Pop-Out!: Animation using volvelles, cut-out windows, and “magic glasses” to create the illusion of projectile motion

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By Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

Tony Sarg’s Magic Movie Book in collaboration with Emery I. Gondor; ten tales that will never die rewritten in modern style by Hazel Seaman and Christina De La Motte …; eighteen poems and jingles by poets who will live forever, 1943.

Sarg's Magic Movie Book front coverCover of Magic Movie Book held at Penn State special collections

I have been fortunate to work with two copies of this unusual interactive book, first the Penn State Special Collections Library and now the FTB (Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo). They appear to be the same edition and both are complete. The one at Penn State has the paper cover while the one at FTB has tabs that are easier to move. The book contains several kinds of materials to create animation and an illusion of projectile movement. At base are line drawings in two colors blue and red –they make no sense when viewed without the prosthetics, for example, there are extra legs of the wrong color on a character. Using fused pages most effectively there are dials or volvelles protruding from the sides of the pages and cut-out windows for a viewer to look through. The metal rivets attaching the volvelles are visible and touchable in the center of the pages. An interactor needs to move the protruding part of the dial to create movement.

The special glasses used with the Magic Movie Book

Initially the movement makes no sense, but the “magic glasses” change everything. The plastic glasses have blue and red lenses with movable tabs at the sides. An interactor achieves the intended effects by moving the tabs up and down to change the colors. Since the drawings are red and blue switching the colored lenses makes the figures seem to move.

The glasses are separate from the book but attached to the front matter. They are packaged as a prop but are not an “extra”: rather their function is essential to the book’s movable design. In many cases the glasses get lost or are damaged and so are too fragile to play with. It was only when I was able to interact easily with the glasses did I understand the complexity and integrity of the book. Moreover, this book is one of the few movable books I have seen that invites the engagement of more than one person, for two sets of glasses are thoughtfully provided. The visual context is of children, female and male at a movie theatre.  This context is depicted on the hard cover and repeated on the paper cover.

How does this book work?  I am not used to playing with “magic glasses” and my experience with a similar kind of interactivity is from playing with a later version of the view master toy years ago (note 1). This ingenious book works in terms of multiple interactivities of sight and touch to create both pre-cinema animation of the images and the illusion of projectile movement which in also evokes the tactile. I think of an observations Walter Benjamin made about Dadist film in his “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (1936). He states,

“[Dadaist art] hit the spectator like a bullet, it happened to him, thus acquiring a tactile quality. It promoted a demand for the film, the distracting element of which is also primarily tactile, being based on changes of place and focus which periodically assail the spectator” (note 2).

I think the magic glasses and the moveable dials create a similar projectile effect since the images seem to move out of the page toward the interactor. Sarge creates the effect in a simple way when illustrating the nursery rhymes since an interactor simply puts on the glasses and moves the tabs. The effect is more complex and the interactor has more agency when moving the disc while wearing the glasses to animate the retold tales.

Opening of the inside of the book, with the start of the Cinderella story on the right

This scan shows Cinderella on the right side, while on the front end paper there are instructions on how to use the glasses. (Volvelle not visible)

As indicated by the long title, the book is a kind of anthology or omnibus volume with a co-author discussed below and other contributers. The fairy or folk tales are retellings written by Hazel Seaman and Christina De La Motte. They are short, jaunty, cartoon-like and presume a knowledgeable reader. Both the beleaguered heroes and heroines are equally savvy and take advantage of the situation and stereotypical villains. For example, with the first disc we encounter “Cinderella” and on one side “The Three Little pigs” on the other. The endings give agency to the protagonists: both Cinderella and the prince decide to marry at once “since neither favored long engagements.” With “The three little pigs” the oldest brother, after scalding the wolf, performs a cesarean section on the wolf as in “Red Riding Hood” and rescues his brothers. They learn from their mistakes and make brick houses like him.

When an interactor engages with the disc, we rotate through the key episodes in the story in accordance with the text. If we wish, we could rotate it contrarywise or focus on a couple of sequences.  The physical artifact of the two-sided discs also creates intriguing juxtapositions between the tales.

The book effectively creates a “toy-like” semi-immersive experience where the interactor is the reader-narrator-viewer and the film projectionist who controls the speed and direction of the movement.

The Three Little Pigs story in the Magic Movie Book.

This image shows the three little pigs design format on the left side, while on the right is a simpler form of animation with no volvelle or tabs illustrating two well -known nursery rhymes. (volvelle visible on left hand side)

There is one lingering question: Is this book just a one-off trick or an experiment? Or both? It is a notable achievement combining animation and the illusion of three-dimensional perspective achieved by the interactor by touch and sight. Sarg was an expert in creating actual movements and the illusion of movement. He worked with material objects like puppets on different scales ranging from the toy theatre to balloon puppets, and created ingenious movable books that combine different textures, materials, and invite active exploration by an interactor. He was also a pioneer in film animation, creating “Adam Raises Cain” (1920) and “The First Circus” (1921), a silhouette film (Tamara Hunt, p. 32-25).

Unfortunately, this book was published posthumously after Sarg’s sudden death in 1942. It is a collaborative project with Emerich (Emery) I. Gondor (1896-1977), a psychotherapist and artist who immigrated to the United States in 1935 and became a citizen in 1941 (note 3). I would like to know what Gondor’s role was in the invention and their plans. Another question I have is Sarg’s choice of line illustrations for the animation, not more complex images. In this way I wonder if he is hearkening back to the 19th century in the early day of pre-cinema of which he was knowledgeable. I include a link to the Magic Media Museum online and the 1830 experiments with dancing figures to support this idea (note 4).

Notes

  1. Viewmaster toy first introduced in 1939 at the world’s fair and intended for adults; see https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1129885.
  2. Benjamin goes on to contrast film with a painting: “Let us compare the screen on which a film unfolds with the canvas of a painting. The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested … The spectator’s process of association in view of these images is indeed interrupted by their constant, sudden change. This constitutes the shock effect of the film …” (XIV; 238; cited in Reid-Walsh 2007).
  3. See the finding aid for the Emery I. Gondor collection at the Center for Jewish History. The content note gives the following information: “During World War II, he worked for the War Department and was Chief of the Technical Operation Unit in the Overseas Service for France and Germany for two years. This unit performed classified work in counter-espionage. Gondor was also an instructor at the training schools in New York, France and Germany, where he taught about the psychological problems of counter-espionage as well as wrote several classified manuals on the subject.”
  4. Magical media museum channel on YouTube

References

Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Ed. by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken, 1969.

Hunt, Tamara. Tony Sarg Puppeteer in America, 1915-1942. Garden City BC: Charlemagne Press, 2018.

Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. “Everything in the Picture Book Was Alive”: Hans Christian Andersen’s Strategy of Textual Animation in His Fairy Tales and the Interactive Child Reader.” In Johan de Mylius et al. (Eds.), Hans Christian Andersen: Between Children’s Literature and Adult Literature (pp. 275-289). Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press, 2007.

Permanent Pop-App Exhibition at the Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo

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“Libri interattivi/creativi in Italia e all’estero”
MUSLI PERMANENT EXHIBITION 2008
Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

I have the good fortune to be based at the Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo in Turin for the duration of my sabbatical. I am working with Professor Vagliani and his group researching interactive books and related media, old and new, directed to children and youth. I only became aware of the Pop-App project in 2019 but it dates back to 2008 when the founding display of interactive books and related media was launched in a permanent exhibition space. Yesterday I had a guided tour of “Libri interattivi/creativi in Italia e all’estero” with Professor Vagliani.

The exhibit is housed in a large, vaulted subterranean space devoted to printing techniques within a historic noble residence. The stone walls and cool environment lend an aura of mystery to the experience.

One of the exhibit cases.

The display cases and hanging displays effectively suggest a path for a visitor. The many examples range from classic movable books to sound enhanced books, to games and toys from the 18h to 20th century. The spectacular display fuses old paper media and new digital media. The innovative, interactive approach provokes and stimulates a viewer to think and rethink assumptions about movable books.

Of the cornucopia of examples, I focus on three groups which invite a multisensory approach. One set combines touch, vision and movement and consists of lift-the-flap books and an unusual, vertically-slatted transformation book by Dean and Son. The transformation works when it is stroked. When an interactor gently moves the slats one way (with the grain) a scene is revealed: when you stroke the book the other way (against the grain) another scene appears. Unusually there is no pull-tab and you have to engage directly with the mechanism.

Innovative moveable books.

Another portion of the display is devoted to theatrical presentations.  These range from miniature stage sets, to carousel books, to Englebrecht inspired perspective views. One book republished in America by McLaughlin Brothers continues the idea of direct engagement with the object.  This popular series of books exploits the idea of a viewer entering a theatre to watch a performance. Usually an interactor opens the covers/curtain to reveal a stage, but this version opens directly on the performance. You encounter sets of vertical flaps of different sizes. By turning them aside you to see a performance matching a fairy tale or derive your own performance of a fairy tale (in this case Aladdin).

Miniature stage set

To conclude this cursory review I mention several iconic movable books by Lothar Meggendorfer that have been digitally remediated. Touch screen panels allow a viewer not only to enact an iconic scene but enhance the original through the addition of sound. Here by adding the sound of the doorbell the character is pulling, the digital version “enhances” or “improves” the paper media version.

Interactive touch screens for Meggendorfer books

My tour started a journey of discovery. The cross connections between books and research in Italian and English are fascinating. In some cases we have unknowingly paralleled and overlapped one another. Distance and language divides have contributed to this but the foundation’s inaugural conference “Pop-App 2020 (2021)” has enabled linkages to start that we are pursuing further.

Please see the website for the permanent exhibit: https://www.pop-app.org/pop-app-musli/

Play It Again Publication from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

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Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

Both Bill Minter and I had the opportunity to be involved with Christian Bachman’s exhibition catalogue called Play it again Vom Spielbilderbuch zum Videospiel. It accompanies an interactive exhibition, “Play it again“, that he curated at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin about digital media, especially video games, including hybrid constructions. Dr. Bachman is interested in connections back to movable books so my chapter concerns Nintendo Labo and some of Lothar Meggendorfer’s constructions. Working on the piece gave me the opportunity to think backwards and forwards between paper and digital media. Working on my contribution to the volume, I remembered how Bill Minter had made an interactive, large scale facsimile a number of years ago of “Greedy Julia” from The living Strewelpeter. The book is housed in special collections and the large-scale illustration formed an important part of a display Sandra Stelts curated and I participated in. When Christian approached Bill, he kindly arranged with Special collections for it to be shared with the Library of Berlin. In return Christian sent an image of Greedy Julia in the show.

Greedy Julia on display at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

The companion volume to the exhibition is available open access as a downloadable pdf:

Christian A. Bachmann (Hg.) (2023): Play it again: Vom Spielbilderbuch zum Videospiel. Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

The contributions are in German, with two chapters (including mine) in English.

Rag Books: Dean and Son

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Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

My interest in interactive books, especially of those for babies or very small children is of quite recent standing as I have begun to explore more of the publications by Dean and Son. The company started producing rag books at the turn of the 20th century with the stated aim of creating safe and durable books for very young children. Although the rag books were not reprints, they are a good instance of the same educational genres as the paper books, here a picture-book primer (Cope and Cope, 11, 13).  As with all primers, the aim is to educate caregivers and babies about their immediate surroundings and to do in a safe non-threatening way (Nodelman and Reimer, 130). What sets the Dean rag books apart from a paper primer is that the safe environment is not restricted to the images or  words but also in their materiality. The soft, pliable material exudes its own atmosphere– a cozy domesticity apart from any content (see Reid-Walsh and Rouse, in press).

Previously I have approached Dean and son’s output as being one of the founding families of movable book design in England in 1856, the other main family being Darton and son (McGrath, 16). Because of their association with 19th chapbooks for children, part of the “cheap print” phenomenon, their implied audience includes a broad economic range of readers. I now realize that their innovations in design include innovations in materials, and that their rivalry with Darton extends to both aspects.

With rag books I have worked mainly with images and one pristine copy of What is this? What is That? (circa 1905) held in special collections at The Pennsylvania State University Library. In May I had the opportunity visit the Baldwin library at the university of Florida and examine more rag books largely by Dean. I also became acquainted with others published by their main rivals the Darton family and the McLoughlin Brothers in the US.

In some cases, the choice of substrate for publishing seems to be arbitrary — for instance story books that were published on both paper and rag or those that combined a paper surface with a fabric backing. Here I wondered who the implied readers were : the texts such as fairy tales are directed towards a more generic child audience while the rag ones towards babies and toddlers.

One of the notable features of the Baldwin collection is how the founding curator bought books both in pristine and used conditions. With the rag books this included books that had been washed so can be compared to the pristine versions. Here I show images of a few little-used and well-used rag books, including one I have seen in different editions at both Penn state and the Baldwin. Throughout I discuss the Dean rag book claim in their logo of “quite indestructible” in terms of the implications of the qualifier. On the one hand, it could be understood as (British) understatement, or/and descriptive evaluation (Reid-Walsh and Rouse, in press). The descriptor may also allude to earlier handmade paper-making strategies up through the 18th century when paper was composed of rags and thereby more durable in comparison to machine-made pulp paper.

In terms of the claim of indestructability and others such as safety and hygiene, first I show images of the same books in different states. Then I engage in a brief comparison of two editions of What is this? What is that? (circa 1905 and 1925?).

The same book in two states: When I grow up (Baldwin library circa 1910)

Comparison of two states of the Dean's Rag Book "When I Grow Up"

This book evokes an affluent pre-world war one world with fashionably dressed woman and children, formal chauffeur and glamourous car. The handwritten style text next to the young boy provides a subtitle as well as his wish “I’ll be a Motor driver.” The rag material is firm and the pinking clean. With the washed book the material has softened, and colors have faded and changed — the green turning-blue gray, the blue washing out almost completely, the print text has disappeared, but the red is still quite vivid. The sewing and pinking are starting to fray. With some of the other more used books, the pinking has completely worn away. This shows that “quite” “indestructible” is perhaps a fair assessment.

Two versions of What is this? What is that? (Penn State 1906, Baldwin 1925?)

These two editions effectively evoke different period representations of early childhood in terms of their household and play objects. In both cases, the only images of humans appear on the front covers.

Cover of the Dean's Rag Book "What is this? What is that?"

The 1906 edition creates a bucolic image of lower middle and middle class early childhood. It includes depictions of a number of multiuse and household objects. Notably the cover depicts a small wheel barrow being used by a toddler (presumably a girl?) in full Victorian nursery attire. In the barrow are non-gender specific toys such as a lamb on a pull board, and ball. This continues within the book.

Image of the cover of another state of the Dean's Rag Book "What is this? What is that?"

In comparison, the 1925 edition book updates the child representation and objects to evoke a “modern” and more affluent household. The images include more toys and emphasizes gender specificity in clothing and objects. The front cover does this strikingly — the girl with fashionably bobbed hair and boy are well dressed. They have an elaborate doll house and several toys like dolls and a stuffed bear. Notable is the racist golliwog.

Interior spread of "What is this? What is that?" rag book that includes an image of a rag book.

It is interesting to note that one page includes a self-referential image of “rag book” which closely recalls and perhaps reworks images from the earlier edition. The image is set amongst household items and sweet treats. The image of the alarm clock on the page, as with the image of the motor car on the front cover or the other rag book, indicates an easy way to date a book (apart from fashion)!

References:

Cope, P. and D. (2009) Dean’s Rag Books & Rag Dolls. New Cavendish Books.
McGrath, L. (2002) This Magical Book. Movable Books for Children, 1771–2001. Coach House.
Nodelman, P and Reimer, M. (2002) The Pleasures of Children’s Literature. Pearson.
Reid-Walsh, J. and Rouse, D. (in press) “Understanding the Design Values of Baby Books: Materiality, Co-Presence and Remediation,” Children’s Literature in Education: An International Quarterly.