Oh, how I hate that I have to write an obit here for my friend, Gordon Kent. I hate that I can no longer pick up the phone and call my friend and swap stories and jokes and that we can't plan to get together because we always had a great time. I hate that cancer has taken him away, not just from me but from his family members and friends.
I do not believe Gordon had any enemies. I can't think of one reason why anyone should not have liked the guy. He was one of those people who, if you met him and didn't love him, there was something seriously wrong with you.
Gordon was a writer and a cartoonist and an animation director and a cartoon producer. He got into the animation business in 1976 and at one time or another did all those jobs and more…and he was rarely out of work. He was versatile. He was good at all the many things he did. And he was Gordon. Everyone liked Gordon. Even our fiercer right-wing friends liked him despite his staunch left-wingedness.
Gordon hailed from McKeesport, PA. He was born there in 1954 and his family moved out here when he was seven. While he was studying art at Cal State Northridge, a classmate told him of a new training program that Hanna-Barbera was starting and Gordon applied. The program quickly led to work at H-B and then at a then-new studio, Ruby-Spears Productions, which is where I met him. They had him writing and fixing storyboards and generally being a troubleshooter all across the assembly line. He was really good at catching and fixing mistakes, of which there were many.
In 1982, our mutual friend Steve Gerber (also a Ruby-Spears staffer) was locked in a lawsuit with Marvel Comics over the ownership of his creation, Howard the Duck. The legal costs were enormous and to help Steve out, a bunch of us got together and put out a benefit comic book called Destroyer Duck to raise bucks. Gordon immediately volunteered to pitch in and wound up coloring several stories in the book including the first-ever appearance of Sergio Aragonés' creation, Groo the Wanderer.
People always ask us why Groo's costume is orange. Here is the absolutely true answer: It's orange because Gordon decided to color it orange and he decided that because he knew orange was my favorite color and he figured I'd like it. He colored all the early Groo comics until he decided he should be devoting that time to his animation career, which is when Tom Luth took over that harried position.
Here is a very partial list of cartoon shows Gordon worked on. This is in no particular order: Bob's Burgers, Brickleberry, Ultimate Spider-Man, Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, The Avengers, Fangface, Plastic Man, Saturday Supercade, Life With Louie, 101 Dalmatians, Hercules, Buzz Lightyear, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Family Guy, Teen Wolf, Bonkers, The Berenstain Bears, Adventure Time, Thundarr the Barbarian, ABC Weekend Special, CBS Storybreak and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. The creators of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes cartoon show based one of its characters on Gordon.
In 2011, he was diagnosed with what turned out to be an extremely rare kind of cancer. After that, he was in and out of hospitals and while there were hopeful periods for him and his terrific wife Donna, the news just got worse and worse. Through it all though, he never stopped working. His employers — especially the folks on Bob's Burgers — were willing (and nice enough) to accommodate his needs. He was that valuable to them.
He was valuable to everyone around him: Valuable as a friend, valuable as an ally, valuable as a person with a strong sense of right and wrong and compassion. He died this morning around 2 AM.
Some of you may recall that in 2011, I lost another very close friend, Earl Kress, to cancer. Earl and Gordon were friends and when Gordon showed up at the memorial service for Earl, it had to have been especially emotional for him. The day before, Gordon had learned that he had cancer.
He didn't tell any of his friends at the time. He knew it would sadden them and while some in his position might have enjoyed the sympathy, Gordon was all about making people happy. When we finally heard, he downplayed it and did his best to soldier on and remain cheery and whenever we spoke, he seemed more concerned with the burden it was placing on Donna than on his own uncertain future. He was well enough for the two of them to attend the Stan Freberg Tribute last November but I don't think he got out much, except for medical reasons, after that.
At moments like this, you get conflicted. I do, anyway. On the one hand, I'm glad it's over because Gordon was past any realistic hope of getting better and I know how he felt about lingering. On the other, I'm just so sorry to lose a guy like that. If you knew him, you know exactly how I feel.