Kress and McDuffie Honored

Two gifted men, both departing too soon, were honored by the Animation Writers Caucus last night:

... “This year, animation lost two talented, hard-working people who have given much of themselves and their talent to our field,” said AWC chair Craig Miller. "Dwayne McDuffie was a talented writer and creator of comics and animation who worked hard for others, particularly for minority writers. Earl Kress was a writer whose career included both feature and TV animation and hard work on behalf of all animation writers as a member of the WGA Animation Writers Caucus and the Animation Guild Board of Directors. Both were people I was glad to call friend and colleague, and whose efforts, it can truthfully be said, made all of us the better for them." ...

As I've said before, Earl was one of the first people I met when I entered the animation business in 1976. He was a writer for Disney Features then, and over the course of four decades I came to know Earl's passion for cartoons, also for writing and bettering the working lives of professionals in the animation business. (You can find more details about the AWC event, and Earl and Dwayne's accomplishments, here.)