The Hanna-Barbera Treasury Hardcover – 1 Oct. 2009

This artbook for me is like a brick that made complete the great wall of animation television's history. It's like a great ride of colours that shows an extraordinary sequence of pieces of art: chara model sheets, scketch drawings, advertising photographs, action figures and all the various types of memorabilia produced during the years around the pleasants characters that were born from the genial brains of Hanna & Barbera. Everybody who has loved this world full of ideas, amusing side and adventures cannot miss this item!

Ok, I'll be honest, I was never the biggest fan of the many animation shows that were produced by the Hanna-Barbera studios. Even as a kid I often thought the shows were cheaply produced with shoddy painted backgrounds and characters displaying animated movement of sub-standard quality (yeah, I guess I must have been a pretty exacting child!) After enjoying the beautiful chaos of the Warner Bros shorts and admiring their breathtaking creativity and technical skill, the production line output of Hanna-Barbera just didn't cut the mustard with me.However, what is undeniable is the lovely quality of the peripheral ephemera that was a by-product of these shows. The character designs and 2D rendered artwork that was produced during the planning stages of The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, and the myriad other programmes that the studio created remained a hidden treasure of beautiful cartoon art. Often these "extras" belied a skill and beauty sadly lacking in the animated series that was the final product of all this work.This treasury is beautifully designed itself; containing envelopes and pockets glued to certain pages throughout the book, holding reproductions of contemporary adverts, bubblegum cards, storyboards and many other delightful pieces of art that were created with obvious love, a gorgeous sense of colour and an attention to detail that I guess could not be carried through to the completed shows themselves due to deadline or budgetary constraints. Animation historian Jerry Beck has collected rare mementoes from the studio's history, including 3D models and giveaway art from press packs and original merchandising, and all of the pages in this book are crammed with fabulously re-produced art and high quality photographs of truly thrilling cartoon artwork by Hanna-Barbera's talented designers and artists. As I said before, I was never a fan of the actual animations that resulted from all this effort, but I bought this book immediately after flicking through its lovely pages and I find it an inspirational addition to my personal library.