Earl Hurd (September 14, 1880 – September 28, 1940) was a pioneering American

animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video gam ...

and

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

. He is noted for creating and producing the silent ''

Bobby Bumps Bobby Bumps is the titular character of a series of American silent animated short subjects produced by Bray Productions from 1915–25. Inspired by R. F. Outcault's '' Buster Brown'', Bobby Bumps was a little boy who, accompanied by his dog Fi ...

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

short subject A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

series for early animation producer

J.R. Bray John Randolph Bray (August 25, 1879 – October 10, 1978) was an American animator, cartoonist, and film producer. Early life John Randolph Bray was born in Addison, Michigan on August 25, 1879, to Methodism, Methodist Presbyterian minister Edw ...

Bray Productions Bray Productions was a pioneering American animation studio that produced several popular cartoons during the years of World War I and the early interwar era, becoming a springboard for several key animators of the 20th century, including the ...

. Hurd and Bray are jointly responsible for developing the processes involved in

cel animation Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation. Proce ...

, and were granted patents for their processes in 1914. Animator

Andy Luckey Andrew A. Luckey (born October 7, 1965) is an American animator, artist, author, designer, director, illustrator and television producer, primarily of animated works. He also writes and illustrates children's books and Bible studies. Luckey ha ...

is a maternal cousin, twice removed, of Hurd's.

Career

Hurd, a native of

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

, was a cartoonist for The Chicago Journal and

The New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. His ...

. He then later worked for Bray Productions. Inspired by the cartoon character

Buster Brown Buster Brown is a comic-strip character created in 1902 by Richard F. Outcault. Adopted as the mascot of the Brown Shoe Company in 1904, Buster Brown, along with Mary Jane, and with his dog Tige, became well known to the United States of America ...

, Hurd invented the cartoon character Bobby Bumps, and his series of cartoons lasted from 1919 to 1925. The series is notable for the first example of a character appearing "out of the inkwell", years before the Fleschier Brothers. He and Bray developed and patented cel animation in 1914, which eliminated needs to redraw the background. They made a profit off of it with the Bray-Hurd Processing Co. until 1932, when the patent went into the public domain. After Bray, he worked for

The Van Beuren Corporation The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936. History In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...

, before ultimately making his own studio, making animations from 1922 to 1925. He worked later at the

Ub Iwerks Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks ( ), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentiou ...

studio and the Walt Disney studio as a

storyboard A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, i ...

artist. Animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi has called Hurd "probably the best American animator of his time" after Bray and said of his films that they "display an uncommon visual inventiveness, gentle humour and attention to drawing and scenography". Hurd died on September 28, 1940, in his home in

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, w ...

Gallery

Bobby Bumps Starts a Lodge (1916).ogv, ''Bobby Bumps Starts a Lodge'' (1916) Bobby Bumps and the Stork (1916).webm, ''Bobby Bumps and the Stork'' (1916) Bobby Bumps Starts For School (1917).webm, ''Bobby Bumps Starts For School'' (1917) Bobby Bumps' Fourth (1917).webm, ''Bobby Bumps' Fourth'' (1917) Bobby Bumps Puts a Beanery on the Bum (1918).webm, ''Bobby Bumps puts a Beanery on the Bum (1918) Bobby Bumps in Their Master's Voice (1921).ogv, ''Bobby Bumps in Their Master's Voice'' (1921)

Notes

References

Earl Hurd
. ''

Lambiek Comiclopedia Galerie Lambiek is a Dutch comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded on November 8, 1968 by Kees Kousemaker (, – Bussum, ), though since 2007, his son Boris Kousemaker is the current owner. From 1968 to 2015, it was located ...

''. Retrieved September 6, 2007.

External links

* 1880 births 1940 deaths Animators from Missouri American comic strip cartoonists American film directors American animated film directors American male screenwriters Artists from Kansas City, Missouri American storyboard artists Screenwriters from Missouri 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters Bray Productions people Walt Disney Animation Studios people {{comic-strip-creator-stub