Storyboard from the ill-fated Charlotte’s Web.

An excerpt from Gene Deitch’s How to Succeed in Animation (Don’t Let a Little Thing Like Failure Stop You!).

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the correspondence between Gene Deitch and legendary author E. B. White.

Mirko Hanák produced many character model studies, a few watercolor paintings and a 775-drawing full-color storyboard for Charlotte’s Web before his tragic death, still in his prime. He was a master draughtsman, and simply “wrote” the drawings with a flow-pen. His watercolors were a perfect absorption of Chinese watercolor technique. His work was extremely popular.

Mirko was a natural, a rare genius illustrator of many classic books and calendars. His specialty was animals, and he could draw and paint them all, seemingly effortlessly. And as you can see in these pages, he was also a master of human figures, of expression, and action; a natural for Charlotte’s Web.

His passing compounded the tragedy. We both felt that Charlotte could have been our masterwork. It could have also been a failure, something beyond what we could have managed. My only comfort is that, not having done it, no one can say that it would not have been my masterpiece. It certainly was my extreme failure.

I present here a few of Mirko Hanák’s studies and story sketches for Charlotte’s Web. Maybe Henry White would say they are not up to the Hanna-Barbera standard. But I take satisfaction that Andy White loved them! And that’s what I have as my satisfaction!

Mirko Hanák’s study of Wilbur.