Sue C. Nichols(1965-2020)

Susan Carol "Sue" Nichols was an artist from Massachusetts, active in the field of animation from the 1980s to the 2010s. She variously worked as a story writer, a visual development artist, a character designer, a storyboard artist, and a supervising artist. She is primarily remembered as one of the credited writers for the feature films "Aladdin" (1992) and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1996). In 2020,she was posthumously awarded with a Winsor McCay Award for her contributions in animation.

In 1965, Nichols was born in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. The town is located about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from downtown Springfield. The former basis off its economy were its brownstone quarries. Nichols received her secondary education at the East Longmeadow High School, the only secondary school in her hometown. She graduated in 1983.

Nichols enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) to study visual animation. She formally graduated in 1987, and would later return to CalArts as a faculty member. Prior to her graduation, she had already served as a design artist for the syndicated television series "My Little Pony" (1986-1987). From 1986 to 1989, she served as a model designer for the long-running series "Muppet Babies" (1984-1991). She was credited as a character modeler in early episodes of the educational series "McGee and Me!" (1989-1995).

Nichols was eventually hired by the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and would remain affiliated with the animation studio for decades. Her debut film was "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), where she was a visual development artist. Her subsequent film credits included "Aladdin" (1992), "The Lion King" (1994), "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1996), "Hercules" (1997), "Mulan" (1998), "Fantasia 2000" (1999), "The Emperor's New Groove" (2000), "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" (2001), "Lilo & Stitch" (2002), "The Princess and the Frog" (2009), and "Moana" (2016).

During the 2000s, Nichols started working for the sibling studio Disneytoon Studios (1990-2018). Many of the studio's films were direct-to-video productions. Her film credits for the studio included "Piglet's Big Movie" (2003), "Mulan II" (2004), and "Bambi II" (2006).While commercially successful, these films were dismissed as derivative works by critics.

In 2015, Nichols was diagnosed with breast cancer. While she continued working in animation, her output was rather limited in this period. She died in September 2020, at the age of 55. Disney commemorated her death with an online listing of her achievements in animation, and through providing photos of her character designs from the 1990s.