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Birth/Death

B. August 16, 1890
D. October 7, 1990

Occupation/Title

Animator

Bio Summary

On August 16, 1890, Myron “Grim” Natwick was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. ?In high school Natwick was known for his art as well as his poetry. He and his brother, ?Buff, were also high school football stars. After high school Natwick went to college and onto to a career in animation where he made shows like Betty Boop and helped ?with movies like “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Disney. Natwick lived ?to be 100 year old, and died from pneumonia and a heart attack.

Early Life/Family

Grim Natwick’s Grandfather, Ole, one of the earlier Norwegian people to ?immigrate to America, had 11 children. Grim’s first cousin was the famous?Mildred Natwick, and his brother Frank was supposedly was one of the first ?Wisconsin athletes to be invited to the modern Olympics in 1908. Frank was a high hurdler ?for the University of Wisconsin where he was also the president of his class. Grim ?Natwick had five brothers and two sisters including Frank, the others were named;?Ruby, Albert (Buff), Donald, John (Rux), Vernon (Deeds), and Gladys.

Education/Training

Natwick trained in art schools in Chicago, New York and Vienna before becoming an ?animator in 1921.

Career Outline

In 1921 Natwick became an animator for the Hearst Film Service. Later, Grim went to ?work for Max and Dave Fleischer, and created Betty Boop. After that, Grim joined Disney in 1935 were he worked as the lead animator for the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Natwick also worked as director for Gulliver’s Travels (1939), and worked on a number of short cartoons for television and theatrical release.

Comments On Style

Influences

Personality

There are two different stories on how Myron received the nickname “Grim.” Some say that Natwick got his nickname from his solemn persistence and dedicated work habits. Others say he ?got it because of his anything but – “Grim” personality in high school.

Anecdotes

At Natwick’s one-hundredth birthday party it is rumored that he ?said, “Well what do you want from me now… 200 years?!”

Miscellaneous

Filmography

Wise Flies (1930) (animator) (uncredited)
Dizzy Dishes (1930) (animator)
Swing You Sinners! (1930) (animator) (uncredited)
Mysterious Mose (1930) (animator) (uncredited)
Bimbo’s Initiation (1931) (animator) (uncredited)
The Office Boy (1932) (animator) (uncredited)
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp (1934) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
Viva Willie (1934) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
The Valiant Tailor (1934) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
The Cookie Carnival (1935) (animator) (uncredited)
Mickey’s Fire Brigade (1935) (animator)
Broken Toys (1935) (animator)?Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) (animator: “Prince Charming”) (as Grim Natwick)
Trouble Indemnity (1950) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
The Popcorn Story (1950) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
Bungled Bungalow (1950) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
Rooty Toot Toot (1951) (animator)
Georgie and the Dragon (1951) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)
Terror Faces Magoo (1959) (animator) (as Grim Natwick)?The Mighty Hercules (1963) TV Series (directing animator) (as Grim Natwick)?Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977) (animator)?Arabian Knight (1995) (animator)??… aka Princess and the Cobbler (Australia)??… aka The Thief and the Cobbler (USA: video title)?

Honors

Annie Award: Winsor McCay Award 1975

Related Links

Online Exhibit: Grim Natwick’s Scrapbook

Bibliographic References

McMillan Memorial Library: Famous Wisconsin Rapids Natives?
?Wikipedia
?The New York Times: Myron Natwick Obituary
Internet Movie Database
BIO-AAA-098

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Birth/Death

Birth: May 23, 1862, France
Death: March 26, 1935, USA

Occupation/Title

Cartoonist, Educator

Bio Summary

Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman was born in 1862 in Switzerland, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was seven. As a poor immigrant, Zim witnessed the “melting pot” of American culture first hand. His depictions of ethnic minorities were pointed, but honest and well observed. Although he is pretty much forgotten today, he was very well known in his time, and his humor captured the essence of turn-of-the-century America.

Zim was the founder of the so-called “Grotesque” school of caricature, and was the first caricaturist to incorporate exaggerated cartooniness not only in the faces of his subjects, but in the bodies as well. Zim worked for Puck and Judge, the two top humor magazines of their day.

Zim was a prolific artist, with more than 40,000 illustrations published in his lifetime. He retired from Judge in 1897 and founded the American Association of Cartoonists and Caricaturists. He was also a writer and teacher. His columns ran in Cartoons magazine during the early years of the century, as did ads for his landmark correspondence course in cartooning.

Early Life/Family

Eugene was the middle child of three. His mother died due to complications of childbirth when he was only two years old. Three years later, his father and older brother emmigrated to America and worked at a bakery in Patterson New Jersey. Eugene and his little sister were taken in the care of their aunt and uncle in the French town of Thann. Eager to reunite with his father and brother, Eugene immigrated to America. In 1886, at the peak of his career, he married Mabel Alice Beard and they adopted a son, Adolph, and had a daughter of their own, Laura.

Education/Training

During his first years in New York, His father sent him to a French tutor. Eventually financial limitations resulted in his being sent to public school. This suited Eugene well as he didn’t identify himself as French, he wanted to become American through and through.

Career Outline

Eugene worked several odd jobs to pay for his room and board as a child. His first visual-arts related work was apprentice to traveling sign painter William Brassington. Eugine’s work was noticed by J.C Pope, a rival sign painter who hired him for $9 a week as head of his workshop’s pictorial department. At the time, Eugene methodically studied editorial cartoons, filling sketchbooks with copying exercises from magazines such as Harper’s Weekly and Puck. which specialized in political satire.

Eugene’s uncle sent one of his sketchbooks to the famous cartoonist Joseph Keppler at Puck. This landed Eugene an interview at the magazine’s headquarters in New York City. Eugene was hired for a period of three years, starting at $5 a week, increasing to $15 in his third year. Zimmerman worked alongside Bernhard Gillam and Frederick Opper. Gillam specialized in political cartoons, while the prolific Opper took on the comedic subjects. Zimmerman later commented, “There were more Puck artists than there was white space to fill.” Eager to make a name for himself, he streamlined his signature to “Zim”, a mark that would become famous.

Judge magazine, the Republican competitor to the Democractic Puck was experiencing hard times. Eventually it was bought by entrepreneur William Arkell. Arkell was determined to find new talent for his editorial staff in order to improve Judge’s circulation. Bernhard Gillam was enticed to jump ship, and he confided about his opportunity with the only other Republican on Puck‘s staff, Zim. They left Puck for Judge together in late 1885.

The first issue of the newly relaunched Judge magazine was a resounding success. Zim now had the freedom to select his own subject matter, and decided to feature cartoons depicting the common man- farmers and members of the ethnic groups that populated New York City’s poorer neighborhoods. Privately Gillam wasn’t happy with Zim’s choices of subject matter- he preferred to stick to political subjects. But publishers Hamilton and Arkell believed Judge wouldn’t succeed on political satire alone, They wanted to focus more on humor, and Zim’s satire of rural and urban life perfectly fit their vision for the magazine.

By the mid 1890s, Zim was working at his peak. At Judge, he was surrounded by the cream of the crop of cartooning: Hy Mayor, Richard Outcault, A.S. Daggy, Emil Flohri, Frank Livingston Fithian, Foerge B. Griffin . F. Victor Gillam, T. S. Sullivant Michael Angelo Woolf, Gus Dirks, and upcoming youngster named James Montgomery Flagg.

In 1901, Arkell resigned and Judge passed through several hands. Tired and discouraged with the management of the magazine, Zim eventually quit full time employment in 1923 and freelanced from his home. Due to numerous requests from his readers, he authored the book This and That About Caricature, a small “how to” book for Correspondence Institute of America. The success of the lesson book encouraged him to create his largest scale publication to date, Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art and Caricature. He also authored several small books marketed directly to his home communities of Horseheads and Elmira, New York. On the basis of these books, Paul T. Gilbert, editor of Cartoons Magazine hired him to write a column titled, “Homespun Philosophy By Zim”.

Zim dabbled in sequential comic strips, but in his later years he focused more on his comfortable surrounding in Horseheads, serving in the volunteer fire department, sponsoring a local brass band, and participating in local politics.

Comments On Style

Zim reflected his world through the art of caricature, every element of a scene was carefully observed and artfully exaggerated to create an image that was beyond real- a comic distillation of the larger reality. In his cartooning course, Zim charts the progress of a man’s boot, from new and shiny to beaten down and decrepit. He analyses what sort of shoes might be worn by a particular type of man, be he hobo or aristocrat. This level of observational detail extended to all aspects of his sketches, from the likeness of the facial features to the character’s clothing, to the furniture and room that surrounds him.

Influences

Personality

Anecdotes

In his autobiography, Eugene wrote that he imagined Keppler’s studio at Puck as an Arabian Nights palace full of medieval tapestries and armor, but was surprised to find it to be just a small, well organized office. It never occurred to him that great drawings like the ones in Puck could come from such a humble workshop. “Heaven’s Gates opened to me when I discovered that Mr. Keppler was merely a human being…”

The citizens of his home town, Horseheads were mostly unaware of how famous their resident cartoonist had been in his day. He spent a lot of time caricaturing the townsfolk, from the richest and most powerful all the way down to the town barber and blacksmith.

Miscellaneous

While previously editorials were carved on engraved on blocks of wood, Puck used four-color stone lithography, The artist would draw on lithographic stones with grease pencils, they were etched with acid to create the printing plates. Zim’s first work at Puck was preparing the "tone stones"- the color layers for Joseph Keppler’s centerspread cartoons.

Filmography

Honors

Related Links

Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman Online Exhibit

Bibliographic References

Zim’s Correspondence School of Cartooning, Comic Art & Caricature:
A brief Biography of “Eugene “Zim” Zimmerman” by Stephen Worth

Zim: The Autobiography of Eugene Zimmerman
Walter M. Barsch- Editor, Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press 1988

Zim: The Life Story of Eugene Zimmerman, Horseheads Cartoonist
Jan Strausser- Horseheads Historical Society 1978

Contributors To This Listing

Stephen Worth, Amir Avni
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The Animation Creative League is a group of cartoonists, film makers and other like-minded creative folks who are interested in building a community to support independent animation in the Los Angeles area.

The Animation Creative League Clubhouse

The Creative League currently meets twice a month for networking, informal discussion, screenings, friendly critique of work in progress, and guest speakers. The topics of the meetings will cover the full spectrum of creativity- music, art, cartooning, dance, filmmaking, animation, comedy and drama. The goal is to inspire and empower independent animation creators. Because of space limitations in our screening room, as well as to facilitate open discussion, attendance at the meetings is strictly limited to just 12 people. As the group grows, we will add additional Saturday meetings during the month to accomodate more people.

The calendar of Creative League events is posted in the sidebar of this site to the left, and also on the Facebook group page titled “Animation Creative League”. Attendance at Creative League meetings is by invitation only. To reserve a confirmation to attend email Giancarlo Cassia for information. Space is limited. As a courtesy to the rest of the members of our group, do not request a confirmation if you do not plan to attend, and let us know immediately if your plans change so we can offer your space to another member.

If you are interested in participating in this group, please contact the group administrator, Taber Dunnipace at…

thecreativeleague@hotmail.com

…and join the Animation Creative League Facebook Group to get notifications of all calendar dates.

Thank you

Stephen Worth
Director
AnimationResources.org

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