'Bear with Me'.
Bob Scott is a U.S. animator and cartoonist, who has worked on many Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks productions since the mid-1980s. Since 2010 he is also the creator of the webcomic 'Bear with Me' (originally titled 'Molly and the Bear').
Early life and influences
Born in 1964, Scott was raised in a creative family, living in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. His father's singing and woodcarving and his mother's tap dancing and piano practice instigated his own artistic ambitions, which were all fully supported by his parents. As a teen, Scott avidly read Garry Trudeau's 'Doonesbury' and Berkeley Breathed's 'Bloom County'. He was also "hooked" on Jim Davis' 'Garfield' and the Hanna-Barbera newspaper strips ('Yogi Bear', 'The Flintstones') drawn by Gene Hazelton. 'Pogo' by Walt Kelly, 'Quincy' by Ted Shearer and 'Eek and Meek' by Howie Schneider have all influenced his work. Another inspirator was the editorial cartoonist of the local Detroit News, Larry Wright, who critiqued his high school comics and gave him the advice: "Draw what you know!". Animation was a passion he shared with his childhood friends Butch Hartman and Dan Jeup, who both became professionals in the industry as well. Hartman, for instance, later created the series 'The Fairly OddParents'.
Animation
Bob Scott is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts film animation program. At Cal Arts, he met his wife Vicki, who is also an animation artist. Their daughter later joined the profession as well, working as a writer for animation. Scott joined the industry at the beginning of the so-called "animation renaissance" of the late 1980s, giving him the opportunity to fully explore the field's possibilities. He has been able to do almost everything, including 2D and 3D animation, character design, story art, supervising and even voice acting.
Among his early credits were character design and animation on a couple of 'Garfield' films. His own animated short 'Late Night with Myron' was part of the 1988 theatrical compilation film 'Outrageous Animation'. Since then, his work can be seen in numerous animated feature films, such as Dreamworks Animation's 'The Prince of Egypt' (1998) and Disney/Pixar's 'The Incredibles' (2004), 'Ratatouille' (2007), 'WALL-E' (2008) and 'Toy Story 3' (2010). He was a 2D animation supervisor on the Annie Award winning Pixar short 'Your Friend the Rat' (2007) was part of the small animation crew for the Oscar-nominated 'Day and Night' (Pixar, 2010).
'Bear with Me'.
Early comics
Bob Scott's ventured into comic strips during the 1980s, when he drew a strip called 'Myron' during his Cal Arts days in The Newhall Signal. After graduation, he and his friend Brett Koth helped Jim Davis pencil the 'U.S. Acres' strip, replacing Gary Barker. Bob's wife Vicki was brought in to ink the feature. In 1989 he had a short stint penciling the 'Bugs Bunny' newspaper strip, before Shawn Keller took over.
Bear with Me
In April 2010, Scott returned to this passion, when he launched 'Molly and the Bear', which eventually became known as 'Bear with Me'. This gag-a-day strip about the unlikely friendship between a little girl and her pet bear is published online on Gocomics.com, the online portal of the Andrews McMeel Universal syndicate. It has also appeared on the New York Daily News website. Eleven-year old Molly encounters all the difficulties of a regular teen growing up in the modern world. She finds comfort in her 800 pound pet bear, known simply as "Bear", who is afraid of everything and allergic to his own fur. Together they muddle their way through life's challenges. Even though 'Bear with Me' is a webcomic, Scott still works the traditional way, with India ink on bristol board. A first compilation book was published by Cameron + Company in March 2016, with a foreword by cartoonist Brett Koth. A second compilation was released by Hermès Press in February 2021, with a foreword by Jim Davis.
Graphic contributions
Bob and Vicki Scott were contributing writers and artists to the four-issue comic book special, 'Peanuts' (2012), published by Boom Studios, based on Charles M. Schulz' comic 'Peanuts'.
'Bear with Me', 2014.