I just finished reading "Marc Davis: Walt Disney's Renaissance Man"' and it is an absolute treat. Disney Editions gets A LOT of things wrong when it comes to their books on the company's legacy. Be it leaving some of the best books in their collection out of print for years like John Canemaker's "Paper Dreams", "Before the Animation Begins" and until recently "The Art and Flair of Mary Blair", publishing books with poor color reproduction/paper quality/binding, and censoring non-Disney Editions projects like Amid Amidi's Ward Kimball bio. (I tend to believe this book was only published after folks like Keane, Docter, Deja, Hahn, Lasseter, etc. strong armed them into it to make sure Alice Davis would be alive to see the company release a comprehensive edition of her late husband's work.) However, this is one of their finest efforts in recent times since the Walt Disney Animation Studios Archive books as well as the best profile on a Disney artist since "Art and Flair".
This book, while light on text, provides the most extensive collection of Davis' body of work. From animal sketches from his teens/early twenties to sketchbook entries to his contributions to Animation and Imagineering projects to his personal fine art, you begin to understand his tremendous range and passion for the work, no matter what medium. A renaissance man indeed.
Since this is a WDW forum, you'll be happy to know that many of Marc's drawings from The Haunted Mansion and Pirates are on display. There are some EPCOT Center gems as well from World of Motion and, of surprise to me, two watercolors for The American Adventure. Unfortunately, Marc's Western River Expedition, his passion project and the inspiration for Big Thunder and Splash Mountain, barely gets ANY attention. There are two pieces of concept art, they're really wonderful, and nothing more; not even a mention in Marty Sklar's accompanying essay on his theme park work. I understand that an anthology like this can only devote so much time to each facet of their work, but "Chanticleer", an unproduced feature he developed with Ken Anderson after "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" before Walt moved him to WED, gets ten-twelve pages. (Andreas has a great post about that project
here) To which we are confronted with the book's biggest flaw, in a mostly successful effort to cover Marc's lifework, some notable pieces fall through the cracks like this.
Despite my kvetching, I really hope everyone here considers purchasing this book. There are few Disney books that remind me why I love animation and theme parks and this is one of them. After a weekend where we lost an attraction that, while flawed, embodied the philosophy of the Disney of yore, it's always great to get excited about something the company does right. We all know what Disney thinks of the fan community, but let's show them when they create a QUALITY product, we will happily give them our money so that we can have more nice books like this.
Some notes:
- Georgie K makes an appearance
- Marty Sklar's essay makes reference to a Marc Davis attraction coming to Shanghai. Perhaps Small World was added to the opening day roster?
- Glen Keane, Pete Docter, Andreas Deja, and Don Hanh's essays that begin the chapters are insightful despite their brevity.
- Marc's Valentine's Cards to Alice are really adorable.
- The paper thickness and quality of binding are comprable to the recent reissue of Canemaker's "Art and Flair", this book greatly benefits from its larger size compared to the latter.
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