(Photo by Mark Kirkland)
1950 – 1962: Avid collector of 1940s Dell comic books, and amateur cartoonist, drawing literally over 300 comic book pages featuring his own characters — the last hundred of which were carefully inked, with some published in local papers.
1964 – 1965: Began freelance work for Gold Key Comics, on Disney and Warner titles.
1965 – 1971: Began work at the Disney Studio as an inbetweener on The Jungle Book, and worked up to assistant animator on The AristoCats.
1969 – 1979: Recorded interviews with many key animation people from animation’s Golden Age for Mike Barrier’s book Hollywood Cartoons (published by Oxford University Press, 1999).
1971 – 1974: Began showing classic theatrical cartoon movies on 16mm film at the San Diego Comic-Con, then located at the La Jolla University, and later at the El Cortez Hotel.
1971 – 1975: Worked as an animator on Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin and Hey Good Lookin’.
1975: Did some underground comic book work for Last Gasp Comix.
1975 – 1986: Animated at several animation studios including Don Bluth, Hanna-Barbera, and Filmation.
1986 – 1989: Produced cartoons with partner Al Lowenheim at their own studio Lion’s Den Productions in San Diego. Cartoons included a full-animation TV Special for Sea World, Shamu, the Beginning, and full animation on the first computer-animation feature (before Pixar) for Computer Graphics Lab, Inc. in New York, Strawberry Fields, featuring music by The Beatles.
1989 -2007: Worked as an animation timer and occasional director on The Simpsons TV series.
2008 – Present: Retired, but drawing web comic strips of his own characters, mainly Viagri Ampleten and Philip Mallard.