken from animated cartoons, predominately from Disney cartoons, including British books. I have suggested that Tolkien might have gotten the idea that American illustrators were being influenced by Disney from seeing some of the Disney books published in Britain at the time or at least knowing about them. That is all. I don’t know whether Tolkien ever saw any Disney book. The evidence suggests to me that he at least knew about them. Refute me by pointing out American children’s book illustration that to some degree resembled Disney but was not in books directly derived from or related to cartoons, if you can. Or refute me by showing that Tolkien definitely did not know about any of the Disney books that had been published in Britain, if you can. But the more I look, the more British Disney I find. That some British newspapers published the American Mickey Mouse strip is further evidence of the presence of Disney in British publications. That The Mickey Mouse Weekly began publication in February 1936 with over 500,000 copies sold indicates the extent of the British appetite for Disney material. Currently The Dandy’s circulation is only about 8,000 and it is to be cancelled. The Beano is supposedly still safe with a circulation of only 38,000, less than ą∕₁₀ of the initial circulation of The Mickey Mouse Weekly which had soon achieved a circulation of 750,000. I am aware that a weekly publication is not the same as a book. But seeing The Mickey Mouse Weekly in many places and at least knowing that Disney books were available completely explains Tolkien’s fear of influence by Disney on children’s book illustrators, even though it was unfounded in itself. Quote:
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Arguing from generalities to individual preferences is a bad practice. Quote:
Note that I do not claim to know how Tolkien first encountered Disney. The most likely way need not be the way it actually happened. Quote:
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It wasn’t a library. It was a folder containing a manuscript, on a high shelf in Whitburn’s second-hand room, that funny dark place where all sorts of unsaleable things drift. No wonder my dreams were full of dust and anxiety! It must have been fifteen years since I found the thing there: Quenta Eldalien, being the History of the Elves, by John Arthurson – in a manuscript, much as I’ve described it. I took an eager but hasty glance. But I had no time to spare that day, and I could find no one in the shop to answer my enquiries, so I hurried off.This is a reference to the second-hand room in an Oxford bookstore in which Jeremy is browsing without supervision. Some more expensive books would doubtless be in glass cases or behind the counter in the main shop. I doubt that it would be any different in the 30s or before. If your business is selling books which are very unlike one another, you simply must let your customers browse. Quote:
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Last edited by jallanite; 10-28-2012 at 02:59 PM. |
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