John Sparey WRITES

Animator/director John Sparey, whose caricatures of Disney artists we ran over a period of months, wrote us a couple of days back. (John now resides contentedly at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills.) We excerpt from his letter:

...Monday...I got some quick lessons on how to say "Howdy Blog!" I got into www.animationguild.org, typed in my name and got a list of entries, including two drawings: "Allen Wade," and "Types I have known - Bea and Liz." Somehow, these led me to further lists -- more than I could inventory in one afternoon, especially when so low on the learning curve...

Back again on Tuesday, I worked my way back through "Bullpen 1954." This had been posted on May 16...You had pieced it together from previously existing color copies, but the results look quite seamless. I was quite pleased with the responses to this picture, such as: "It doesn't looked dated," "It could almost be people that the viewer knew," "It could draw the viewer in,"... A part of the descriptive paragraph for "bullpen" is missing. I would have placed Wes Herschenson up on a shelf, and Chuck Williams in the forground, not Wes in the foreground. But Floyd Norman ahd no problem identifying Chuck...

And you can assure Steve Gordon that I wasn't downed by a stroke. Catscans indicate that I have had some small strokes, what would be about a 2.0 on a Richter's scale of strokes - nothing I could feel... It was a walking difficulty that had been developing over a period of years, accelerating until one night I could not push myself up out of my recliner, but I could slide down onto the floor. And lie there. I had channel 4 to listen to as long as I was aware of my surroundings. Then I woke up in the hospital....

John also relates that the drawing we had labeled "Al Wade" is actually another Disney artist -- Gary Mooney. He writes:

Al Wade was softer and shorter than Gary. And he didn't have a giraffe neck. I am surprised that Floyd Norman didn't comment on how off character my "Al Wade" was...

Our apologies to John for the mislabelling the Wade-is-really-Mooney caricature (we obviously didn't locate the right name in John's detailed notes). We wish John -- and everyone out at the Country Home -- the merriest of holiday seasons.