'The Kilroys' #33.
Bob Wickersham was a U.S. animator and story artist at various classic cartoon studios during the Golden Age of Animation. He drew humorous children's comics for companies like the American Comics Group (ACG), Timely Comics, Real Screen Comics and Ned Pines Comics. Some of his work is signed with the pseudonym 'Bob Wick'.
Early life and animation career
Born in 1911 in Colima, Mexico, Bob Wickersham started his career with Charles Mintz in the early 1930s, then briefly worked for the Harman-Ising Studios in 1932 (later known as the Warner Bros. cartoon studio). In 1934 he got the chance of a lifetime when he was hired by the Walt Disney Studios. There he animated on various Mickey Mouse and Pluto shorts, like 'Playful Pluto' (1934), 'Mickey's Steamroller' (1934), 'Mickey Plays Papa' (1934), 'The Dognapper' (1934), 'Mickey's Man Friday' (1935), 'The Band Concert' (1935), 'Pluto's Judgment Day' (1935), 'Thru the Mirror' (1936), 'Pluto's Quin-puplets' (1937), 'Lonesome Ghosts' (1937) and 'Mickey's Parrot'. He also did a couple of Donald Duck cartoons, namely 'Polar Trappers' (1938) and 'Donald's Golf Game' (1938), and worked on various 'Silly Symphonies' classics, such as 'The Night Before Christmas' (1933), 'The Flying Mouse' (1934), 'The Robber Kitten' (1935), 'Who Killed Cock Robin?' (1935) 'Three Orphan Kittens' (1935), 'Broken Toys' (1935), 'Elmer Elephant' (1936), 'Three Blind Mouseketeers' (1936), 'More Kittens' (1936), 'Little Hiawatha' (1937), 'The Old Mill' (1937) and 'Wynken, Blynken and Nod' (1938). He also co-animated the 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' segment in 'Fantasia' (1940), developed by Perce Pearce.
'Cindy' (Cookie #8, August/September, 1947).
Between 1933 and 1935 Wickersham was active for Ub Iwerks. In 1938 he went to work for Max and Dave Fleischer's studios, animating a few 'Popeye' and 'Gabby' shorts and contributing to their failed attempt at an animated feature, 'Mr. Bug Goes To Town' (1941). When the picture flopped and the Fleischer Studio went bankrupt in 1941, Wickersham left to join Columbia/Screen Gems, where he was promoted to director. In 1946 he worked at Carry-Weston for a while, but spent the rest of the decade at Paul Terry's Terrytoons. He also had a brief stint at Warner Brothers in the early 1950s, where he co-animated three Looney Tunes cartoons for Bob McKimson: 'Big Top Bunny' (1951), 'Thumb Fun' (1952) and 'Who's Kitten Who?' (1952).
Cover illustrations for The Kellys and Teepee Tim.
Comic career
From the mid-1940s until the mid-1950s, Wickersham additionally drew for comic books, sometimes under the pen name Bob Wick. He mainly worked for the American Comics Group (ACG), drawing characters like 'Daniel Spaniel', 'Cindy', 'Natch', 'Spencer Spook', 'Wacky Wolf' and 'Who-Dun-It' for titles like Cookie (1947-1949), Funny Films (1949-1954), Giggle Comics (1946-1953) and Ha Ha Comics (1945-1952). He also drew for several issues of ACG's family comic 'The Kilroys' (1953), and the comic book about the little Indian boy 'Teepee Tim' (1955). The former animator also drew 'The Kellys' (1950) for Timely Comics, and 'Flippity and Flop' and 'Fox and the Crow' for comic books like Real Screen Comics by National Periodicals/DC Comics (1947-1949). He additionally drew funny animal features like 'Colonel Punchy Penguin' and 'Whitey' for the comic books published by Ned Pines (Happy Comics, Coo Coo Comics, 1946-1949).
Later life and death
Between 1948 and 1954 Wickersham owned an animation studio which made early TV commercials. Wickersham was also a producer, director and character designer for Swift-Chaplin's Jolly Green Giant commercials. He passed away in 1962 in Chicago, Illinois.
'Colonel Punchy Penguin' (Coo Coo Comics #39).