Bob M. Guthrie

Bob M. Guthrie, or just Bob Guthrie, also known as Spirou on Wikifur (full Robert M. Guthrie), is an American born, European raised artist, cartoonist and animator whose funny animal art style has been of interest to the furry community since the late 1980s. While not a furry himself, some friends have assigned him the character of an American badger.

He offers part-time curator help with the furry wiki, WikiFur.

Biography
Bob Guthrie was born in Pasadena, California, USA, before moving to Europe with his family. He started as an assistant artist (inker and penciller) for a handful of comic companies established in Barcelona, Spain, including Editorial Bruguera (before they became Ediciones B).

Military service
Bob Guthrie served with the US Navy from 1985 to 1990 as a Gunner's Mate and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) specialist.

After finishing his recruit training (Boot Camp) at the Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois, he was separated from active duty to Navy Reserve, serving onboard the Naval Reserve frigate USS Gray (FF-1054), stationed at the Naval Station (NS) Long Beach (Long Beach NSY), California.

Reactivated to active duty in 1986, he was stationed at the Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes), whereas he spent time training at the GM school for the RUR-5 ASROC (Anti-Submarine ROCket) Mark 16 launcher.

After graduating top of his class, he was deployed at the Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia, stationed onboard the ASW destroyers USS Claude V. Rickets (DDG-5), and USS Barney (DDG 6).

He was honorably discharged on April 16, 1990, returning to Spain.

Civilian life and work
Bob Guthrie returned to the states in 1992 to join the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Santa Clarita, California, whereas he was accepted, but decided against joining after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, where most of the facilities, and the curriculum, was left in shambles, joining Warner Bros. Consumer Product later the next year.

Bob Guthrie lives at the furry house, Hotel Yorba, in Orange County, California, USA, along with artists Steve Martin and Doug Winger (until Winger's passing in 2015). He has attended some furry conventions and meets, and has contributed art to various funny animal media to several publications such as the The American Journal of Anthropomorphics issue 1 (pages 9-14) and issue 2 (pages 37-42), from this location.

Professional works (non-furry)
A former Warner Bros. Consumer Products marketing/character artist, he has worked on several WB projects such as:
 * Project World of WB/World of Looney Toons, a poster designed along with US animation director and cartoonist Frank Espinosa and Chinese animator and senior character artist San Wei Chan, containing, at one point almost two hundred WB franchise characters. Each character was drawn on a 12 field animation sheet, takin a whole section of WBCP's presentation walls (the background and the giant[*] behind it were drawn by San Wei Chan and colored by American graphic artist, designer, illustrator and painter, David Byrd).


 * The final shrunken, foldable 11X17 poster was used as a franchise reference style guide for property clients. It was also used in Jerry Beck's Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide, and as a visual reference for animation personnel working on Warner Bros. Feature Animation's 1996 animated feature, Space Jam


 * Concept and development, along with Frank Espinosa and San Wei Chan, for a 1995 revised/updated design of Daisu Lou.(**) The project's style guide was intended for the retail chain Target.
 * Concept and development, along with Frank Espinosa and San Wei Chan, for a 1995 young girls style guide initially untitled Girls of Looney Toons, with revised versions of several WB cartoon female characters, including Penelope Pussycat, Daisy Lou, Sylvia Cat, Petunia Pig, Melissa Duck, and a (unnamed) female coyote.
 * Additional new characters for the WBCP's property line Baby Looney Tunes, a character style guide initially designed by Frank Espinosa in 1994. These included Baby Pepe LePew, baby Penelope Pussycat, Baby Marvin the Martin and K9 pup (a fifth character, baby Lola Bunny, was created by San Wei Chan).
 * Contributory WBCP conceptual character concepts for the character Lola Bunny, plus movie poster designs (domestic and international) for Warner Bros. Feature Animation's 1996 animated feature, Space Jam.
 * The collaborated design for the 1997 USPS/WBCP's Bugs Bunny stamp, which included initial rough concepts, backgrounds, and cleanup. He would later assist on the next two stamps of the series, Daffy Duck (backgrounds and cleanup), and Sylvester and Tweety (cleanup).
 * Additional Looney Toons support art for the Draw the Looney Tunes, the Warner Bros' character design manual, along with Frank Espinosa and San Wei Chan.
 * Additional Looney Tunes style guide art for Jerry Beck's Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide book.

Other non-furry works include product and toy design and development for such companies as Mattel, Playmates, Jakks Pacific, Ferrero and Spinmasters, among others, plus character and prop design for several small and large animation studios.

(*) [Unnamed] giant, a character from the Friz Freleng's Bugs Bunny WB animated short, Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk (June 12, 1943). (**) Daisy Lou, a character from Friz Freleng's Bugs Bunny WB animated short, Hare Splitter (September 25, 1948).

Art
A self-taught modern and classic arts illustrator, he works with various media in illustration, graphic design, 3D computer graphics, cartooning and animation, with the last one in the sub-fields of animation character design, background artist and prop designer.

Media

 * "Me alisté para lograr una beca" - Interview with the Spanish newspaper Menorca.info (Spanish only)

Боб Гатри