Former Disney animator’s dark COVID art appearing in Orlando Film Festival

Thomas Thorspecken painting

Orlando artist Thomas Thorspecken once drew the animations for Disney’s “The Lion King” and “Lilo & Stitch.”

The sketch Thorspecken painted in March 2020 was something far darker — sick people being treated down Main Street U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom before the theme park officially shut down in the pandemic.

Every day during the pandemic, Thorspecken painted a new piece depicting his disgust, anger and horror with what he saw from the public and the government.

“It became an obsession, and I just did it every single day because I was listening to the news every day. And there’s always something more absurd that would happen every day,” Thorspecken said. “I’d go to sleep, and essentially, in the morning, I would wake up with a new idea.”

Part of his collection called “COVID Dystopia” is now an animated short film playing in November in the Orlando Film Festival.

The film runs just under five minutes and brings to life 200 of his drawings backed with music from Orlando musician Andy Matchett.

“The tagline of the film is that we might be done with COVID, but COVID is not done with us,” Thorspecken said. “It’s always going to be here now, and my goal is just to catch it less often.”

The film, Thorspecken said, “is a retrospective of the politics and what happened in the first years of the pandemic, politically and around the world. It’s not just Orlando, although Orlando is featured in many scenes.”

So far, “COVID Dystopia” has won several awards on the film fest circuit, including best animation in the Chicago International Reel Shorts Film Festival and best short animation in Berlin Short Film Festival.

“I’m promoting it at film festivals, and I’m the only person at a film festival that wears a mask. So am I the odd man out? I guess so,” said Thorspecken, who hopes his work serves as a reminder about the lingering, long-term medical effects from the virus.

Not everyone appreciates Thorspecken’s controversial images, which include Donald Trump speaking at crowded rallies.

“In the beginning, people were furious about my work. Like when I showed Disney World with the people in the streets being treated for the flu, they said, ‘Get out of Orlando.’ Others want me to paint cats. ‘Why don’t you do something pretty and pleasant?’” Thorspecken said. “So it hits different people in different ways.”

The angrier the reception was, “I knew that I created an image that hit the mark.”

Thorspecken spent 10 years working at Disney-MGM Studios, before it was called Hollywood Studios, when the theme park had a working studio. During that time, he worked on classic Disney films, including “Mulan,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Pocahontas.”

Thorspecken was hired to do live sketches at events which got shut during the pandemic. His COVID art helped keep him occupied and cope with the pandemic, he said.

Turning those paintings into an animated short film took about a year and what’s next is creating a book with about 600 of his images.

You can see “COVID Dystopia” playing at 4:15 p.m., Nov. 1 and 2 p.m., Nov. 7, the CMX Cinemas Plaza Cafe 12,155 S. Orange Ave., in downtown Orlando. It plays as part of “Animation Block 1” in the festival.