Overview

In this engaging, cradle-to-grave biography, award-winning author Todd James Pierce explores the life of Ward Kimball, a lead Disney animator who worked on characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Jiminy Cricket, and the Mad Hatter. Through unpublished excerpts from Kimball's personal writing, material from unpublished interviews, and new information based on interviews conducted by the author, Pierce defines the life of perhaps the most influential animator of the twentieth century. As well as contributing to classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Kimball established a highly graphic, idiosyncratic approach to animation alongside the studio's more recognizable storybook realism. In effect, Ward Kimball became the only animator to run his own in-studio production team largely outside of Walt Disney's direction. Through Kimball, the studio developed a series of nonfiction animation programs in the 1950s that members of Congress pointed to as paving the way for NASA. The studio also allowed Kimball's work to abandon some ties to conventional animation, looking instead to high art and graphic design as a means of creating new animated forms, which resulted in films that received multiple Academy Award nominations and two awards.

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Todd James Pierce, Orcutt, California, is the author of three books, including Newsworld, which won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. His work has appeared in over seventy magazines and journals, including the Harvard Review and the North American Review. He is a professor of literature at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Al Kessel is a full-time narrator and voice actor currently living in Arizona, where he works from his professional home recording studio. For Al, performing is passion. Audiobook narration was the logical career choice for him since, for as long as he can remember, he's been a voracious reader, acting all the characters out in his head, and often entertaining his family with his dramatic reenactments of books, movies, and television. Al prides himself on the ability to bring any character to life with his voice, a voice often described as smooth as melted butter, or like an old friend you just love hearing tell you about their day. He has recorded numerous audiobooks from just about every genre. When not bringing stories to life, he loves hiking in the desert with his wife and puppy, visiting Disneyland and, when time permits, reenergizing on the beach.

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