TURNING POINTS by Maggie Thompson

Here’s the latest installment of Maggie Thompson’s ongoing look at important beginnings, middles, and ends, this time for November 12-18, 2021…

105 years ago November 15, 1916 Animator, director, voice artist, and producer Bill Melendez is born. He works for Disney, Warner Bros., and UPA and founds his own studio, Bill Melendez Productions. He’s especially known for his participation in production of the Peanuts TV episodes.

105 years ago November 16, 1916 Voice artist Daws Butler is born. He provides vocals for a wide variety of characters, from Chilly Willy and Huckleberry Hound to Yogi Bear and Cap’n Crunch.

100 years ago November 13, 1921 In the Australian strip Us Fellers by Jimmy Bancks, Ginger Meggs is introduced. Wiki says the series (eventually renamed for him) becomes the longest running Australian comics series of all time.

100 years ago November 14, 1921 Artist John Tartaglione is born.

95 years ago November 13, 1926 Award-winning New Yorker cartoonist George Booth is born.

95 years ago November 15, 1926 François Craenhals is born. The Belgian artist creates Rémy et Ghislaine and Le Chevalier Ardent.

95 years ago November 16, 1926 Czech pioneering comics artist Karel Klíč dies at age 85. One of the inventors of the photogravure technique, he was primarily a political cartoonist and founded the Austrian magazine Humoristische Blätter.

95 years ago November 17, 1926 Artist Rudy Lapick is born. The staff inker at Timely also inks for Dan DeCarlo at Archie.

90 years ago November 16, 1931 Luciano Bottaro is born. He draws Italian Disney comics and co-founds the Bierreci studios. He creates Pon Pon, among other features.

80 years ago November 12, 1941 Writer Jack Butterworth is born.

75 years ago November 12, 1946 Walt Disney’s Song of the South, the first Disney feature film to combine animation and live action, has its premiere. After seven decades, the company has yet to supply the complete film in America for home video release.

75 years ago November 15, 1946 Halakhak Komiks becomes the first regularly published comic book in the Philippines, founded by Isaac Tolentino and Jaime Lucas.

70 years ago November 15, 1951 Writer Michael Gallagher is born. He works on Mad, Sonic the Hedgehog, and ALF comics.

65 years ago November 17, 1956 Artist Frank Frazetta marries Ellie Kelly.

55 years ago November 12, 1966 Writer-artist Kelley Jarvis is born.

55 years ago November 17, 1966 Writer Ed Brubaker is born. He works for publishers ranging from Slave Labor and Caliber to DC and Marvel, and his projects include co-creating Criminal with Sean Phillips for Marvel’s Icon imprint.

55 years ago November 17, 1966 Hungarian teacher and artist Lóránd Andor dies at age 60.

50 years ago November 17, 1971 Mort Walker introduces Miss Buxley to his Beetle Bailey strip.

40 years ago November 12, 1981 Animator and artist Ralph Heimdahl dies at age 72. He worked for the Disney studio in the 1930s and 1940s and drew the Bugs Bunny daily strip from its beginning in 1948, when it was written by Jack Taylor.

40 years ago November 18, 1981 Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham dies at age 86. He was the author of the comics bashing Seduction of the Innocent, switched his target to TV after the Comics Code, and eventually wrote a book on fanzines.

35 years ago November 18, 1986 Police buy 15 comics in the Lansing, IL, Friendly Frank’s comics shop. Events will eventually lead to the founding of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

30 years ago November 13, 1991 Disney’s Beauty and the Beast has its world premiere, prior to opening in wide release November 22. It is the first animated film to reach $100 million in North America sales.

30 years ago November 18, 1991 Prolific British writer-artist-animator Reginald Parlett dies at age 87.

15 years ago November 15, 2006 Belgian artist René Sterne dies at age 54. He created the Adler series.

15 years ago November 18, 2006 Belgian writer Karel Verleyen dies of cancer at age 68.

5 years ago November 12, 2016 Award-winning writer-artist Jerry Dumas dies of neuroendocrine cancer at age 86. When he worked with Mort Walker, they came up with the innovative Sam’s Strip, which was eventually modified into Sam and Solo.