Sterling Chen brings up a number of points that make animation so interesting to study. The term encompasses such a wide range of techniques, materials, and organizations for production, that separating form from content becomes an increasingly arbitrary decision. When we look at different works of animation, we cannot always see the institutional parameters that impinged on their production. In particular, identifying or even being aware of an author is problematic when animation is produced by large organizations, hierarchically divided into artists and technicians and support staff. These terms artificially limit our attribution of authorship to a small number of individuals while effacing the contributions of others, and denying the economic and time constraints imposed on all of them. Comparing individually produced works of independent animation to those created by organizations is fraught with problems of misattributing authorship, intention, aesthetics, and meaning. There are many approaches to the placement of animation within traditions of plastic arts, computer graphics, and motion picture production. Rather than see it as the purest form of cinema or even a mode of practice that encompasses live-action film, I prefer to see it in its multiplicity. I agree that much animation seems to excel at depicting its own constructedness and as Donald Crafton has shown in his book, _Before Mickey_, early animation often included a visual representation of an author/artist. But the actual process bringing the pictures, objects, or pixels to life remains hidden to most viewers, even as we see obviously 'unreal' images on the screen. And our ability to identify with drawn characters is just as great as with live-action ones. Bill Mikulak ([log in to unmask])