The Animator's Talent

Sarah here this week.   John’s wonderful posts have really been a pleasure and he’ll be back next week to continue the countdown But I thought I’d interject and tell you Howard’s side of working with the animators.

In short, he was totally in awe of them.

At the time he was at Disney, I was Director of Comic Art at a newspaper syndicate and Howard would bring me sketches and even submissions from some of the artists he considered particularly talented.

He was completely intrigued by their special talent.

Howard was a doodler.  A decent amateur who knew his limitations.  When he was a teen, Howard painted a  five foot long, slightly psychedelic interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s song Suzanne that our overly indulgent Mom actually hung in the dining room.  If I didn’t honor his memory as much as I do, I’d show it to you.

Instead, here’s a Little Shop doodle we found in Howard’s director’s copy of the script (now in the Howard Ashman Collection) at the Library of Congress.)

BTW, I’ll be doing a special post on March 14.  Please stop back.