Earl Hurd

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Earl Hurd (September 14, 1880 – September 28, 1940) was a pioneering American animator and film director. He is noted for creating and producing the silent Bobby Bumps animated short subject series for early animation producer J.R. Bray's Bray Productions. Hurd and Bray are jointly responsible for developing the processes involved in cel animation, and were granted patents for their processes in 1914.

Hurd, a native of Kansas, would later work for Paul Terry's Terrytoons studio before starting his own Earl Hurd Productions studio in 1923. In addiition, Hurd worked as a comic strip artist, illustrating the strips Trials of Elder Mouse (1911-1915), Brick Bodkin's Pa (1912) and Susie Sunshine (1927-1929). He worked later at the Ub Iwerks studio and the Walt Disney studio as a storyboard artist. He died on September 28, 1940 in Burbank, California.