Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig, with Goofy

Pinto Colvig may be the first Oregon animator.

Inspired by the commercial and artistic success of Oregon cartoonist Homer Davenport (1867-1912), Pinto Colvig began by cartooning for newspapers. He moved from cartooning to animation, a transition Homer Davenport would have made if he had lived long enough. Only five frames survive of Pinto Colvig’s 35mm feature length animated film, Creation, made in San Francisco in 1915.

That’s the year D. W. Griffith made Birth Of A Nation.

That’s the very sunrise of cinema.

On October 12, Oregon Cartoon Institute and Portland ASIFA partner up to bring Medford historian Ben Truwe to Portland to tell us more about this forefather of Oregon animation and cartooning.

The following timeline is taken from Ben Truwe’s webpage about Pinto Colvig.

1892 Born in Jacksonville, Oregon

1899 Dances the cakewalk on Jacksonville stage

1905 Performs as a musical clown on the street in Portland during the Lewis & Clark Exposition

1906 Fails admission exam for high school, instead hangs out with Frank Willeke, the Medford Main Street railroad flagman, whose voice and personality he would later adapt for the character Goofy

1910 Enrolls at Oregon Agricultural College (now OSU) in Corvallis

1915 Directs the early (some say the first) feature length animated film Creation (lost film) in San Francisco

1919 Directs early color animated film Pinto’s Prizma Comedy Revue (lost film) in San Francisco

1930 Begins working as a writer for Walt Disney

1932 Voices Goofy in The Whoopee Party, continues to voice Goofy for decades

1937 Voices Sleepy and Grumpy in Snow White

1939 Voices Gabby in Gulliver’s Travels

1946 Voices Bozo the Clown for Capitol Records, records which make more money than God

1967 Dies in Los Angeles

Here’s how much Walt Disney admired Pinto Colvig – he modelled his official Walt Disney logo after Pinto’s own rounded signature, which you can see below.

Ben Truwe will illustrate his talk with film clips and photos, and will read an excerpt from Pinto’s unpublished autobiography. Bring your questions – Oregon Cartoon Institute believes in audience Q & A.

More About Goofy: Pinto Colvig, Oregon Animation Pioneer is presented by Portland ASIFA and Oregon Cartoon Institute  The evening is free for members of Portland ASIFA and for students. For non-members and non-students, admission is $3.00.

More About Goofy: Pinto Colvig, Oregon Animation Pioneer takes place at 5th Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall Street,  Portland, Oregon  at 7:00 PM on October 12.

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/234922229992860/

Basil Wolverton displays his pioneering “spaghetti and meatballs” approach to human anatomy.

As Oregon Cartoon Institute heads into its fourth year, I sat down to retrace the steps that led to its creation.

This timeline of development was originally written for Jill Hartz, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Thank you, Jill, for providing me with the impetus to pull this together!

1990’s in New York

As I fly back and forth between Portland and New York, I begin noticing the way Oregon press underplays the fame of Oregon’s most well received artists (Chuck Palahniuk a great example ) while at the same time New York press omits the Oregon citizenship of an artist all together. I begin to understand the way this has created a misperception that Oregon does not produce artists.

At about this same time Columbia sportswear begins showing up on the subways. The Simpsons are becoming a cultural mainstay. Elliott Smith, the Dandy Warhols, Courtney Love, Gus Van Sant — I start to feel  surrounded by Portland even when I am 3,000 miles away.

1999 visiting Portland

David Chelsea tells me about Basil Wolverton.

I knew about Homer Davenport, the Hearst newspaper cartoonist from Silverton.

I’d heard about Mel Blanc, Portland’s most reknowned voice artist.

But I am stupefied by Wolverton. How could a guy from Central Point (pop: 12,000)  influence an entire generation of  Americans? And do it via Mad Magazine ?

A seed starts to sprout in my mind.

2001, in Portland

Dennis Nyback and I teach an avant garde film survey course at Northwest Film Center. Preparing for it, I discover avant garde animator Harry Smith was born in Portland.

Smith was both the disciplined, insightful, completely original collector behind Folkways’ enormously influential Anthology of American Folk Music and a self taught, extravagantly experimental, completely original filmmaker. I never dreamt he had anything to do with Oregon.

In my previous understanding, Oregon rarely produced nationally known artists.

Now with Harry “High Brow” Smith and Basil “Low Brow” Wolverton in the picture, I am completely confused.

2003 in New York

Standing in Kim’s Video, I stumble across a footnote in a book about Robert Crumb which identifies Carl Barks, creator of the comic books which were a huge influence on Crumb, as being from Merrill, Oregon.

I turn the book over to see who wrote it — D. K. Holm, from Portland.

At this point I compile a list of living and dead Oregon cartoonists and animators and send it to John Canemaker, asking what he thinks. He calls me, excited and impressed.

He adds two new names.

He tells me Marc Davis, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, graduated from high school in Klamath Falls

and that Pinto Colvig, an early animator turned voice artist, is from Jacksonville.

2006 in Portland

Dennis and I interview Portland cartoonist  John Callahan for The Portland That Was.

Callahan is surprised to learn that Mel Blanc, a life long hero, is from his own home town. Our intern, a graduate of Lincoln High School, the school Blanc attended, tells us she never heard of him.

About this time, graphic journalist  Joe Sacco returns home to live in Portland, bringing with him his 1996 American Book Award.

Dennis and I return home too.

2007 in Portland

We hold the first Oregon Cartoon Institute public event, a three week screening series at Disjecta of 16mm animation from Dennis’ collection. Jim Blashfield and Rose Bond come and speak. Both have conducted far ranging film careers from Portland.

Blashfield made his acclaimed music videos here, and Bond her monumentally scaled installations. Both use animation.

Our model for engaging audiences emerges  — we will use living artists as interpreters as we raise awareness about the dead ones. Chel White, Bill Plympton, Joan Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Marilyn Zornado and Will Vinton loan us 35mm prints for the final night of the Disjecta series, which takes place at the Hollywood Theater.

Second Oregon Cartoon Institute event: Dennis conducts video interviews with visiting and local artists at the Platform International Animation Festival. We put these online.

At this point, I thought we had found all the historic Oregon animation and cartooning figures there were to find.

I was wrong.

In the course of researching Oregon film history for the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival, I stumble across George Bruns, a four time Oscar nominee for animated film scores, from Sandy

and Dennis stumbles across Ralph Wright, who won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 1957. He’s from Grants Pass.

2009 in Portland

Third Oregon Cartoon Institute event: we co-sponsored Bill Plympton Day at the Oregon Sesquicentennial Film Festival at Marylhurst.

Bill is as fascinated with this history as we are.

Not all our research comes from history books. Some comes from the news. Just when we weren’t looking,  Brad Bird received first one, then two Oscars.

Looking ahead:

An interview about Oregon Cartoon Institute’s next public event, which will take place in 2011, can be found online at  KBOO.fm. Conducted by S. W. Conser as part of his Words & Pictures series, this interview introduces our first artist in residence, Heather Perkins.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is all about partnerships. As soon as the details get finalized, we will announce our upcoming partnerships with others who share our goal of raising public awareness of  this state’s rich animation and cartooning history.