Jim Smith, veteran animation artist and co-founder of animation studio Sp\u00fcmc\u00f8, died on May 2. He was 70. The cause of death is being reported online as a heart attack, though that has not been confirmed. <\/p>\n
Born James Carl Jobb in Lubbock, Texas, Smith started his animation career in the late 1970s at a small commercial animation studio in Houston, Texas, and later worked as a technical illustrator. His first professional project in the L.A. animation industry was the CBS Saturday morning series The Get Along Gang<\/em> (1984). He was working on another syndicated Eighties tv series Defenders of the Earth<\/em> when a chance meeting with another artist changed the trajectory of his career. <\/p>\n That artist was John Kricfalusi, who in his unpublished autobiography remembered the first time he met Smith. \u201cThe cartoons [Smith] worked on were horrendous,\u201d he wrote, \u201cbut his walls were plastered with his own drawings\u2014fantastic caricatures of manly men like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charles Bronson, and Lee Marvin\u2014and powerful scenes of Conan the Barbarian, which he drew even more exaggerated than Frank Frazetta or John Buscema.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kricfalusi hired Smith to draw backgrounds layouts on the \u201cHarlem Shuffle\u201d music video for The Rolling Stones, and that was the beginning of a decades-long working relationship. In the Eighties, Smith worked with Kricfalusi on projects like Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures<\/em> and The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil,<\/em> while they also developed personal projects on the side. <\/p>\n In the late Eighties, Smith, Kricfalusi, Lynne Naylor, and Bob Camp banded together to form the studio Sp\u00fcmc\u00f8, which would revolutionize the tv animation industry with Nickelodeon\u2019s The Ren & Stimpy Show<\/em> (1991). Smith was a key part of the show\u2019s success from playing the guitar on the show\u2019s opening theme song to designing characters like Powdered Toast Man and the Fire Chief from the episode \u201cFire Dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob Camp recently recalled that Smith was \u201cthe best draftman out of all of us.\u201d Smith provided countless storyboards, layouts, and designs for the series, and played a key role in numerous episodes, from conceiving \u201cSpace Madness\u201d to co-directing \u201cFake Dad\u201d and storyboarding and designing \u201cUntamed World.\u201d <\/p>\n Smith\u2019s influences were generally from outside of the animation world, and he drew inspiration from illustrators like Frank Frazetta, comic book artists like Jack Kirby, and caricaturists like Miguel Covarrubias. His skill, according to Kricfalusi, was how he melded those influences into his own unique style. \u201c[W]hen he puts them all together, it\u2019s totally, uniquely him,\u201d Kricfalusi said in an interview<\/a>. \u201cAnd that is the kind of art I love, when somebody has a lot of influences behind him, a lot of skill, a lot of knowledge, but somehow churns it all up into a new statement. It\u2019s Jim, it\u2019s Elvis, very few people.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith continued working closely with Kricfalusi post-Ren & Stimpy<\/em>, making key contributions to projects like Sp\u00fcmc\u00f8 Comic Book<\/em>, the webseries Weekend Pussy Hunt,<\/em> and the revival series Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon<\/em> (Spike TV, 2003). Smith also played a key role in developing another project for the studio, the superhero satire The Ripping Friends,<\/em> which was turned into a Fox Kids animated series in 2001. <\/p>\n Outside of Sp\u00fcmc\u00f8, Smith worked as a storyboard artist, layout artist, and character designer on numerous projects including Samurai Jack, Monsters vs. Aliens, The Oblongs, The X\u2019s,<\/em> and Teh Mighty Bee<\/em>, among many other titles.<\/p>\n More of Smith\u2019s artwork can be seen on his blog<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Sp\u00fcmc\u00f8](\"https:\/\/www.cartoonbrew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/spumco_bigshots.jpg\")
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