Bob Givens Redux

A couple days ago, I wrote about Bob Givens, the 94-year-old artist who designed Bugs Bunny in his debut short A Wild Hare. While I was writing that post, I ran across a couple items related to Givens that are worth sharing. The first is a newspaper clipping from the Alhambra Post-Advocate annoucing that 18-year-old Bob Givens had been hired at Disney.

The second is an ambitious gag “bulletin” about Ward Kimball and his two assistants David Swift and Tom Oreb. The drawing, which makes fun of the trio’s lack of “mox”, is signed by Givens, who had moved over to Warner Bros. when this was drawn in October 1939, along with two WB writers Rich Hogan and Dave Monahan. Typically, gag drawings were confined to colleagues at the same studio, but there’s a reason why Warner Bros. artists are making fun of their Disney counterparts. At the time of this drawing, Givens lived with Swift (as well as Hogan and some other artists) in a rented mansion in Los Feliz. If any Cartoon Brew readers are in touch with Bob, ask him to explain the joke about “mox.” Inquiring minds want to know.