HOLDCROFT Tina

Born: Stoke-on-Trent England. She immigrated to Toronto, Canada with her parents when she was twelve years old.

She is the illustrator of several children’s books and has drawn illustrations in many national and international magazines and newspapers, including Owl where she illustrated the “Dr. Zed” series plus miscellaneous features from Summer 1983 till Summer 1994 when Owl changed publishers.

She partnered with Warren Clements to create the cartoon strip “Hizzoner” which was a satire of Mayor John Sewell and Toronto municipal politics.

WORK:

ILLUSTRATOR:

BOOK TEXT:

Content dictionary & Cover book front:

Scuttlebutt… Expressions of Nautical Nature. Writ., Teri Degler. Western Producer Prairie Books, 1989.

Straight From The Horse’s Mouth … And Other Animal Expressions. Writ., Teri Degler. Western Producer Prairie Books, 1989.

ILLUSTRATOR:

BOOK TEXT & GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:

Content science experiments & Cover book wrap around:

Energy Matters. Ontario Ministry of Energy/Owl Magazine, 1992: “Energy Changes” (Dr. Zed): 4-5, and “ Dr. Zed’s Mini-Greenhouse”:19.

PERIODICAL TEXT:

Content advertisement:

Toronto Life, January 1981: “It’s time for Summer fun”: 60-61.

PERIODICAL TEXT & GRAPHIC:

Content science experiments:

Owl …: “ Dr. Zed’s …” Consultant Gordon Penrose. …. Young Naturalist Foundation

8-6, Sum. 1983: “… Water Show Pt I: 7, Pt II: 26. 8-10: December 1983: “… Stunt Plane”: 10-11. 10-7, Sept. 1985: “… Hall Of Mirrors”: 26-27. 10-8, October 1985: “… Jelly Pops.” 10-11. 11-1, January 1986: “… Magic Mud”: 8-9. 11-5, May 1986: “… Puffa-chute”: 24-25. 11-8, Oct. 1986: “… See-all Cat’s Eyes”: 10-11. 11-10, Dec. 1986: “… Magic Balancing Wand”: 10-11. 12-1, January 1987: “… Electric Horses”: 12-13. 12-3, March 1987: “… Magnetic Hill”: 10-11. 12-5, May 1987: “… Animal Kite”: 10-11. 12-6, Summer 1987: “…Elephant Whistle”: 12-13. 12-9, Nov. 1987: “… asks “Do You Have ESP?”: 8-9. 13-1, January 1988: “… Green Sheep”: 8-9.

13-2, Feb. 1988: “… Valentine Hearts”: 10-11. 13-3, March 1988: “… Magic Propeller”: 8-9. 16-1, Jan. 1991: “… Balloon On The Move”: 1-11. 16-8, Oct. 1991: “… Mini-Volcano”: 8-9. 17-8, Oct. 1992” “… Moving Window”: 8-9. 17-10, Dec. 1992: “…No-Soil-Mini-Garden”: 10-11. 18-2, Feb. 1993: “… Flying Thread Machine.” 26-27. 18-5 May 1993: “… Plant Sprayer”: 20-21. 18-6, Sum. 1993: “…Twirling Mini-copter”: 9-8. 19-1, Jan. 1994: “… Pinhole Viewer”: 10-11. 19-3, March 1994: “… Gluey Bouncer”: 10-11. 19-4, April 1994: “… Goes North”: 8-9. Interview. 19-5, May 1994: “… Collapsing Building”: 18-19

Owl, 19-6, Summer 1994: “ Dr. Zed’s Satellite Balloon”. Consultant Gordon Penrose: 18-19. Owl Communications.

Owl, 21-7, September, 1996: “Dr. Zed’s Exploding Egg” Consultant Gordon Penrose: 22-23. Owl Communications.

Content information:

Owl …: “…” Writ., Jay Ingram. Except where otherwise noted. Young Naturalist Foundation

8-4, April 1983: “Pigeon Go Home: The Mysteries of Bird Navigation”: 12-13. 8-6, Summer 1983: “Bicycle Olympics”: 14. Idea from Raymond Schuessler. 9-3, March 1984: “Do Birds Have Teeth?”: 8-9. Various authors.

Content games:

Owl …: “…”…Young Naturalist Foundation
8-6, Summer 1983: “Follow The Maze”: 2-2.	9-1 January 1984: “Crazy Veggies”: 28-29.

Tree House Discovery Magazine for Families, … : “…”: …. A supplement in Owl Summer 1993. Young Naturalist Foundation

Summer 1993: “Ottawa: A Capital Family Holiday.” 12-14. Spring 1994: “Cooking Together”: 18 May/June 1994: “Neighbours”: 3, 8, 10, 11; “Cooking Together”: 12.

WRITER & ILLUSTRATOR:

PERIODICAL TEXT & GRAPHIC:

Content story:

chickadee, 9-3, Mar. 1987: “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Adapt. From Aesop: 20-21.

SOURCE:

Article book:

Scuttlebutt… Expressions of Nautical Nature. Western Producer Prairie Books, 1989: “About the illustrator”: 115.

GALLERY:

Scuttlebutt, 1989: Front cover.

Straight From The Horse’s Mouth, 1989: Front cover.

  Energy Matters. Ontario Ministry of Energy/Owl Magazine, 1992.

Energy Matters. 1992: Dr. Zed’s Mini-Greenhouse”:19.

   Owl, 19-6, Summer 1994: 18-19.

 

HOGAN, William

                                            Hogan’s Heroes: Back cover.

William Hogan was born in Montréal but moved with his family to Chatham now part of the city of Miramichi when he was two years old. After his father died, and at the age of 17, he quit grade 11 in school, and went to work at a commercial artist’s shop in Montréal. He eventually returned to Chatham and completed high school. After leaving high school, he worked at a finance company, and ran a store among other things to earn a living. At the same time he studied drawing at St. Mary’s Academy in Newcastle, another district of Miramichi

He entered cartooning after winning a local newspaper’s contest for the best cartoon in 1976 with a $75 prize and a job drawing weekly cartoons. An expanding number of newspapers including the Globe and Mail purchased his cartoons. However, his work appeared principally in the Times-Transcript [Moncton] and regularly in Fredericton’s Daily Gleaner, Campbellton’s Tribune, and the Miramichi Leader. He produced court room drawing for the C.B.C..

He created the cartoon strip “River Rats”.

He was an active member of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists. He has won several Atlantic Community Newspaper Association Awards for best cartoon and best original art work. In 1989 he was winner of the Citation of Merit Atlantic Journalism Award.

Josh Beutel another editorial cartoonist has commented that “Generally speaking, Bill’s work was fairly gentle. It wasn’t unkind.”

He died of a heart attack November 15, 2001.

WORK:

CARTOONIST:

BOOK GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:

Content:

Cartoon editorial:

Portfoolio: 1989 in Canadian Caricature. Ed., Guy Badeaux . Writ., Charles Gordon. Macmillan of Canada, 1989.

Portfoolio …: The Year in Canadian Caricature. Ed., Guy Badeaux . Writ., Charles Gordon. Macmillan of Canada, ….
6: 1990.	7: 1991.	8: 1992.	9: 1993.

Portfoolio…: The Year’s Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons. Ed., Guy Badeaux . Writ., Ken MacQueen Macmillan of Canada, ….
10: 1994.	11: 1995.	12: 1996.

Portfoolio …. The Year’s Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons. Ed., Guy Badeaux . Writ., Jay Stone Macmillan of Canada, …
13, 1997.	14, 1998.	15, 1999.	16, 2000.	17, 2001.

Portfoolio 18: The Year’s Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons. Ed., Guy Badeaux. Writ., Scott Feschuk. McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2002

BOOK GRAPHIC COLLECTION:

Content editorial cartoon:

Hogan’s Heroes – The Best of Bill Hogan’s Political Cartoons. Non-Entity Press Ltd., 1990.

PERIODICAL TEXT & GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:

Content folio:

Canadian Cartoonist, 5, April 1990: “W.A. Hogan”: 26-28.

SOURCE:

Article book:

Hogan’s Heroes – The Best of Bill Hogan’s Political Cartoons. 1990: Back cover.

Portfoolio: 1989 in Canadian Caricature. 1989: “W.A. (Bill) Hogan.” 208.

Article newspaper:

Globe and Mail, 22 Nov. 2001: “N.B. cartoonist’s work poked fun yet never offended”: R11.

GALLERY:

Hogan’s Heroes – The Best of Bill Hogan’s Political Cartoons.

Hogan’s Heroes – The Best of Bill Hogan’s Political Cartoons.

Hogan’s Heroes – The Best of Bill Hogan’s Political Cartoons.

Hogan’s Heroes

HOEDEMAN Jacobus (Co)

Co Hoedeman working on one of the characters for Chateau de sable/Sand Castle  Globe & Mail, 14 June 2025, O12, Courtesy National Film Board.

Born 1 August 1940, in Amsterdam Holland, he lived through the German occupation and the Great Hunger of 1944/45. To avoid this, he, at 4 years of age, and his siblings were taken from Amsterdam 85 kilometers into the countryside to live with relatives. They did not return to Amsterdam until 1945 when it was liberated by Canadians. Hongerwinter would later be the subject of one of his later animated films.

As a youngster, he worked in his father’s and grandfather’s tailor shops. This experience later helped him when he designed puppets and built props. At 15 years he left school and became a junior animator at Multifilm which later grew into Cinecentrum. Here he learned stop motion animation.

He had discovered the National Film Board while studying its films when he was a student. Wanting to do the kind of experimental animation coming out of the N.F.B. He, his wife, and a reel of his animated clips landed in Montréal in November 1965. He was hired by the N.F.B. where he worked in model animation and puppets in the English unit until transferred by Wolf Koening to the French unit, even though he didn’t speak French. However, this unit focused on music and sound effects rather than dialogue.

Continental Drift (1968) is his first film. It is a nine-minute documentary, partly live action with voice over, explaining the theory of continental drift. The set of films that followed it are totally different. Music and sound effects replace dialogue and the attitude changed. Whimsey and imagination replace instruction. Their goal becomes the joy of watching changing images and listening to the music. In Oddball (1969), Co created a twisted wire puppet which chooses and rejects various coloured balls, but the star of the film is a white ball which the puppet initially ignores but then selects. When he plays with it, it dissolves into its primary colours then absorbs the colours back into itself. The result is a kaleidoscope of spheres and colours. One is reminded of some of the work of Norman McLaren. His next film Matrioska (1970), involved the manipulation of Russian dolls, beautifully painted wooden figures of decreasing sizes nestled inside each other. Here the dolls come out of each other and dance to Russian tunes. Tchou-tchou (1972), a thirteen minute film came next. For it Co manipulated child building blocks some of which had figures painted on them, but the figures weren’t static on the blocks. They moved as well. The story centers around a boy and a girl and a destructive dragon which terrifies them. Ultimately, while the dragon is sleeping they change it into a train by altering the blocks that compose it. Then they and the other characters ride it. The climax of this series is the thirteen minute film Chateau de sable/Sand Castle (1977), which Co called “my perfect film”. Others agreed he was awarded an Oscar for it in 1978. As in the earlier films, it uses music, sound effects and physical material, in this case sand and latex. The story begins with a sandstorm. After the wind dies down, a creature emerges and begins to sculpt sand creatures some of whom create other creatures. All of these characters set about building a sandcastle. As the castle is completed the wind begins again. As it increases in intensity the creatures seek shelter in the castle as it is eventually buried.

After being awarded the Oscar, Co received worldwide invitations to attend conferences, give workshops and judge competitions.

While doing these films, he became interested in Innuit culture and travelled to the arctic where he researched traditional stories and enlisted Innuit printmakers and carvers to create characters for his films including Lummaq (1975), an Innuit legend and The Sniffing Bear (1992). A cautionary tale where a polar bear experiences hallucinations after sniffing gasoline from a can.

In later experiments he inserted 2 dimensional puppets into 3 dimensional environments. A successful result of these experiments was Charles et François (1987) a film about aging and death.

In the 1980’s Co divorced then later married Joyce Ryckman, a writer and art consultant, with whom he partnered for most of the films after 1989.

Crossing the century divide, he animated a trilogy of films called the ‘Seasons of Ludovic”, The Snow Gift (1998), A Crocodile in My Garden (2000) and Magic in the Air (2002). The rights to this popular trilogy were purchased by private interests but the project became an unhappy time for Co. Convinced that “Ludovic” was losing his charm to commercial interests Co battled with script writers, producers and broadcasters, he resigned from his director role early in the production. Although the 26 episode series was popular it lasted only one season.

In 2003, Cinémathèque québécoise exhibited a retrospective of his films.

He was laid off from the N.F.B. in 2004 but continued to work with them as a freelancer and independent producer.

Another project was 55 Chouette’s/Socks (2011) where he animated the poem by Marie Jacobs about the earlier mentioned Hongerwinter in the Netherlands during 1944 to 1945. For this Canada/Netherlands production he worked with black silhouettes from the Dutch tradition of shadow play called schimmenspel.

His final film was The Cardinal (2016). He financed it himself. It is a poignant film exploring the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A man deployed abroad returns with PTSD which disrupts his family particularly his relationship with his daughter. It is their common love of birds and particularly a cardinal that brings them back together.

Retiring the following year when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. He died 26 May 2025.

SOURCE:

Article book:

Cartoon Capers, Wri., Karen Mazurkewich. McArthur & Co., 1999: 83-85.

a handbook of Canadian film. Writ., Eleanor Beattie. Peter Martin Associates Ltd/Take One, 1973: “Co

Hoedeman”: 179.

Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film. Ed., Wyndham Wise. University of Toronto Press 2001:

“Hoedeman Co.”: 100.

Article newspaper:

Globe & Mail, 14 June 2025: Obituary: “Oscar Winning Stop-Motion Filmmaker Devoted His Life To Storytelling”. Writ., Frank Edwards: O12.

 

HODDY Matthew

From Brisbane Australia, this cartoonist attended Queensland University of Technology.

He is now (2018) based in Toronto and is known for the webcomics “Space Pyrates” and “The Saga of Metal Beard”.

WORK:

ILLUSTRATOR:

BOOK GRAPHIC:

Content portrait:

Dust-Ship Glory. Car., Elaine L. Will. Renegade Art Entertainment, February 2018: “Pin Up Gallery Tom Sukanen.”

HOBBS Ron

A long time friend of Dave Darrigo, he illustrated Dave’s to create “The Snake”.

WORK:

ILLUSTRATOR:

BOOK GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:

Content story black & white:

The Comic Eye, Ed., Mark Innes. Blind Bat Press, December 2007: “Burn Evil Comics Burn”. Writ., Dave Darrigo: 164-171.

PERIODICAL GRAPHIC:

Content portrait:

Wordsmith, 5, May 1986: “Pulp Portrait, The Shadow”: 31.

Content story & Cover front:

The Snake, 1, Dec. 1989: “The Snake: The Den of Madame Joy.” Writ. Dave Darrigo. Illus. Ron Hobbs: 1-19; 23-30 & Peter Hsu: 20-22.

HO Yi-Suing Oliver

Professional writer and editor.

WORK:

WRITER:

BOOK GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:

Content story:

Toronto Comics Anthology, Ed., Steven Andrews et al. Toronto Comics Anthology, 2014: “The Tale Of The Eyeball Tree.” Illus., Brice Hall: 13-24.

Toronto Comics v., 2, Ed., Steve Andrews et al. Toronto Comics Anthology, May 2015: “The Monster Artist.” Illus., Rena Chan (Rozsas): 130-141.

PERIODICAL GRAPHIC ANTHOLOGY:

Cauldron Magazine, Fall 2020. No publisher: “Strong As Death” Illus., Gwen Howarth: 49-50.  (Text & colour illustration).

SOURCE:

Article book:

Toronto Comics Anthology, Toronto Comics Anthology, 2014: “Writers”: 80.

HIZZONER

This cartoon half page strip which was a political satire observing the Toronto City Council during Toronto Mayor Sewell’s tenure was created by Tina Holdcroft and first appeared in the Fanfare section of the Globe & Mail February 17, 1979.

Initially, Tina both wrote and illustrated the strip from February 17 to 24. The writing task was then taken up by Paul McGrath from March 3 to April 7, 1979. Holdcroft then resumed cartooning the strip from April 21 to June 31. From July 7, 979 to March 15, 1980 Warren Clements took over the writing task. .

MEDIUM:

NEWSPAPER:

Content strip cartoon:

Globe & Mail, Fanfare Section. Feb. 17, 1979 to Mar. 15. !980: “Hizzoner”.

GALLERY:

Globe & Mail, Fanfare, 9 September 1979: 3.

HISTORY OF CANADA

See STORY/HISTORY OF CANADA

 

HIRSCHFELD Al

WORK:

ILLUSTRATOR:

DISC AUDIO 33RPM

Art work:

Stephen Leacock: Gertrude the Governess and other works Read by Christopher Plummer. Narrator, Christopher Plummer. Caedmon, 1977. TC 1559.

 

HINTON ANIMATION STUDIOS

September 19 1986, Kevin Gillis and Sheldon Wiseman set up their own studio on Hinton Avenue in Ottawa, to take over production of The Raccoons animation series from Crawley-Atkinson, after a dispute over service costs. The partnership later broke up and the company was dissolved 9 December 1999. Sheldon Wiseman went on the organize Lacewood Productions.