The Horse of Revenge childhood comic book

The complete story circa:1951

Ecological Cartoons

These cartoons were drawn around 1997
"The Last Redwood." What would a crosscut show if the last redwood was cut down? click pictures for detail
"The Axeman Cometh". Imagine what the forest must have looked like when all the giant redwoods were 1st growth.

"Callling Mother Nature".

Uncle Spike 1920's

Uncle Spike,(right) my dad's older brother, the uncle I was named after. Here he is in a pith helmet during his tour of the Far East in the Philippine Islands. He played the banjo in a band on an ocean liner. circa:1920
A book of sheet music signed by "Spike Kearney" 1919.

Watsonville High School Year Book

I was officially known as "Spike" in my 1956 High School year book.

Walt Disney

Working in animation and cartooning.Walt Disney introduces Disneyland. photo:(c)WDP. Walt Disney was a big influence on me. As a child I drew Mickey and Donald, and wanted to work for the Disney Studios. Later in my life I got to work in animation projects with retired Disney artists.

Kearney with friend Lee Blair. Lee and his wife Mary worked on many of the Disney classics. They lived in Soquel, near Santa Cruz and Aptos,CA. photo shot by S. Sweenson at Disneyland during cartoon convention.

Bob Carlson animator from the classic Disney films. He started out on Snow White and Fantasia in the late 1930's on through the 1950's. He then opened an animation studio in Aptos CA. There is where I worked as an inbetweener with Bob on national TV commercials such as Green Giant,Tony the Tiger, Monster Vitamins, TV series: Fat Albert, Lassie, Mickey Mouse Club, etc. It was a thrill to be working with Bob and hearing about the old Disney days! photo by Kearney

Animation Scene Layouts"Tony the Tiger says goodbye to the animals of the jungle".


Little Sprout in a Green Giant TV spot working with live action props.


Snap, Crackle and Pop dish up some cereal.


Borden's Elsie the Cow in a scene with her son.


Layout showing the action path of a mouse on a motorcycle.


Bob Carlson with his pet cat watching over him, at the animation table working on TV spots out of his home in Rio Del Mar/Aptos CA. I took over the Aptos Studio space and turned it into a photo/graphic arts shop.

Larry Kilty at work on animation. We became great friends and worked on many projects in the years ahead. Larry had worked at the Disney Studio in the 1940's and 1950's.

Ken Kearney at work on animation at the Bob Carlson Studio (Carmen Productions).

Harry Reeves (middle) was a story man at Disney's. He was a friend of my Dad's and I met him when I was about nine years old. He gave me several story-board drawings that I kept over the years.


A letter I recieved from Ward Kimball one of the Disney "nine old men".




Childhood drawings of Donald and Mickey from when I was about 8 years old. circa:1945


Walt Disney Comics with Donald Duck drawn by Carl Barks. These comic books were an inspiration to a young kid like me. They had great attention to detail and story.



The famous "Lost In The Andes" and the square eggs story.


Walter T. Foster/How to Draw books This series of large paper back books were wonderful! The one on animation was authored by Preston Blair the brother of Lee Blair, both Disney artists.



ASIFA/SF
Karl Cohen with Ken Kearney at San Francisco srceening of Animation and Propaganda. Cohen is one of the world's foremost scholars in the field of animation and editor of the Animation Association newsletter San Francisco branch. July 2007



Bill Peet wrote a biography about his days at the Disney Studio that wasn't such a rosy picture.

Darkroom Enlarger

This is the way it used to be done, before the digital age! There was nothing like that darkroom magic that would happen as the print was being developed! This image from old catalog