The animation community is mourning the passing today of one of its own and most beloved, Børge Ring – a renown Danish comic strip artist, jazz musician and animator.

In 1978 he animated a short Oh My Darling, which won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and received an Academy Award nomination – and in 1985 he won the Oscar for Anna and Bella. In 2000, together with his wife, he made the film Run of the Mill, which received the UNICEF Children’s Award.

As a jazz musician in his teens, as guitarist and bass player, Ring was a member of Svend Asmussen’s band and performed on recordings by Leo Mathisen and Pia Beck. He became a volunteer for Jørgen Müller’s animation studio in Copenhagen in the late 1930s.

He opened his own animation studio in Copenhagen in 1948 and made advertising films till closing down in 1951. Traveling to Amsterdam, Holland, Ring performed as a musician then landed a job with the Marten Toonder Studios in 1952. Ring stayed with that studio for 21 years and was became of the key animators there. He married his colleague Joanika Zwart in 1971 and left he studio in 1973.

Oh My Darling

Although mainly known as an animator, he worked on comics in the 1970s and 1980s. For Sjors magazine, he drew Distel in cooperation with his wife Joanika Ring, as well as the slapstick series Kobus en Kachelmans. At the same time, he also illustrated several stories starring Disney’s Chip ‘n’ Dale for the Dutch Donald Duck weekly through the early 1990s.

A sample of Borge’s comic book work – a few panels from Disney’s Chip n’ Dale

In addition to his award winning short films, Ring animated on several features and TV specials – including Heavy Metal, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, Asterix and Cleopatra and Spielberg’s We’re Back! Ring received the Winsor McCay award at the 39th edition of the Annie Awards, in February 2012.

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.

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