Fliptomania Hokusai Ducky Flipbook: The Wave Meets The Ducky

Fliptomania, a California-based company, was founded in 1997, by Mark Weissberg, a guy who loved moving images – especially the ones you hold in your hand, also known as thumb cinemas. Their first published flips paid homage to their San Francisco-area roots featuring the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street. Over the past 20 years, the company has published books that mostly feature public domain and licensed images . No matter the subject, the little books played off of linear , morphing and transition themes. They were more action than story oriented. As clever and colorful as the books were, those redundant themes eventually became predictable. “Hokusai Ducky” represents a dramatic reinvention of the Fliptoamania brand. This flip is illustrated by Peggy Lindt, a fine artist from Santa Barbara. The opening pages show the famous Hokusai Wave about to engulf a yellow rubber ducky. Before that can happen, a hand enters the frame, the view pulls back and we see a child bathing in a washtub. As he rescues the duck from the waves within his bath, we see the tub is actually floating on the sea and is about to be engulfed by a Hokusai Wave. Fliptomania took a niche art form and made it mainstream. With this work, and other early works , they are exploring the more sophisticated and challenging storytelling aspects of this fascinating medium. It's a wave of change, and it is a beautiful thing to see.

Not a whole lot to it, but I bought it because it reminds me of similar flip books I had as a kid. The humor (or tragedy?) in this image also appealed to me. Not flimsy, so it should hold up to lots of sharing with other people. I used to be a substitute teacher, and would bring different kinds of unusual books to share (like pop-up books) as a way of connecting with kids who hadn't had me in their classroom before. These kinds of flip books would probably be fascinating to children who are so wired into phones and computers, a book you "animate" manually would probably crack them up. I once brought an old-fashioned timer to school (the kind with a dial that you have to turn and set and then it rings a bell when it goes off) and the kids were completely fascinated. I hadn't realized they were used to digital timers. I used mine for "time out" sessions. I think the kids in "time out" actually enjoyed it because of the "tick, tick, tick" and "brrrrrrriiiinnnnnngggggg" sound of my "antique" timer!

fell apart after literally four flips. I am trying to figure out how to rebind it

Sent this directly to a friend (free delivery promo!) who absolutely loves it.

Perfect size to keep in my purse to entertain the grandkids.

One of the better stuffers. Has a couple of twists in the theme.

Really fun lil flipbook ordered 3 different ones, all great

Great cmbo...when yellow duckie meets the wave

This is very cleverly done