Earl Hurd

 

Earl Oscar Hurd was an animation pioneer, who besides creating Bobby Bumps, an early cartoon star, is considered to be the inventor of the animation cel, which was universally used in the industry for 2D animation for the next 80 years.

Earl Hurd was born in Atchison, Kansas on February 18th, 1880. Nothing seems to be known about his life in Atchison, as the next time he is heard from is in 1900, where he has moved to Kansas City, Missouri. An O. Earl Hurd (Hurd sometimes went by his middle name Oscar it appears) is listed as being selected as an artist on The Luminary in the March 8th, 1901 issue of The Kansas City Times, but there is no info on what this was, or for how long (if this is him) he was there. In fact, much of his early life is shrouded in mystery. Some time in the 1900's, he started working for The Kansas City Post as a cartoonist. None of his cartoons appear to be publicly available at the moment, but a reader review
from The Arkansas City Daily News from April 18th, 1907 describes one in detail. In 1911, two of Hurd's strips, Trials of Editor Mouse and Pudge Perkins' Pets began to be published in the New York Evening Telegram. It appears that he still lived in Kansas City at the time. Pudge Perkins' could also be seen in newspapers across the country.

In 1914, in New York, J.R. Bray was starting up his animation studio, one of, if not the first in the country. It is not known if Hurd had moved to New York by then, or when he did, but Hurd was hired to work there. At Bray Studios, Hurd created Bobby Bumps, who would star in many cartoons produced by the studio and could be considered one of the first cartoon stars. It was also here where he patented perhaps his most important creation, the animation cel. Prior to this, every single part of every single frame of a cartoon had to be drawn on a sheet of paper, including the background. This was very time consuming, not to mention expensive. With the invention of the cel, all movement could instead be drawn and painted onto a thin sheet of celluloid (a type of plastic), while the background could stay the same, saving a lot of time and effort. This process would be used universally in the industry up until the 1990s, where the process was largely computerized. It is not known if Hurd was truly the inventor, as Bray was also patenting a lot of the techniques used, but Hurd was the one who filed the patent. Bray and Hurd would form a partnership in 1914, the Bray-Hurd Process Company to manage the process. Hurd would continue working for Bray until 1917 or 1918, where he left to serve in World War 1. After the war, he briefly moved to California in presumably 1919. He would move back to New York to work at Terrytoons, before leaving for Bray Studios once again. In 1923 he founded his own animation studio, which appears to have quickly failed, closing in 1925. He returned to Bray, only to temporarily leave the industry in 1927.

In 1927 he returned to the comic strip industry, creating Susie Sunshine. He would make the comic until 1929, before giving it to Al Zere. He would then draw current event cartoons from September to

October, satirizing figures like Herbert Hoover. The comic had a different name each strip and no reoccurring characters, and as such was largely a failure. Hurd would return to the animation industry in the 1930s, joining Ub Iwerks' studio before leaving in 1934 for Disney. Hurd worked on a number of shorts for Disney and both Snow White and Fantasia. Hurd would die on September 29th, 1940.

Sources

Holtz, Allan. “Ink-Slinger Profiles: Earl Hurd.” Stripper's Guide, 18 Aug. 2011, http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2011/08/ink-slinger-profiles-earl-hurd.html. 

“Earl Hurd.” Lambiek.net, https://www.lambiek.net/artists/h/hurd_earl.htm.

“Luminary's Staff is Selected.” The Kansas City Times, 8 March 1901.