Pineapple Squared Ent's Creative Director David Mitton died from a sudden heart attack last week. At the time of his death Mitton was overseeing a number of Pineapple Squared's projects including the animated epic for boys, ADVENTURES ON ORSUM ISLAND.

Television industry stalwart Mitton worked for the THUNDERBIRDS creator Gerry Anderson in the 1960s as a special effects floor technician on THUNDERBIRDS. It was there that he met Pineapple Squared's Supervising Director David Lane.

The ASSOCIATED PRESS reports that cartoonist Ted Key, creator of the comic strip HAZEL, has died at the age of 95.

Key's son, Peter Key confirmed to the AP that Key died at his home on Saturday in the Philadelphia suburb of Tredyffrin Township after a 1 1/2-year battle with cancer.

HAZEL, about a bossy maid, debuted in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST in 1943 and evolved into a primetime TV series starring Shirley Booth in the 1960s on NBC and CBS.

Veteran animator and director Andy Knight died last week, according to Cartoon Brew and several other blog sites.

Knight, 46, died of a stroke on April 10. He co-founded Toronto animation studio Red Rover in 1994 and had an extensive career in Europe and Canada.

A Facebook page has been set up to collect memories of Knight from his friends and family.

Ollie Johnston, the last surviving animator of Disney's famed Nine Old Men, passed away April 14, 2008. Johnston worked for the Mouse House from 1935 to 1978, working as an animator on such classics as SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, FANTASIA, BAMBI and PINOCCHIO. He last worked on THE RESCUERS, a film for which he was caricatured as the cat Rufus.

Several blog sites are reporting that Justin Wright, who had been with Pixar in the story department for just more than a year, has died at age 27 from a heart attack.

His Pacific Union College alumni profile details Wright's journey to Pixar and his ultimately life-ending struggle with heart problems on Tuesday evening.

While in the hospital revering from a heart transplant at age 12, Wright drew pictures, something his doctor at Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital took note of, and took him on a Pixar tour.

THE ROCKETEER creator Dave Stevens passed away on March 10, 2008, from complications due to leukemia. He was 52 years old. The comic book illustrator's style captured the good girl quality of 1950s pin-ups.

Stevens began his career working on newspaper comic strips, including TARZAN OF THE APES and STAR WARS. For Hanna-Barbera, Stevens storyboarded such series as JANA OF THE JUNGLE and SUPER FRIENDS.

Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck, passed away Sunday at the age of 60 in Las Vegas.

The comics legend lived in Los Angeles for more than 20 years, but lost his battle to pulmonary fibrosis in a Las Vegas hospital.

His friend Mark Evanier posted the news Monday on Gerber’s blog (www.stevegerber.com/sgblog), just a week after Gerber himself had reported on his work on a new Doctor Fate book.

Brice Mack, who painted animation backgrounds for Walt Disney in the '30s, '40s and '50s and subsequently produced and directed commercials and films, died Jan. 2nd in Hollywood, California. He was 90.

Mack painted backgrounds for SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, SONG OF THE SOUTH, CINDERELLA, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, PETER PAN and LADY AND THE TRAMP, among others. He also painted backgrounds for many shorts, including the 1942 Academy Award-winning LEND A PAW.

Legendary artist and model-maker Joyce Carlson, who inked many of Disney's best-known films and helped design "It's a Small World," died Jan. 2 at her home in Orlando, Florida. She was 84.

Animation veteran Jack Zander has passed away on Dec. 17, 2007, at the age of 99.

Zander began his career in animation through a fluke. While he was attending Chouinard School in California, he took a job at Roemer Grey Studios, claiming to be an animator when in actuality he had no animation experience at all. Learning on the job, he worked under the tutelage of Tom and Bob McKimson. After Roemer Grey Studios closed, Zander went on to work at Warner Bros. and later made the move from Los Angeles to New York to work at Van Buren Studios and later for Terrytoons.