Chuck Reducks: Drawing from the Fun Side of Life - Hardcover

Chuck Jones

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 044651893X ISBN 13: 9780446518932

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 1996

Synopsis

The director of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Road Runner cartoons discusses his childhood influences, gives advice on how to draw, and reveals how his characters were created

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Now 84, Jones (Chuck Amuck) has been an animator and a director of animated features for more than 60 years and has created such cartoon figures as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote and Pepe le Pew. He also worked with Dr. Seuss on TV versions of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who, in the course of a career during which he made more than 250 films and won three Oscars. Jones's advice here on how to draw and, more specifically, how to draw animals engaging in various activities will prove valuable to aspiring artists; and his portraits of people he has known?from his captivating Uncle Lynn with his surrealistic view of the world to the monsters who ran the Warner Brothers animation department in the 1930s and '40s?are memorable. The book also includes sidebars with quotes, some by Jones himself and others by writers from Thurber to Emerson. There's some filler here, notably pointless lists of unused titles for innumerable shorts and analyses of numerous minor cartoon characters, but Jones, an American original, is good company?if not quite as engaging as his wascally wabbit. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Jones was the most distinctive of the many directors responsible for the classic Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s. Without sacrificing any of the humor and the charm common to all of the studio's animated product, Jones' cartoons were more idiosyncratic and thoughtful--traits abundant in the second volume of his memoirs. Like Chuck Amuck (1989), it offers amusing tales of Jones' formative years, anecdotes of Termite Terrace (the ramshackle Warner animation studio, populated by characters as loony as those onscreen), and insights into the personalities of Bugs, Daffy, the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and the rest of Jones' cartoon cast. Particularly compelling is the chapter detailing Jones' collaboration with Dr. Seuss on the TV classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the engaging text is peppered with dozens of Jones' delightful drawings. Moreover, Jones' stories of the early days of animation and valuable tips on drawing make the book highly instructive to cartoon students and aficionados, while his perceptive observations on comedy, creativity, and collaboration give it far broader appeal. Gordon Flagg

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 044651893X
• ISBN 13: 9780446518932
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 286