ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book identifes the "slash" that appears between fantasy and animation in our collection's title not as a fixed divide, or as a device that rhetorically forces two terms together, but as a fluid channel through which fantasy and animation are permitted to intersect, collide and intermingle. The wealth of animated fantasy film and television produced within different national media industries supports the notion of a fundamental connection between fantasy and animation. However, treating this connection as fixed, inherent or a priori has the potential to downplay the rich cultural, historical and aesthetic dimensions of the animated fantasy. The book discusses the "Wonderlands, Slumberlands and Plunderlands: Considering the Animated Fantasy," Paul Wells provides a taxonomy of the deployment of fantasy in animation by analyzing multiple adaptations of Lewis Carroll's Alice books.
