Connell’s credits – though all too often uncredited – included the story of ‘Pablo the Cold-Blooded Penguin’ featured in Walt Disney's The Three Caballeros.
Connell was also resposnsible for the Disney short The Pelican and the Snipe and worked on the Oscar-nominated Ben and Me, as well as the studio’s animated feature Alice in Wonderland.Responsible for the original Disney comic book characters, Supergoof and Daisy Duck’s nieces, April, May and June, Connell also wrote and sketched 20 years of the Mickey Mouse daily and Sunday comic strips. – one of many ways in which the studio's foundation character was kept in the public eye long after his film career had faded.
Connell worked on comic-books featuring characters from many other animation studios including MGM, Hanna-Barbera and Walter Lantz whose Chilly Willy was clearly a relative of hos own Pablo.
Another of claim to fame is that Connell launched the comic-book careers of the Robinson family who first appeared in the Gold Key publication, Space Family Robinson and later found fame on TV in Irwin Allen's cult series, Lost in Space.
You can read my full obituary in The Guardian newspaper, here.
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4 comments:
Del also created the Dell comic SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON that would later be turned into LOST IN SPACE by Irwin Allen.
Shortly before he died he was award the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing at the Eisner Awards in SDCC.
He was truly one of the greats.
houseofduck – Thanks. You'll find those and other details of Del's extraordinary career in my obituary, if you follow the link in the post.
Brian - Thank you for posting this and for the excellent obituary you wrote for The Guardian. I appreciate your efforts to bring some recognition to the work of my father, Del Connell, who was not only a treasured artist, writer, sculptor, and inventor, but who was also a great guy. It is rewarding to know that not only did he help millions of children learn to read through his thousands of stories and characters, but he was also respected and admired by his peers. My only hope is that in relation to the television series and films "Lost in Space," we will someday be able to read the words "Based on characters created by Del Connell." Many thanks.
Many thanks, Brady. Glad to be in touch via this little post...
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