Giant happy birthday shout-out to the Bray Animation Project, the film preservation project from our pal, Tom Stathes! For the past 12 months, he has been working with several film and comic historians to document the output of one of New York City’s earliest animation studios.

From Tom:

“It’s been a fun and fruitful year for early animation “historianism.” Back in June of 2011, the Bray Animation Project website launched after quite some time in the making. Twelve months later–largely as a direct result–great strides have been made in locating previously lost and unknown Bray cartoons, as well as accessing films that have been held in archives for years. While the website has been a handy research tool for ourselves and our colleagues, it has also proven a useful vehicle for alerting the community at large to our interests. Valuable information and important artifacts have been sent my way thanks to the site, and I’m grateful to everyone for such a warm response.

In the very near future, I expect to announce some very exciting plans that will allow the general public to finally see some of these films in high quality versions. The Bray project is not merely my personal collecting venture; it’s an effort that seeks to share the films and present them in context, an effort that will take time and funds.

…some two dozen or more films…have surfaced since the website’s launch…and the trend continues; finds are being made and access is being achieved regularly. “

To learn more about Bray and some of New York’s other original animation studios, be sure to join us on Friday, June 8th at Observatory for Tom Stathes Cartoon Carnival #10: Made in NYC.