I just received yesterday a book that I found really exciting. Comic Character Metal Sand Toys, written by world-famous collectors Pat and Doug Wengel, is pure delight for Disneyana collectors. Let me mention first that you should not be fooled by its name: despite the very broad title, the book focus is 90% on Disney and less than 10% on the rest.What makes it very exciting to me - aside from the fact that with 176 pages it is a really complete reference book and the fact that I discovered in it two photos of Kay Kamen that I had never seen before - is the shere number of pages that are dedicated to foreign Disneyana. In other words, unlike all recent Disneyana books that only focus on seen-so-often-we-can't-care-less US items, this book broadens the scope tremendously. As you know, I have been researching foreign vintage Disneyana for years, but even so I discovered quite a few treasures in the Wengel's book.
In other words: a must-have for serious Disneyana collectors.
2 comments:
It would be interesting to see some academic work on Disney merchandising outside the US and even a biography of Kay Kamen.
I have accumulated a lot of Kay Kamen background info over the years and would love to write a biography on him.
I am currently working on the bio of Henry "Hank" L. Porter, whom Walt Disney once referred to as a "one man art department." I have interviewed two of Porter's surviving children, one of whom worked with her father at Disney's in the summer of 1944 as his assistant.
I have a huge number of images Porter created and I can say with authority his illustrations are gorgeous and his output was astounding!
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