Cartoon Brew remembers those from the animation industry who passed away in 2021.
In a year already saturated with tragedy, news of yet another passing in the animation world was often the last thing we wanted to hear. Yet we covered more deaths in 2021 than in any previous year: 35 in all.
This isn’t necessarily because the past 12 months saw excess deaths (none of the ones we wrote about were confirmed to be linked to Covid-19). But more than ever, we saw in obituaries a chance to pay tribute to brilliant below-the-line artists and voice actors, influential executives, giants of international animation, pioneering women and artists of color — the people who power our industry, yet are rarely recognized as such.