So, today on the podcast, we have one of our book episodes.

Recently, film and art critic Karen Fang published a biography on Disney concept artist Tyrus Wong,

called Background Artist.

And you may be familiar with Tyrus Wong.

In 2015, director Pam Tom created a feature-length documentary on the work of Tyrus,

which was presented on PBS as part of the American Masters series.

But now Karen Fang has published a detailed biography that further explores Tyrus's life and work.

Tyrus had a long career as an artist working for

Warner Brothers and Disney and creating his own work, but in Disney circles, Tyrus is

mainly remembered for his concept work on Bambi, which then stylized the film's environment.

In discussions of pop culture sometimes, there is a sense of a Disney House style,

and there is some partial truth to a Disney House style.

For example, many of the short cartoons from the 1930s, 40s, and the early 50s share a recognizable visual presentation.

Also, many of the animated features from the early 1950s share stylistic elements,

particularly in character design. For example, in Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan,

the main human characters

mostly slant toward a type of illustrative realism, and the secondary comic characters

and villains often slant toward caricature.

But in the 1930s and early 1940s, Walt developed features so that each of them would have its own unique

visual style.

One specifically arranged to engage that story's themes.

The European storybook qualities of Snow White are very different than the comedic visual exaggeration of Dumbo,

...