http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
Was Fleischer Studio's directly influenced by Blake? You make the call and watch this fantastic moment in Greedy Humpty Dumpty directed by Dave Fleischer 1936.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Fleischer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleischer_Studios
The cartoon in its entirety here-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9HtOIzvA8U
Fleischer Studios produced the most amazing work. Max and Dave Fleischer were innovators of many animated cartoon techniques as well as creating fully developed stories that were beautifully rendered. Here they create a 3-D effect by painting directly onto glass and moving the plates at different speeds. One of my favorite Popeye cartoons-
Fleischer Studios then went onto produce many more masterpieces but later produced my favorite version of Superman as seen here-
I seems pretty obvious that others would pay homage to the Fleischer Studios. Kerry Conran's independent short seemed to pull Fleischer's robot out of retirement and put them to work in this home made short that was developed into the feature film Sky Captain World of Tomorrow in 2004.
Then there was Brad Bird's The Iron Giant. This was Brad Bird's breakthrough film. before he went onto make The Incredibles and Ratatouille. If you are into fun cartoon movies with kids and robots don't even watch the trailer just see the movie. But here it is anyway-
Of course there is of course a long history of kids (mostly boys) and robots. The premiere robot boy connection has to go to Osama Tezuka's Mighty Atom or as we know him here in the US as Astro Boy. It premiered on New Year's Eve in 1963.
In 1995 Frank Miller and Geof Darrow created a raw but beautifully drawn comic The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot.
Then in 1999 Columbia TriStar Television and Dark Horse Entertainment went onto produce an animated version for TV.
