I grew up on many of his cartoons, not realizing they had any connection to each other due to the many styles he adopted for them, particularly with the Weston Woods children’s books adaptations where he faithful replicated each books’ distinct style. It was his version of Where the Wild Things Are that I was exposed to, I think, as surely as others had as well.
Even as a lil’ kid I knew that some of the Tom & Jerry shorts were funky, and for the longest time the only works of his I associated with his name. However, “Dicky Moe!” was something that I found eminently amusing both then and now.
Sorry to hear about this. I recognize the name and the work. I had no idea he’d been living in Czechoslovakia all that time, or that he had a version of The Hobbit.
I love his work. First heard about him when R. Crumb reprinted some of his classic single panel cartoons, “The Cat,” about an obsessive jazz collector, in Weirdo comics in the 1980s. They had originally appeared in the 1950s magazine The Record Changer.
When the hardcover collection Cat On a Hot Thin Groove was published ten years ago, I paid retail, brother, the first day it came out.
Of course, he is also the poppa of Kim Deitch, one of the pioneering underground comix figures of the 1960s
I wasn’t familiar with Deitch’s work, but browsing through his portfolio, it reminds me of many LP album covers in the 1950’s, especially low-budget releases. I don’t know if he was the artist, or it was a style he originated or copied. It would be interesting to find out.
Eastern Europe seems to have been a hotbed of animation innovation a few decades ago – maybe still is.