Greetings humans, Monki here with a look at the new book, The Art of Pixar Short Films that just hit stores earlier this week.

After writing on and off for AICN for nearly eight years, I've ended up on some strange mailing lists. Packages land on my doorstep with all kinds of goodies inside. Sometimes its a new game, sometimes its the complete Blade television series and just a couple of weeks ago, it was The Art of Pixar Short Films.

The Art of Pixar Short Films by Amid Amidi, Foreword by John Lasseter
Published by Chronicle Books, LLC

This book is a must-have for Pixar junkies. (I'm looking at YOU Harry.) Cover to cover this thing is full of incredible art from some of the earliest days of Pixar. This image just above this paragraph is actually one of the first pieces of art that John Lasseter created for Pixar. It represents an early sketch for the short The Adventures of Andre & Wally B., which was actually the first short Pixar produced, not Luxo Jr. like most people assume. (Yes, I know, technically they were part of LucasArts at the time. Same guys though.)

Every single page is draped with interesting art. Everything is represented here, from simple pencil sketches to final renders, and all of it is crisp on the page.

The Art of Pixar Short Films by Amid Amidi, Foreword by John Lasseter
Published by Chronicle Books, LLC

The first third of the book (about fifty pages) tells the story of the evolution of Pixar shorts. In it, the entire development team chips in to provide insight into this important piece of Pixar history. Author Amid Amidi gives wonderful insight into the Pixar process with stories and anecdotes you won't find anywhere else.

Super tech geeks will crap their pants as some of the detail that shows up in here. For example, during the rendering phase of The Adventures of Andre & Wally B. the techs working to complete the film actually borrowed some usage of Cray machines (supercomputers back in 1984) to render, even going so far as taking over Seymour Cray's terminal. That's super-geek shit right there. I realize about 99.9% of you won't give a damn about that, but I think it's pretty sweet.

The Art of Pixar Short Films by Amid Amidi, Foreword by John Lasseter
Published by Chronicle Books, LLC

There are all kinds of nuggets of cool in this book. Did you know that Pixar didn't have permission to use the name "Luxo," even after they had finished production on Luxo Jr.? No one had bothered to ask. Whoops.

If an image is worth a thousand words, this book would be a Joyce novel. You really do get to see some cool stuff here. One of my favorite pieces is a clay sculpt used for reference for Geri's head from Geri's Game. The amount of detail that goes in to these shorts is astounding. Check out the below image of the bone structure of some of the tiny birds from For The Birds.

The Art of Pixar Short Films by Amid Amidi, Foreword by John Lasseter
Published by Chronicle Books, LLC

It's kind of hard to do this book justice via a write-up, you really need to take a gander at all the beautiful art that is contained within. I've had it in my living room for a couple of weeks now and every time I have friends over they end up getting caught up in it for a good amount of time. The book is definitely an easy way to show off your passion for all that is Pixar.

Oh, and for what it's worth, this book covers up until Lifted as far as theatrical shorts and Mater and The Ghostlight for the DVD shorts. Unfortunately nothing from Presto! or Burn-E here. I'm sure there will eventually be another one though!

The Art of Pixar Short Films is available now from your favorite book retailers. Until next time, back up the tree I go!

-Monki