From Chalk Talk to Animation

Above: a self-portrait of Canadian editorial cartoonist John W. Bengough (1851-1923), doing a chalk talk. "One of the first substantial figures in editorial cartooning ... also of secondary interest as a 19th-century social radical, to whom communalism, vegetarianism, feminism, antivivisectionism and prohibition combined in one vast utopian ideal."

I found a terrific video

From Chalk Talk to Animation starts with a description of Thomas Nast giving chalk talks in 1873, and how that lead up to chalk talk movies and animation. Included are THE ENCHANTED DRAWING (1900, Edison) with the "Komikal Kartoonist" Henry Blackton, and HUMOROUS PHASES OF FUNNY FACES (1906, Vitagraph), with Blackton again. The Library of Congress has more on the early animated films here.

The Web site History Illustrated posted the video. The site has a lot more about cartooning -- too much to take in casually.

Here's a post from the "cartoonists' self-portraits section:" The life of a cartoonist, by William C. Morris from the Spokesman-Review Cartoons (Spokane: Review Publishing Co., 1908).


And, juxtaposed with that, the public's perception.