I am grateful to Laurence King and Helen Rochester for commissioning Animation as part of the Portfolio Series, and indebted to Melanie Walker and Donald Dinwiddie for their help and support in shaping and editing the manuscript.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my picture researcher, Jemma Robinson, who turned up leads and chased down contributors with dignity and grace when others would have simply declared the task impossible. Without her help, Animation would not have such varied and inspiring images. My thanks go to the many contributors who generously supplied images and to the rights holders who granted permission for their images to be reproduced.
This book began and ended its preparation in San Francisco. I started this project on study leave with my family and concluded the final edit in a café on the junction of Mason and Washington Streets. It has been a long time coming—I thank my colleagues at Loughborough University for their encouragement and support, and especially Felicity, Thomas, and Imogen at home for their patience, understanding, and love.
Andrew Selby
San Francisco, March 2012.