Claim: Ron Cobb is an artist.

Ron Cobb -LRB- born 1937 -RRB- is an American cartoonist , artist , writer , film designer , and film director .   By the age of 18 , with no formal training in graphic illustration , Cobb was working as an animation `` inbetweener '' artist for Disney Studios in Burbank , California . He progressed to becoming a breakdown artist on the animation feature Sleeping Beauty -LRB- 1959 -RRB- . -LRB- This was the last Disney film to have cels inked by hand . -RRB-   After Sleeping Beauty was completed in 1957 , Disney laid off Cobb and he spent the next three years in various jobs -- mail carrier , assembler in a door factory , sign painter 's assistant -- until he was drafted in 1960 into the US Army . For the next two years he delivered classified documents around San Francisco , then , after signing up for an extra year to avoid assignment to the infantry , was sent to Vietnam in 1963 as a draughtsman for the Signal Corps . On his discharge , Cobb began freelancing as an artist . He began to contribute to the Los Angeles Free Press in 1965 .   Edited and published by Art Kunkin , the Los Angeles Free Press was one of the first of the underground newspapers of the 1960s , noted for its radical politics . Cobb 's editorial/political cartoons were a celebrated feature of the Freep , and appeared regularly throughout member newspapers of the Underground Press Syndicate . However , although he was regarded as one of the finest political cartoonists of the mid-1960s to early 1970s , Cobb made very little money from the cartoons and was always looking for work elsewhere.His cartoons were featured in the back to the land magazine `` The Mother Earth News . ''   Among other projects , Cobb designed the cover for Jefferson Airplane 's 1967 album , After Bathing at Baxter 's . He also contributed design work for the cult film , Dark Star -LRB- 1973 -RRB- -LRB- he drew the original design for the exterior of the Dark Star spaceship on a Pancake House napkin -RRB- .   His cartoons from the 1960s and 1970s are collected in RCD-25 -LRB- 1967 -RRB- and Mah Fellow Americans -LRB- 1968 -RRB- -LRB- both Sawyer Press -RRB- , and Raw Sewage -LRB- 1971 -RRB- and My Fellow Americans -LRB- 1971 -RRB- -LRB- both Price Stern and Sloan -RRB- . None of these volumes remains in print .   In 1969 Cobb designed the Ecology symbol , later incorporated into the Ecology Flag .   In 1972 , Cobb moved to Sydney , Australia , where his work appeared in alternative magazines such as The Digger . Independent publishers Wild & Woolley published a `` best of '' collection of the earlier cartoon books , The Cobb Book in 1975 . A follow-up volume , Cobb Again , appeared in 1978 .   In 1981 , Colorvision , a large-format , full-colour monograph appeared , including much of his design work for the films Star Wars -LRB- 1977 -RRB- , Alien -LRB- 1979 -RRB- , and Conan the Barbarian -LRB- 1982 -RRB- , the first feature for which he received the credit of Production Designer . Cobb has also contributed production design to the films The Last Starfighter -LRB- 1984 -RRB- , Leviathan -LRB- 1989 -RRB- , Total Recall -LRB- 1990 -RRB- , True Lies -LRB- 1994 -RRB- , The Sixth Day -LRB- 2000 -RRB- , Cats & Dogs -LRB- 2001 -RRB- , Southland Tales -LRB- 2006 -RRB- , and the Australian feature Garbo , which he directed . Cobb contributed the initial story for Night Skies , an earlier , darker version of E.T. . Steven Spielberg offered him the opportunity to direct this scarier sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind until problems arose over special effects that required a major rewrite . While Cobb was in Spain working on Conan the Barbarian , Spielberg supervised the rewrite into the more personal E.T. and ended up directing it himself . Cobb later received some net profit participation .   During the early 1990s , Cobb worked with Rocket Science Games . His designs can be seen most notably in Loadstar : The Legend of Tully Bodine -LRB- 1994 -RRB- and The Space Bar -LRB- 1997 -RRB- , in which he designed all the characters .   Cobb also co-wrote with his wife , Robin Love , one of the -LRB- 1985 -- 1987 -RRB- Twilight Zone episodes .   Among the most famous film props signed by Cobb are two of the swords he designed for the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian -LRB- the `` Father 's Sword '' and the `` Atlantean Sword '' -RRB- . Cobb 's original drawings of the swords are nowadays used , in cinema merchandising , to mass-produce and sell replicas .