The Mega Collector's Dance of the Weed

Here's a Gus Arriola sketch from Dance of the Weed, Rudy Ising's 1941 answer to Fantasia.

Gustavo "Gus" Arriola (1917-2008) had started at Mintz on Krazy Kat and had done layouts and story art for MGM for three years. The year Dance of the Weed was released he began drawing a comic strip called "Gordo," but was interrupted by WWII during which he worked with the Army Signal Corps Photographic Unit in Astoria, N.Y. "Gordo" was one of the first strips to celebrate Mexican-American culture, albeit through the slightly overweight anti-hero Gordo Lopez, who had a penchant for charro suits and female tourists.

Arriola drew the strip for over forty years. He died on February 8, 2008, shortly followed by his widow Mary Frances to whom he had been married for sixty-five.

Gus Arriola and his fellow animation luminaries who passed away in 2008, will be honored at the next Afternoon of Remembrance, which is tentatively scheduled for February 7, 2009, at the Lasky-DeMille Barn in Hollywood.

And here's the complete cartoon: