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Gil Turner | |
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| Born | (1913-09-11)September 11, 1913 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Died | March 19, 1967 (aged 53) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, writer |
| Years active | 1933–1967 |
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Gilbert H. Turner (September 11, 1913 – March 19, 1967) was an Americananimator, comic book artist and producer.
He started out working at theWalt Disney Productions animation unit, and eventually moved over to other studios, such asHugh Harman's and Jam Handy inDetroit,Michigan. He also worked forLeon Schlesinger Productions in Hollywood duringWorld War II and forWilliam Hanna andJoseph Barbera at theMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio. He worked for various Holloywood cartoon studios, such as Disney, Warner Bros. Cartoons, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio (MGM),Walter Lantz Productions,UPA, Hanna-Barbera andFormat Films. He also drew comic books based on characters from these studios.
Turner was born in 1913. He worked as an ice cream salesman before starting as an animator atDisney Studios in January 1933. His stay was so brief that no credit known for his work there survived. He joined Harman-Ising Studios a year later, which would eventually evolve into the animation department of Warner Brothers.[1] After working at Hugh Harman's studio, he moved to work at the studio ofJam Handy inDetroit,Michigan. Despite a short period at Jam Handy's studio, which specialized in industrial and promotional films, he returned to Warners in 1938, where he remained until the mid-1940s, primarily under the direction ofFriz Freleng. He worked anonymously on Looney Tunes classics such asThe Trial of Mr. Wolf (1941),Rhapsody in Rivets (1941),The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942),Fresh Hare,Pigs in a Polka (1943) andLittle Red Riding Rabbit (1944).[2][3]
Around 1948 Turner joinedMGM, where he was an animator onTex Avery'sWhat Price Fleadom? (1948) and a few 'Barney Bear' shorts byPreston Blair andMichael Lah. Between 1953 and 1955 he briefly worked at Walter Lantz' studio on several 'Woody Woodpecker' and 'Chilly Willy' shorts, before joining UPA for an equally brief time as adirector/animator on the 'Mr. Magoo' series until the end of the decade. Turner concluded his animation career at the Hanna-Barbera Studios, where he worked on TV series likeThe Flintstones andYogi Bear. He also directed several episodes ofThe Alvin Show forFormat Films in the early 1960s before dying in 1967.
Although mainly active in animation, Turner also worked as a comics artist from the mid-1940s on. Together with Jim Davis he worked freelance through theSangor Shop for companies likeBetter Publications, Dearfield Comics andAmerican Comics Group ('Little Pancho Vanilla') and funny animal comics for Coo Coo, Giggle, Barnyard and Ha-Ha. AtDell Comics he mainly drew comics based on Warner Brothers characters like 'Bugs Bunny', 'Porky Pig' and 'Sniffles & Mary Jane', followed by stories about the MGM character Barney Bear. During this same period he also scripted 'Barney' comics which were illustrated byCarl Barks. Barks, however, couldn't really identify with the characters and often rewrote dialogue and plot developments to fit his own personality. Eventually he departed from the series, leaving Turner in charge of both text and illustration. One of Turner's innovations was Barney's antagonistic neighbour Mooseface McElk.[4]
Turner was also a regular contributor to Dell's 'Walt Disney's Comics and Stories' from 1947 on, where he was one of the original artists to create stories about the Big Bad Wolf and his good-natured son Lil' Bad Wolf. Colleagues who also drew comics about these wolves around the same time were Carl Buettner, Roger Armstrong,Harvey Eisenberg,Jack Bradbury, Ken Champin andPaul Murry. Turner drew comics starring 'Mickey Mouse', 'Bucky Bug' and 'Dumbo'.
While Turner predominantly drew comics based on characters others created he also had two original newspaper comics of his own, namely 'Trudy' (1947–1948), 'Chico' (1948–1949) published in the teen magazine Cookie and 'Holly Wood' (1950) which could be read in the weekly Redwood Journal from California.
In the 1960s, Turner settled in Los Angeles, where he died in 1967 at the age of 53.
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