Ivan Hoth

Cartoonist, illustrator, animator, and businessman, Ivan Hoth is one of the most well known individuals in the history of animation. 

Born into a family of doctors, Ivan began his artistic career from a young age, drawing his brother’s pets: a spider and a goat. He would regularly read the newspapers his father turned over to him, pouring over the comic strips inside and taking inspiration from them in his artwork. It was during those days, according to Ivan, that his desire to be a cartoonist began. However, his father had different plans for young Ivan and pushed him to pursue the family practice, sending him off to medical school in hopes that, according to Ivan, it would dissuade his son from the life of an artist. 

His fathers wishes were granted for a short while, with Ivan attending medical school for two years. However, Ivan was self admittedly a poor student, and a persistent troublemaker for the staff of the institution. He would regularly draw during class and struggle to focus on lessons, often getting distracted and failing to understand the teacher’s instructions. At the conclusion of his second year, Ivan dropped out of medical school and took on a variety of work wherever he could, while continuing to draw in his free time.

During this time, Ivan would submit multiple comic strips to the papers. Although young and having no prior experience, the quality of his work impressed the head of the Kellbridge Chronicle. In the early days of Ivan Hoth's employment, he shadowed the prominent artist Lewis Pardain, a well regarded cartoonist. The two would quickly become friends, and in their third year of acquaintance became roommates, sharing an apartment from which they created their own independent comics in secret.  

The two's friendship could not be overstated. As an incredibly private and introverted individual, Ivan was incredibly shy and struggled to communicate with others, typically preferring to hunker down in his office space to draw his days away. It was Lewis’s kindness and mentorship that drew him out of his shell, and the two would hold very long and rousing conversations about the arts and their futures. Most of what we can learn today about Ivan’s life is the result of Lewis’s recollections. 

From these recollections, we can learn things such as Ivan’s fascination with the morbid and macabre, which is something that has been largely forgotten and went unmentioned in official Liquid Laff books. He had an intense love for ghost stories, tall tales, and folklore, things which influenced his comics and the early cartoons he produced at Liquid Laff. 

While working at Kellbridge Chronicle, Ivan began experimenting with animation. As someone who had never known of animation until moving to the city, he found himself immediately swept up in the possibilities of cartoon motion. It was through his partnership with Lewis Pardain that Liquid Laff Pictures would eventually be founded, with both friends leaving behind Kellbridge Chronicle and pooling together with friends met along their artistic careers to make this dream a reality. 

Liquid Laff struggled during the early days of its life, for as a fledgling animation studio, it had to compete against other studios of the time. Their earliest character - Hobble the Hound - was not a particularly popular character, and the works of their studio were only shown in a few small theaters that did not bring in enough revenue for the studio to sustain itself. Ivan and Lewis would regularly work late into the night, long after everyone had left the studio, brainstorming ideas to keep the company afloat and desperately trying to create something that would propel their studio out of its precarious situation.

In interviews Ivan stated these years to be the most exciting yet horrific years of his life, his nights sleepless with the stress of his dream crumbling before it got off the ground. This recollection has been confirmed by accounts from former workers, stating that during the early days of the studio they would often witness Ivan descending into an almost manic state, pacing, tearing at his hair, and teetering on the edge of collapsing in the studio from sheer exhaustion. Lewis would confide privately in others his worries that the two of them had gotten in over their heads.

The future of everyone involved in this studio was uncertain, the clock was ticking, and Hobble the Hound cartoons were being released in declining quality. This would all change when Ivan Hoth created Maisy the Marvelous Mutt. 

This character, originally designed as a minor character, was extremely popular with audiences. She sprung the studio into stardom and Ivan would eventually throw away Hobble the Hound entirely in favor of Maisy. 

Ivan would work on every single production of Liquid Laff, sometimes as a storyboard artist and sometimes helping to paint cels. He liked to be outside his office whenever possible, preferring to be amongst his workers and contributing what he could to their productions. The studio would produce several more animated features from the building he and Lewis had rented, but as more and more people were brought aboard, it became clear to both founders that the studio would need to be relocated in order to accommodate for the increased workforce.

Relocating to Chicago Illinois, Ivan would cut the ribbon to his new studio to much fanfare. It was a golden new era for Liquid Laff Pictures. A dark cloud shadowed over this era in the form of Ivan’s declining health due to undisclosed causes. He hid this from his employees, however, and it would not become public knowledge until his death. 

Despite his ever increasing fame, Ivan remained a very reserved and private individual. Lewis would typically handle speaking to the press in Ivan’s place. It made Ivan an oddity amongst other studio heads and he was noted as never showing any interest in starting a family or marrying. Most of his free time would be spent with Lewis Pardain, with the two going fishing during the warmer seasons and snowshoeing/skating during the winter. 

Although his studio would eventually stray away from spooky-natured cartoons, Ivan continued to show his love of the macabre in other ways, such as using much of his personal income to discreetly fund horror movies and smaller science fiction projects—-something which was not known until after his death. Ivan refused to be credited in these productions, he simply seemed to love the horror genre and desired to give back to it in any way he could. 

In the last years of his life, Ivan would withdraw further from public view, only being visited by Lewis and longtime coworkers. It is still not known what afflicted Ivan and likely will never be known. Ivan would pass away at his residence with Lewis at his side.