Jim Simon (artist)

Last updated

Jim Simon
Born
James A. Simon

1950 (age 72–73)
Nationality American
Occupations
  • Artist
  • animator
  • director

James A. Simon, also known as Jim Simon, is an artist and animator. [1] With his animation company, Wantu Studios, he created animations for Sesame Street and other shows. [2]

Contents

Early life

Simon attended New York City's High School of Art and Design, graduating in 1963. [1] There he had won an award for excellence in animation, and earned two scholarships from the Junior Epstein Memorial Foundation as well as a scholarship to the School of Visual Arts. [2] At SVA, he initially pursued a career producing live action TV, but switched to animation.

Career

After graduation, Simon began working as an animation background artist at Paramount Pictures' animation studio. It closed four months after he joined, but his time there had allowed him to join the animators' union. A Paramount colleague then brought Simon in as an assistant animator on the 1960s Spider-Man animated series. [2]

After a year-and-a-half, Simon left in order to freelance, recalling in 1975 that, "I was turning out so much work, they had to promote me, because I was earning more money than some of the full-fledged animators. But it got to the point that I was just too excited about the things going on inside my own head, which I could not release while working for someone else." [2]

Circa 1972, he formed Wantu Animation Inc., [3] initially based in New York City and then Los Angeles. [4] Simon's clients included the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company , for which his first short film, "Hey Diddle Diddle", won an award at the International Animated Film Association's 1975 Animation Awards Festival; WNET's children's educational series Vegetable Soup ; Sesame Street ; the Black Psychiatrists of America; and the New York Public Library. [3]

Personal life

By 1977, Simon and his wife René Simon had four sons: Jimmy, Kelly, Sean, and Mark. Simon and his wife had known each other since high school, and married while he was attending college. [5]

In 2009, he said that some career setbacks "led me to a little depression, a little alcoholism and homelessness with me and my dog sleeping in the car." After not drawing for 10 years, he took up oil painting and had a show at the St. Clair gallery in El Cajon, California, near San Diego, where he was then living. [6] [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Jones</span> American animator and director (1912–2002)

Charles Martin Jones was an American animator, director, and painter, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of shorts. He wrote, produced, and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig, among others.

<i>The Electric Company</i> American childrens television series (1971–1977)

The Electric Company is an American educational children's television series produced by the Children's Television Workshop. It was co-created by Paul Dooley, Joan Ganz Cooney, and Lloyd Morrisett. The series aired on PBS for 780 episodes over the course of its six seasons from October 25, 1971, to April 15, 1977. The program continued in reruns until October 4, 1985. The Electric Company later reran on Noggin, a channel co-founded by the CTW, from 1999 to 2003. Noggin also produced a compilation special for the show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph Bakshi</span> American animator, filmmaker (born 1938)

Ralph Bakshi is an American animator, filmmaker, and painter. In the 1970s, he established an alternative to mainstream animation through independent and adult-oriented productions. Between 1972 and 1992, he directed nine theatrically released feature films, five of which he wrote. He has also been involved in numerous television projects as director, writer, producer, and animator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fleischer Studios</span> American animation studio

Fleischer Studios was an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of its films. In its prime, Fleischer Studios was a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters, with Walt Disney Productions being its chief competitor in the 1930s. Today [as of 2023?] the company is again family owned and oversees the licensing and merchandising for its characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High School of Art and Design</span> Public high school in Manhattan, New York

The High School of Art and Design is a career and technical education high school in Manhattan, New York City, New York State, United States. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, the school moved to 1075 Second Avenue in 1960 and more recently, its Midtown Manhattan location on 56th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, in September 2012. High School of Art and Design is operated by the New York City Department of Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glen Keane</span> American writer and artist

Glen Keane is an American animator, author and illustrator. He was a character animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios for feature films including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Tarzan and Tangled. He received the 1992 Annie Award for character animation and the 2007 Winsor McCay Award for lifetime contribution to the field of animation. He was named a Disney Legend in 2013.

Volodymyr Peter "Bill" Tytla was a Ukrainian-American animator known for his work in Walt Disney Animation Studios, Paramount's Famous Studios, and Terrytoons. In his Disney career, Tytla is particularly noted for the animation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. He was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kansas City Art Institute</span> Private art school in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.

The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. It has approximately 75 faculty members and 700 students. KCAI offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lasseter</span> American filmmaker (born 1957)

John Alan Lasseter is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He is the head of animation at Skydance Animation. He was also previously the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Hillenburg</span> Creator of SpongeBob SquarePants (1961–2018)

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was an American animator, writer, producer, director, and marine science educator. He is known for creating the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants - on which he served as the showrunner for seasons 1-3, and again from season 9 until his death - which has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard Starr</span> American cartoonist (1925–2015)

Leonard Starr was an American cartoonist, comic book artist, and advertising artist, best known for creating the newspaper comic strip On Stage and reviving Little Orphan Annie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hubley</span> American film director, producer, and screenwriter (1914–1977)

John Kirkham Hubley was an American animated film director, art director, producer, and writer known for his work with the United Productions of America (UPA) and his own independent studio, Storyboard, Inc.. A pioneer and innovator in the American animation industry, Hubley pushed for more visually and emotionally complex films than those being produced by contemporaries like the Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers Animation. He and his second wife, Faith Hubley, who he worked alongside from 1953 onward, were nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning three.

Mark Louis Dindal is an American film director, effects animator, screenwriter, character designer, storyboard artist and voice actor, who is famous for having directed three animated films, Cats Don't Dance (1997), The Emperor's New Groove (2000), and Chicken Little (2005). He worked in many Disney projects as an effects animator, and also led the special effects for several films, such as The Little Mermaid (1989) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Wedge</span> American filmmaker (born 1957)

John Christian Wedge is an American animator, filmmaker, and voice actor. He is best known for directing the films Ice Age (2002), Robots (2005), Epic (2013), and Monster Trucks (2016). He is a co-founder of the now-defunct animation studio Blue Sky Studios and voices the character Scrat in the Ice Age franchise since 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Floyd Norman</span> American cartoonist

Floyd E. Norman is an American animator, writer, and cartoonist. Over the course of his career, Norman has worked for various animation companies, among them Walt Disney Animation Studios, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Ruby-Spears, Film Roman and Pixar.

Faith Hubley was an American animator, known for her experimental work both in collaboration with her husband John Hubley, and on her own following her husband's death.

Ann Marie Fleming is an independent Canadian filmmaker, writer, and visual artist. She was born in Okinawa, USCAR, in 1962 and is of Chinese, Ryukyuan and Australian descent. Her film Window Horses was released in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Priestley</span> American film director

Joanna Priestley is an American contemporary film director, producer, animator and teacher. Her films are in the collections of the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Priestley has had retrospectives at the British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art and Hiroshima International Animation Festival in Japan. Bill Plympton calls her the "Queen of independent animation". Priestley lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sally Cruikshank</span> American animator

Sarah Cruikshank is an American cartoonist, animator and artist, whose work includes animation for the Children's Television Workshop program Sesame Street, and whose short Quasi at the Quackadero (1975) was inducted into the United States National Film Registry.

Galen Sander Fott is an American director, animator, writer, and actor. His animated short films have won awards and have screened at film festivals in London, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Houston, and San Francisco.

References

  1. 1 2 "James A. Simon". (photo entry) 1963 High School of Art and Design Yearbook (Art & Design Alumni Association). 1963. p. 23. Archived from the original on November 15, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Jim Simon". Millimeter via Michael Sporn Animation. April 1975. Archived from the original on July 23, 2011.
  3. 1 2 Simmons, Judy D. (May 1977). "Cartoons as Commerce". Black Enterprise . p. 40.
  4. ↑ Simmons, p. 42.
  5. ↑ Simmons, p. 43.
  6. ↑ Garcia, Catherine (July 19, 2009). "Local Animator Makes a Comeback". San Diego, California: KNSD-TV. Archived from the original on May 9, 2017. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  7. ↑ Roberts, Ozzie (February 15, 2009). "Former animator draws on art for salvation". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved January 14, 2022.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.