Leo Sullivan, a much-loved and must-respected gent in the animation community, died last Saturday at the age of 82. That's really not a great photo of Leo above because he's not smiling or laughing in it. Every time I was with Leo, he was smiling and laughing. This obit will tell you some of the reasons he had to laugh and smile, helping create cartoons that made others laugh and smile.
A lot of the shows Leo worked on were shows when he was hired to animate, direct or supervise production on other folks' projects. He was called on all the time for such work because he was so good at it. But I was most impressed by all the projects that Leo launched and/or sold and/or produced himself. At a time when black people weren't all that visible in the cartoon business and certainly not running studios, Leo was opening doors and bring new talent of all colors through them.
Just a great guy. My condolences to his family and his friends. He sure had a lot of friends.