Walt Clinton's Calvin

That funny cartoonist and H-B lover Mark Christiansen has pointed out a just-concluded auction on eBay for several comic strips drawn by Hanna-Barbera layout artist Walt Clinton.

No one seems to know anything about them. “Calvin,” as far as anyone knows, never appeared in any newspaper. Clinton could have been drawing some demos for one of the syndicates. The character designs are pretty familiar looking, aren’t they.

I suspect he lettered these himself. The italicized wail of the cat in the first panel looks really similar to the lettering on model sheets done in the later ‘40s when Clinton was working in Tex Avery’s unit at MGM. And is a coincidence that the family is named “Dibble”?



All of the strips have Clinton’s address of “2756 Angus St. L.A. 34” on them. I suspect they’re from the late ‘50s or early ‘60s.

The funny thing about reading these, I can hear cartoon voice actors in my head: Hal Smith for Bagby, Herb Vigran for Herb and Marian Richman for the wife. Calvin bears a resemblance to George Jetson but I can hear Don Messick instead of George O’Hanlon.

Animation historian John Province points out Clinton was an assistant to Harry Tuthill on the comic The Bungle Family.

Walter Frank Clinton was born October 1, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri to William C. and Mamie Clinton; his father was a buyer in a shoe factory. He went to Soldan High School (photo to right), then the Night School of Commerce at St. Louis University and graduated from Washington University in 1928. He got a job as a sign writer with the Merchants Sign Service, and later with Sears Roebuck. He was still living in St. Louis as late as 1935.

He and his first wife Teresa Reuter are in the 1938 Los Angeles Directory where his occupation is “artist.” He’s living with Disney illustrator Gustaf Tenggren. The 1940 Census lists Clinton as “animator, motion picture studio,” who made $2,800 in 1939; his draft card reveals he was working for Walt Disney. His first animation credit at Metro was on Wild and Woolfy (1945; the credit was removed in a re-issue). He designed characters for a time in the Avery unit and remained with MGM until the cartoon studio closed in March 1953. By November, he was hired at Five Star Productions, which made animated commercials, as an assistant to the director. Clinton arrived at Hanna-Barbera when it got underway in 1957 and retired in 1969 at age 63. He and Dick Bickenbach were among the layout artists on the “Cattanooga Cats” show; that apparently was his final work for the studio. He re-married in July 1972 (his wife’s name was Wilma). Clinton died in Sun City, Arizona on January 15, 1992 at 85.