Fundraising Through A Cool Book

My friend Tee Bosustow has been making a documentary about the UPA (United Productions of America, which his father co-founded) animation studio for about two years. He's raising the cash to keep going by selling a limited edition book filled with pictures of the studio and staff! Here's a blurb from the website:

Inside UPA is a photographic celebration of one of animation history's most innovative and experimental animation studios, UPA Pictures. Inside UPA is designed with the collector in mind, published in a numbered edition of 1,000. It's a 64 page paperback, with French flaps, containing dozens of rare and unpublished black and white photographs, over 50 of which have never been seen outside of the personal scrapbooks of UPA artists.

Inside UPA is an unprecedented glimpse into what it was like to work at UPA. It captures long forgotten moments, including images such as John Hubley sketching dancer Olga Lunick for Rooty Toot Toot, Aurie Battaglia and Leo Salkin going over the storyboard for the unproduced feature The White Deer, Pete Burness and Magoo voice Jim Backus recording one of the Magoo shorts, Gene Deitch and Cliff Roberts jamming in a New York park, and a late-night production staff meeting at the Smoke House next to the UPA home office in Toluca Lake.

While supplies last, Inside UPA is available in this numbered edition of 1,000 copies. Measuring 7.5" x 8.7", it's a soft cover with French flaps and black and white interior. It also includes a six-page filmography compiled by UPA biographer, Adam Abraham, which lists not only UPA's theatricals and TV shows, but also industrials and commercials. 50 of the 1,000 copies will include a special page, with signatures from UPA veterans.

The book is designed and written by historian Amid Amidi, whose recent Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation won the prestigious Theatre Library Association Award for best film or television book of 2006. Mr. Amidi has personally selected the photos from the collections of UPA artists including Robert Cannon, Stephen Bosustow, Howard Beckerman, Fred Crippen, Sam Clayberger and Joe Messerli.

The book's really great, so if you want to peruse some cartoon history and help document it at the same time, please drop by Tee's website and order a copy for $45.00 + $10.00 shipping!