Ron Cobb, the artist who contributed to the success of such productions as “Conan the Barbarian”, “Alien” and “Back to the Future”, died exactly on his birthday on September 20, 2020.
The cartoonist was born in 1937 in Los Angeles. When he was 18, he managed to get an animation job at Disney Studios, although he did not have the appropriate education. Disney first appreciated his talents, allowing him to work, among others at Sleeping Beauty , and after its graduation in 1957, he dismissed him. For three years, Cobb pursued a variety of jobs, rather than arts, until he was drafted into the military. He was even in Vietnam where he worked as a draftsman.
Then he became a freelancer, and later collaborated with the radical, anti-war newspaper Free Press as a caricaturist. In the following years, he designed the covers of music albums, worked on films such as Dark Star , he also created the symbol of ecology in the form of the Theta sign (from the first letters of the words “environment” and “organism”).
He moved to Australia in the 1970s and worked with the alternative press. However, he did not break off contacts with the United States. In the following years, he collaborated in the creation of sets for such famous films as: Star Wars, Alien, Conan the Barbarian, Back to the Future or True Lies . He co-created the first version of ET , titled Night Skies (it failed due to budgetary reasons). He collaborated with the Rocket Science Games studio, for which he created games such as The Space Bar.
He has published several books with his drawings, such as The Cobb book and Cobb Again , then Colorvision . He also directed films ( Garbo , 1992) and wrote screenplays. It is difficult to list all his achievements in one short article.
“I am fascinated by a person in stressful situations, I am fascinated by a person in crisis”
spoke in 1972. Perhaps that is why his drawings and sets appealed to the audience so much. Everyone could identify with the characters’ problems, although the film set was fantastic.
Works by Ron Cobb are classics. His works are known (and reproduced) all over the world.
As reported by his wife Robin Love, Ron Cobb died on September 20 of Alzheimer’s disease.