Over the holidays this year, I headed back to NYC with my wife and son to visit our families and have a good rest. (A rest from what I don’t know, because at the time of our trip we were both unemployed; however, as of this writing my wife at least has found a job.) Whenever I see my mother, she always gives me a huge stack of New York Times articles that she has been saving for me. Anything that could even possibly be of interest to me, she clips out and saves. It’s a bit like a knowledge dump from The Matrix. So now I have several such bags of articles that need to be gone through, and I’ve been noticing that in the mix are a lot of obituaries, particularly of notable cartoonists, animators and other creative people who have died in the past five years.
They deserve to be remembered. I thought I’d share some with you.
Iwao Takamoto, 81, the animation artist who created Scooby-Doo. I was privileged to meet Mr. Takamoto when I worked as a retail manager for Warner Brothers Studio Stores. He was a very nice guy, and full of good advice as well. Many people don’t realize it, but Mr. Takamoto learned to draw at an internment camp. After the war, he found employment at Disney and worked on a number of the company’s early animated classics, but left the company in 1961 to join Hanna-Barbera. At the time of his death, he was Vice President in Charge of Special Projects.
Harold Bell, 90, a creator of Woodsy Owl. I didn’t know this dude, but I sure grew up with Woodsy! Mr. Bell was a marketing agent for the Lassie program. He and several other people came up with Woodsy in 1970, when they needed a mascot for the Forest Service for the first Earth Day. “Give a hoot! Don’t pollute!” A good message for sure.
Alex Toth, 77, Cartoonist and TV Animator. Best known for his work on the Zorro, Jonny Quest and Space Ghost cartoons. Man! Those were the heady days when Saturday morning wasn’t about X-Tremely Stupid X-Citement. I remember the Zorro/Lone Ranger cartoon pretty fondly, but for some reason the only episode of Jonny Quest that I have ever seen remains the one with the invisible monster on a remote island.
Dave Arneson, 61, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. I cannot tell you how many countless hours of comedy, danger, and monstrous entertainment I owe to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. So much time is dedicated to Mr. Gygax that I think Mr. Arneson needs another mention.
Martin Nodell, 91, creator of the Green Lantern. He created the character after seeing a NYC subway train operator waving a lantern with a green light. So many of the early comic book guys like Gil Kane got horribly, horribly screwed by Marvel and DC; it’s important to remember that the iconic heroes we cherish didn’t spring from the minds of corporations, but artists like Mr. Nodell.
Ardeshir Mohassess, 70, Iranian cartoonist. I had actually never heard of this cartoonist before I read his obituary. He was known for criticizing the stifling of women’s voices in Iran, and the harsh repressive governmental regimes under the Shah. Mr. Mohassess was good at skewering both his government and the religious organizations in Iran — a bit too good, as he spent more than 30 years in exile.
Hope you had a wonderful holiday and are having a spectacular new year!
