A Portal to the Past

On the golden ages of Chinese animation.

Little Tadpoles Search for Mama (1960), as seen in Shanghai Animation Film Studio 1957–1987

Welcome! We’re back with a new Thursday edition of the Animation Obsessive newsletter. This one brings a rarity.

First, though: we need to thank everyone for the response lately. It’s been wonderful. The recent piece on Samurai Jack is our biggest of the year — and we’ve been amazed by the kindness toward the Prince Achmed and Shepherdess articles. We’re so grateful. (Thanks to Boing Boing and Espinof for the shoutouts, too.)

It’s a lot of excitement as we head into our trip to Annecy. Our plane leaves soon. But, before we move to festival coverage, we want to share something you’ve likely never seen before.

The ‘80s were special years for Shanghai Animation Film Studio. It was the leader of Chinese animation at the time — and it had one of the richest catalogs of any animation studio in the world. During 1987, the company celebrated its 30th birthday with a “brochure,” which took readers through its history.

That brochure is really more of a book, and it’s a precious source of photos, stills and artwork, with a bit of text in English. But copies are scarce. We were lucky to find one, and it’s been a great help with the newsletter — although we’ve shared just a fraction of what it contains.

To preserve the brochure and make its treasures available again, we’ve digitized it and put it on the Internet Archive. Its title is Shanghai Animation Film Studio 1957–1987, and you can check it out below. For a little more context, read on.

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