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NIC Ancien Dessin Animé

Dublin Core

Title

NIC Ancien Dessin Animé

Description

1950? NIC Ancien Dessin Animé. La Cigale et la Fourmi. Paper Cartoon Movie. €2 from cartapapier on Ebay, August, '23.

Here is a fascinating surprise! I had no idea how this little offering worked. It came as a spindle containing a roll of paper inside a broken sheath in an old box with a hand-written title. A little work reveals that there is some beautiful artwork and good storytelling on this product itself. And the product is a fascinating, if timebound, product of ingenuity.

I found a website explaining the NIC system: https://www.jouetsanciens.fr/jouets-doptique-6/ The unusual thing about the paper film is that it has upper and lower images. Viewed quickly alternatively, the paired images create a quick repeated action, like walking or working. A rather large and complex projector had a crank for moving this paper movie through. I cannot tell how long the projector would linger on a given pair of alternating images. I scanned the paper in two halves and provide also an image of what a better box and sheath look like. Fascinating! And all of this for €2!

By the way, I found a list of NIC movies and checked to see if our GA is the only fable movie. It turns out that there is a paper movie of FC. Now to find it!

To help offer a sense of the lovely detail in this movie, I offer two detail sections: the ants playing pool and smoking in winter and the grasshopper dying.

Source

€2 from cartapapier on Ebay, August, '23.

Date

Collection

Carlson Fable Collection

Citation

“NIC Ancien Dessin Animé,” Creighton University Libraries: Archives & Special Collections, accessed October 16, 2024, https://creightonarchives.omeka.net/items/show/564.

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