Pete Alvarado
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pete Alvarado | |
| Birth name | Peter J. Alvarado, Jr. |
| Born | February 22, 1920 Raton, New Mexico |
| Died | December 27, 2003 La Crescenta, California |
| Nationality |
 |
| Area(s) | Penciller, Animator |
Peter J. Alvarado, Jr. (February 22, 1920--December 27, 2003) was an American animation and comic book artist. Alvarado's animation career spanned almost 60 years. He was also a prolific contributor to Western Publishing's line of comic books.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Animation
Alvarado was born in Raton, New Mexico, and grew up in Glendale, California. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in the 1930; after graduation he was hired as an assistant animator by the Walt Disney Studio. He provided uncredited work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.[1] Around 1939 Alvarado left Disney to find work in New York City, where he provided his earliest comic book art for Funnies Inc., which supplied artwork for Fawcett Publications and Timely Comics (now Marvel Comics).[2]
Alvarado returned to California and Disney Studio in 1941. He left Disney in 1946 to work for Warner Bros. Animation, where he would remain for the next sixteen years. Alvarado's first screen credit was on the 1946 Pepé Le Pew short, "Scent-imental Over You." He later drew the backgrounds for the first Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon, "Fast and Furry-ous."[3] Alvarado eventually became chief layout artist for Robert McKimson's unit.
After Warner Bros. Animation studios closed their doors, Alvarado joined DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. He worked on several Pink Panther shorts, as well as the short lived animated series Super President.
Around 1971 Alvarado joined Hanna-Barbera as a layout artist; he worked on such series as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971), Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch (1974), and many others. Alvarado also provided animation and layout work for Film Roman (Garfield and Friends).
Alvarado was the reciepient of the 2001 Winsor McCay Award, for his lifetime of achievement in animation, as well as the Animation Guild's 1987 Golden Award.
[edit] Comic books
Concurrently with his animation work, Alvarado also worked as a prolific comic book illustrator. As noted above, he worked from 1939 to 1941 providing artwork for Funnies Inc. Alvarado returned to the comic book world in 1947, in collaboration with Charles McKimson (brother of animator Robert McKimson). McKimson was the art director at Western Publishing Company, and the two (in collaboration with Charles' brother Thomas) drew the Roy Rogers strip under the pen name "Al McKimson."[4] Alvarado went on to draw the Gene Autry newspaper strip and comic book, the Mr. Magoo newspaper strip for its entire run, a long period of the Little Lulu newspaper strip, some work on the Flintstones and Yogi Bear newspaper strip, and fill-in work for almost all the Disney newspaper strips, including an extended period as the main artist on Donald Duck.[5]
The bulk of Alvarado's work at Western was for their "funny animal" line of comic books. Alvarado provided artwork for almost every Disney (Chip 'n Dale, Scamp), Warner Brothers (Tweety & Sylvester, Road Runner), Hanna-Barbera (Yogi Bear and Walter Lantz (Andy Panda) licensed title. He also illustrated comic book adapations of the animated films The Rescuers, Robin Hood, and Gay Purr-ee.[6]
Alvarado retired from animation in 1999. He died of a heart attack on December 27, 2003, in La Crescenta, California.
[edit] Notes
- ^ [1]Evanier, Mark, "Pete Alvarado (1920-2004)". news from ME website. Last accessed 03/13/2007.
- ^ [2]Pete Alvarado bio. ASIFA-Hollywood biopedia. Last accessed 3/13/2007.
- ^ [3]Comic Book Database website. Last accessed 03/13/2007.
- ^ [4]"Pete Alvarado". Comic Book DB website. Last accessed 03/30/2007/
- ^ Comic Book Database, ibid.
- ^ Evanier, ibid.
