An animation studio is a company producing animated media. The broadest such companies conceive of products to produce, own the physical equipment for production, employ operators for that equipment, and hold a major stake in the sales or rentals of the media produced. They also own rights over merchandising and creative rights for characters created/held by the company, much like authors holding copyrights . In some early cases, they also held patent rights over methods of animation used in certain studios that were used for boosting productivity. Overall, they are business concerns and can function as such in legal terms.
113-574: King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio , consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips , newspaper columns , editorial cartoons , puzzles , and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises (like The Cuphead Show! , which it produced with Netflix ), and licenses its classic characters and properties. King Features Syndicate
226-735: A pub named after him in Essex Street, off Strand in London. Wallace narrated his words onto wax cylinders (the dictaphones of the day) and his secretaries typed up the text. This may be why he was able to work at such high speed and why his stories have narrative drive. Many of Wallace's successful books were dictated like this over two or three days, locked away with cartons of cigarettes and endless pots of sweet tea, often working pretty much uninterrupted in 72 hours. Most of his novels were serialised in segments but written in this way. The serialised stories that were instead written piecemeal have
339-401: A " mirror Earth " or " mirror Universe " later became a standard subgenre within science fiction. The story also bears similarities to Rudyard Kipling's hard science fiction story " Wireless ". Wallace's other science fiction works include The Green Rust , a story of bio-terrorists who threaten to release an agent that will destroy the world's corn crops, 1925 , which accurately predicted that
452-637: A Wesleyan missionary, was strongly opposed to the marriage. The couple's first child, Eleanor Clare Hellier Wallace, died suddenly from meningitis in 1903, and the couple returned to London soon afterwards, deeply in debt. In London, Wallace worked for the Mail and began writing detective stories in a bid to earn quick money. A son, Bryan Edgar Wallace , was born in 1904 followed by a daughter, Patricia, in 1908. In 1903, Wallace met his birth mother Polly, whom he had never known. Terminally ill, 60 years old, and living in poverty, she came to him to ask for money and
565-578: A best seller, and in 1935 it was adapted into an eponymous film , starring Paul Robeson . Wallace went on to publish 11 more similar collections (102 stories). They were tales of exotic adventure and local tribal rites, set on an African river, mostly without love interest as this held no appeal for Wallace. His first 28 books and their film rights he sold outright, with no royalties, for quick money. Critic David Pringle noted in 1987: "The Sanders Books are not frequently reprinted nowadays, perhaps because of their overt racism". The period from 1908 to 1932
678-535: A celebrity writer, "King of Thrillers", known for this trademark trilby , cigarette holder , and yellow Rolls-Royce . He was said to be able to write a 70,000 word novel in three days and plough through three novels at once, and the publishers agreed to publish everything he wrote as fast as he could write it. In 1928, it was estimated that one in four books being read in the UK had come from Wallace's pen. He wrote across many genres including science fiction, screen plays, and
791-601: A child. His foster-father George Freeman was determined to ensure Richard received a good education, and for some time Wallace attended St. Alfege with St. Peter's, a boarding school in Peckham , but he played truant and then left full-time education at the age of 12. By his early teens, Wallace had held down numerous jobs such as newspaper-seller at Ludgate Circus near Fleet Street , milk-delivery boy, rubber factory worker, shoe shop assistant, and ship's cook. A plaque at Ludgate Circus commemorates Wallace's first encounter with
904-591: A controversial article in the Daily Mail in 1926 entitled "The Canker In Our Midst" about paedophilia and the show business world. Describing how some show business people unwittingly leave their children vulnerable to predators, it linked paedophilia with homosexuality and outraged many of his colleagues, publishing associates, and business friends including theatre mogul Gerald du Maurier . Biographer Margaret Lane describes it as an "intolerant, blustering, kick-the-blighters-down-the-stairs" type of essay, even by
1017-442: A distinctly different narrative energy, not sweeping up the reader on the story wave. Wallace rarely edited his own work after it was dictated and typed up, but sent it straight to the publishers, intensely disliking the revision of his work with other editors. The company would do only cursory checks for factual errors before printing. Wallace faced widespread accusations that he used ghost writers to churn out books, though there
1130-784: A fictional, magical animal called Eugene the Jeep was added to Popeye, and trademarked. King Features remained a "powerhouse" syndicate throughout the 1950s and the 1960s. In 1965 it launched a children's comic and coloring page. In 1986, King Features acquired the Register and Tribune Syndicate for $ 4.3 million. Later that year, Hearst bought News America Syndicate (formerly Publishers-Hall). By this point, with both King Features and News America (renamed North America Syndicate ), Hearst led all syndication services with 316 features. In 2007, King Features donated its collection of comic-strip proof sheets (two sets of over 60 years' accumulation) to
1243-521: A fictitious obligation in Greenwich that would last at least half a year and obtained a room in a boarding house where she lived until her son's birth, on 1 April 1875. During her confinement she had asked her midwife to find a couple to foster the child. The midwife introduced Wallace's mother to her close friend, Mrs Freeman, a mother of ten children, whose husband George Freeman was a Billingsgate fishmonger. On 9 April 1875, his mother took Wallace to
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#17327761371951356-573: A film editor. By 1929, Wallace's earnings were almost £50,000 per annum (equivalent to about £2 million in current terms). He also invented at this time the Luncheon Club, bringing together his two greatest loves: journalism and horse-racing. Wallace was the first British crime novelist to use policemen as his protagonists, rather than amateur sleuths as most other writers of the time did. Most of his novels are independent stand-alone stories; he seldom used series heroes, and when he did he avoided
1469-408: A firm hand. Sanders, for example, pledges to bring "civilisation" to "half a million cannibal folk". George Orwell called Wallace a "bully worshipper" and "proto-fascist", though many critics conceived Wallace more as a populist writer who wrote for the market of the time. Selling over 50 million copies of his works, including 170 novels, Wallace was very much a populist writer, and was dismissed by
1582-550: A heart attack in December 1992 at his home in Norwalk . In 1978, cartoonist Bill Yates (1921–2001) took over as King Features' comics editor. He had previously edited Dell Publishing 's cartoon magazines ( 1000 Jokes , Ballyhoo , For Laughing Out Loud ) and Dell's paperback cartoon collections. Yates resigned from King Features at the end of 1988 to spend full-time on his cartooning, and he died March 26, 2001. In 1988, Yates
1695-516: A long time afterwards, as can be seen with their achievements . In 1941, Otto Messmer created the first animated television commercials for Botany Tie ads/weather reports. They were shown on NBC-TV in New York until 1949. This marked the first forays of animation designed for the smaller screen and was to be followed by the first animated series specifically made for television, Crusader Rabbit , in 1948. Its creator, Alex Anderson , had to create
1808-601: A longer running manga or animated series. As the OAV market is not adapted to the rigors that are faced by television shows or feature films, they have been known to show gratuitous amounts of violence and/or pornography. Some OAV's have registered such strong acclaim that they have been remade as anime television series as well as theatrical releases. Since most new OVA's are derived from other animated media, many animation studios that have previously worked on animated series or movies, and adaptations of Japanese manga, have now entered
1921-402: A minute." Kong is finally killed when lightning strikes the flag pole he is hanging on to. Early publicity stills for the movie have the title as "Kong" and "by Edgar Wallace" and show a lightning storm and flashes of lightning as envisioned by Wallace. In his version, a small ape peeling a rose prefigured Kong's peeling away Shirley's clothes. His treatment also included an underwater scene from
2034-506: A new animation studio, Studio Ghibli , which would be used for the personal works of Miyazaki and his close friend, Isao Takahata . Many of Ghibli's works have become Japan's top-grossing theatrical films, whether in live-action or animated form. The market for 'OAV's or ' Original Anime Video ' later the acronym would be better known as 'OVA' meaning 'Original video animation' as the term 'OAV' could often be misunderstood for 'Original Adult Video', began in 1984. These are often tended towards
2147-574: A non-fiction ten-volume history of the First World War . All told, he wrote over 170 novels, 18 stage plays, and 957 short stories, and his works were translated into 28 languages. The critic Wheeler Winston Dixon suggests that Wallace became somewhat of a public joke for this prodigious output. Wallace served as chairman of the Press Club , which continues to present an annual Edgar Wallace Award for excellence in writing. Following
2260-740: A point of telling audiences that King Features received more than 1,000 strip proposals annually, but chose only one each year. However, in Syd Hoff 's The Art of Cartooning (Stravon, 1973), Byck offered some tips regarding strip submissions, including the creation of central characters with warmth and charm and the avoidance of "themes that are too confining," as he explained: King Features Syndicate's content distribution division distributes more than 150 different comics, games, puzzles, and columns, in digital and print formats, to nearly 5,000 daily, Sunday, weekly and online newspapers and other publishers. Comic properties include Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Dennis
2373-590: A reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities , Wallace serialised short stories in magazines such as The Windsor Magazine and later published collections such as Sanders of the River (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognised author. After an unsuccessful bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool (as one of David Lloyd George 's Independent Liberals ) in
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#17327761371952486-432: A seven-year span, he was promoted to associate editor and then, after Kennedy's death, to the position of comics editor on April 23, 2007. In November 2018, Tea Fougner was promoted to editorial director for comics after working as an editor at King Features for nine years. She is the first female-assigned and first genderqueer person to oversee comics editorial at King Features. When asked to speak in public, Byck made
2599-426: A short peace would be followed by a German attack on England, and The Black Grippe , about a disease that renders everyone in the world blind. His last work of science fiction and the only one widely remembered today is the screenplay for King Kong . Out of the many scripts he penned for RKO, Merian C. Cooper's "gorilla picture" had the most lasting influence, becoming the classic King Kong (1933). Wallace wrote
2712-595: A strict story order, so that continuity was not required from book to book. On 6 June 1923, Edgar Wallace became the first British radio sports reporter , when he made a report on The Derby for the British Broadcasting Company , the newly founded predecessor of the BBC . Wallace's ex-wife Ivy was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1923, and though the tumour was successfully removed, it returned terminally by 1925, and she died in 1926. Wallace wrote
2825-415: A strip based on Edgar Wallace 's Inspector Wade of Scotland Yard ): The last strips Hearst personally selected for syndication were Elliot Caplin & John Cullen Murphy 's Big Ben Bolt and Mort Walker 's Beetle Bailey ; Hearst died in 1951. In the 1940s, Ward Greene (1893–1956) was King Features' editor, having worked his way up through the ranks. He was a reporter and war correspondent for
2938-401: A studio dedicated to animating cartoons was spearheaded by Raoul Barré and his studio, Barré Studio , co-founded with Bill Nolan , beating out the studio created by J.R. Bray , Bray Productions , to the honor of the first studio dedicated to animation. Though beaten to the post of being the first studio, Bray's studio employee, Earl Hurd , came up with patents designed for mass-producing
3051-699: A tribute to essential workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic . In September 2020, King Features relaunched comic strip Mark Trail , originally launched in 1946, with cartoonist Jules Rivera, author of comic strip Love, Joolz, at the helm. Many King characters were adapted to animation, both theatrical and television cartoons. Strips from King Features were often reprinted by comic book publishers. In 1967, King Features made an effort to publish comic books of its own by establishing King Comics . This short-lived comic-book line showcased King's best-known characters in seven titles: The comics imprint existed for
3164-550: A very small core group. After being bought out or sold to other companies, they eventually consolidated with other studios and became larger. The drawback of this setup was that there was now a major thrust towards profitability with the management acting as a damper towards creativity of these studios, continuing even in today's scenario. Currently, the independent animation studios are looking to ensure artistic integrity by signing up with big animation studios on contracts that allow them to license out movies, without being directed by
3277-859: A virtual interactive comic with digital drawing company Mental Canvas on Comics Kingdom. As of January 2022, Comics Kingdom features comic strips and editorial cartoons which can be accessed and read online . This website also features some interactive puzzles . Comics are updated every day, plus a one-year archive is available. Older comics can be accessed by being a Comics Kingdom Royal (a paid member, subscribed to their premium subscription service). Comics Kingdom also features over 30 of comic strips in Spanish . King's A la Carte Online Comics offers syndication of specific strips aimed at "precisely defined audiences" of specialized websites. These are available in such categories as Animals, Environmental, Military, and Technology. Animation studio The idea of
3390-509: A writer. Lane's biography of Edgar Wallace was published in 1938 The Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine was a monthly digest-size fiction magazine specializing in crime and detective fiction. It published 35 issues from 1964 to 1967. Each issue contained original works of short crime or mystery fiction as well as reprints by authors like Wallace, Chekhov , Steinbeck , and Agatha Christie . More than 160 films and several radio adaptations have been made based on Wallace's work. Wallace also has
3503-408: A year-and-a-half, with titles cover-dated from August 1966 to December 1967. When it ended, the books were picked up and continued by Gold Key Comics , Harvey Comics , and Charlton Comics . In 1967, Al Brodax, then the president of King Features, pitched The Beatles manager Brian Epstein on turning their hit song " Yellow Submarine " into an animated movie. The film was widely considered to be
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3616-425: Is The Cuphead Show! for Netflix , an animated series based on the video game Cuphead by Studio MDHR, known for its use of fully hand-drawn characters and animations in the style of Fleischer Studios . The series had started development since July 2019, and was released on February 18, 2022. In June 2019, 20th Century Studios and The Walt Disney Company announced the production of an animated film based on
3729-428: Is "slapdash and cliché-ridden, [with] characterization that is two dimensional and situations [that] are frequently trite, relying on intuition, coincidence, and much pointless, confusing movement to convey a sense of action. The heroes and villains are clearly labelled, and stock characters, humorous servants, baffled policemen, breathless heroines, could be interchanged from one book to another." The Oxford Companion to
3842-405: Is 30 feet tall, thus establishing Kong as a giant ape. John and the remaining convicts then go after Shirley, using a log to cross a ravine. Kong attacks them which leads to their deaths as the log crashes down the ravine. Kong fights and kills a triceratops. Dinosaurs and pterodactyls attack Kong and the party. Kong takes Shirley to his hideout in the mountains, and Jack rescues her. Using gas bombs,
3955-609: Is a promoter and a P. T. Barnum type showman who is looking for a giant ape to bring back to Madison Square Garden or the Polo Grounds to exhibit as a sideshow. The movie retains the Barnum theme when Denham, who evolved into Carl Denham in the Rose and Creelman treatment, refers to Kong as "the eighth wonder of the world", echoing Barnum's style of hyping acts. Wallace created the major characters, their relationships, and their role in
4068-499: Is a unit of Hearst Holdings, Inc., which combines the Hearst Corporation's cable-network partnerships, television programming and distribution activities, and syndication companies. King Features' affiliate syndicates are North America Syndicate and Cowles Syndicate. William Randolph Hearst 's newspapers began syndicating material in 1895 after receiving requests from other newspapers. The first official Hearst syndicate
4181-591: Is dated around 1917, but it would take until 1956 for the Japanese animation industry to successfully adopt the studio format as used in the United States. In 1961, these productions began to be aired in the US. Toei Animation , formed in 1948, was the first Japanese animation studio of importance and saw the reduction of animators as independent anime artists. After the formation of Toei Animation Co. Ltd. in 1948,
4294-647: Is no evidence of this, and his prolificness became something of a joke, the subject of cartoons and sketches. His "three day books", reeled off to keep the loan sharks from the door, were unlikely to garner great critical praise and Wallace claimed not to find literary value in his own works. Wallace characters such as District Commissioner Sanders can be taken to represent the values of colonial white supremacy in Africa, and now viewed by many critics as deeply racist and paternalistic. His writing has been attacked by some for its conception of Africans as stupid children who need
4407-573: Is remembered as a writer of "the colonial imagination", for the J. G. Reeder detective stories , and for the Green Archer serial. He sold over 50 million copies of his combined works in various editions and The Economist in 1997 describes him as "one of the most prolific thriller writers of [the 20th] century". Although the great majority of his books are out of print in the UK, they are still read in Germany. A 50-minute German TV documentary
4520-606: Is subject to local intellectual property rights. The animators must also be aware of the contracts laws and labour laws prevalent in the jurisdiction to which the animation studio is subject to. There have been numerous legal battles fought over the copyright of famous franchises, such as Kung Fu Panda and SpongeBob SquarePants . This has come about as a result of the clause in Copyright contracts that states that an idea cannot be protected, only an actual piece of work can be said to be infringed upon. This means that though
4633-645: The Atlanta Journal for four years (1913–17), moving to the New-York Tribune in 1917 and then returning to the Atlanta Journal as correspondent in France and Germany (1918–19). He joined King Features in 1920, became a writer and editor of the magazine section in 1925, advancing to executive editor and general manager. Vice president Bradley Kelly (1894–1969) was a comics editor during
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4746-643: The 1931 general election , Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a script writer for RKO . He died suddenly from undiagnosed diabetes, during the initial drafting of King Kong (1933). Wallace was such a prolific writer that one of his publishers claimed that a quarter of all books in England were written by him. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work. In addition to his work on King Kong , he
4859-757: The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and the Michigan State University Comic Art Collection while retaining the collection in electronic form for reference purposes. In November 2015, King Features released a book, entitled "King of the Comics: One Hundred Years of King Features Syndicate" to commemorate its 100th anniversary . The book features a compilation of strips and the histories behind King Features strips. As of 2016, with 62 strips being syndicated, Hearst
4972-592: The Congo Free State , to report on atrocities committed against the Congolese under King Leopold II of Belgium and the Belgian rubber companies, in which up to 15 million Congolese were killed. Isabel Thorne, of the Weekly Tale-Teller penny magazine, invited Wallace to serialise stories inspired by his experiences. These were published as his first collection Sanders of the River (1911),
5085-490: The literati as such. Q. D. Leavis , Arnold Bennett and Dorothy L Sayers led the attack on Wallace, suggesting he offered no social critique or subversive agenda at all and distracting the reading public from better things. Trotsky , reading a Wallace novel whilst recuperating on his sickbed in 1935, found it to be "mediocre, contemptible and crude ... [with no] shade of perception, talent or imagination." Critics Steinbrunner and Penzler stated that Wallace's writing
5198-497: The 1940s. Sylvan Byck (1904–1982) was head editor of the syndicate's comics features for several decades, from the 1950s until his retirement in 1978. A King Features employee for more than 40 years and comics editor for 33 years, Byck was 78 when he died July 8, 1982. Comic-strip artist John Celardo (1918–2012) began as a King comics editor in 1973. In 1973, Tom Pritchard (1928–1992) joined King Features, and became executive editor in 1990, overseeing daily editorial operations and
5311-793: The Archivist" posts exploring comic-strip history. The "Last 7" feature enables the reader to see a week's worth of comics on one page. On January 13, 2012, the DailyINK app was voted as the People's Champ in the Funny category in the 2011 Pixel Awards. Established in 2006, the Pixel Awards honor sites and apps displaying excellence in web design and development. Other nominees in the Funny category: JibJab Media Inc, Threaded, Snowball of Duty: White Opps and SoBe Staring Contest. In 2012, Jackys Diary
5424-575: The Boat . Confronted by newspaper cutbacks, King Features has explored new venues, such as placing comic strips on mobile phones. In 2006, it launched DailyINK . On a web page and via email, the DailyINK service made available more than 90 vintage and current comic strips, puzzles, and editorial cartoons. The vintage strips included Bringing Up Father , Buz Sawyer , Flash Gordon , Krazy Kat , The Little King , The Phantom , and Rip Kirby . King Features editor-in-chief Jay Kennedy introduced
5537-728: The Japanese studios churned out minor works of animation. But with the release of Toei's first theatrical feature, The Tale of the White Serpent released in October 1958, the animation industry in Japan came into the eye of the general public. The success of Alakazam the Great led to the finding of the artist Osamu Tezuka , who would go on to become the father of Japanese manga with his brand of modern, fast-paced fantasy storylines. He became influenced by Hanna-Barbera productions of
5650-476: The Magician , Office Hours , Quincy and Radio Patrol . On November 15, 2010, a subscription rate increase to $ 19.99 was announced, effective December 15, 2010, with applications available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, plus a "new and improved" DailyINK in 2011. The redesign was by Blenderbox. Added features included original publication dates, a forum, and a blog, mostly promotional, but also with "Ask
5763-542: The Menace , The Family Circus , Curtis , Rhymes with Orange , Arctic Circle , Macanudo , and Zits . The division additionally offers services for smaller publishers and community papers, including pagination and colorization services through its sister company, RBMA. In March 2018, to mark International Women's Day , many King Features cartoonists included messages about female empowerment and other topics that resonated with them. In April 2020, Bianca Xunise became
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#17327761371955876-462: The OVA market, looking to capitalize on the popularity of their flagship shows. Studios participating in such circumstances include Production I.G and Studio Deen . Although there are permanent/full-time positions in studios, most animators work on a contract basis. There are some animators that are considered to be in the core group of the studio, which can either be as a result of being there since
5989-599: The Painted Ponies." King Features also represents David and Goliath, an apparel and accessories line popular with teenagers. King Features additionally licenses outdoor apparel brand PURENorway, Moomins , Icelandic lifestyle brand Tulipop , ringtone character Crazy Frog and South Korean animated character PUCCA . As a sales tool, the King Features design team created colorful strip sample folders resembling movie press kits. With rising paper costs and
6102-453: The Spot , written about gangster Al Capone , would prove to be the writer's greatest theatrical success. It was described by Jack Adrian as "arguably, in construction, dialogue, action, plot and resolution, still one of the finest and purest of 20th-century melodramas". It launched the career of Charles Laughton , who played the lead Capone character Tony Perelli. In December 1931, Wallace
6215-887: The Theatre asserts, however, that "In all his works [Wallace] showed unusual precision of detail, narrative skill, and inside knowledge of police methods and criminal psychology, the fruits of his apprenticeship as a crime reporter". Wallace did not use plot formulae, unlike many other thriller writers. The critic Wheeler Winston Dixon maintains that Wallace covered a wide variety of perspectives and characterisations, exploring themes such as feminist self-determination ( Barbara on her Own 1926, Four-Square Jane 1929, The Girl from Scotland Yard 1926), upsetting peerage hierarchies ( Chick , 1923), science fiction ( The Day of Uniting , 1926), schizophrenia ( The Man Who Knew , 1919) and autobiography ( People , 1926). Edgar Wallace enjoyed writing science fiction but found little financial success in
6328-573: The Wallace estate, managing her father's literary legacy and starting the Edgar Wallace Society in 1969. The work is continued by Penelope's daughter, also named Penelope. The Society has members in 20 countries. The literary body is currently managed by the London agency A.P. Watt. Wallace's eldest son Bryan Edgar Wallace (1904–1971) was also an author of mystery and crime novels. In 1934, Bryan married Margaret Lane (1907–94), also
6441-469: The Westernized title of direct-to-video animations, the OVA market has spread to American animation houses. Their popularity has resulted in animated adaptations of comic characters ranging from Hellboy , Green Lantern and Avengers . Television shows such as Family Guy and Futurama also released direct-to-video animations. DC Comics have continually released their own animated movies for
6554-477: The animators may have forwarded ideas to the animation studios about certain characters and plots, these ideas alone cannot be protected and can lead to studios profiting on individual animator's ideas. However, this has not stopped many independent artists from filing claims to characters produced by different studios. Due to the wide range of animation techniques and styles, many animation studios typically specialize in certain types. Traditional animation employs
6667-537: The bell of St. Bride's tolled in mourning. His body was returned to England and he was buried at Little Marlow Cemetery, Fern Lane , Buckinghamshire, not far from his UK country home, Chalklands, in Bourne End . Despite his later success, Wallace had amassed massive debts, some still remaining from his years in South Africa, many to racing bookies. The large royalties from his greatly popular works allowed
6780-547: The bigger studios. Examples of such co-operation are the joint ventures between DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures and that of Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Studios . On August 22, 2016, Comcast's NBCUniversal acquired DreamWorks Animation , appointing Meledandri oversee Comcast's Universal Animation/DreamWorks/Illumination, Disney's Disney Animation/Pixar/20th Century Animation, & Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Animation/Warner Bros. Pictures Animation. The first known example of Japanese animation, also called anime ,
6893-432: The cast of Netflix 's Queer Eye giving Popeye a makeover. In November 2019, Comics Kingdom launched a YouTube channel featuring classic cartoons from King Features archives. Before launching the channel, in December 2018, King Features launched a series of animated Popeye shorts to its primary YouTube channel, in celebration of the character's 90th "birthday." In July 2020, comic strip Rhymes with Orange launched
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#17327761371957006-616: The children, and Wallace drew closer to his secretary Ethel Violet King (1896–1933), daughter of banker Frederick King. They married in 1921; their daughter Margaret Penelope June (known as Penny Wallace) was born in 1923. Wallace began to take his fiction writing career more seriously and signed with publishers Hodder and Stoughton in 1921, organising his contracts, instead of selling rights to his work piecemeal in order to raise funds. This allowed him advances, royalties, and full scale promotional campaigns for his books, which he had never before had. The publisher aggressively advertised him as
7119-532: The comic strip Flash Gordon . Taiki Waititi was attached to direct and John Davis was announced as the producer. On May 11, 2020, it was announced that a Popeye movie is in development at King Features Syndicate with Genndy Tartakovsky coming back to the project. In November 2020, a Hagar the Horrible animated series was announced, written by Eric Zibroski, who wrote and produced the ABC comedy Fresh Off
7232-585: The company entitled King News . William Randolph Hearst paid close attention to the comic strips, even in the last years of his life, as is evident in these 1945–46 correspondence excerpts, originally in Editor & Publisher (December 1946), about the creation of Dick's Adventures in Dreamland — a strip that made its debut on Sunday, January 12, 1947; written by former Daily News reporter Max Trell and illustrated by Neil O'Keefe (who also drew for King Features
7345-586: The development of political cartoons, syndicated columns, and editorial services for King Features and North America Syndicate. Born in Bronxville, New York , Pritchard arrived at King Features after work as a reporter at The Record-Journal ( Meriden, Connecticut ), as feature writer with The Hartford Times , as editor-publisher of Connecticut's weekly Wethersfield Post , and as executive editor of The Manchester Journal Inquirer in Connecticut. He died of
7458-456: The downsizing of newspapers, the comic-strip arena became increasingly competitive, and by 2002, King salespeople were making in-person pitches to 1,550 daily newspapers across America. King was then receiving more than 6,000 strip submissions each year, yet it accepted only two or three annually. Interviewed in 2002 by Catherine Donaldson-Evans of Fox News , Kennedy commented: One of the first original animation projects of King Features Animation
7571-492: The estate to be settled within two years. Violet Wallace outlived her husband by only 14 months. She died suddenly in April 1933, aged 33, while the estate was still deep in debt. Violet Wallace's own will left her share of the Wallace estate to her daughter Penelope (1923–1997), herself an author of mystery and crime novels, who became the chief benefactor and shareholder. Penelope married George Halcrow in 1955. The couple ran
7684-833: The event, he lost the election by over 33,000 votes. He went to America, burdened by debt, in November 1931. Around the same time, he wrote the screenplay for the first sound film adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1932), produced in England by Gainsborough Pictures . He moved to Hollywood and began working as a " script doctor " for RKO . His later play, The Green Pack , opened to excellent reviews, boosting his status even further. Wallace wanted to get his own work on Hollywood celluloid, and so he adapted books such as The Four Just Men and Mr J G Reeder . In Hollywood, Wallace met Stanley Holloway 's scriptwriter, Wallace's own half-brother Marriott Edgar . Wallace's play On
7797-650: The expedition knocks out Kong. Kong is brought back to New York and put in a cage. Shirley is attacked by lions and tigers let loose on purpose by Senorita. Kong kills the cats and whisks Shirley away. He climbs the Empire State Building where airplanes shoot at him. Cooper sent Wallace an internal memo from RKO suggesting that John dissuade the police from shooting Kong because of the danger to Shirley: "Please see if you consider it practical to work out theme that John attempts single handed rescue on top of Empire State Building if police will let off shooting for
7910-412: The feature; those papers make local sales, while King handles national sales. During the 30-day period in which strips are made available on the newspaper sites, readers can post comments on local community forums. In January 2019, to commemorate Popeye 's 90th birthday, multiple King Features cartoonists drew their own versions of the comic and published those strips on Comics Kingdom. One comic included
8023-577: The first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature . Since then, Disney / Pixar have produced the most number of movies either to win or be nominated for the award. Though the term "direct-to-video" carries negative connotations in the North American and European markets, direct-to-video animation has seen a rise, as a concept, in the Western markets. With many comic characters receiving their versions of OVA 's, original video animations , under
8136-581: The first Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film . This period, from the 1920s to the 1950s or sometimes considered from 1911 to the death of Walt Disney in 1966, is commonly known as the Golden Age of American Animation as it included the growth of Disney, as well as the rise of Warner Bros. Cartoons and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio as prominent animation studios. Disney continued to lead in technical prowess among studios for
8249-525: The first animated film for adult audiences, despite its G-rating in United States. In addition to extensive merchandising and licensing of such iconic characters as Betty Boop , Felix the Cat , and Popeye , King Features has diversified to handle popular animation and TV characters (from " Kukla, Fran and Ollie " and " Howdy Doody " to " Mr. Bill " and " Mr. Magoo "), plus publicly displayed, life-sized art sculptures — " CowParade ", "Guitarmania" and "The Trail of
8362-588: The first black woman to join the team of female creators behind King Features strip Six Chix . Six Chix was first syndicated by King Features in May 2019, after King Features saw strip creator Maritsa Patrinos' work online. In June 2020, King Features started syndicating webcomic Rae the Doe . In the same month, cartoonists from King Features, along with artists from Kirkman's, Andrews McMeel Syndication and National Cartoonists Society , hid symbols in their Sunday strips as
8475-462: The genre despite several efforts. His constant need for income always brought him back to the more mundane styles of fiction that sold more easily. Planetoid 127 , first published in 1924 but reprinted as late as 2011, is a short story about an Earth scientist who communicates via wireless with his counterpart on a duplicate Earth orbiting unseen because it is on the opposite side of the Sun. The idea of
8588-552: The great success of his novel The Ringer , Wallace was appointed chairman of the British Lion Film Corporation in return for giving British Lion first option on all his output. Wallace's contract gave him an annual salary, a substantial block of stock in the company, a large stipend from everything British Lion produced based on his work, plus 10% of British Lion's overall annual profits. Additionally, British Lion employed his elder son, Bryan E. Wallace, as
8701-414: The home video market, while not tending to the television or theatrical audience as such. They refer to those movies that are launched as direct-to-video releases and not meant to be released in theatres. Video productions can run from half an hour productions to well over two hours. They require that premise or story be original in order to be counted as an OVA, though sometimes, the story can be derived from
8814-421: The inception of the company or being talented recruits from other animation studios. These are the more secure positions in an animation studio, though the studio might have policies concerning the possible tenure of animators. Since studios can hire animators on a work for hire basis nowadays, many artists do not retain rights over their creations, unlike some of the early animators. The extent of these copyrights
8927-411: The initial 110-page first draft for "The Beast" (the film's original title) over five weeks, from late December 1931 to January 1932. In all, there were three draft versions, another titled "Kong". Kong was rejected as the film's title because it was too similar to another Cooper film, Chang , released in 1927, and because it sounded Chinese. Wallace suggested the title King Ape . His diary described
9040-575: The late 1950s and made Japan's first made for television animation studio, Mushi Productions . The success of the studios' first show in 1963, Astro Boy , was so immense that there were 3 other television animation studios by the end of the year and Toei had opened their own made for television division. The greatest difference between Japanese studios and North American studios was the difference in adult-themed material to make way in Japan. Tezuka's thought that animation should not be restricted to kids alone has brought about many studios that are employed in
9153-405: The main dialogue-free action of the film (the jungle sequences) would have to be shot first, both as insurance and as a showreel for the board of RKO. In My Hollywood Diary , Edgar Wallace wrote about the reception of his screenplay: "Cooper called me up last night and told me that everybody who had read 'Kong' was enthusiastic. They say it is the best adventure story that has ever been written for
9266-518: The newspaper business. He was dismissed from his job on the milk run for stealing money. In 1894, he became engaged to a local Deptford girl, Edith Anstree, but broke the engagement and enlisted in the infantry. Wallace registered in the British Army under the name Edgar Wallace, after the author of Ben-Hur , Lew Wallace . At the time the medical records register him as having a 33-inch chest and being stunted from his childhood spent in
9379-542: The output for the studio. As Hurd did not file for these patents under his own name but handed them to Bray, they would go on to form the Bray-Hurd Patent Company and sold these techniques for royalties to other animation studios of the time. The biggest name in animation studios during this early time was Disney Brothers Animation Studio (now known as Walt Disney Animation Studios ), co-founded by Walt and Roy O. Disney . Started on October 16, 1923,
9492-410: The overall plot. He also created the story's beauty and the beast theme. In his original screenplay, the crew of the boat consists of escaped convicts who kidnap Shirley. After a dinosaur attacks and wrecks their boat, they find refuge on the island. In a tent, a convict tries to rape Shirley. Kong appears, rescues Shirley and takes her away to his cave. Wallace says in a notation on the script that Kong
9605-560: The production of adult-themed adaptations of classic stories such as Heidi ( Heidi, Girl of the Alps ), One Thousand and One Nights and The Diary of a Young Girl and many more. In the 1980s, animation studios were led back to their theatrical roots due to the success of Hayao Miyazaki 's film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind , which led publishing house Tokuma Shoten to finance
9718-610: The resulting frames are played back. Notable studios specializing in this style of animation include Aardman Animations , Laika and ShadowMachine . 3D animation is the newest of the animation techniques, using the assistance of computers and software, such as Houdini , to create 3D models that are then manipulated and rendered to create movement. Notable studios include Pixar Animation Studios , Sony Pictures Imageworks , Blue Sky Studios , Illumination , DNEG and Marza Animation Planet . Edgar Wallace Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932)
9831-481: The screen." Wallace had high expectations for the film: "I am certain that 'Kong' is going to be a wow." His screenplay begins with Denham and the party at the island, called "Vapour Island" by Wallace because of the volcanic emissions. Ann Darrow is called Shirley Redman in this early version. Jack Driscoll is also referred to as John Lanson or Johnny, and Captain Englehorn is much more domineering. Danby G. Denham
9944-521: The semi-literate Freeman family, and made arrangements to visit often. Wallace, then known as Richard Horatio Edgar Freeman, had a happy childhood and a close bond with 20-year-old Clara Freeman, who became a second mother to him. By 1878, his mother could no longer afford the small sum she had been paying the Freemans to care for her son and, instead of placing the boy in the workhouse , the Freemans adopted him. His mother never visited Wallace again as
10057-514: The service early in 2006, commenting: Comics are consistently ranked among the most popular sections by newspaper readers. However, because of space, newspapers are not able to offer as vast a selection as many readers would like, and therefore millions of comic lovers are often not exposed to some of the most creative strips. In creating DailyINK, we wanted to ensure that fans had a destination where they could experience our complete lineup of award-winning comic artists and writers. DailyINK really sets
10170-735: The slums. He was posted to South Africa with the West Kent Regiment , in 1896. He disliked army life but managed to arrange a transfer to the Royal Army Medical Corps , which was less arduous but more unpleasant, and so transferred again to the Press Corps, which he found suited him better. Wallace began publishing songs and poetry, much inspired by Rudyard Kipling , whom he met in Cape Town in 1898. Wallace's first book of ballads, The Mission that Failed! ,
10283-417: The sole purpose of sale in the direct-to-video market. With growing worries about piracy, direct to video animation might become more popular in the near future. With the growth of animation as an industry, the trends of ownership of studios have gradually changed with time. Current studios such as Warner Bros. and early ones such as Fleischer Studios , started life as small, independent studios, being run by
10396-476: The stage, assuming the stage name "Polly" Richards. In 1872, she met and joined the Marriott family theatre troupe, managed by Alice Marriott, her husband Richard Edgar, and her three adult children (from earlier liaisons), Grace, Adeline and Richard Horatio Marriott Edgar. Wallace's parents had a "broom cupboard" style sexual encounter during an after-show party. Discovering she was pregnant, his mother invented
10509-556: The standard for comics online. By offering all of our current favorites updated daily, along with access to our archives of beloved characters as well as political humor and games, we have designed DailyINK.com as a destination fans will want to visit every day for something new. With 11,000 subscribers by June 2010, more vintage strips were added to DailyINK, including Barney Google , Beetle Bailey , Big Ben Bolt , Brick Bradford , The Heart of Juliet Jones , Jackys Diary , The Katzenjammer Kids , Little Iodine , Mandrake
10622-598: The standards of the day. Wallace became active in the Liberal Party and contested Blackpool in the 1931 general election as one of a handful of Independent Liberals , who rejected the National Government , and the official Liberal support for it, and strongly supported free trade . He also bought the Sunday News , edited it for six months, and wrote a theatre column, before it closed. In
10735-466: The story was to use as much footage of an abandoned RKO picture with a similar premise, Creation , as possible. He showed Wallace the fragments that were to be reused in the current script. Although the draft was incomplete, Wallace only made minor revisions to it, each at Cooper's request. In late January, Wallace was hospitalized, and by 10 February, he was dead, leaving Cooper without a screenwriter. The fragmentary nature of Wallace's script meant that
10848-448: The studio 'Television Arts Productions' specifically for the purpose of creating this series as his old studio, Terrytoons , refused to make a series for television. Since Crusader Rabbit, however, many studios have seen this as a profitable enterprise and many have entered the made for television market since, with Joseph Barbera and William Hanna refining the production process for television animation on their show Ruff and Reddy . It
10961-503: The studio went on to make its first animated short, Steamboat Willie in 1928, to much critical success, though the real breakthrough was in 1937, when the studio was able to produce a full-length animated feature film i.e. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which laid the foundation for other studios to try to make full-length movies. In 1932 Flowers and Trees , a production by Walt Disney Productions and United Artists , won
11074-499: The theatre as a stagehand, usherette, and bit-part actress until she married in 1867. Her husband, Captain Joseph Richards, was born in 1838; he was from an Irish family. He and his father John Richards were both Merchant Navy captains, and his mother Catherine Richards came from a mariner family. Joseph died at sea in 1868, leaving his pregnant wife destitute. After the birth of Wallace's older sibling, his mother returned to
11187-513: The use of hand-drawn frames, and is used in the world of cartoons, movies and anime. Notable studios that specialize in this style include Studio Ghibli , Cartoon Saloon , Nickelodeon Animation Studio , Disney Television Animation , 20th Television Animation , Warner Bros. Animation , Cartoon Network Studios , Titmouse , Ufotable , Studio Chizu and CoMix Wave Films . Stop-motion animation uses objects that are incrementally moved and photographed in order to create an illusion of movement when
11300-434: The writing process for this draft: Cooper fed aspects of the story in conferences and phone conversations; Wallace then executed Cooper's ideas, the latter approving the developing script on a sequence-by-sequence basis. While working on the project, Cooper also screened various recent films for Wallace to put him in the right mindset, including Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). One of Cooper's main aspirations with
11413-575: Was a British writer of sensational detective, gangster, adventure, and sci-fi novels, plays and stories. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the Daily Mail . Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including The Four Just Men (1905). Drawing on his time as
11526-473: Was anxious that the farrago might reflect badly on his newspaper. Problems were compounded when inaccuracies in Wallace's reporting led to libel suits being brought against the Mail . Wallace was fired in 1907, the first reporter ever to be fired from the paper, and he found no other paper would employ him, given his reputation. The family lived continuously in a state of near-bankruptcy, Ivy having to sell her jewellery for food. During 1907, Edgar travelled to
11639-685: Was assigned work on the RKO "gorilla picture" ( King Kong , 1933) for producer Merian C. Cooper . By late January, however, he was beginning to suffer sudden, severe headaches and was diagnosed with diabetes . His condition deteriorated within days. Violet booked passage to California on a liner out of Southampton , but received word that Edgar had slipped into a coma and died of the condition, combined with double pneumonia , on 10 February 1932 in North Maple Drive, Beverly Hills . The flags on Fleet Street 's newspaper offices flew at half-mast, and
11752-612: Was called Newspaper Feature Service, Inc. , established in 1913. In 1914, Hearst and his manager Moses Koenigsberg consolidated all of Hearst's syndication enterprises under one banner (although Newspaper Feature Service was still in operation into at least the 1930s). Koenigsberg gave it his own name (the German word König means king ) when he launched King Features Syndicate on November 16, 1915. Production escalated in 1916 with King Features buying and selling its own staff-created feature material. A trade publication — Circulation —
11865-467: Was considered the second-largest comics service, second only to Uclick (now known as Andrews McMeel Syndication ). In December 2017, King Features appointed CJ Kettler as president of the company. Kettler previously was CEO of Sunbow Entertainment and the executive producer of the Netflix series Carmen Sandiego . In 1941, King Features manager Moses Koenigsberg wrote an autobiographical history of
11978-401: Was dropped from DailyINK, and the Archivist explained: "Unfortunately, we no longer have the rights to publish the strip." In December 2013, Daily INK was relaunched as part of King Feature's Comics Kingdom . In November 2008, King Features introduced Comics Kingdom, a digital platform that newspapers can embed on their sites. Comics Kingdom splits advertising revenue with newspapers carrying
12091-459: Was in 1958 that The Huckleberry Hound Show claimed the title of being the first all-new half-hour cartoon show. This, along with their previous success with the series Tom and Jerry , elevated their animation studio, H.B. Enterprises (later Hanna-Barbera Productions ), to dominate the North American television animation market during the latter half of the 20th century. In 2002, Shrek , produced by DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images won
12204-454: Was made in 1963 called The Edgar Wallace Story , which featured his son Bryan Edgar Wallace . Wallace's great-grandfather was entertainer James Henry Marriott , and his grandmother was actress Alice Marriott . Wallace was born at 7 Ashburnham Grove, Greenwich , to actors Richard Horatio Marriott Edgar (1847–1894) and Mary Jane "Polly" Richards, née Blair (born 1843). Wallace's mother's family had been in show business, and she worked in
12317-473: Was published by King Features between 1916 and 1933. In January 1929, the world-famous Popeye character was introduced in King Features' Thimble Theater comic strip. King Features had a series of hits during the 1930s with the launch of Blondie (1930–present), Flash Gordon (1934–2003 Note: Relaunched again in October 2023 by Dan Schkade as a daily and Sunday strip), Mandrake the Magician (1934–2013), and The Phantom (1936–present). In March 1936,
12430-456: Was published that same year. In 1899, he bought his way out of the forces and turned to writing full time. Remaining in Africa, he became a war correspondent , first for Reuters and then the Daily Mail (1900) and other periodicals during the Boer War . In 1901, while in South Africa, Wallace married Ivy Maude Caldecott (1880?–1926), although her father Reverend William Shaw Caldecott,
12543-648: Was replaced by Jay Kennedy — author of The Official Underground & Newave Comix Price Guide (Norton Boatner, 1982). Kennedy was King Features' lead editor until March 15, 2007, when he drowned in a riptide while vacationing in Costa Rica. Brendan Burford, who attended the School of Visual Arts , was employed for a year as an editorial assistant at DC Comics before joining King Features as an editorial assistant in January 2000. Working closely with Jay Kennedy over
12656-861: Was the most prolific of Wallace's life. Initially, he wrote mainly in order to satisfy creditors in the UK and South Africa. However, his books' success began to rehabilitate his reputation as a journalist, and he began reporting from horse racing circles. He wrote for the Week-End and the Evening News , became an editor for Week-End Racing Supplement , started his own racing papers Bibury's and R. E. Walton's Weekly , and bought many racehorses of his own. He lost many thousands gambling, and despite his success, spent large sums on an extravagant lifestyle he could not afford. During 1916, Ivy had her third and last child by Edgar, Michael Blair Wallace, and filed for divorce in 1918. Ivy moved to Tunbridge Wells with
12769-490: Was turned away. Polly died in the Bradford Infirmary later that year. Unable to find any backer for his first book, Wallace set up his own publishing company, Tallis Press, which issued the sensational thriller The Four Just Men (1905). Despite promotion in the Mail and good sales, the project was financially mismanaged, and Wallace had to be bailed out by the Mail 's proprietor Alfred Harmsworth , who
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