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JERRY BECK
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AMID AMIDI
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Rediscovering Irv Spector
by amid
August 13, 2008 11:21 am


Irv Spector

Director Michael Sporn has recently been in touch with the son of animation legend Irv Spector. Spector worked as an animator, designer and storyman from the 1930s onwards. He asked the son Paul Spector to share photos, artwork and information related to his father, and Paul has responded with an amazing blog entry about his dad that includes lots of beautiful gag drawings by Sam Cobean. There’s other bits and pieces about Spector online such as this beautiful cartoony one-page comic and photos from his time at the Charles Mintz Studios.(On a sidenote, one of Spector’s commercial designs is printed in my book Cartoon Modern on page 29.)

08/13/08  12:21pm
christy says:

wow! these are awesome!
thanks amid/michael/paul!

08/13/08  2:39pm
Paul Spector says:

Many thanks for the plug, Amid. As stated at the end of the Splog, there should be more of the same up on Friday — IMO at least as nice.

08/13/08  6:14pm
carolita says:

I LOVE the drawing above, but what does it mean? Is it a guy thing?

08/13/08  10:43pm
Amid says:

Carolita - Gag drawings done at animation studios are very ephemeral. It’s hard to know fifty years later what the situation was that prompted this drawing by Cobean. Then again, these drawings were never intended to be viewed decades later or seen by people outside of the studio.

08/14/08  6:56am
Paul Spector says:

I think if nightgowns were put on the females, it’s the kind of piece that could have ended up inside The New Yorker. Although that’s not my father on the rooftop, the “big joke” is that he had started weightligting around that time, and weighed about 140 lbs.

08/14/08  1:29pm
bob kurtz says:

hi paul-
i remember you dad so well. irv was a truly funny guy and a great talent.
and how about those great passover dinners our families had together.
and those living room performances your dad and cal howard put on.
those were great times.your dad made me laugh so much.
please, i would love to hear from you paul.

08/14/08  4:39pm
carolita says:

Well, it works for me fine as a sort of dream sequence. I was just curious if there was something more to it that I wasn’t getting.

08/14/08  5:09pm
Paul Spector says:

Hey Bob! I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear from you. I’ll write you via your site! - Paul

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