Brenda Banks is an inspirational mystery wrapped up in a historical enigma. Or, to put it another way: Banks was the third Black female animator to work in the American animation industry (EVER!), yet no one in the industry has heard from her in nearly a decade. What gives?
The legend of Brenda Banks begins in the early ’70s when Banks walked into Ralph Bakshi’s studio - uninvited, unannounced and allegedly untrained - and asked to be an animator. Impressed by her chutzpah, Bakshi assigned her to Wizards, animating ‘the goons.’ The goons were secondary characters, but like they say, ‘There are no small parts, only small actors.’ Er…animators.
According to Bakshi, “I figured if she can’t do that, then she can’t do anything. So I sat her down at desk figuring she was going to fail miserably. She was one of the most hysterically funniest animators I had ever worked with actually. She was such a naturally gifted girl that anything she did on the goons was the gooniest thing you ever saw in your whole life. She became the star of the goons at the studio!”
After working with Bakshi on a few more films, Banks spent the next decade animating on various Saturday morning cartoons and smaller animated features. Then, in 1997, Banks got a gig animating on The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield video game. This led to a one year stint animating on The Simpsons TV show in 1998 and then eight years working as a character layout artist and layout artist on King of the Hill (1997 - 2009).
After that?
Nothing.
No one in the animation industry has heard a thing from her since.
Hoping to tell the remarkable story of this historical figure in animation, my heroes at Cartoon Research are asking anyone who may know Banks (or, better still, Banks herself!) to contact them. As the third Black female animator EVER, her story — her FULL STORY — definitely deserves to be told.
