John Ahern

From the November 2008 Peg-Board

Retired layout and storyboard artist JOHN AHERN (left) passed away October 29 at the age of seventy-five.

The following was written on the occasion of his winning the TAG Golden Award in 2005:

Anybody who ever worked with John Ahern knows that if you had an afternoon to kill, all you had to do was go over to his desk and whisper "rock climbing" and John would take it from there.

John began his career at Disney Studios in 1955. In the 1960s he moved over to Hanna-Barbera and worked as a layout artist on Josie and the Pussycats, The New Tom and Jerry Show, Catanooga Cats and Charlotte's Web.

In the 70s he did layouts on Pebbles and Bamm Bamm, Speed Buggy, Godzilla and Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch at Hanna-Barbera, and the Sylvanian Family at DIC.

In 1978 he was an animator on the Sanrio feature Metamorphosis, in 1979 he was Production Manager on Plastic Man for Ruby-Spears, then returned to storyboarding at Marvel Studios in the 80s on Spiderman and GI Joe, then went over to Warner Bros on Tiny Toons Adventures from 1990 to 1992. He once again did storyboards on Spiderman for Marvel in 1998.

Ahern also taught layout at the American Animation Institute.

You can sign an online funeral guestbook at tinyurl.com/ahern-guestbook, or leave private condolences for the Ahern family at tinyurl.com/ahern-condolences.