Today, October 9, is John Lennon’s 80th birthday, and it is still hard to believe that in just two months we will mark the 40th anniversary of his death.
![](http://animatedeye.johncanemaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/John_Lennon_Sketchbook_cel2_crop_o.jpg)
I’d like to remember him with an account I wrote of my working with Yoko Ono in 1986 on JOHN LENNON SKETCHBOOK, an animated short based on Lennon’s personal drawings. It was written for the Sept/Oct 1987 issue of How magazine. Click on the cover image below to read the article:
Although the four-minute film was never released theatrically, it is available on YouTube:
Design and characters based on drawings by John Lennon
Animation produced and directed by John Canemaker
Executive Producer: Yoko Ono
Copyright © 1986 Ono Video
This autographed record album was a gift from Yoko and Sean, after we finished production on JOHN LENNON SKETCHBOOK.
![](http://animatedeye.johncanemaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Yoko-1_o-e1585506023637.jpg)
Imagine.
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You were, indeed, the perfect artist to animate the drawings and herd together those disparate ideas of Lennon’s hand into a four-minute poem. What a marvelous, delicate, and surprising film. And your personal essay about the making of it is, among many other things, a delightful summary of how an animation happens. Bravo, John!
HOW magazine!!!!!! That brings back memories, haven’t thought of that in decades! My uncle (a graphic designer) always had a copy around the place.