Lee Holley circa 1960, from the King Features archives.
Cartoonist Lee Holley was tragically killed when the single-engine plane he was piloting crashed and burned shortly after take off on March 26th at the Marina Municipal Airport in California.
Holley was born in Phoenix, AZ and attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. At 15, he had sold his first cartoons and by 22 he was hired as an animator/production artists at Warner Brothers. He worked on Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons. By 1957, he ghosted Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace Sunday comics, as well as Dennis merchandise such as Dennis the Menace and Ruff (Golden Books, 1959) and The Dennis the Menace Storybook (Random House, 1960).
In 1960, he had sold some cartoon panels to Teen Magazine about a teen girl named Ponytail. The comic panel Ponytail was syndicated later that year. Lee Holley left the Ketcham studio, and would draw Ponytail for 28 years.
Through the decades, he drew a series of licensed comic books for Western Publishing and, later, CHarlton. The comic books include his own Ponytail, as well as The Jetsons, Bugs Bunny, Tweety and Sylvester and others. With Frank Hill, Holley took over the Bugs Bunny comic strip from 1980-88.
In later years, he taught cartoon classes at local schools and attended comics conventions.
From Don Markstein's Toonopedia:
"His advice to young cartoonists is to be ready at any time to move into another field, because things are changing too fast to count on this one"
Related:
Video: Lee Holley Draws Ponytail
Lambiek Lee Holley bio
Mark Evanier on Lee Holley
CartoonSnap's Lee Holley Trove of Comic Book Work
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1 comment:
I will never forget you, Lee. You were like a father too,me. I will always cherish our time together. Life will be much darker without you in it., but the memories , you gave me, will make me a stronger person within. I promise you. I will miss you , greatly.., my dear friend.Thank you, Lee.
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