In observation of Black History Month, on February 13, 2010 Santa Cruz, CA’s premier pop culture emporium, Atlantis Fantasyworld, welcomed cartoonist Floyd Norman, the first African-American artist to be hired by Walt Disney. Floyd presented a slide show featuring the highlights of his career, followed by a Q&A session, and signed a limited edition print created specifically for the event.

Diamond Daily, the email newsletter that serves comic book retailers, carried a version of this story and we thought it was something our readers would like to see as well.

Officially declared a “Disney Legend” in 2007, Floyd was born in 1936 and grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. While still in high school, Floyd became an assistant to cartoonist Bill Woggon on Katy Keene. After attending Los Angeles’ Art Center College of Design as an Illustration major, Floyd began working in the Walt Disney Studio’s Animation Department, on films like Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmations (1961) and The Sword in the Stone (1963). He eventually graduated to the story department where he co-created the famous “Trust in Me” song sequence for The Jungle Book (1967), the last film that Walt Disney personally supervised. 

After Disney’s death in 1966, Floyd left Disney Studios to co-found the Vignette Animation Studio with his business partner animator/director, Leo Sullivan. Together, they created some of the first educational films about Black history as well as Bill Cosby’s original Hey! Hey! Hey! It’s Fat Albert TV special that aired in 1969. He also worked on such TV characters as the Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Tom and Jerry, the Smurfs, Josie and The Pussycats, the Super Friends, Richie Rich, Cow and Chicken and many more.

In addition to being honored as a “Disney Legend”, Floyd and Leo Sullivan were honored for their talents and collaborative work by the Black Filmmakers Hall Of Fame In 1979 and 1991. In 2002, Floyd was awarded ASIFA’s Winsor McCay Award in “recognition of lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation”. Floyd was also the Guest of Honor at AnthroCon (2008) and San Diego’s Comic-Con International (2008), where he was presented with the convention’s respected “Inkpot” award.

Having returned to Disney in the early 1980s, Floyd was Project Supervisor in Creative Development Publishing, creating, writing and designing several children’s books. He also wrote Disney’s Mickey Mouse comic strip for King Features Syndicate. When the strip ran its course, Floyd moved over to Disney Feature Animation, where he worked on the studio’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996), Mulan (1998) and Dinosaur (2000), as well as Pixar’s Toy Story 2 (1999) and Monsters, Inc. (2001).

Intrigued by the new digital realm and interactive computer media, Floyd also helped the Disney Company develop computer software for painting and animation.

Floyd has also published several books of gag cartoons inspired by his lifetime of experiences in the animation industry: Faster! Cheaper!, Son Of Faster! Cheaper!, and How The Grinch Stole Disney.

My Animated Life, Floyd’s autobiography, is his latest book.

Floyd Norman continues to work for the Walt Disney Company as a freelance consultant on various projects, as well as appearing on a number of DVDs and writing columns for Aftrokids.com and JimHillMedia.com as well as writing and drawing daily updates of his blog, Mr.Fun.com

Congratulations to Joe Ferrara, owner of Atlantis Fantasyworld, and Mr. Norman on a noteworthy event!