Floyd Norman

Floyd E. Norman (born June 22, 1935) is an American animator who worked on the Walt Disney animated features Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, and The Jungle Book, along with various animated short projects at Disney in the late '50s and early '60s. In 1956, he was the first African American animator at the Disney studios. At age 78, he still works as a storyboard artist, and is a freelance consultant for the Walt Disney Co.

Biography
Norman had his start as an assistant to comic book artist Bill Woggon, who lived in the Santa Barbara, California, area that Norman grew up in.

After Walt Disney's death in 1966 Floyd Norman left Disney Studios to co-found the AfroKids animation studio with business partner animator/director Leo Sullivan. Norman and Sullivan worked together on various projects such as the original '' Hey! Hey! Hey! It's Fat Albert'' television special which aired in 1969 on NBC (not to be confused with the later Fat Albert series made by Filmation Associates).

Norman returned to Disney at one point in the early 1970s to work on the Disney animated feature Robin Hood, and worked on several animated television programs at Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears. In the 1980s he worked as a writer in the comic strip department at Disney and was the last scripter for the Mickey Mouse comic strip before it was discontinued.

More recently he has worked on motion pictures for Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, having contributed creatively as a story artist on films such as Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. for Pixar and Mulan, Dinosaur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Walt Disney Animation, among others. He continues to work for the Walt Disney Co. as a freelance consultant on various projects.

Norman has also published several books of cartoons inspired by his lifetime of experiences in the animation industry, ''Faster! Cheaper!, Son of Faster, Cheaper!, and How the Grinch Stole Disney''. He is currently a columnist for the websites JimHillMedia.com and AfroKids.com.

Awards
Norman was named a Disney Legend in 2007. In 2008, he appeared as Guest of Honor at Anthrocon 2008 and at Comic-Con International, where he was given an Inkpot Award.