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AUSTRALIAN
ANIMATION
AN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY
Dan Torre &

Lienors Torre
Australian Animation
“The fact that Lienors and Dan Torre spent over a decade researching and docu-
menting this history is testament to their expertise as animators and scholars; and
it is an important aspect that adds to the quality and authenticity of their writing.
Their seminal work positions and clarifies Australia’s cultural evolution, innova-
tion and unique practice.”
—Kathy Smith, Associate Professor and former Chair John C. Hench
Animation & Digital Arts, University of Southern California, USA
Dan Torre · Lienors Torre
Australian Animation
An International History
Dan Torre Lienors Torre
RMIT University Deakin University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-95491-2 ISBN 978-3-319-95492-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95492-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951033
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Illustration by Harry Julius

Cover design by Tom Howey
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Lucy, Thomas and Vivienne, and for Phung and Richard Allen,
who have accompanied us in our discovery of Australian animation.
Acknowledgements
The Authors would like to thank the following: Richard Allen, David
Atkinson, Stephen Ball, Neil Balnaves, John Bird, Keith Bradbury,
Arthur Cantrill and Corinne Cantrill, John Clark, Lucinda Clutterbuck,
Dianne Colman, Gairden Cooke, Dirk de Bruyn, Murray Debus, David
Field, Cam Ford and Diana Ford, Jenny Gall, Peter Greenaway, Yoram
Gross and Sandra Gross, Frank Hellard, Athol Henry, Ruth Hill, John
Even Hughes, Zoran Janjic, Anne Jolliffe, Meg Labrum, Cecily Lea,
Michael Lee, Rod Lee, Gus McLaren, Lynsey Martin, Judy Nelson,
Margaret Parkes, David Perry, Bruce Petty, Vincent Plush, Gabby Porter,
John Porter, Joy Porter, Elizabeth Presa, Robert Qiu, Vivienne Scheffer
(and family), Michael Sesin, Graham Sharp, Anne Shenfield, Graham
Shirley, Robbert Smit, Kathy Smith, Andi Spark, Antoinette Starkiewicz,
Alex Stitt and Paddy Stitt, Deborah Szapiro, Neil Taylor, Itzell
Tazzyman, Phil Thomas, Albie Thoms, Helen Tully, Dennis Tupicoff,
Malcolm Turner, Lee Whitmore, Norman Yeend, The National Film and
Sound Archive, The National Library of Australia, and The State Library
of NSW. A further thank you to the many who have generously offered
information, anecdotes and encouragement for this research.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 From Sketch to Empire 7
3 Pat Sullivan and Felix the Cat 31
4 Early Australian Animators: Isolation and International

Influences 53
5 Television and the Rise of International Collaborations 79
6 Marco Polo Junior: A Crisis of Animated Identity 107
7 Yoram Gross: Bringing Australian Animation to the

World, One Dot at a Time 135
8 Alex Stitt: Animation by Design 147
9 Hanna-Barbera Australia 161
ix
x Contents
10 An Industry Matures 179
11 Independently Animated 211
Index 241
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Portrait of Alec Laing by Harry Julius (1917) (Courtesy

the State Library of New South Wales) 11
Fig. 2.2 Portrait of Harry Julius (1918) 12
Fig. 2.3 Still frames from Cartoons of the Moment (Harry Julius)
These films featured a very sophisticated application of the
cut-out animation technique 16
Fig. 2.4 Detail of Australian patent for cut-out animation technique,
Harry Julius 1918 17
Fig. 2.5 Promotional image for Cartoon Filmads, c.1920 19
Fig. 2.6 Storyboards produced by Cartoon Filmads in preparation
for the Lux Soap animated cinema advertisement (c.1920) 22
Fig. 2.7 Promotional literature for Cartoon Filmads, showing the
various stages of the studio’s production 24
Fig. 2.8 Print ad by Cartoon Filmads that accompanied the animated
film advertisement for the same product, 1919 25
Fig. 3.1 An early drawing by Pat Sullivan (as Pat O’Sullivan)
c.1908 (Image courtesy State Library of NSW) 33
Fig. 3.2 Title card for Charlie Chaplin series (1918–1919) depicting
two Felix-like black cats. This series was produced prior
to Feline Follies (1919), which is often regarded
as the first ‘Felix’ film 38
Fig. 3.3 (Left) a black cat, drawn by Pat Sullivan, featured in a
magazine advertisement published August 24, 1918
for How Charlie Captured the Kaiser (1918), part
of the Charlie Chaplin cartoon series. (Right) a frame
xi
xii List of Figures
grab from Feline Follies, late 1919. There is a marked

similarity between the design of these two cats 39
Fig. 3.4 Frame grab from Feline Follies (1919) which features
the Australian vernacular, “Mum” 40
Fig. 3.5 Frame grab from a later Felix cartoon which shows the more
rounded styling of the Felix films produced after 1922 41
Fig. 4.1 Cover of sheet music for the theme song, “I’m Willie the
Wombat” that accompanied the release of Eric Porter’s short
film, Waste Not Want Not (1939). An accompanying dance
step, The Wombat Waddle, was also created and promoted
throughout a number of Australian dance halls 61
Fig. 4.2 Image, featuring Willie Wombat (left) and Bennie Bear (right)
from the accompanying book to Eric Porter’s short film,
Waste Not Want Not (1939) 63
Fig. 4.3 Screen logo for Eric Porter Studios, proudly noting the
studio’s location in Sydney, Australia. The logo also depicts a
movie camera silhouette that has an uncanny visual connection
to the silhouette of the Walt Disney character, Mickey Mouse 66
Fig. 4.4 Frame grab from the short animated film Bimbo’s Auto (Porter
1954), exhibiting a somewhat retro style, reminiscent of the
1940s 67
Fig. 4.5 Frame grabs from the educational animated short film, A
Dairy-Land Romance (Owen Brothers, 1954). a depicts two
very well-bred bovines, which speak in an unmistakably crisp
British accent (which was the broadcast standard in Australia
in the 1950s). b depicts a young bull, replete with flashy
clothes, who lacks such proper breeding, and subsequently
speaks in a much broader Australian accent. This film was
animated by Bruce Petty, and represents a stark contrast to
the much freer illustrative styling of his later independent
animated films 70
Fig. 4.6 Image by Serge Sesin of Australian animals (1952)—intended
as a pre-cursor to a planned animated film 73
Fig. 4.7 Frame grab from The Magic Trumpet (Dusan Marek 1962), a
cut-out animated film that utilises a surprisingly eclectic range
of materials 76
Fig. 5.1 Frame grab from the animated television series, Arthur! And
the Square Knights of the Round Table (1966) 90
Fig. 5.2 Frame grab from the animated television series, Captain
Comet of the Space Rangers which utilised a hybrid of live-
action model sets and cel animation 95
Fig. 5.3 Frame grab from the Freddo the Frog television series (1952) 99
List of Figures xiii
Fig. 6.1 Frame grab from the original Marco Polo Junior versus The Red
Dragon (Porter 1972) which showcases some of the elaborate
background scenery used in the film 116
Fig. 6.2 Frame grab from the original Marco Polo Junior versus The Red
Dragon (Porter 1972) shows a particularly engaging sequence
in which the crashing waves momentarily metamorphose into
menacing dragon formations 117
Fig. 6.3 Advertising sheet for the Australian release of the feature film,
Marco Polo Junior versus The Red Dragon, highlighting the
fact that it was an Eric Porter Studios production 124
Fig. 7.1 Frame grab from Dot and the Kangaroo (1977) 140
Fig. 8.1 Frame grab from Grendel Grendel Grendel (Alex Stitt 1980)
showcasing both Stitt’s strong sense of design and the omis-
sion of any black outlines around the character and back-
ground elements 153
Fig. 8.2 Frame grab from Grendel Grendel Grendel (Alex Stitt 1980)
which further illustrates the bold character designs and the
omission of linework around the characters. This approach
also seemed to work well against a solid coloured background,
as shown here 154
Fig. 8.3 Frame grab from Abra Cadabra (Alex Stitt 1983). Note the
character on the right appears somewhat out of focus, due to
the 3D optical processing 156
Fig. 10.1 Frame grab from The Magic Pudding (2000) 186
Fig. 11.1 Frame grab from A Photo of Me (Dennis Tupicoff 2017) 223
Fig. 11.2 Frame grab from The Safe House (Lee Whitmore 2006) 226
Fig. 11.3 Image from Harvie Krumpet (Adam Elliot 2003) 229
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Animation production in Australia has a very extensive, but little known,

history. Regrettably, much of this history has remained undocumented—
in some cases, has become virtually lost. To date, there has been pub-
lished no comprehensive text which documents this history. The few
journal articles, and even fewer book chapters, that have been published
on the topic of Australian animation have been incomplete and some
containing factual errors and important omissions. This text aims to cor-
rect some of these inaccuracies and to reduce the substantial void that
currently exists in this area of animation studies. And while it presents a
colourful and vibrant historical survey, it is also much more than merely
a detailed timeline of animated productions: it looks critically at these
productions and seeks to contextualise them in a wider historical context.
The history of Australian animation, although remarkable in its own
domestic context (it has produced a great quantity of innovative and
compelling animations), is equally fascinating when considered within
the larger global history of animation. Despite Australia’s geographic
isolation, its animation production has been surprisingly interconnected
within the wider global animation context. Even from the earliest days,
Australian animation benefitted from an international outlook. As
pioneering animator Harry Julius declared soon after he returned from a
brief time working in the animation industry in New York:
© The Author(s) 2018 1

D. Torre and L. Torre, Australian Animation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95492-9_1
2 D. TORRE AND L. TORRE
Before Australia can make pictures to seriously compete in the world’s

market, she must learn what other countries can teach. […] One grows
rather weary of hearing panegyrics on Australia’s fine scenery, sunlight and
girls, and indignant denunciations of people who suggest that something
more than these may still be needed. Every good Australian is proud of his
land, but everyone who stops for a moment’s thought must realize that
the technical side of a film has to be attended to in order to bring out the
natural advantages.1
This was at the time that Julius had begun to build what would become
one of the most extensive international animation empires of its time.
The first major studio in Australia, Cartoon Filmads (founded in 1918),
also became one of the world’s first international animation empires.
Throughout the 1920s, it had studio branches in over a dozen countries
and was producing animated cinema advertisements for specific markets
all over Asia and into Europe. Cartoon Filmads became one of the first
studios in the world to utilise highly detailed storyboards as part of its
pre-production process (many years before these became used by Disney).
Throughout the decades, countless Australian animators have travelled
back and forth to America, England, Europe and Asia to work in these
animation industries and the very nature of animation’s often segmented
production process began to facilitate a great deal of transnational part-
nerships. With the advent of television, much of the work produced by
the Australian studios involved some form of international collaboration.
Perhaps because of animation’s rather exceptional production practices
(its wholly constructed imagery and its highly segmented production
tasks), it is a medium that ostensibly encourages these long-distance col-
laborations. Marco Polo Junior (Porter 1972), for example, is regarded as
Australia’s first animated feature film. While it was entirely directed and
animated in Australia, it was primarily written and principally designed
in America. Contrastingly, the feature animated film, The Magic Pudding
(2000), was written, designed, storyboarded and financed in Australia,
but almost entirely animated overseas. Such associations have undoubt-
edly further widened the definition of Australian animation.
Historically, Australia’s population has been small; thus, there has
never been a large enough domestic audience to support large-scale pro-
ductions. Most domestic productions have therefore sought to create
a product designed to appeal both to the Australian and to an interna-
tional audience—often with America being the prized objective. In mak-
ing their animated films palatable to the American market, there has been
1 INTRODUCTION 3
a shifting range of approaches that either promote an ‘Australian’ theme

or remove it altogether.
Many Australian animated films have resorted to the featuring of
native animals (koalas, kangaroos and wombats) as a means of pro-
jecting their Australian-ness. In fact, many have found it very difficult
to represent Australia or Australian culture in cartoon form without
resorting to bush animals. Harry Julius in addressing this issue in 1938
noted that ‘This problem has always rankled with Australian cartoonists.
It has never been solved. […] When you are dealing in animals it is easy.
The dressed-up kangaroo is recognisable at once – and he is exclusive.’2
An Australian accent and vernacular can also provide an easily iden-
tifiable sense of national origin; some have used this—although until
more recently, it has been a dialect that has tended not to ‘play well’ in
America. Some Australian studios such as Air Programs International
(API) opted to use a ‘mid-Atlantic’ voice (one that sits somewhere
between an American and a British accent), or else utilise a very exagger-
ated character voice—one devoid of any recognisable dialect.
An important component of Australian animation history (and an
equally important aspect of that of America) comprises the several decades
during which both Walt Disney and Hanna-Barbera had large animation
production studios in Sydney. These studios, using local Australian talent,
produced a colossal amount of animation for the global markets, covering
television, direct to video markets, and for theatrical release. The advent
and growth of these American studios also had a direct effect on the con-
tinued growth and success of Australian studios and animation production.
In recent decades, there has been substantial growth in the quantity of
Australian productions as well as the creation of a number of animated
feature films; these have frequently been either co-productions with over-
seas studios or the output by Australian studios of sequences/components
for American productions. The detailing of the numerous transnational
flows of animation will demonstrate how Australia has not only simultane-
ously produced many remarkable animation films, but also played a signif-
icant and integral part in the much larger global history of animation—an
important role that has been omitted from many historical studies.
Chapter 2, ‘From Sketch to Empire,’ details the significant beginnings
of Australian animation, including the formation of a large international
animation empire.
Chapter 3, ‘Pat Sullivan and Felix the Cat,’ seeks to provide a balanced
assessment of the Australian animator, Pat Sullivan, and his work in the
animation industry in New York. Significantly, this chapter highlights

some later associations that ensued between Australia and Felix the Cat.
Chapter 4, ‘Early Australian Animators: Isolation and International
Influences,’ looks at the few, but none the less significant, Australian ani-
mators and studios that were working from about 1930 to 1956 (when
television was first introduced).
Chapter 5, ‘Television and the Rise of International Collaborations,’
considers the impact of the introduction of television and how this radi-
cally changed the animation landscape of Australia.
Chapter 6, ‘Marco Polo Junior: A Crisis of Animated Identity,’ pro-
vides an in-depth discussion of the production of the feature animated
film, Marco Polo Jr vs. The Red Dragon (Porter, 1972), which is regarded
as the first animated feature to be produced in Australia.
Chapter 7, ‘Yoram Gross: Bringing Australian Animation to the
World, One Dot at a Time,’ focuses on the work of Yoram Gross, a
very prolific producer of animation, and creator of some exceptionally
Australian-themed animated films.
Chapter 8, ‘Alex Stitt: Animation by Design,’ concentrates on the
uniquely designed animations by Alexander Stitt, who contributed to the
field of Australian animation for over half a century.
Chapter 9, ‘Hanna-Barbera Australia,’ focuses on the arrival of
Hanna-Barbera to Australia and details the colourful narrative of this
previously unpublished segment of both Australian animation history
and that of the Hanna-Barbera Studio.
Chapter 10, ‘An Industry Mature,’ continues to look at a wide num-
ber of animation studios in Australia (including Walt Disney Studio,
Australia) and other significant productions. It also looks at some of the
more contemporary animations that have been produced, including the
Academy Award-winning feature, Happy Feet (2006).
Chapter 11, ‘Independently Animated,’ focuses on the rich history
and culture of independent animation in Australia; interestingly, it is
within these independent animations that we can also witness some of
the strongest expressions of Australian culture and thematic content.
This final chapter also serves as a concluding section in which many of
the themes and analyses that have been explored throughout the text are
further consolidated and contextualised.
1 INTRODUCTION 5
Notes
1. Harry Julius, ‘A Battle-Cry that Shouldn’t Be,’ The Picture Show, 1 April
1920, 17.
2. Harry Julius, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 February 1938.
Bibliography
Julius, Harry. ‘A Battle-Cry That Shouldn’t Be.’ The Picture Show, April 1920.
Julius, Harry. The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 February 1938.
CHAPTER 2
From Sketch to Empire
Animated Beginnings
Many of the earliest film animators (both in Australia and elsewhere)
came from illustration or cartoonist backgrounds; many had also worked
as ‘lightning sketch artists.’ A lightning sketcher was essentially an artist
who would create a large drawing, drawn skilfully and very quickly in
front of a live audience (thus the term ‘lightning’).
With the development of cinema many of these lightning sketch art-
ists made the transition from live stage to filmed performances. Basically,
the films comprised lightning sketches that took advantage of the ani-
mation process, turning the lightning sketch artist into a super-lightning
sketch artist. To some, these earlier films may not look like the type of
‘animation’ that most of us are used to viewing. For example, the char-
acters might not have moved as freely as in modern-day animation; or
the animation might have been simply the act of drawing a character
onscreen whereby the lines would have appeared to draw themselves—
that is the animator would have drawn a small section of a line, then
stepped away as an exposure was taken on film; the animator would then
draw another bit extending the line, step away, etc. The result would be
that the image or character would seem miraculously to draw itself—
and this might be the extent of the animation. In some cases, as will be
described later, even the artist’s hand would remain continuously visible
in the frame: that is, the artist would draw a segment of line and then
hold his hand motionless with his pencil resting on the line he had just

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95492-9_2
drawn, while an exposure was taken. He would then draw another seg-
ment (and then hold still in frame again) to expose another frame, the
result being that the animator would appear to be drawing a character or
image at a super-speed rate—and at other times simply dotting the pen
upon the paper and making a whole section of the character miraculously
appear. This type of animation highlighted the act of animating, rather
than making a character move.1
Many of the pioneering Australian animators began by producing
animated lightning sketches. Below, a reporter describes the technique
that Harry Julius used to create his animated lightning sketch drawings,
which was the same method that his predecessors (Virgil Reilly and Alec
Laing) would have used.
As [Julius] begins the first lines of the drawing, the operator turns the han-
dle of the camera … then he calls ‘Stop’ and the handle-turning ceases.
Continuing, the second phase of his drawing until a convincing outline has
been completed, he orders the operator to turn again, and, after adding a
few strokes to show his hand at work, he again calls ‘Stop’, and so on till
the cartoon is finished. […] If the camera accompanied every movement
of his pencil … the entire effect of instantaneous production would be lost
through slowness of execution, and an interminable length of execution,
and an interminable length of film.2
Clearly, these early films were created by means of the stop-motion ani-
mation process, essentially a frame-by-frame capturing of each minute
mark that the animator would make. And in some cases, it was not a
requirement that the drawing then comes to life, for in these earlier films
sometimes merely seeing an animated creation of an image was enough.
Alec Laing
Australian cartoonist, Alec Laing was published widely in various Sydney-
and Melbourne-based newspapers and journals between 1890 and 1905.
He was also, according to Harry Julius, the first Australian to create
animated lightning sketches when he was living temporarily in London
in around 1902. It was during this time that it is claimed that he cre-
ated topical animated lightning sketches for Pathé Films during the final
stages of the Boer War (1899–1902).3
After the war, he returned to Australia and by 1905 was performing
with theatrical stage celebrity, ‘La Milo,’ in Sydney. La Milo (whose real
2 FROM SKETCH TO EMPIRE 9
name was Pansy Montague and would later become his wife) performed
an act of ‘living statues.’ These performances involved the dramatic rec-
reation of well-known European and antiquity works of art. La Milo
would pose in the stance of a statue and hold herself motionless while
being dramatically lit.4 While this was occurring Laing would perform
live lightning sketches that were projected from a magic lantern. He
would draw directly onto frosted plates of glass (upside down) while the
magic lantern projected them onto the stage. Below an Australian news-
paper reviewer describes the show:
While the caricaturist rapidly sketches familiar faces on a huge sheet (it is
a magic-lantern effect with their sketches done on a smoked glass) a series
of statues, remarkably well managed, are shown in a garden scene on the
stage.5
Some of his projected drawing performances would be merely projected

onto a screen, while others would be meticulously integrated onto the
posed La Milo and her surroundings. In this way, his sketches would
appear to be over-laid or ‘mapped’ onto the stage performance, becom-
ing an essential part of the visual display. Although the performances
featured an often semi-nude Montague, they were presented in unmis-
takable good taste. As one reviewer noted:
There can be no difference of opinion as to the ideal loveliness of the pic-

tures of which La Milo formed the centre figure. As to the suggestion
of indecency, that is a fraud, and I fear that those who sell tickets on the
strength of it are successfully open to an accusation of obtaining money on
false pretences.6
Later, Laing animated some of these sketches, but instead of live sketch-
ing the performance, he projected the movie films onto the stage. These
animated films, interspersed with lengthy live-action sequences and later
known as La Milo Films, were most probably first screened in London at
the Alhambra theatre in around 1906, and it is believed that they contin-
ued to be shown as their act travelled around performing in Australia and
later in America. A few years later while on tour in America, he parted
ways with the La Milo stage show (and his wife) and then began working
in the fledgling animation industry in New York—where he would later
meet up with fellow Australians, Harry Julius and Pat Sullivan.
Harry Julius, who became a close friend of Alec Laing, drew an illus-
tration of him in 1917 after returning from working in New York. The
drawing depicts Laing holding a reel of film that is labelled as ‘La Milo
Films,’ a reference to the animated films that he produced that were
screened as part of the La Milo stage performances. Julius had worked
briefly with Laing as an animator on the Mutt and Jeff series at Raoul
Barre’s Animated Cartoons Studio in New York. As a nod to this, he
populated the background of the illustration with characters that were
reminiscent of those Mutt and Jeff cartoons (Fig. 2.1).
Virgil Reilly
Beginning in 1910, an artist named Virgil Reilly (1892–1974) was cre-
ating animated cinema advertisements in Melbourne in the form of
filmed graphics and animated lightning sketches. As with many of these
early advertisements, most are now lost; but a few have survived, includ-
ing a cinema advertisement screened in 1910 for the Melbourne-based
fur coat maker, George’s Fine Furs. The advertisement features a com-
bination of live action and drawn animation. The live-action sequences
feature models showing off the latest fashions, which are followed by
sequences in which the animator can be seen drawing images of women
wearing the fur hats and coats. The animator’s hand can be seen creat-
ing, at incredible speed, an intricate drawing of a woman dressed in fine
clothing. Sometimes the hand could be seen drawing just a single line; at
other times, it would merely pass over, miraculously rendering a whole
section of the image at once. Using the animation technique described
earlier, Reilly’s animations were animated lightning sketches that focused
on the creation of the images; but these did not usually come to life in
the typical cartoon sense since they were first and foremost the animation
of the image’s creation.
Harry Julius
Harry Julius (1885–1938) was certainly the most notable and the most
prolific creator of animation in the early decades of animation production
in Australia. Like many animators of the time, Julius began as a newspa-
per cartoonist and as a lightning sketch artist—he performed his first pub-
lic lightning sketch performance at the age of nine in 1894. He was later
trained in fine art under Julian Ashton and became a renowned illustrator,
Fig. 2.1 Portrait of Alec Laing by Harry Julius (1917) (Courtesy the State
Library of New South Wales)
cartoonist, and popular lightning sketch artist. In 1906, he and fellow

artist, Sydney Ure-Smith, founded the Smith and Julius advertising firm.
Most of the work produced by the studio was in print graphics adver-
tising; but before long Julius began experimenting with animated film
advertising and soon embraced the new medium of film, proclaiming that:
‘The motion picture is the most advanced form of modern art’ (Fig. 2.2).7
Fig. 2.2 Portrait of Harry Julius (1918)

The exact date that Julius first began experimenting with animation
is somewhat unclear. As a number of newspaper articles claim, he was a
self-taught animator—‘There was no one to show him how he should set
to work, and success was not attained without close and earnest applica-
tion.’8 It is therefore most probable that he began experimenting with
animation well before his studio went into full production mode.
Because of his long-standing reputation as a cartoonist, and upon the
strength of his early animated efforts, in January of 1915 Julius was able
to secure a contract with Australasian Films to produce a weekly series
of animated cartoons. The commencement of this groundbreaking
series, Cartoons of the Moment, was noted in an Adelaide Mail newspaper
article:
Artist Harry Julius has just fixed up with the Australasian Film Company
to supply ‘movie’ cartoons for the weekly gazette. This class of picture has
been extensively used in the United States and England, but Julius will
supply the first Australian series to be shown. The audience sees the art-
ist arrive at his studio and search the morning papers for a topic then it
observes him dash the paper down. After that an enormous hand and pen-
cil fill the screen, and the cartoon is drawn on an immense scale line by line
and with uncanny rapidity.9
The date, 1915, is a significant one that marks the beginning of the first
animated series to be produced in Australia. From the very start, these
shorts were rather sophisticated in their technique and proved to be
immensely popular. They were screened weekly in all the major cities of
Australia and New Zealand. One New Zealand reviewer noted:
Cartoons of the moment by the Australian cartoonist, Harry Julius, were

shown in the Australian Gazette and proved very popular. This series is a
particularly good one and pleased a large audience last evening.10
The series featured commentary on the current topics and news of the
day, such as: WWI, domestic and foreign politics, international trade
agreements and popular fashions.
The following is a description of the production process of Harry
Julius as he worked on his animated lightning sketch styled films:
After thinking out the subjects for his weekly series of cartoons he draws
the pictures for direct reproductions by the camera. In summer he works
on a horizontally placed blackboard with the camera a few feet away: but
in the winter months, when artificial light has to be employed, he draws
on a flat board, the camera being placed on a platform a few feet above the
board, and operating downwards.11
As his series developed, the films became increasingly proficient, com-

bining the ‘animated lightning sketch’ technique with an increasing use
of the cut-out animation technique, which he referred to as ‘continuous
action’ animation (a technique that he would later patent in Australia
and in a number of other Commonwealth countries).12
He continued to produce this groundbreaking series until 1916, at
which point he and his wife travelled to America so that Julius could
work in the animation industry in New York. While there he met up
with Alec Laing who was already working in the industry. The bulk of
Julius’ time was spent at the Roul Barre Studios where he worked on
the Mutt and Jeff series. Although his time there was relatively short
(less than a year), he had the opportunity to see how an established and
successful American studio functioned and to witness the scope of this
rapidly growing industry. He learned a lot about the craft of animation
and, more importantly, about the effective management of an animation
studio.
Julius returned to Sydney in 1917 and began to expand significantly
his animation efforts, officially forming the Cartoon Filmads Studio.
Requiring much greater space, he and his crew soon relocated across
the street from the traditional print graphics division of Smith and Julius
Advertising. He hired a great number of the best Australian artists/
animators of the day, including Sydney Miller, Lance Driffield, Geoff
Litchfield, Harrison Ford and Arthur Sparrow. These artists became his
chief animators and played a large role in the success of the studio.
Cartoon Filmads was still affiliated with the greater Smith and Julius
Company—although the two divisions were by now managed as sepa-
rate entities. Australian artist, Lloyd Rees, who worked in the traditional
print graphics wing of the company, noted that the animators at Cartoon
Filmads were ‘dashing moderns of the day, who looked as though they
could well have carried six-shooters, and of whom the rest of us were
vaguely scared.’13
The following year, in 1918, Cartoon Filmads was formally incor-

porated as a distinct enterprise (although still residing under the Smith
and Julius umbrella) and became Cartoon Filmads, Ltd. As an animator,
Julius is best known for his animated series, ‘Cartoons of the Moment.’
These, however, ran only for a brief time. Perhaps more significantly, his
studio, over a span of some fifteen years, produced a vast quantity of ani-
mated advertisements and animated ‘industrial films’ for both national
and international markets.
Patently Animated
One of the primary methods of animation that Cartoon Filmads was
using was the cut-out animation technique, and in 1918, Julius was
able to patent this technique in Australia. Cut-out animation is basically
a two-dimensional form of stop-motion animation. His initial patent
described the method as follows:
To obviate the necessity for a plurality of drawings in the photographic

preparation of the film the parts are cut out of cardboard, or other mate-
rial, and fitted together to form the figure or subject to be photographed,
the parts being rearranged before each subsequent exposure.14
In the field of international animation production, Julius was by no

means the first, let alone the only one, to be utilising the cut-out tech-
nique. Early animators, such as J. Stuart Blackton used this technique
in such films as Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906). It was also the
primary production technique used in making El Apóstol (The Apostle,
which is now regarded to be the first feature-length animated film) cre-
ated by Italian/Argentinean animator, Quirino Christiani, in 1917.15
However, since animation productions were rather limited in Australia
at that time, Julius seems to have had no trouble in securing a patent for
it. To his credit, Julius did make full use of the technique and seemed to
further its development. In his animated films, for example, he utilised a
number of other materials, such as cotton and newspaper clippings, to
supplement his animated effect (using, for e.g., tufts of cotton as a means
of simulating smoke). These gave a distinctly tactile and dimensional
quality to his otherwise 2D animations (see Fig. 2.3).
In subsequent years, he patented this technique in a number of other
Commonwealth countries (including the UK and Canada). As cut-out
Fig. 2.3 Still frames from Cartoons of the Moment (Harry Julius) These films
featured a very sophisticated application of the cut-out animation technique
animation was quite commonly used in these other countries, he was

forced to amend the initial claims of the ‘invention’ to show how it dif-
fered from other forms of cut-out animation. So, for example, the Great
Britain version that he prepared in 1921 reads:
It has also been suggested previously in the production of animated films

to use jointed figures, the joints being suitably stiffened so that, the vari-
ous parts will remain in the different positions into which they have been
moved. According to the present invention however, the separate elements
or sections are not jointed together but are simply placed into their differ-
ent positions.16
Simply keeping the parts detached from each other was, in fact, quite a
minor alteration and was likely to have been used by other animators—
but it was enough of a variance to warrant the issuing of the patent in
the UK and Canada.
In actuality, this modified approach does have its benefits as it allows
freer movement of the character. It also minimises unwanted ancillary
movement that can occur to other sections of a character, such as a head
movement when moving the attached arm. But it can also be much more
difficult if the goal is, for example, to animate the entire character in a
convincing walking action. In such cases, the animator will probably find
it quite challenging to keep all of the parts together and cohesive in their
movements (see Fig. 2.4).
Fig. 2.4 Detail of Australian patent for cut-out animation technique, Harry
Julius 1918
David Barker
David C. Barker (1888–1946) served as an official war artist during
WWI, and on his return to Australia continued a productive art prac-
tice. He soon began experimenting with animation, and in 1921, he pat-
ented his own animation technique. This technique essentially involved
the rotoscoping of live-action footage (though he never actually used the
term rotoscoping): ‘The object of this invention is the production of ani-
mated cartoons which when exhibited will be practically free from jerk-
iness and consequently more lifelike in movement.’17 The rotoscoping
method involves the frame-by-frame tracing of live-action footage and
ensures that the drawings have the same fluid type of motion that was
perceptible in the original. In a sense, it allows for the ‘motion capture’ of
movement from live-action footage and the application of that movement
to graphical forms. As with Harry Julius’s cut-out technique, rotoscoping
had already been used quite frequently elsewhere and had actually been
patented in America in 1917 by the Fleischer Brothers. Barker’s tech-
nique also seems to have involved (in some cases) the re-positioning of
the animation back onto the same live-action photographic backgrounds,
which had further similarities to the Fleischer Brothers system known as
the rotograph.
Keen to build his studio further, Harry Julius struck a deal with
Barker, making him a producer in the company; in return, he was able to
bring the Barker animation patent under the control of Cartoon Filmads.
Promotional material for the studio highlighted this technique:
The new process by which Cartoon Filmads is animated, forms a most

important stage in their development. The smoother action that results
from using the new method gives movements that are lifelike. The elimina-
tion of all jerkiness, moreover, permits of the advertising message receiving
fullest attention.18
The studio now held patents to two of the most cost-effective animation
techniques and had essentially cornered the market on all animation pro-
duction in Australia. The Australian versions of these patents were valid
for 14 years; the Julius patent issued in 1918 expired in 1932, Barker’s
in 1935. Collectively, with these patents they produced most of the ani-
mation in Australia, as well as virtually all of the advertising animation
that was being created for the Asian and Middle Eastern markets.
Cartoon Filmads—An Animated Empire

The Cartoon Filmads Studio expanded quickly and soon became a major
enterprise offering a wide range of animated advertisement productions.
It was also an animation studio that, although engaged almost exclu-
sively in the field of advertising, prided itself on its artistic and creative
approach. This was clearly reflected in the studio’s logo design, which
featured a large ‘artist’ palette symbol and a well-dressed artist character
in the midst of painting a work of art (see Fig. 2.5). The company man-
agement consisted of: Albert E. Lake (Managing Director) Harry Julius
(Director), J.L. Anderson (Director), David Barker (Producer) and J.A.
Lake (Secretary). As the studio expanded, it employed a large number of
animators, artists, colourists, rotoscopers, and camera operators at their
Fig. 2.5 Promotional image for Cartoon Filmads, c.1920
Sydney studios and, in addition, in several of their national and interna-

tional offices. The studio’s promotional materials stated
In a word, Cartoon Filmads is animated motion pictures fitted to industrial

needs. They represent all the power of the screen, coupled with years of
experience in its application to business problems. As their name implies,
they often, though not necessarily, take the form of a cartoon. Such treat-
ment has an interest-value all its own, and is particularly well adapted to
the presentation of sales arguments. However the technique that would
sell confections would scarcely help a charity in its appeal for funds; and
the attractive presentation of fine furniture would differ essentially from
either. A feature of Cartoon Filmads is the adaptability that ensures the
most appropriate treatment for the article they advertise.19
The studio produced advertisements for a wide range of clients show-

casing products from soap to automobiles, from furniture to charitable
campaigns. The bulk of their productions were animated advertisements
that would screen prior to the main features in cinemas. They also pro-
duced a range of ‘industrial films’ that were not screened in cinemas,
but that could be used by salesmen to promote a particular company
featuring its production methods and products. These could then be
shown virtually anywhere that a film projector was accessible, including
the Cartoon Filmad’s in-house screening room which could be hired to

show such films.
The projection room is a recent addition that is much appreciated by cli-

ents. There, they can sit in the comfort of deep chairs and pleasant sur-
roundings and view the finished films which are thrown upon a golden
screen.20
As part of their services, the studio produced colour-animated films.

Julius had always been a great enthusiast of colour in his work. His print
advertising firm, Smith and Julius, had continually boasted their use of
colour; later he would be one of the first in Australia to create locally
produced colour comic strips for the Sunday newspapers. So, it is no
surprise that the studio actively pushed the use of colour in their ani-
mations. ‘In short’ claimed a promotional text, ‘the Coloured Cartoon
Filmad gives to advertisers all the attractiveness, and advertising value
of colour, plus the force and selling power of the animated film.’21
However, since colour film was not yet available, they did what other
international studios would do, producing the animated film in black and
white, then hand colouring each frame of each print of the film.
Cartoon Filmads was very much a client-driven studio, and thus,
good communication with customers was a top priority. It was essential
that the client should understand exactly what the final product would
look like—and be happy with it—so good pre-production work, includ-
ing a clear visual storyboard, was very important.
A number of historians have suggested that Disney more or less
‘invented’ the storyboard and began using it in about 1931—though
others have more recently accepted that both Disney and other American
studios were using this technique for several years prior to this date.22
Remarkably, the Cartoon Filmads studio was using storyboards (or
scenarios as they were referred to) as part of their pre-production pro-
cess at least by 1920 (and probably as early as 1918). Whether or not this
makes them the first studio to use this technique, it certainly demonstrates
that they were a very early adopter of it. Their regular use of storyboards
made sense because, unlike a more standard narrative cartoon, an ani-
mated advertisement needed to communicate its message very clearly and
very succinctly. Additionally, since an external client commissioned each
animation, it was essential that they could approve the film before the
animation began and that they shared the same ‘vision.’ The length of
each storyboard might vary from just a few ‘boards’ to twenty or more.
Figure 2.6 shows a five-panel storyboard that was used in the production
of an animated advertisement for Lux soap, clearly defining the principal
actions and advertising content of the animation.
Much of the production was for domestic screening, but they also
produced a number of advertisements exclusively for foreign markets
through their overseas studio offices. The head office was in Sydney, but
they opened office/studios throughout Australia (Melbourne, Brisbane,
Adelaide and Perth) as well as in England, India, Burma, Egypt, Java,
Singapore, Philippines, China and Holland. For a number of years, the
studio was quite successful and they would easily have produced a great
quantity of animated advertisements. It is claimed, for example, that in
Indonesia alone (and within the first four weeks of their offices being
open there) they secured over £7000 in contracts to produce locally tar-
geted animated advertisements. In 1919, this would certainly have been
considered a healthy sum. They included targeted local ads for Nestle’s
Anglo-Swill Milk Co., Francis Peek & Co., Jacobson Vandenberg,
British-American Tobacco Co., Dunlop Rubber Co. (Far East) Ltd. and
many others. Almost annually, the studio would expand into new territo-
ries, for example:
In December, 1920, operations were started in Egypt and a circuit is now

established, which includes Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, and Syria. The advan-
tages of having a film advertising service in these practically new and unex-
ploited countries is almost unconceivable. The discerning business firms in
Cairo and Alexandria were quick to grasp the possibilities of such a favour-
able method of advertising, and large contracts have already been negoti-
ated. The latest development has been to open up the Philippine Islands,
Hong Kong, China and Cochin China, which will now make complete the
chain throughout all countries from Egypt to China.23
Late in 1921, Managing Director Albert E. Lake travelled to England to

set up a Cartoon Filmads division in London; soon after this, he estab-
lished an office in Amsterdam. In 1922, the director for the Adelaide
(South Australia) division of Cartoon Filmads, William A. Robyns,
claimed that ‘Cartoon Filmads book more commercial and institutional
animated advertising annually than any other single publicity service in
the world.’24
Fig. 2.6 Storyboards produced by Cartoon Filmads in preparation for the Lux
Soap animated cinema advertisement (c.1920)
The company was very keen to pitch animation as a universal language

that would appeal to all peoples and cultures, particularly in relation to
advertising:
There is no better nor more effective method of getting in touch with

the native races throughout the territories mentioned above than
Cartoon Filmads. Nothing makes such a strong and direct appeal to both
Europeans and natives alike. As proof of this we have made films in twenty
different languages for some of the large business houses, which do busi-
ness throughout all the territory covered by Cartoon Filmads.25
Of course, when an advertisement was translated into different lan-

guages, that would all be done visually, thus it would require the re-ani-
mation of the sections of the ad that contained the animated text.
Although most of the ads were presented in an easy to understand
pantomime, they would also use animated text as part of the narrative.
But the studio prided itself on the fact that they used animated text
which, they claimed, had an entirely different effect upon the audience.
Where particular emphasis is required a few words of text matter are used,
but these words are presented in an unusually effective way. Words are
spelt out letter by letter, sentences word by word. There is no possibility of
the audience skipping any part of the message. Suspense is utilised, and the
entire message is delivered.26
Cartoon Filmads was very proud of the fact that it was a full-service stu-
dio that employed a large number of artists and animators. Figure 2.7
showcases several different views of the Filmads Studios in 1921, high-
lighting the studio’s camera department, and various artist and anima-
tion facilities, including one room that was comprised exclusively of
women artists.
One of the things that made Cartoon Filmads particularly successful
was that they could provide their clients package deals. Thus, they did
not produce only animation; they continued working in print advertis-
ing and publishing (maintaining their alliance with the Smith and Julius
firm). What was interesting about this was that they would often pub-
lish both a print version and an animated cinema version of an adver-
tising campaign. For example, Fig. 2.8 shows a print version of an
Fig. 2.7 Promotional literature for Cartoon Filmads, showing the various
stages of the studio’s production
Fig. 2.8 Print ad by Cartoon Filmads that accompanied the animated film
advertisement for the same product, 1919
advertisement for Indasia soap that they produced, and which they were
running simultaneously as an animated version in the cinemas (c.1919).
There are only a handful of animated cinema advertisements from
Cartoon Filmads that are known to exist. A few of these are described
below.
Warner’s rust-proof corsets. This 60-second animated ad depicts a

young girl, who, upon noticing her mother’s corset hanging on the back
of the bathroom door, climbs up on the edge of the bathtub to get it.
While holding the corset, she says (in an animated speech balloon) ‘I’ll
try them on.’ After doing so, she commences to dance along the edge
of the tub, but then falls in with a large splash. In a series of animated
cries, the girl calls out ‘Mummy’ and ‘Boo-Hoo,’ to which her mother
replies ‘I’m coming!!!’ When the mother does enter the bathroom, she
announces in large animated text, ‘Thank goodness they’re Warner’s
rust-proof corsets.’ And, the animated ad concludes with the text, ‘Wear
Warner’s rust-proof corsets, they won’t rust, break or tear.’
Barrackville Breakfast Cocoa. This 60-second animated ad high-
lights the fact that Barrackville Cocoa is Australian produced. The scene
begins with a large tin of Barrackville Cocoa set against a backdrop of
the Australian continent. Soon, a number of smaller tins appear, each
with a single letter printed on them that, when placed together, spell out
‘IMPORTED COCOAS.’ In response, the Australian cocoa smashes and
destroys this array of imported tins. The phrase ‘Knocking them out!’
appears on screen. Next, the animated text of: ‘Australia’s own cocoa,
Famous for Flavour. Barrackville Breakfast Cocoa’ appears. In the final
scene, animated couple are seated at a table enjoying their cups of cocoa.
Further animated text appears, declaring: ‘A cocoa of quality, perfect
purity, high nutrition and fine flavour.’
The Overland Whippet. At nearly seven minutes in length, this is
the longest of the surviving Cartoon Filmad productions. Produced in
1926, it is also one of the better examples of the sophisticated style of
animation that Cartoon Filmads was able to achieve through their com-
bined use of Julius’ cut-out animation technique and David Barkers
rotoscoping technique. This cinema advertisement features a Whippet
motor car—The Overland Whippet. Surprisingly, the ad also features an
extremely sophisticated multiplane effect consisting of, what appears to
be, at least five separate offset levels.
The Empire Fades

In 1924, the studio changed its name from Cartoon Filmads, Ltd. to
the abbreviated Filmads, Ltd. And as indicated by the name change,
they began to increase their production of live-action advertisements.
But then in 1927 the Australian advertising company, Catts-Patterson,
took over Smith and Julius (including the Filmads division). However,
Catts-Patterson were more interested in print advertising than anima-
tion, so after a few years they slowly began to wind down the anima-
tion side of the business and gradually to close down the various overseas
Filmads offices.
During this period, Harry Julius remained with the company; but
with the animation side of things diminishing, he directed his energies
towards a number of other pursuits. He was certainly a man of many tal-
ents, and during the late 1920s, he successfully published at least three
different newspaper comic strips, the most successful being, Mr. Gink,
‘which entertainingly portrays the escapades of a much harassed and
henpecked gentleman.’ In 1927, Julius began making a weekly radio
show called Air Cartoons. As part of this programme, he (with the help
of well-known ventriloquist and radio personality, Russ Garling) would
dramatise the Mr. Gink comic strips on air.
Julius was still very interested in pushing the technique of animation
further, and he began to experiment with lip-synched sound animation
with Fred Daniell at Fox Movietone. One article from 1929 notes:
At the present time Mr. Julius is concentrating upon the production of

talkie cartoons, in which his darting pencil will delineate original top-
ics of merriment whilst simultaneously the jest will express itself in spo-
ken words. On his return to Sydney, he told a “Mercury” interviewer, the
sound accompaniment of these newest forms of cartoons, would be ‘shot’
for release in Fox Movietone gazettes.27
By 1930, Filmads were releasing ‘talkie cartoons’ which featured both

voice-over and lip-synched animation.
Another big change occurred in 1934 when Catts-Patterson (due to
a falling out between Mr. Catts and Mr. Patterson) dissolved their hold-
ings. John Fairfax & Sons then acquired the Smith and Julius Company
and in the process appears to have largely abandoned the Filmads ani-
mation division. At this time, Harry Julius set up his own independent
advertising agency. His new company, a much smaller one, was simply
called: Harry Julius Advertising Service. It is believed that he continued
to make occasional animated films through this company, but he focused
much of his attention on illustrations, comics and later, fine-art watercol-
our painting.
Rather unexpectedly, Julius died in 1938 at the age of 54. Many of

his colleagues continued in the industry, and a few continued to produce
animation with subsequent Australian studios.
Notes
1. For more on lightning sketch animation, see: Dan Torre, ‘Boiling Lines
and Lightning Sketches: Process and Animated Drawing.’ Animation: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 10, no. 2 (2015): 141–53.
2. The Mercury, Hobart, 12 December 1916, 2.
3. Harry Julius claimed that Alec Laing was the first Australian to make
animation.
4. For more on the performances of La Milo, see: Anita Callaway, Visual
Ephemera: Theatrical Art in Nineteenth-Century Australia (Sydney:
UNSW Press, 2000).
5. Melbourne Punch, 27 July 1905, 135.
6. The Advertiser, 16 October 1906, 7.
7. The Picture Show, 10 May 1919, 31.
9. The Mail, Adelaide, 20 February 1915, 8.
10. Poverty Bay Herald, New Zealand, 29 April 1915, 5.
12. Get a Move on with Your Advertising (Sydney: Cartoon Filmads, 1921).
13. Lloyd Rees, The Small Treasures of a Lifetime: Some Early Memories of
Australian Art and Artists (Sydney: Collins Publishers, 1988), 68.
14. Harry Julius, ‘Improvements in the Production of Animated Cartoon
Films for Cinematograph Display.’ Australia, 1918.
15. Stephen Cavalier, The World History of Animation (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2011). El Apóstol (The Apostle), no copies of this film
exist to prove its length, but it appears that it was well over 60 minutes in
length.
16. Harry Julius, ‘Improvements in the Production of Animated Cartoon
Films for Cinematograph Display.’ Great Britain, 1921.
17. David Barker, ‘Improved Method of and Apparatus for Producing
Animated Cartoon Films.’ Australia, 1921.
18. Get a Move on with Your Advertising.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. See, for example, Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1980).

24. The Mail, Adelaide, 25 February 1922, 1.
26. Ibid.
27. ‘A Versatile Artist—Mr. Harry Julius,’ The Mercury, Hobart, 2 December
1929.
Bibliography
‘A Versatile Artist—Mr. Harry Julius.’ The Mercury, 2 December 1929.
‘Get a Move on with Your Advertising.’ Edited by Cartoon Filmads. Sydney,
1921.
Melbourne Punch, 27 July 1905.
Poverty Bay Herald, 29 April 1915.
The Advertiser, 16 October 1906.
The Mail, 20 February 1915.
The Mail, 25 February 1922.
The Picture Show, 10 May 1919.
Barker, David. ‘Improved Method of and Apparatus for Producing Animated
Cartoon Films.’ Australia, 1921.
Callaway, Anita. Visual Ephemera: Theatrical Art in Nineteenth-Century
Australia. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2000.
Cavalier, Stephen. The World History of Animation. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2011.
Julius, Harry. ‘Improvements in the Production of Animated Cartoon Films for
Cinematograph Display.’ Australia, 1918.
———. ‘Improvements in the Production of Animated Cartoon Films for
Cinematograph Display.’ Great Britain, 1921.
Maltin, Leonard. Of Mice and Magic. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Rees, Lloyd. The Small Treasures of a Lifetime: Some Early Memories of Australian
Art and Artists. Sydney: Collins, 1988.
Torre, Dan. ‘Boiling Lines and Lightning Sketches: Process and Animated
Drawing.’ Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10, no. 2 (2015):
141–53.
CHAPTER 3
Pat Sullivan and Felix the Cat
Pat Sullivan (1887–1933) was an Australian animator who, although he

did not produce any animation in Australia, established a very successful
animation studio in New York. The Pat Sullivan Studio was best known
for its production of Felix the Cat, which quickly became the most cele-
brated animated star of the era. This famous cat was known to the world
as Pat Sullivan’s Felix the Cat.
A number of authors have more recently identified Otto Messmer (the
studio’s lead animator), and not Sullivan, as being the person who was
most significantly responsible for the creation and development of Felix
the Cat. Some recent accounts suggest that Sullivan did not play any
role in the creation of Felix. Undeniably, new information has emerged
in recent decades which has identified Sullivan as a very controversial
and an extremely problematic figure (with a serious criminal conviction)
which has further complicated his placement in history.
This shift in attitude towards Pat Sullivan is regarded by many as
a long overdue correction of an historical inaccuracy, and one that
seems to have been corroborated by some of Messmer’s contemporar-
ies. Others have countered that Messmer’s claim as the sole creator of
Felix, which, ‘made many years later in the absence of any defence from
Sullivan – needs to be treated with caution.’1 It is worth further noting
that this claim emerged, at least publicly, around the time of the death of
Sullivan’s nephew (who was regarded as being the very last remaining
heir of the Sullivan estate). The manner in which Messmer’s claim has
been positively defended in recent years does seem to be in contrast to

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95492-9_3
similar claims that have been made, and virtually ignored, such as: it
was Ub Iwerks who created Mickey Mouse (and not studio owner Walt
Disney), and it was Grim Natwick who created Betty Boop (and not stu-
dio owner Max Fleischer).
Nevertheless, there are plausible arguments to be made which suggest
that a number of animators at the Sullivan Studio played a more balanced
role in the Felix enterprise. Interestingly, Alec Laing (who has been
regarded as Australia’s first animator—see Chapter 2) was also employed
for a number of years at the Sullivan animation studio. There are also
some interesting crossovers that occurred between the Sullivan heirs and
the emerging Australian animation industry that warrant exploration.
Ultimately, a central focus of this chapter is to delineate the various plau-
sible links between Australian animation and the Felix the Cat character.
Pat Sullivan’s Early Years

Pat Sullivan was born in Sydney (as Patrick O’Sullivan) on 2 February
1887. His mother died while he was a young child; he and his older
brother, William O’Sullivan, were raised by their father (also named Pat
O’Sullivan). By the age of twenty, he had begun to contribute cartoon
illustrations to a number of local publications including: The Worker, The
Gadfly, The Bulletin and the short-lived Vumps (a humour magazine that
he co-founded).
Most examples that exist of Sullivan’s Australian published draw-
ings are from the period 1907 to 1909; they are all signed with his
true name, O’Sullivan (he would later drop the ‘O’ when he moved
overseas). It was during this time that Sullivan established a close rap-
port with many of the Sydney ‘black and white’ artists (newspaper car-
toonists), including Harry Julius and Alec Laing (whom he would later
encounter in the animation industry in New York). Most of his draw-
ings from this era reveal a fairly straightforward illustrative style and
are usually rendered with a heavy use of cross-hatching and patterning
(Fig. 3.1).
Sullivan travelled to England in around 1909, where he was initially
forced to accept a variety of low-wage jobs, the income from which he
attempted to supplement with his artwork. For a brief time, he assisted
in drawing the comic strip Ally Sloper for a weekly humour magazine.
During this period in England, he began dropping the ‘O’ in his name,
shortening it to Pat Sullivan.
3 PAT SULLIVAN AND FELIX THE CAT 33
Fig. 3.1 An early drawing by Pat Sullivan (as Pat O’Sullivan) c.1908 (Image
courtesy State Library of NSW)
He made his way to New York in 1910 (his older brother had temporar-
ily resided there a few years previously), where he struggled initially to find
employment. In an Australian newspaper article from 1925, Sullivan recalls
The first job I went after in New York was that of a shoeshine. The adver-
tisement directed one to apply to ‘Mike’. I walked from 22nd street to
125th street, hoping to find a sympathetic Irishman who would give me
the job. I found ‘Mike’ to be an Italian. Shoe shiners, glorying in Irish
names there, are generally Italians.2
But before long, and after a stint of other miscellaneous jobs, he

began drawing comic strips for The McClure newspaper syndicate—
initially as a ghost artist drawing the established comic strip, Sambo
and His Funny Noises, and later originating and drawing his own
comic strips, including: Great-Idea Jerry, Willing Waldo and Old Pop
Perkins.
Sullivan acquired his first job in the animation industry in 1914,
working at Raoul Barre’s Animated Cartoons Studio (where fellow
Australian Alec Laing was employed; later Harry Julius would also be
employed there for a brief time). It was here that he learned how to ani-
mate. But his stay was short-lived; by the following year, 1915, he had
set up his own competing animation studio.
Sullivan hired a handful of other animators, including: W.E. Stark, Bill
Cause, George D. Clardy, Will Anderson, Charles Saxton, Ernest Smythe
and Otz (Otto) Messmer. Soon his studio was producing a steady stream
of animated films. One of the first successful series that the studio pro-
duced, Sammie Johnsin, was based loosely on the comic strip, Sambo and
His Funny Noises, which Sullivan had drawn a few years previously for
the McClure newspaper syndicate. Approximately, ten of these shorts
were released over a two-year period. At this time, Sullivan was highly
promoted in the press. One American industry magazine of the time
noted:
He has a reputation of being an unusually hard worker, as he often turns

out between 100 and 150 drawings a day on an animated cartoon. When
he first became acquainted with this end of the motion picture industry he
stated that he thought 1,000 drawings constituted a life’s work. Despite
this early conviction most of his animated cartoons today call for from
3,000 to 5,000 drawings.3
If the official copyright details are accurate, it seems that in its first cou-
ple years the studio released at least seventeen animated shorts. The
animation credits for the films are attributed: Pat Sullivan six films,
Otto Messmer four films and Will Anderson two films, while W.E.
Stark, Bill Cause, George D. Clardy, Charles Saxton and Ernest Smythe
are each credited with one film. It is, of course, most likely that assis-
tant animators as well as inkers would have collaborated on each of
these films.
3 PAT SULLIVAN AND FELIX THE CAT 35
Enter the Cats

Over the decades, there has been some controversy as to who deserves
creative ownership of Felix the Cat. Both Sullivan and Messmer, during
very different eras (and in very different capacities), have claimed that
they were the sole creators of the Cat. Pat Sullivan made his claim while
he was head of the Pat Sullivan Studios and while he was the lawful copy-
right holder of everything that his studio produced. Otto Messmer made
the claim around 1970, long after Pat Sullivan had died. He made this
retrospective claim, from a position of having been the studio’s lead ani-
mator, who would have played the largest role in the execution of the
Felix animated films; he also was the chief artist (and writer) on the Felix
newspaper comic strips and comic books for over 30 years. Without a
doubt, Messmer could easily claim to have held the lengthiest, and most
involved, creative stewardship of Felix the Cat.
Central to this debate is the creation of the animated film, Feline
Follies (1919), which has traditionally been regarded as the first Felix
film—though it’s character, a black cat, was called Master Tom.
Sullivan, as owner of the studio, took credit for the creation of Feline
Follies and for the creation of the Felix character. He also took credit for
naming the cat:
The artist attributes the discovery of Felix to Mrs Sullivan. He stated that
during one of their dark days she brought to the studio a scraggy cat and
persuaded him to cartoon it. Sullivan should consider cats lucky, for since
that day fortune has smiled upon him. In his New York studio, Sullivan has
nine artists employed, the highest paid receiving the magnificent salary of
£70 a week. The originator admitted that at times he found it difficult to
find material for new episodes. Many animated cartoons were built upon
actual happenings.4
Several years later, in 1936, Sullivan’s friend Kerwin Maegraith would

elaborate upon the naming of the cat, suggesting its ‘Australian’ origins
“What shall we call him?” said Mrs Sullivan.
“What about Felix?” said Pat. “You’ve heard of ‘Australia Felix,’ and I’ll
draw him in solid black like old Peter Felix the boxer, who used to frighten
us kids in Sydney.”5
The Latin, ‘felix,’ literally means happy or lucky. In this case, the phrase,
‘Australia Felix,’ was a fairly common nineteenth-century phrase used to
describe Australia as ‘the lucky country.’ Peter Felix was a West Indian/
Australian boxer who won the Australian heavyweight title and was one
of Australia’s most legendary boxers at the time of Sullivan’s youth (and
thereby, of course, attributing an unmistakable stereotyping to the cat).
By contrast, Otto Messmer made the claim (many decades later) that
he was solely responsible for the character, and in a 1970s interview he
stated:
Sullivan’s studio was very busy, and Paramount was falling behind their
schedule and they needed one extra to fill in. And Sullivan, being very
busy, said, “if you want to do it on the side you can do any little thing to
satisfy them”. And I figured that a cat would be the simplest thing, make
him all black, you know - you wouldn’t need to worry about outlines.6
Messmer went on to explain that he made Feline Follies by himself.

Significantly, within Messmer’s claim of being the cartoon’s creator, he
appears to have made three additional sub-claims: he claimed to have
made the animated film entirely at home and away from the Sullivan
Studios; secondly, he claimed that he made it in his own time; and thirdly,
he claimed that he made it primarily at the request of another company,
Paramount. Interestingly, Messmer did not claim that he had originated
the name ‘Felix,’ but that it came as recommendation from the distrib-
utor, Paramount. Messmer recalled, ‘Mr King of Paramount Magazine
[…] suggested that if we would care to give it the name of Felix. Which
we kicked around a little bit and decided that this was it.’7
Messmer’s claim was readily believed, with many accepting him to be
the creator of Felix the Cat; while Pat Sullivan’s historic claim came to
be regarded as very inaccurate. However, it is also worth pointing out
that Feline Follies was actually not the first Sullivan Studio film to feature
a black cat character. Perhaps the most significant example is that some
two years before Feline Follies, the studio created what is now believed to
be the studio’s first cat-themed cartoon, The Tail of Thomas Kat (1917).
Although this film is not known to have survived, an early published
summary of the film reads as follows:
The Tail of Thomas Kat – The cat is rocking in a chair, and his tail is
through a knothole in the fence. A chicken grabs it in its beak and pulls it
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the box is fastened at a height of some five or six feet above the
ground, or hung up (but this is not so common) like a swinging bar
on a stand made for the purpose. This last arrangement is
particularly safe, as affording no access to vermin. As the birds
multiply, the owner adds cylinder to cylinder till they form a kind of
wall. Towards sunset, he or his wife approaches the dovecote, greeted
by a friendly cooing from inside, picks up from the ground a piece of
wood cut to the right size, and closes the opening of the first bark box
with it, doing the same to all the others in turn, and then leaves them
for the night, secure that no wild cat or other marauder can reach
them.
DOVECOTE AND GRANARY
I have found out within the last few days why so few men are to be
seen in my rounds. The settlements here scarcely deserve the name
of villages—they are too straggling for that; it is only now and then
that from one hut one can catch a distant glimpse of another. The
view is also obstructed by the fields of manioc, whose branches,
though very spreading, are not easily seen through on account of the
thickly-growing, succulent green foliage. This and the bazi pea are,
now that the maize and millet have been gathered in, the only crops
left standing in the fields. Thus it may happen that one has to trust
entirely to the trodden paths leading from one hut to another, to be
sure of missing none, or to the guidance of the sounds inseparable
from every human settlement. There is no lack of such noises at
Masasi, and in fact I follow them almost every day. Walking about
the country with Nils Knudsen, I hear what sounds like a jovial
company over their morning drink—voices becoming louder and
louder, and shouting all together regardless of parliamentary rules. A
sudden turn of the path brings us face to face with a drinking-party,
and a very merry one, indeed, to judge by the humour of the guests
and the number and dimensions of the pombe pots which have been
wholly or partially emptied. The silence which follows our
appearance is like that produced by a stone thrown into a pool where
frogs are croaking. Only when we ask, “Pombe nzuri?” (“Is the beer
good?”) a chorus of hoarse throats shouts back the answer—“Nzuri
kabisa, bwana!” (“Very good indeed, sir!”)
As to this pombe—well, we Germans fail to appreciate our
privileges till we have ungratefully turned our backs on our own
country. At Mtua, our second camp out from Lindi, a huge earthen
jar of the East African brew was brought as a respectful offering to us
three Europeans. At that time I failed to appreciate the dirty-looking
drab liquid; not so our men, who finished up the six gallons or so in a
twinkling. In Masasi, again, the wife of the Nyasa chief Masekera
Matola—an extremely nice, middle-aged woman—insisted on
sending Knudsen and me a similar gigantic jar soon after our arrival.
We felt that it was out of the question to refuse or throw away the
gift, and so prepared for the ordeal with grim determination. First I
dipped one of my two tumblers into the turbid mass, and brought it
up filled with a liquid in colour not unlike our Lichtenhain beer, but
of a very different consistency. A compact mass of meal filled the
glass almost to the top, leaving about a finger’s breadth of real, clear
“Lichtenhainer.” “This will never do!” I growled, and shouted to
Kibwana for a clean handkerchief. He produced one, after a
seemingly endless search, but my attempts to use it as a filter were
fruitless—not a drop would run through. “No use, the stuff is too
closely woven. Lete sanda, Kibwana” (“Bring a piece of the shroud!”)
This order sounds startling enough, but does not denote any
exceptional callousness on my part. Sanda is the Swahili name for
the cheap, unbleached and highly-dressed calico (also called bafta)
which, as a matter of fact, is generally used by the natives to wrap a
corpse for burial. The material is consequently much in demand, and
travellers into the interior will do well to carry a bale of it with them.
When the dressing is washed out, it is little better than a network of
threads, and might fairly be expected to serve the purpose of a filter.
I found, however, that I could not strain the pombe through it—a
few scanty drops ran down and that was all. After trying my tea and
coffee-strainers, equally in vain, I gave up in despair, and drank the
stuff as it stood. I found that it had a slight taste of flour, but was
otherwise not by any means bad, and indeed quite reminiscent of my
student days at Jena—in fact, I think I could get used to it in time.
The men of Masasi seem to have got only too well used to it. I am far
from grudging the worthy elders their social glass after the hard work
of the harvest, but it is very hard that my studies should suffer from
this perpetual conviviality. It is impossible to drum up any
considerable number of men to be cross-examined on their tribal
affinities, usages and customs. Moreover, the few who can reconcile
it with their engagements and inclinations to separate themselves for
a time from their itinerant drinking-bouts are not disposed to be very
particular about the truth. Even when, the other day, I sent for a
band of these jolly topers to show me their methods of
basketmaking, the result was very unsatisfactory—they did some
plaiting in my presence, but they were quite incapable of giving in
detail the native names of their materials and implements—the
morning drink had been too copious.
It is well known that it is the custom of most, if not all, African
tribes to make a part of their supply of cereals into beer after an
abundant harvest, and consume it wholesale in this form. This, more
than anything else, has probably given rise to the opinion that the
native always wastes his substance in time of plenty, and is nearly
starved afterwards in consequence. It is true that our black friends
cannot be pronounced free from a certain degree of “divine
carelessness”—a touch, to call it no more, of Micawberism—but it
would not be fair to condemn them on the strength of a single
indication. I have already laid stress on the difficulty which the
native cultivator has of storing his seed-corn through the winter. It
would be still more difficult to preserve the much greater quantities
of foodstuffs gathered in at the harvest in a condition fit for use
through some eight or nine months. That he tries to do so is seen by
the numerous granaries surrounding every homestead of any
importance, but that he does not invariably succeed, and therefore
prefers to dispose of that part of his crops which would otherwise be
wasted in a manner combining the useful and the agreeable, is
proved by the morning and evening beer-drinks already referred to,
which, with all their loud merriment, are harmless enough. They
differ, by the bye, from the drinking in European public-houses, in
that they are held at each man’s house in turn, so that every one is
host on one occasion and guest on another—a highly satisfactory
arrangement on the whole.
My difficulties are due to other causes besides the chronically
bemused state of the men. In the first place, there are the troubles
connected with photography. In Europe the amateur is only too
thankful for bright sunshine, and even should the light be a little
more powerful than necessary, there is plenty of shade to be had
from trees and houses. In Africa we have nothing of the sort—the
trees are neither high nor shady, the bushes are not green, and the
houses are never more than twelve feet high at the ridge-pole. To this
is added the sun’s position in the sky at a height which affects one
with a sense of uncanniness, from nine in the morning till after three
in the afternoon, and an intensity of light which is best appreciated
by trying to match the skins of the natives against the colours in Von
Luschan’s scale. No medium between glittering light and deep black
shadow—how is one, under such circumstances, to produce artistic
plates full of atmosphere and feeling?
For a dark-room I have been trying to use the Masasi boma. This is
the only stone building in the whole district and has been
constructed for storing food so as to prevent the recurrence of famine
among the natives, and, still more, to make the garrison independent
of outside supplies in the event of another rising. It has only one
story, but the walls are solidly built, with mere loopholes for
windows; and the flat roof of beaten clay is very strong. In this
marvel of architecture are already stacked uncounted bags
containing millet from the new crop, and mountains of raw cotton. I
have made use of both these products, stopping all crevices with the
cotton, and taking the bags of grain to sit on, and also as a support
for my table, hitherto the essential part of a cotton-press which
stands forsaken in the compound, mourning over the shipwreck it
has made of its existence. Finally, I have closed the door with a
combination of thick straw mats made by my carriers, and some
blankets from my bed. In this way, I can develop at a pinch even in
the daytime, but, after working a short time in this apartment, the
atmosphere becomes so stifling that I am glad to escape from it to
another form of activity.
On one of my first strolls here, I came upon
a neat structure which was explained to me as
“tego ya ngunda”—a trap for pigeons. This is
a system of sticks and thin strings, one of
which is fastened to a strong branch bent over
into a half-circle. I have been, from my youth
up, interested in all mechanical contrivances,
and am still more so in a case like this, where
we have an opportunity of gaining an insight
into the earlier evolutional stages of the
RAT TRAP human intellect. I therefore, on my return to
camp, called together all my men and as many
local natives as possible, and addressed the assembly to the effect
that the mzungu was exceedingly anxious to possess all kinds of
traps for all kinds of animals. Then followed the promise of good
prices for good and authentic specimens, and the oration wound up
with “Nendeni na tengenezeni sasa!” (“Now go away and make up
your contraptions!”).
How they hurried off that day, and how eagerly all my men have
been at work ever since! I had hitherto believed all my carriers to be
Wanyamwezi—now I find, through the commentaries which each of
them has to supply with his work, that my thirty men represent a
number of different tribes. Most of them, to be sure, are
Wanyamwezi, but along with them there are some Wasukuma and
Manyema, and even a genuine Mngoni from Runsewe, a
representative of that gallant Zulu tribe who, some decades ago,
penetrated from distant South Africa to the present German
territory, and pushed forward one of its groups—these very Runsewe
Wangoni—as far as the south-western corner of the Victoria Nyanza.
As for the askari, though numbering only thirteen, they belong to no
fewer than twelve different tribes, from those of far Darfur in the
Egyptian Sudan to the Yao in Portuguese East Africa. All these
“faithfuls” have been racking their brains to recall and practise once
more in wood and field the arts of their boyhood, and now they come
and set up, in the open, sunny space beside my palatial abode, the
results of their unwonted intellectual exertions.
The typical cultivator is not credited in literature with much skill
as a hunter and trapper; his modicum of intellect is supposed to be
entirely absorbed by the care of his fields, and none but tribes of the
stamp of the Bushmen, the Pygmies and the Australian aborigines
are assumed by our theoretic wisdom to be capable of dexterously
killing game in forest or steppe, or taking it by skilful stratagem in a
cunningly devised trap. And yet how wide of the mark is this opinion
of the schools! Among the tribes of the district I am studying, the
Makua are counted as good hunters, while at the same time they are
like the rest, in the main, typical hoe-cultivators—i.e., people who,
year after year, keep on tilling, with the primitive hoe, the ground
painfully brought under cultivation. In spite of their agricultural
habits their traps are constructed with wonderful ingenuity. The
form and action of these traps is sufficiently evident from the
accompanying sketches; but in case any reader should be entirely
without the faculty of “technical sight,” I may add for his benefit that
all these murderous implements depend on the same principle.
Those intended for quadrupeds are so arranged that the animal in
walking or running forward strikes against a fine net with his muzzle,
or a thin cord with his foot. The net or the string is thereby pressed
forward, the upper edge of the former glides downwards, but the end
of the string moves a little to one side. In either case this movement
sets free the end of a lever—a small stick which has hitherto, in a way
sufficiently clear from the sketch—kept the trap set. It slips
instantaneously round its support, and in so doing releases the
tension of the tree or bent stick acting as a spring, which in its
upward recoil draws a skilfully fixed noose tight round the neck of
the animal, which is then strangled to death. Traps of similar
construction, but still more cruel, are set for rats and the like, and,
unfortunately, equal cunning and skill are applied to the pursuit of
birds. Perhaps I shall find another opportunity of discussing this side
of native life; it certainly deserves attention, for there is scarcely any
department where the faculty of invention to be found in even the
primitive mind is so clearly shown as in this aspect of the struggle for
existence.
TRAP FOR ANTELOPES
Of psychological interest is the behaviour of the natives in face of

my own activity in this part of my task. When, we two Europeans
having finished our frugal dinner, Nils Knudsen has laid himself
down for his well-deserved siesta, and the snoring of my warriors
resounds, more rhythmically than harmoniously from the
neighbouring baraza, I sit in the blazing sun, like the shadowless
Schlemihl, only slightly protected by the larger of my two helmets,
sketching.
TRAP FOR GUINEA-FOWL

TRAP FOR LARGE GAME
The ability to make a rapid and accurate sketch of any object in a

few strokes is one whose value to the scientific explorer cannot be
overrated. Photography is certainly a wonderful invention, but in the
details of research-work carried on day by day, it is apt to fail one
oftener than might be expected, and that not merely in the darkness
of hut-interiors, but over and over again by daylight in the open air.
I am sitting sketching, then. Not a breath of air is stirring—all
nature seems asleep. My pen, too, is growing tired, when I hear a
noise immediately behind me. A hasty glance shows me that the
momentum of universal human curiosity has overcome even the
primæval force of negroid laziness. It is the whole band of my
carriers, accompanied by a few people belonging to the place. They
must have come up very softly, as they might easily do with their
bare feet on the soft, sandy soil. Presently the whole crowd is looking
over my shoulder in the greatest excitement. I do not let them
disturb me; stroke follows stroke, the work nears completion,—at last
it is finished. “Sawasawa?” (“Is it like?”) I ask eagerly, and the
answering chorus of “Ndio” (“Yes”) is shouted into my ears with an
enthusiasm which threatens to burst the tympanum. “Kizuri?” (“Is it
fine?”) “Kizuri sana kabisa” (“Very fine, indeed”), they yell back still
more loudly and enthusiastically; “Wewe fundi” (“You are a master-
craftsman”). These flattering critics are my artists who, having
practised themselves, may be supposed to know what they are
talking about; the few washenzi, unlettered barbarians, unkissed of
the Muse, have only joined in the chorus from gregarious instinct,
mere cattle that they are.
Now comes the attempt at a practical application. I rise from my
camp-stool, take up an oratorical attitude and inform my disciples in
art that, as they have now seen how I, the fundi, set about drawing a
trap, it would be advisable for them to attempt a more difficult
subject, such as this. It is dull work to keep on drawing their friends,
or trees, houses, and animals; and they are such clever fellows that a
bird-trap must surely be well within their powers. I have already
mentioned the look of embarrassed perplexity which I encountered
when beginning my studies at Lindi. Here it was even more marked
and more general. It produced a definite impression that the idea of
what we call perspective for the first time became clear to the men’s
minds. They were evidently trying to express something of the sort
by their words and gestures to each other; they followed with their
fingers the strangely foreshortened curves which in reality stood for
circles—in short, they were in presence of something new—
something unknown and unimagined, which on the one hand made
them conscious of their intellectual and artistic inferiority, and on
the other drew them like a magnet to my sketch-book. None of them
has up to the present attempted to draw one of these traps.
Travellers of former days, or in lands less satisfactorily explored
than German East Africa, found the difficulties of barter not the least
of their troubles. Stanley, not so many years ago, set out on his
explorations with hundreds of bales of various stuffs and
innumerable kinds of beads, and even thus it was not certain
whether the natives of the particular region traversed would be
suited; not to mention the way in which this primitive currency
increased the number of carriers required by every expedition. In
German East Africa, where the Colonial Administration has so often
been unjustly attacked, the white man can now travel almost as
easily as at home. His letter of credit, indeed, only holds good as far
as the coast, but if his errand is, like mine, of an official character,
every station, and even every smaller post, with any Government
funds at its disposal, has orders to give the traveller credit, on his
complying with certain simple formalities, and to provide him with
cash. The explanation is not difficult: the fact that our rupees are
current on the coast compels all the interior tribes to adopt them,
whether they like it or not. I brought with me from Lindi a couple of
large sacks with rupees, half and quarter rupees, and for immediate
needs a few cases of heller.[16] This copper coin, long obsolete in
Germany, has been coined for circulation in our colony, but the
natives have not been induced to adopt it, and reckon as before by
pice—an egg costs one pice (pesa) and that is enough—no one thinks
of working out the price in hellers. Neither is the coin popular with
the white residents, who deride its introduction and make feeble
puns on its name—one of the poorest being based on the name of the
present Director of Customs, which happens to be identical with it.
I find, however, that the natives are by no means averse to
accepting these despised coins when they get the chance. On our
tramps through the villages, Moritz with the lantern is followed by
Mambo sasa, the Mngoni, carrying on his woolly head a large jar of
bright copper coin newly minted at Berlin.
After a long, but not tedious examination of all the apartments in
the native palaces, I return to the light of day, dazzled by the tropical
sunshine. With sympathetic chuckles, my bodyguard—those of my
men who are always with me and have quickly grasped, with the
sympathetic intuition peculiar to the native, what it is that I want—
follow, dragging with them a heap of miscellaneous property. Lastly
come the master of the house and his wife, in a state of mingled
expectation and doubt. Now begins the bargaining, in its essentials
not very different from that experienced in the harbours of Naples,
Port Said, Aden and Mombasa. “Kiasi gani?” (“What is the price?”)
one asks with ostentatious nonchalance, including the whole pile in a
compendious wave of the hand. The fortunate owner of the valuables
apparently fails to understand this, so he opens his mouth wide and
says nothing. I must try him on another tack. I hold up some article
before his eyes and ask, “Nini hii?” (“What is this?”), which proves
quite effectual. My next duty is to imagine myself back again in the
lecture-hall during my first term at college, and to write down with
the utmost diligence the words, not of a learned professor, but of a
raw, unlettered mshenzi. By the time I have learnt everything I want
to know, the name, the purpose, the mode of manufacture and the
way in which the thing is used, the native is at last able and willing to
fix the retail price. Up to the present, I have met with two extremes:
one class of sellers demand whole rupees, Rupia tatu (three) or
Rupia nne (four), quite regardless of the nature of the article for sale
—the other, with equal consistency, a sumni as uniform price. This is
a quarter-rupee—in the currency of German East Africa an
exceedingly attractive-looking silver coin, a little smaller than our
half-mark piece or an English sixpence. Possibly it is its handiness,
together with the untarnished lustre of my newly-minted specimens
in particular, which accounts for this preference. One thing must be
mentioned which distinguishes these people very favourably from
the bandits of the ports already mentioned. None of them raises an
outcry on being offered the tenth or twentieth part of what he asks.
With perfect calm he either gradually abates his demands till a fair
agreement is reached, or else he says, at the first offer, “Lete” (“Hand
it over”). At this moment Moritz and my jar of coppers come to the
front of the stage. The boy has quickly lifted the vessel down from the
head of his friend Mambo sasa. With the eye of a connoisseur he
grasps the state of our finances and then pays with the dignity, if not
the rapidity, of the cashier at a metropolitan bank. The remaining
articles are bargained for in much the same way. It takes more time
than I like; but this is not to be avoided.
When the purchase of the last piece is completed, my carriers, with
the amazing deftness I have so often admired, have packed up the
spoil, in the turn of a hand, in large and compact bundles. A
searching look round for photographic subjects, another last glance
at the house-owner chuckling to himself over his newly-acquired
wealth, and then a vigorous “Kwa heri” (“Good-bye”), and lantern
and jar go their way. We had only just settled into our house here
when we received a visit from the chief’s son, Salim Matola, a very
tall and excessively slender youth of seventeen or eighteen,
magnificently clad in a European waistcoat, and very friendly. Since
then he has scarcely left my side; he knows everything, can do
everything, finds everything, and, to my delight, brings me
everything. He makes the best traps, shows me with what diabolical
ingenuity his countrymen set limed twigs, plays on all instruments
like a master, and produces fire by drilling so quickly that one is
astonished at the strength in his slight frame. In a word, he is a
treasure to the ethnographer.
One thing only seems to be unknown to my young friend, and that
is work. His father, Masekera Matola, already mentioned, has a very
spacious group of huts and extensive gardens. Whether the old
gentleman ever does any perceptible work on this property with his
own hands, I am not in a position to judge, as he is for the present
most strenuously occupied in consuming beer; but at every visit, I
have noticed the women of the family working hard to get in the last
of the crops. The young prince alone seems to be above every
plebeian employment. His hands certainly do not look horny, and his
muscles leave much to be desired. He strolls through life in his
leisurely way with glad heart and cheerful spirit.
MY CARAVAN ON THE MARCH. DRAWN BY PESA MBILI
CHAPTER VII
MY CARAVAN ON THE SOUTHWARD
MARCH
Chingulungulu, beginning of August, 1906.
It is not very easy to locate my present abode on the map. Masasi and
its exact latitude and longitude have been known to me for years, but
of this strangely named place,[17] where I drove in my tent-pegs a few
days ago, I never even heard before I had entered the area of the
inland tribes.
One trait is common to all Oriental towns, their beauty at a
distance and the disillusionment in store for those who set foot
within their walls. Knudsen has done nothing but rave about
Chingulungulu ever since we reached Masasi. He declared that its
baraza was the highest achievement of East African architecture,
that it had a plentiful supply of delicious water, abundance of all
kinds of meat, and unequalled fruit and vegetables. He extolled its
population, exclusively composed, according to him, of high-bred
gentlemen and good-looking women, and its well-built, spacious
houses. Finally, its situation, he said, made it a convenient centre for
excursions in all directions over the plain. I have been here too short
a time to bring all the details of this highly coloured picture to the
test of actual fact, but this much I have already ascertained, that
neither place nor people are quite so paradisaical as the enthusiastic
Nils would have me believe.
YAO HOMESTEAD AT CHINGULUNGULU
To relate my experiences in their proper order, I must, however, go

back to our departure from Masasi which, owing to a variety of
unfortunate circumstances, took place earlier than originally
planned. To begin with, there was the changed attitude of the
inhabitants, who at first, as already stated, showed the greatest
amiability, and allowed us, in the most obliging way, to inspect their
homes and buy their household furnishings. In my later sketching
and collecting expeditions, I came everywhere upon closed doors and
apparently deserted compounds. This phenomenon, too, comes
under the heading of racial psychology. However much he may profit
by the foreigner’s visits, the African prefers to have his own hut to
himself.[18]
In the second place, we began, in the course of a prolonged
residence, to discover the drawbacks of our quarters in the rest-
house. Knudsen, who is very sensitive in this respect, insisted that it
was damp, and we soon found that the subsoil water, which indeed
reached the surface as a large spring on the hillside a little below the
house, was unpleasantly close to our floor. Even on the march up
from the coast, Knudsen had suffered from occasional attacks of
fever. These now became so frequent and severe that he was scarcely
fit for work. His faithful old servant, Ali, nursed him with the most
touching devotion, and never left his bedside night or day.
I had myself on various occasions noticed a curious irritation of
the scalp, for which I could discover no cause, in spite of repeated
examination. One day, while hastening across from the dark-room to
the rest-house, with some wet plates in my hand, I was conscious of
intense discomfort among my scanty locks, and called out to Moritz
to take off my hat and look if there was anything inside it. He obeyed,
inspected the hat carefully inside and out, and, on pursuing his
researches under the lining, turned grey in the face, and ejaculated
with evident horror, “Wadudu wabaya!”[19] The case becoming
interesting, I put my plates down and instituted a minute
investigation into Moritz’s find, which proved to consist of a number
of assorted animalcules, with a sprinkling of larger creatures
resembling ticks. This was somewhat startling. I had come to Africa
with a mind entirely at ease as regards malaria—I swear by Koch and
fear nothing. But remittent fever is another matter. In Dar es Salam I
had heard enough and to spare about this latest discovery of the
great Berlin bacteriologist, and how it is produced by an
inconspicuous tick-like insect which burrows in the soil of all sites
occupied for any length of time by natives. The mosquito-net, I was
told, is a sufficient protection against the full grown papasi, as they
are called, but not against their hopeful progeny, which can slip
unhindered through the finest mesh. This particular kind of fever,
moreover, was said to be most especially trying—you were never
seriously ill, and yet never really well, or fit for work; and nothing,
not even quinine, would avail to keep the attacks from recurring
every few days. Small wonder if, at the sight of these wadudu
wabaya in the shape of ticks, I too turned pale at the thought of the
ignoble end possibly awaiting my enterprise before it was well begun.
I had already found out that Masasi was not precisely an abode of
all the virtues, and that an appreciable percentage of the soldiers
forming the garrison at the boma were suffering from venereal
diseases; but the incident which precipitated our departure was the
following. The akida, or local headman (a former sergeant in the
Field Force), was the owner of a small herd of cattle, and with the
good-nature which is one of the most striking traits in the African
character, earned my warmest gratitude by sending me a small jar of
milk every day. After a time we heard, and the rumour gained in
definiteness with each repetition, that the akida was a leper. I could
not refuse the milk, which continued to arrive regularly, and came in
very handy for fixing my pencil drawings.
In their totality the evils enumerated may
not signify more than a succession of pin-
pricks; but even such trifling interferences
with human well-being may in the end
appreciably diminish one’s enjoyment of life.
With the attractions of Chingulungulu as an
additional inducement, it was not surprising
that only a day or two intervened between the
first suggestion that we should migrate
southward and our actual departure. With
their usual monkeylike agility, my carriers one
evening packed a large heap of specimens in
convenient loads, and as quickly the order was
given to Saleh, the corporal in command of
the askari, and Pesa mbili, the leader of the
porters, “Safari to-morrow at six!”
THE YAO CHIEF
MATOLA Next to Matola, the Yao chief of
Chingulungulu, no man in the country is
oftener in men’s mouths than his illustrious
colleague and fellow tribesman, Nakaam, of Chiwata in the north-
western part of the Makonde plateau. The Europeans on the coast
are not agreed as to which of these two chiefs is the more powerful.
In the interior, however, Matola seems to be far more looked up to by
the natives than the chief of Chiwata. Nevertheless, I thought it
absolutely necessary to visit the latter and his people. My plans are
not based on any fixed line of march, but were expressly arranged so
that I should be able to take whatever route circumstances might
render most convenient.
I must confess that my stay at Masasi has turned out a
disappointment as regards the customs, habits and ideas of the
natives, though I have gained a very fair insight into the outward,
material details of their life. But here too, Nils Knudsen is ready with
consolation and encouragement. “What can you expect, Professor?
the people here are a terribly mixed lot, after all, and have lost all
their own traditions and customs. Don’t waste any more time in this
wretched hole of a Masasi, but come to Chingulungulu; you have no
idea what a fine place that is!”
We marched at daybreak on July 31. The
road through the Masasi district, as already
mentioned, skirts the great chain of insular
mountains on the east, passing, at a sufficient
height to afford an extensive view to the east
and south, over an escarpment formed by the
products of aerial denudation from the gneiss
peaks. Did I say the plain? it is an ocean that
we see spread out before our eyes, a white,
boundless expanse, studded with islands, here
one, there another, and yonder, on the misty
horizon, whole archipelagoes. This wonderful
spectacle, passing away all too quickly as the
sun climbs higher—the peaks rising like
islands from the sea of the morning mist,
while our caravan trails its length along the
shore—pictures for us as in a mirror the
aspect it presented in those distant ages when
the blue waves of the primæval ocean rolled
where now the blue smoke of lowly huts NAKAAM, A YAO
CHIEF
ascends to the heavens.
The goal of our first day’s march was Mwiti,
where, to judge from the importance given to it on the map, I
expected a large native settlement. Not far from the Masasi Mission
station, the road to Mwiti branches off from the Coast road on the
right. I order a halt; the column opens out; I shout into the fresh
morning air “Wapagazi kwa Lindi!” (“the carriers for Lindi!”); and
the oldest and also the tallest of my porters, a Mnyamwezi of
pronounced Masai type, strides up with a heavy, swaying motion like
a camel.
INTERIOR OF A COMPOUND AT MWITI
His name, Kofia tule, was at first a puzzle to me. I knew that kofia
means a cap, but, curiously enough it never occurred to me to look
up tule (which, moreover, I assumed to be a Nyamwezi word) in the
dictionary. That it was supposed to involve a joke of some sort, I
gathered from the general laughter, whenever I asked its meaning. At
last we arrived at the fact that kofia tule means a small, flat cap—in
itself a ridiculous name for a man, but doubly so applied to this black
super-man with the incredibly vacant face.
Kofia tule, then, comes slowly forward, followed by six more
Wanyamwezi, and some local men whom I have engaged as extra
carriers. With him as their mnyampara they are to take my
collections down to the Coast, and get them stored till my return in
the cellars of the District Commissioner’s office at Lindi. The final
instructions are delivered, and then comes the order, “You here, go
to the left,—we are going to the right. March!” Our company takes
some time to get into proper marching order, but at last everything
goes smoothly. A glance northward over the plain assures us that
Kofia tule and his followers have got up the correct safari speed; and
we plunge into the uninhabited virgin pori.
There is something very monotonous and fatiguing about the
march through these open woods. It is already getting on for noon,
and I am half-asleep on my mule, when I catch sight of two black
figures, gun in hand, peeping cautiously round a clump of bushes in
front. Can they be Wangoni?
For some days past we have heard flying rumours that Shabruma,
the notorious leader of the Wangoni in the late rebellion, and the last
of our opponents remaining unsubdued, is planning an attack on
Nakaam, and therefore threatening this very neighbourhood. Just as
I look round for my gun-bearer, a dozen throats raise the joyful shout
of “Mail-carrier!” This is my first experience of the working of the
German Imperial Post in East Africa; I learnt in due course that,
though by no means remunerative to the department, it is as nearly
perfect as any human institution can be. It sounds like an
exaggeration, but it is absolutely true, to say that all mail matter,
even should it be only a single picture post-card, is delivered to the
addressee without delay, wherever he may be within the postal area.
The native runners, of course, have a very different sort of duty to
perform from the few miles daily required of our home functionaries.
With letters and papers packed in a water-tight envelope of oiled
paper and American cloth, and gun on shoulder, the messenger trots
along, full of the importance of his errand, and covers enormous
distances, sometimes, it is said, double the day’s march of an
ordinary caravan. If the road lies through a district rendered unsafe
by lions, leopards, or human enemies, two men are always sent
together. The black figures rapidly approach us, ground arms with
soldierly precision and report in proper form:—Letters from Lindi
for the Bwana mkubwa and the Bwana mdogo—the great and the
little master. As long as Mr. Ewerbeck was with us, it was not easy for
the natives to establish the correct precedence between us. Since they
ranked me as the new captain, they could not possibly call me
Bwana mdogo. Now, however, there is not the slightest difficulty,—
there are only two Europeans, and I being, not only the elder, but
also the leader of the expedition, there is nothing to complicate the
usual gradation of ranks.

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Australian Animation: An International

History 1st ed. Edition Dan Torre

New Directions in Contemporary Australian Poetry 1st

An Introduction to Language, Australian 9th Ed 9th

A History of Capital Punishment in the Australian

Contemporary Issues in Sustainable Finance: Creating an

Forest Ecology: An Evidence-Based Approach Dan Binkley

DreamWorks Animation: Intertextuality and Aesthetics in

Mapping the Influencers in EU Policies 1st ed. Edition

Animation And Memory 1st Edition Edition Maarten Van

Dan Torre &

ISBN 978-3-319-95491-2 ISBN 978-3-319-95492-9 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951033

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: Illustration by Harry Julius

2 From Sketch to Empire 7

3 Pat Sullivan and Felix the Cat 31

4 Early Australian Animators: Isolation and International

5 Television and the Rise of International Collaborations 79

6 Marco Polo Junior: A Crisis of Animated Identity 107

7 Yoram Gross: Bringing Australian Animation to the

8 Alex Stitt: Animation by Design 147

9 Hanna-Barbera Australia 161

10 An Industry Matures 179

11 Independently Animated 211

Fig. 2.1 Portrait of Alec Laing by Harry Julius (1917) (Courtesy

grab from Feline Follies, late 1919. There is a marked

Animation production in Australia has a very extensive, but little known,

© The Author(s) 2018 1

Before Australia can make pictures to seriously compete in the world’s

a shifting range of approaches that either promote an ‘Australian’ theme

animation industry in New York. Significantly, this chapter highlights

From Sketch to Empire

© The Author(s) 2018 7

Some of his projected drawing performances would be merely projected

There can be no difference of opinion as to the ideal loveliness of the pic-

cartoonist, and popular lightning sketch artist. In 1906, he and fellow

Fig. 2.2 Portrait of Harry Julius (1918)

Cartoons of the moment by the Australian cartoonist, Harry Julius, were

As his series developed, the films became increasingly proficient, com-

The following year, in 1918, Cartoon Filmads was formally incor-

To obviate the necessity for a plurality of drawings in the photographic

In the field of international animation production, Julius was by no

animation was quite commonly used in these other countries, he was

It has also been suggested previously in the production of animated films

The new process by which Cartoon Filmads is animated, forms a most

Cartoon Filmads—An Animated Empire

Fig. 2.5 Promotional image for Cartoon Filmads, c.1920

Sydney studios and, in addition, in several of their national and interna-

In a word, Cartoon Filmads is animated motion pictures fitted to industrial

The studio produced advertisements for a wide range of clients show-

the Cartoon Filmad’s in-house screening room which could be hired to

The projection room is a recent addition that is much appreciated by cli-

As part of their services, the studio produced colour-animated films.

In December, 1920, operations were started in Egypt and a circuit is now

Late in 1921, Managing Director Albert E. Lake travelled to England to

The company was very keen to pitch animation as a universal language

There is no better nor more effective method of getting in touch with

Of course, when an advertisement was translated into different lan-

Warner’s rust-proof corsets. This 60-second animated ad depicts a

The Empire Fades

At the present time Mr. Julius is concentrating upon the production of

By 1930, Filmads were releasing ‘talkie cartoons’ which featured both

23. Get a Move on with Your Advertising.