Dan Lee, who helped create such characters as TOY STORY 2’s Jessie, MONSTERS, INC.’s Boo, and FINDING NEMO’s namesake, Nemo, passed away on Jan. 15, 2005, at the age of 35 of advanced metastatic lung cancer.

Legendary comics and graphic novel artist and writer Will Eisner died Jan. 3, 2005, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the age of 87, following complications from quadruple heart bypass surgery, reports Bob Andelman, author of the upcoming authorized biography, WILL EISNER: A SPIRITED LIFE.

A comics artist since the 1930s, Eisner was the first to use "silent" balloonless panels to show characters' emotions by focusing attention on their accentuated facial expressions.

Actor Jerry Orbach, who voiced Lumiere in Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, has died of prostate cancer at 69 in Manhattan on Dec. 28, 2004. Orbach is best known for his work on TV and the stage. He starred as veteran cop Det. Lennie Briscoe on LAW & ORDER and was the original narrator in the off-off-Broadway hit THE FANTASTICKS, which ran for more than 40 years.

John Parr Miller, an early animator for Walt Disney and best-selling children's books illustrator, died on Oct. 29, 2004, in Long Island, reports THE NEW YORK TIMES. He was 91 and lived in Manhasset, New York. His death was announced by his family.

J. P. Miller is best known for his work on the “Little Golden Books” line of books. His THE LITTLE RED HEN is still a perennial seller, despite being published a half a century ago.

Comedian and voice actor Dayton Allen died on Nov. 11, 2004 at age 85. Animation fans will remember him most as the voices of Heckle and Jeckle. Born Dayton Allen Bolke, he was a native of New York and he got into show business, following the path of his boyhood friend, Art Carney. Both broke into radio in their teens as disc jockeys and specialists in funny voices. Dayton used his skills on early children's TV shows, dubbing in voices for puppets and often appearing on camera.

Alexandra Tholance, press attaché for CARTOON, passed away Nov.7, 2004, after a long battle with breast cancer.

Alexandra Tholance, press attaché for CARTOON during the past decade, passed away Nov.7, 2004, after a long battle with breast cancer.

Her family has organized a religious ceremony Nov. 10 at 3:00 pm at the Notre Dame Church in Villerupt, the little village east of France near the Belgium/Luxembourg border where she lived with her companion Alain Berberi.

Ivor Wood, the animator who worked on some of the best-loved children's television programs, including THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT, THE WOMBLES, PADDINGTON and POSTMAN PAT, has died in London, reports THE TIMES. He was 72 years old.

Animation checker and actress Kathrin Victor, who was also known as Kathrin Leichliter, died on Oct. 22, 2004 in Los Angeles from complications after a stroke at the age of 81. From 1960 until her retirement in 2000 she worked for Graphic Arts, Snowball, DeTiege, Eagle, Creston, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng, Filmation, Don Bluth, Box Office Originals and Disney TV Animation.

Actor Christopher Reeve, star of four SUPERMAN films and real life hero after becoming paralyzed from the neck down, died Oct. 10, 2004, in Bedford, New York, from heart failure at the age of 52.

The great-looking lead of four SUPERMAN films, THE BOSTONIANS, SOMEWHERE IN TIME and THE REMAINS OF THE DAY became a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair when he broke his neck and injured his spinal cord when he was thrown from a horse in an equestrian event in 1995.

Famed comedian Rodney Dangerfield passed away on Oct. 5, 2004. He was 82. The "I don't get no respect" funnyman had fallen into a coma after undergoing heart surgery on Aug. 25. His publicist said in a statement that Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and developed infectious and abdominal complications. But in the past week he had emerged from the coma.

"When Rodney emerged, he kissed me, squeezed my hand and smiled for his doctors," Dangerfield's wife, Joan, said in the statement.