Willis O’Brien — Lost Worlds, Giant Apes and Dinosaurs: Volume 1 – From Thomas Edison to King Kong

Willis O’Brien: Lost Worlds, Giant Apes, and Dinosaurs provides the most detailed record ever assembled of the life and career of the pioneering stop-motion animation genius behind such ground-breaking films as The Lost World, King Kong, and Mighty Joe Young. A century ago, when the film Industry was still in its adolescent growing pains, Willis ("OBie") O’Brien created astounding images of the fantastic and impossible that startled audiences of his time and continue to inspire modern Cinema. Illustrated by over 600 color and black and white photos, production artwork and storyboards, Volume 1 begins with an overview of OBie's early career, including the short animated films he made for Thomas Edison. His collaboration and eventual confrontation with Major Herbert M. Dawley over Dawley's ground-breaking feature The Ghost of Slumber Mountain leads OBie to the making of the original feature film, The Lost World, celebrating its 100th Anniversary in 2025. The unfinished dinosaur drama Creation followed, leading directly to Merian C. Cooper's bold vision for King Kong (1933). Son of Kong followed immediately, though for OBie this sequel marked tragedy in his personal life. Building upon five decades of collecting, this 3-volume work has been extensively researched and written over the last seven years culling the most pertinent information and the best images from numerous public archives and private collections. Tens of thousands of pages of production files, scripts, personal correspondence, photographs artwork, and interviews, most never published, have been reviewed to tell the story of OBie’s life and career, ranging from the creation of movie icons recognized around the world to his own personal tragedies and disappointments. --------------------------- Greg Kulon has been a stop-motion fan for as long as he can remember. He never lost touch with that love of stop-motion and continued collecting on the topic, viewing every film he could get his hands on and searching out rare images. Over the years, Greg has shared items from his collection for use in multiple book and video projects, as well as special exhibits and museums. He co-curated the exhibit, King Kong at 90: Visualization in the Art of Stop Motion Animation, held at Eastern Michigan University in the winter of 2023, and items from his collection have been on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Upon retiring from a career as an engineer in satellite systems, Greg shifted his focus to detailed research and writing on stop-motion and other films that caught his interest. The fruit of his research efforts can be seen in magazines such as Filmfax, The Dark Side, and Infinity, and several of his articles and projects have been honored with nominations for the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. Greg and his wife Chris live in California with their daughter, using their home as a base to travel the world in search of natural wonders and ancient civilizations.