Frame by Frame A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons

Reviews

"It's not every day that a posthumously published Ph.D. thesis nudges the world of cinema studies off its axis. All hail Frame by Frame: A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons."—Artforum

"After reading Frame by Frame, it's difficult to naively or passively watch a classic-era cartoon again, considering the erased labor that was alienated and mechanized, yet individuated—ultimately producing an artwork. Frank impressively ties together the imaginative pleasures of close analysis to rethink the trajectory of animation as more than a "history of drudgery."—Film Comment

"A thrilling read—one of the most exuberant, brilliant books I’ve come across in a very long time. I have lived with many of the cartoons Hannah Frank analyzes for pretty much my entire life and never suspected the hidden life or lives within their images, the inscription of histories (social, personal, technological, aesthetic) in which, it turns out, they abound."—Scott Bukatman, author of The Poetics of Slumberland: Animated Spirits and the Animating Spirit

"Frame by Frame is an original and thought-provoking work that makes important and unexpected contributions to the quickly evolving cinema and media studies debates about animation. Hannah Frank’s work is deeply refreshing in its ability to think across and weave together different strands of the various debates about animation that have arisen to date. These are all big conversations in their own right, and Frank is impressive in her ability to think lucidly across them in such fluent and productive ways."—Karen Redrobe, author of Crash: Cinema and the Politics of Speed and Stasis