The Best of Disney's Animated Features: Volume One

A 'Best of' Disney's animated features? How biased! How ridiculous! How impossible! This may well be a first reaction.

Yet, after launching a poll about ten years ago in Europe and the USA, the author could eventually come up with a list, because some sequences do stand out. They stand out for various reasons, based on sentimental memories as well as artistic criteria.

The point of this book is to dive into the making of those memorable sequences.

Thanks to in-depth researches, hundreds of personal exclusive interviews of artists from several generations, the help of renowned experts, and several stays in the Walt Disney Archives in the 1980's, volume one is now completed. As publisher Bob McLain understood how much was left to say about those legendary sequences, this is only the start of a series of various volumes, each one being dedicated to a handful of features. It is also an opportunity to shed light on unsung artists.

Originally, the plan was to combine both text and illustrations. But the focus being on text and analysis, those books are eventually not illustrated. However, the text is exactly what the author wanted it to be, with neither restraints nor compromises.

Now let's be carried away by the magic of the first three milestones in the history of Disney features.