Cover art by Stewart McKissick

Stewart McKissick, professor, Illustration and Graduate Studies, is bringing film and animation history to light and preserving it for the future. After nearly eight years of research, the CCAD alumnus (Illustration, ’79) has contributed to Stop Motion Marvels!, a DVD and 12-page booklet chronicling vintage stop-motion animation shorts.

McKissick’s interest in animation and the imagery of classic cartoons has long influenced his style of illustration and his collection of 16mm animation films. His interest lead him to attend and eventually begin coordinating Cinevent, an annual three-day classic film convention begun in Columbus in 1969.

Steve Stanchfield, another collector and instructor at College for Creative Studies in Detroit, gave McKissick some silent stop-motion shorts made by Kinex studio to show at Cinevent in 2002. Although the two enthusiasts knew very little about the shorts, they proved to be popular with Cinevent’s audiences. A collaborative effort to learn more began.

Stop Motion Marvels! features Kinex films as well as other vintage stop-motion animation shorts. The DVD includes commentary tracks with leading stop-motion animators and a booklet McKissick wrote of the history of the Kinex films. McKissick also did the artwork and packaging while Stanchfield mastered the disc and cleaned up the films. CCAD provided McKissick a faculty enrichment grant to help with the production costs.

Premiered at the most recent Cinevent, Stop Motion Marvels is now for sale on Amazon’s website. To read some reviews of Stop Motion Marvels go to http://www.cartoonbrew.com and http://www.dvdtalk.com.