Noble Boy Cometh
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on March 21, 2006 Sign up now!
by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 3/21/2006
For cartoonist and animator Scott Morse, telling stories through art isn't just a day job or a night job—it's both. Spending his days as a story artist at California-based Pixar Animation Studios, Morse's nights involve family, fun and comics. Since 1997's Soulwind, Morse has balanced a career in animation with a passion for comics with breathtaking results, leading to both Eisner and Ignatz award nominations. Scott Morse's newest project finds him exploring his roots as an artist and paying tribute to those who paved the way.
Noble Boy is a touching and light-hearted eulogy to Morse's mentor, animation pioneer Maurice Noble. During his 60 years in the animation industry, Noble was an instrumental figure in Disney animation, along with the famous director Chuck Jones. Nominated several times for Oscars, he won in 1965 as co-director of the animated short film The Dot and the Line. Although he died in 2001 at the age of 90, Noble's lasting effect can be seen in a group of his students who have nicknamed themselves "the Noble boys and girls." As a part of this close-knit club, Morse remembers Noble fondly. "Maurice left the kind of mark that all artists yearn to leave," Morse said. "[Noble's] work speaks to everyone, stops any passerby dead in their tracks, and entrances them."
Scott Morse has had an extensive career in the world of sequential art, whether it is animation or comics. In animation, Morse has done long stints at studios such as Disney, Universal and Cartoon Network. In comics, 1997's Soulwind quickly catapulted him onto a short list of imaginative and inventive comics creators, a reputation that was heightened by such later works as Volcanic Revolver and Barefoot Serpent. Although he has dabbled with such comics icons such as Batman, he has predominantly focused on his own creations. Most recently he has taken steps to launch his own imprint, Red Window, at AdHouse Books.
Under Morse's newly formed Red Window imprint at Virginia-based publisher AdHouse Books, this 32-page book is presented in a children's board book-style format, similar to last year's In The Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman. Morse describes it as "a children's book for adults." AdHouse publisher Chris Pitzer says, "First off, Morse is a talent. I love what he creates." Pitzer explains, "He was looking for help with design, distribution and marketing, to allow him to create more personal work; I felt I had to work with him! The world needs more Scott Morse books."
"Red Window is an outlet for my personal work, a haven I've created where the only rules that exist are the ones I impose on myself as a storyteller," Morse says. "I'm doing my best to create art through the storytelling, and sometimes the overall aesthetic of the physical book itself can help flesh out a specific 'feel' that contributes to the story."
Noble Boy is scheduled for an early April release, with distribution through Diamond Book Distribution. Morse will be at this year's Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco on April 8 & 9 to officially launch the book. At the Comic Con International in San Diego in July he plans to offer a signed and numbered limited edition of the book with a hand-painted wrap-around sleeve, limited to 25 copies. But even if you're not one of the lucky 25 to receive this special edition, the standard release holds much to admire. "The childlike spirit of Maurice's life helped define the ultimate format of the book. Each page is a very heavy card stock, durably bound, which adds to both the physical strength and conceptual aesthetic of the horizontal painted images," Morse says.
The story of Noble Boy works as a tribute, introduction and celebration of the life and lessons of Maurice Noble as told by one of his last students. "There's humanity there," says Morse. "A humanity that is rarely glimpsed as vividly as it is through the fruits of Maurice's career."
