the national cartoonist issue 1

8/12/2019 The National Cartoonist Issue 1

1/64

THENATIONALCARTOON!ST i

Tom RICHMOND caricatures

A PUBL IC ATION OFTHE NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIVol . 1 , N

Jim BORGMAN reects

Mell LAZARUS divulges

STEPHANPASTIS

BILL WATTERSON

PearlsBeforeSwines

createcomic strip

history

and

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D o Y o u C a r t o o n ? n N C S A r c h i v e A r t n C o m i c S c r i p t e d n R a r e , U n p u b l i s h e d A r t

Stephanie PIRO illustrates

The

National


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ii TH ENATIONALCARTOON!ST


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THENATIONALCARTOON!ST 1

Same Size


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2 TH ENATIONALCARTOON!ST

The R.Easterbrook & Co. 914 Radiopen an example of the pen nib that CHARLES M. SCHULZu

2 THENATIONALCARTOON!ST


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(Same size)arly 50 years to draw every Peanutsdaily.

Charles SchulzPeanuts daily for Dec. 26, 1962, from the original art (reproduced here same size)


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A comicartist aint nodifferent thanyou or me

or anybodyexcep heknows how todraw pitchersan is crazy in

the head.

Ive always regarded this medium as a valid

literary form capable of doing much more than

telling jokes.Will Eisner,

on comics, in an interview with Susan Vaughn in

The Los Angeles Times.

Course description: Production of cartoon drawing suitable for reproductionand submission to publishers. Prerequisites: None

From the Maricopa (Tempe, AZ) Community College course information sheet.

I never wanted to geta real job in my life,and cartooning seemed to be the easiest

avenue to do such a thing.Chad Carpenter,

creator of Tundra.

If I have anything to

answer for, its making

the comics page safe

for bad drawing.

Garry Trudeau,in response to a question

about the politicization

of the comics page, in an

interview with the Santa

Barbara Independent.

Finally, this: all my life Ive lovedthe word cartoonist.

Lately, though, Ive noticed that the term is falling out of use and being replaced by

the term comics artist. Among my graduate fiction students Ive become known for

my impassioned mini-lectures urging them never to call themselves artists, but instead

to call themselves fiction writers or short story writers or novelists. Thats what you are,

I tell them, thats what you do. You may well be an artist, but its always better to let

other people call you that. Call yourself an artist and you might be more inclined to

talk about it than do it; call yourself a writer or, dear graduates, a cartoonist and

youll be more inclined, more personally and professionally compelled to get up

every day and go to your studio to work. And the work, trite as it sounds, the challenge

and the pleasure of the work, in doing the work, in making the work, of being present

for and in the work, is the only thing that matters.

Tom De Haven,

journalist, teacher and author whose novels include the Derby Dugan Funny Paper

trilogy, in a commencement address at the Center for Cartoon Studies, May 2012.

This is the tragedyof my limited draw-

ing skills.Matt

Groening,

on why some of the

characters in his

animated series

Futuramaresemble

those fromThe

Simpsons.

Popeye

the Sailor

Man

WILLEISNER,

detailfromt

hebookTheDreamer

byWillEisner,(KitchenSinkPress,

1986)

GARRYTRUDEAU

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Q: Is the cartoonan art form?A: Yes, the cartoon is a marriage of Image and Language. And

Commerce. Image marries Language, quickly tires of its nonstop

chatter, dumps it, hooks up with Commerce, then a couple years

later finds itself living in a double-wide with a kid and an uncer-

tain paycheck, working the night shift at an unsavory truck stop,

while Commerce runs off with Telemarketing.

Thats what a cartoon is.

Richard Thompson,

in an interview inThe Washington Post.

They look very attrac-

tive to my men.James Thurber,

on why he drew such odd-

looking women, as related

by Charles Saxon in his

collection Honestly is

One of the Better Policies

(Viking, 1984).

George Du Maurier (1834-96) was an Anglo-

French artist who lived in the raffish Latin

Quarter of Paris during his student days. In

1857, he suddenly went blind in one eye(from a detached retina) and despaired for

months about a lost artistic career until some-

one showed himPunchmagazine and he real-

ized, if worst came to worst, he could always

become a cartoonist.

From an article in theToronto Globe and Mail

I never saw myself so much as an actor.

I wanted to be a cartoonistlike Charles Schulz and create my own world

and be able to have a studio at home and not

commute and be able to be with my family.

Mark Hammill,

of Luke Skywalker fame, on a career choice.

This guy works in a penthouse apartment

a duplex and thats where I work too,

entirely surrounded by foam-cushioned fur-

niture and all the lush evidences of wealth. If

this is a sample of the way cartoonists operate,

Ive been wasting my time making movies.

Bob Hope,on his role as a cartoonists assistant in the 1956

movieThat Certain Feeling.

Inspired?Drawing is just slog,

slog, slog until what

you have in your headapproximates to what

emerges on the drawing

board.

Ronald Searle,

on inspiration, in an

interview published on

the occasion of his 90th

birthday in theTimes

Online(UK).

I didnt callit a graphic

novel.I called it a novel in

cartoons. Graphic

novels are called

graphic novels

because people are

ashamed of the

term cartoon,

which is idiotic. Ive

always been thrilled

to be a cartoonist,

and Im proud of it,

and like the term. I

see no neeed to up-

scale the work I do

with some meaning-

less choice of words

like graphic.Jules Feiffer,

on his bookTantrum(Alfred A. Knopf,

1979), in an interview

inThe Atlantic.

I was taking this writing course, and I was getting straight As. The teacher

asked me one day, Id like for you to come home and have dinner with me and

my wife. We talked about writing all through dinner, the great writers that we

were. After dinner he shoved his chair back and says, I guess youd like to write

the great American novel. I said, No sir I want to write the great American

comic strip. And you never saw such a look on a guys face. He was like Id hit

him with a brick.

Mort Walker,

in an online interview with Bob Andelman

at mrmedia.com. MORTWALKER,

from

theendpaperstoBackstageat

theStripsbyMortW

alker(Mason/Charter,1975)

JULESFEIFFER

GEORGEDUMAURIER

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.NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIETY

FOUNDATION

Chairman

Steve McGarry

[email protected]

THE NATIONAL CARTOON!ST

Art Director

Frank Pauer

NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIETY

BOARD

Honorary Chairman

Mort Walker

President

Tom Richmond

First Vice President

Bill Morrison

Second Vice President

Hilary Price

Third Vice President

Darrin Bell

Secretary

John Kovaleski

Treasurer

John Hambrock

Membership Chairman

Sean Parkes

[email protected]

National Representative

Ed Steckley

[email protected]

NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIETY

COMMITTEES

The Cartoon!st

Frank Pauer

Ethics

Steve McGarry

Education

Rob Smith Jr.

Greeting Card Contracts

Carla Ventresca

For general inquires about the NCS

and the NCSF email:

[email protected]

The National Cartoon!st is published

twice a year by the National

Cartoonists Society Foudation, 341

N. Maitland Avenue, Suite 130,

Maitland, FL 32789. The views

expressed herein do not necessarily

reflect those of the NCSF. Contents

2014 National Cartoonists Society

Foundation, except where other

copyrights are designated.

All artwork contained herein is

2014 by the respective artist

and/or syndicate, studio or other

copyright holder.

The National Cartoonists

Society website:

www .re ube n.o rg

14

NCS Reuben Awards WeekendPhotos from this years event in San Diego, California

18

Drawing Caricatures withom Richmond

Basic theory and the five shapes by the celebrated MAD Magazinecartoonist

22

TePearls ofPastis and WattersonAn unlikely duo create comics for the ages

26

Jim Borgman Exit Stage LeftAn interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist

32

Stephanie Piro A Womans PerspectiveOne of the Six Chixtalks about writing and drawing in your own voice

36

Owning Up to the Syndicateswith Mell Lazarus

A conversation with the creator ofMiss Peach andMomma

1 SAME SIZE

3 COMIC SCRIPED

7 FIRS PANEL by SEVE McGARRY

40 NCS ARCHIVES

44 FROM HE COLLECION OF

52 HE NAIONAL CAROONISS SOCIEY

58 DO YOU CAROON?

.............................................

The

National


9/64


O

n behalf of the National

Cartoonists Society and its

charitable arm, the National

Cartoonists Society Founda-

tion, it is with great pleasure

that I welcome you to the

inaugural issue of our new

publication, The National Cartoon!st.

The NCS was founded by a group of prominent

cartoonists in 1946 and, over the years, our ranks have

included some of the greatest names in the profession

from Milton Caniff, Joe Shuster and Rube Goldberg to

Charles Schulz, Mort Walker and Jeff MacNelly. Among

the superstar cartoonists who are active members of

the NCS today are veterans such as Jack Davis, Lynn

Johnston and Sergio Aragons, industry legends like

Cathy Guisewite, Jim Davis and Jim Borgman, and such

fast-rising stars as Stephan Pastis and Mark Tatulli. Our

membership includes some of the worlds top cartoon-

ists in every avenue of the profession, from newspaper

comics to comic books, editorial cartooning, advertising

and animation.

The NCS exists, in part, to foster good relations

between cartoonists. Most of us in the profession lead a

fairly solitary existence, so the chance to meet up with

peers and colleagues at regional chapter get-togethers

or better still, at our annual Reuben Awards weekend

is very welcome. But the NCS offers much more than

the opportunity to share insider gossip and discuss nib

techniques over a libation or two! As a group, we try

to advance the ideals and standards of cartooning, and

help and encourage newcomers to our profession. We

aim to stimulate interest in cartooning by the general

public and we use our talents and financial resources to ...

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Read it.Post it.

Follow us.

THE NATIONAL

CARTOONISTS SOCIETY

WEBSITE:

www.reuben.org

By

Steve

McGarry

@NATIONALCARTOONISTS

@NATCARTOONSOC

THE NATIONAL

CARTOONISTS SOCIETY

THE NATIONAL

CARTOONISTS SOCIETY

..........................

First Panel
http://youtube.com/nationalcartoonistshttp://instagram.com/nationalcartoonistshttps://twitter.com/natcartoonsochttp://facebook.com/nationalcartoonists


10/64


Steve McGarry

A two-term former President of the National Car toonists

Society, Steve is the current Chairman of the National

Cartoonists Society Foundation, the charitable arm of

the NCS. He received the prestigious NCS Silver T-Square

Award in 2012 for his outstanding

service to the profession.

Having designed record sleeves for a

number of new wave luminaries in his

native England, including Joy Division

and John Cooper Clarke, Steve became

one of Britains most successful news-

paper and magazine illustrators in the1980s, before creating the long-running comic strip

Badlands(right) for Britains biggest-selling daily news-

paper, The Sun, in 1989. Later that same year, after sign-

ing his first U.S. syndication contract, he relocated with

his young family to California.

His sports and entertain-

ment features, including the

syndicated strips Biographic,

Kid Townand Trivquiz, appear

in newspapers worldwide,

from the New York Daily News

to the South China Morning

Post, and Steves magazine

clients include SI For Kids,FHMand a host of European

sports and teen magazines.

Six times nominated for a Sil-

ver Reuben, he was the first

artist in history to receive

Illustrator of the Year Awards

from both the National

Cartoonists Society and the

Australian Cartoonists Asso-

ciation. He has also recently

ventured into the world of

animation, most notably

working with Illumination on

Despicable Me 2 and The

Minions.

He lives in Huntington

Beach, Calif., with his wife, Deborah, who is the colorist

on the long-running daily cartoon strip Baby Blues. Their

twin sons, Joe and Luke, are award-winning artists and

also form the Los Angeles indie band Pop Noir.

See more of Steves work at www.stevemcgarry.com and

on the new soccer site www.thetogger.com.

Follow @stevemcgarryon Twitter

support cartooning museums, libraries and schools.

Our charitable arm, the NCSF, works in tandem

with the NCS to try and achieve these goals, in addi-

tion to providing financial assistance to cartoonists

and their family members in times of need.

This debut issue of The National Cartoon!stis the

first of a series of new projects we will be unveiling

over the summer of 2014 that we hope will interest,

excite and inspire cartoonists and cartoon fans alike.

From a free app that features the art of hundreds

of legendary cartoonists a series of free videos

featuring some of cartoonings greatest names aprogram to provide cartooning resources to students

and teachers to a national program of childrens

hospital visits!

Finally, those of you who

have attended San Diego

ComicCon in recent years

may well have visited our

huge NCS Booth and met

some of our luminaries. We

are delighted to announce

that we are expanding our

presence at comic conven-

tions coast to coast so if

you see the NCS logo, stop

by and say hello!

Please join us in sup-

port of these programs by

following the NCS on social

media and bookmarking our

new site at www.reuben.org

and enjoy this first issueof our new magazine, The

National Cartoon!st.

Steve McGarry

Chairman

National Cartoonists Society Foundation

............................................................................

Artwork2014SteveMcGarry
http://twitter.com/stevemcgarryhttp://twitter.com/stevemcgarry


11/64


is expanding into other comicconventions around thecountry. Look for the NCSlogo and stop by to meet someof the top names in the worldof cartooning and comics.

Coming toa comicsconventionnear you!

A familiar presence atSan Diego Comic-Con for

the last decade, the

Check www.reuben.org regularly for updates and follow @NatCartoonSoc on Twitter

................................................................................................................................

NCS

Left, Chris(Hagar the

Horrible)Browneautographsbooks.

Left, Jeff

(The FamilyCircus) Keaneand NCSpresidentTomRichmondman thebooth.

SEEN IN

SAN DIEGO:

Right, Bill(FoxTrot)

Amend signsprints.

Center, actorJack Black

and LukeMcGarry

autographposters.

Right, Greg

Evans, TomRichmond,

John Kovaleskiand Daryl

Cagle meetand greet

fans.


12/64


FestivalSupremeposterartbyLukeMc

Garry

FormoreinformationontheFesival,se

eFesivalSupreme.com


13/64


Poster signing at NCS boothat San Diego Comic-Con

Following his appearance

last year at the National

Cartoonists Society booth at

Comic-Con,

Jack Black

returns this year and brings

along his partner in

Tenacious D,

Kyle Gass

They join artist

Luke McGarryin signing free, limited-

edition Festival Supreme

posters (shown on the

opposite page) for one hour

only on July 24.

Attendance is strictly

limited follow the NCS

on Twitter, Instagram and

Facebook for additional

details.


14/64



15/64


One-of-a-kindNCS T-shirts

created for SanDiego Comic-Con

Every year, the NCS issues special limited-edition

T-shirts to commemorate our appearance at theSan Diego Comic-Con.

This year, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Batman,

some of the biggest names in cartooning have

contributed their cape-and-cowl creations for a truly

memorable and unique take on the Dark Knight.

NCS T-shirts

created forprevious

San Diego

Comic-Cons

have included

artwork by:

Matt

Groening

Sergio

Aragon

Patrick

McDonnell

NCS Comic-Con T-Shirts, past and present, are all available for mail order on the NCS site:

www.reuben.org/salesGraham

Nolan


16/64


BySean Parkes Over the Memorial Day weekend, the National Cartoonists

Society held its annual Reuben Awards Weekend in beautiful

Diego. More than 150 of the worlds top cartoonists gathered

the Omni hotel for the festivities, which included speakers, fi

dining and a spectacular awards show.

The weekends slate of great speakers included Eddie Pittm

Chris Houghton, Greg Evans, Suzy Spafford, Sandra Bell-Lun

Greg (Luann) Evans with his wife Betty

Cartoonist of the Year nominee Hilary(Rhymes WIth Orange) Price with KristinGottschalk

Jenny Robb and Steve Hamaker NCS president Tom Richmond welcomes gueststo the Reuben Awards Weekend

Patrick (Mutts) McDonnell Amateur Cartoonist Extraordinaire recipient Weird Al Yankovic withMAD MagazinesSam Viviano and Nick Meglin

Bongo Comics Bill Morrison with his wKayre

Michael Davis with Terri (The PajamaDiaries) Libenson

Cartoonist and character designerStephen Silver with his wife Heidi


17/64


Bunny Hoest-Carpenter, John Reiner and Russ Heath.

After Fridays seminars, the weekends festivities continued

with the NCS Reuben Awards Weekend Welcome Party for cock-

tails and a buffet dinner. Attendees got to meet and rub shoul-

ders with many of the greats in the profession, see old friends

and talk shop. That evening, the party moved across the street to

the L Street Art Gallery for karaoke, drinks and laughs.

Renee Faundo is awarded the Jay KennedyMemorial Scholarship

The legendary Stan Goldberg with hiswife Pauline

Dave (Speed Bump) Coverly accepts his awardfor Newspaper Panel Cartoon

Scott (The Argyle Sweater) Hilburn with M(Half Full) Scrivan

Brian (Red and Rover) Basset withhis wife Bobbi

Chris Houghton and Kassandra Heller

Wiley (NonSequitur) Millergarners theReuben Awardas Cartoonist ofthe Year

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San Diego

plays hostto the NCSannual

ReubenAwardsWeekend


18/64


On Saturday evening, the Reuben Awards were hosted by

master of ceremonies Tom Gammill (producer and writer for

The Simpsons). Weird Al Yankovic received the ACE (Ama-

teur Cartoonist Extraordinaire) Award, and numerous division

awards were handed out throughout the black-tie-attired night,

before the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year

went to Wiley Miller, creator of the syndicated strip Non Sequitur.

On Sunday, the NCS (in conjunction with the NCS Found

tion) held a public outreach event aboard the USS Midway

aircraft carrier, where more than 100 artists did sketches, sign

autographs and met with fans. The weekend closed out st

aboard the USS Midway with dinner, dancing and music

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez and the D

Luz Band. The event also hosted 38 wounded warriors and t

Matt Diffee accepts his award for MagazineGag Cartoon Sandra (Between Friends) Bell-Lundy Carolyn Kelly and Mark Evanier

Rob (Adam at Home) Harrell with his wife Amb

Graphic novel nomineeRick Greary Darrin (Candorville) Bell with his son Emyree and wife Makeda

Tiffany Zamora and Joe McGarry

1985 Cartoonist of the Year Lynn (ForBetter or For Worse) Johnston introducesa division award

Deborah McNeely with Michael Ramirez, winneof the Editorial Cartoon award


19/64


families who enjoyed dinner and sketches from NCS members.

Who will be nominated and win next year at the Reubens?

If youre a professional cartoonist and want to find out in

person, join us next Memorial Day when the 69th Annual

Reuben Awards Weekend will be held in Washington D.C.

For more information about the NCS, see Page 48, or visit

www.reuben.org.

Legendary comic book artist Russ Heathaccepts the Milton Caniff Award forLifetime Achievement

Heather and Ed Steckley

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Gold Key Award recipient Bunny (TheLockhorns) Hoest-Carpenter

Ryan (Buni) Pagelow accepts his award for

On-Line Comics Short Form

Longtime King Features Syndicate executive Joe

DAngelo with Mell (Miss Peach, Momma) Lazarus

Christy Higgins with 2009 Cartoonist of

the Year Dan (Bizarro) Piraro

Abrams ComicArts Charles Kochman

Former NCS president, Rick(Soup to Nutz) Stromoski

Jose Villena Chari Pere

Mike Cope

Sean Parkes is a freelance illustrator,

character designer and storyboard artist

whose work can be seen worldwide in

numerous publications, board games,

products and advertisements. Parkes is

the Membership Chairman on the Board

of Directors of the National Cartoonists

Society. For more, see seanparkes.com


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Dr wingIt is a uniquely personal interpretation ofnot just the facial features of a given subject,but their personality and presence as well.Its practiced in fine art, editorial publicationanimation, comics, cartoons and even on strecorners and theme parks around the world.Done well, a caricature can describe a subject

much more completely than a photograph orportrait could. This article discusses some of mtheories on what makes a good caricature, an

my basic approach to the art form.

Articles like this always start out with a definition, but caricature ishard thing to pigeonhole into a single sentence. How can you, when thword encompasses the elegant, minimalist lines of Al Hirschfeld to thelavish, value and color soaked paintings of Sebastian Kruger to the grapic, geometrical collages of David Cowles and everything in between?

Despite the wild differences in style and technique, caricature isthe tag that is placed on any of these works of art without hesitation.Obviously there is a connection beyond a common technique, school, format.

So, what are the universal elements all caricatures have that identifythem as caricatures? I would say there are three essential elements thattranscend style and medium and must be present in a caricature:

nRECOGNIZABILITY That word is a mouthful, but its a better one thathe word likeness. Likeness implies nothing more than the duplicationof features, and as I said before a good caricature goes beyond that. Recognizability incorporates a likeness of features, the emphasis of what makesperson unique, and a representation of them in personality and presenceIn a nutshell, there should never be any question of who your subject is,should be immediately apparent. If you cant tell who it is supposed to bthen it is not successful.

nEXAGGERATION Without some form of exaggeration, or a departurfrom the exact representation of the subjects features, all you have is

Its a common fallacy that a caricature is nothing

more than a portrait of a person where one or

more features are exaggerated for comedic effect.The art of caricature goes much deeper than that

Basic Theory

and the

Five Shapes

............................Caric turesB y

T o m

R i c h m o n d

............................

............................

............................


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a portrait. The level of exaggeration can vary wildly, butthere must be some personal interpretation of the subjectby the caricaturist. A straight portrait is not a caricature.

nSTATEMENT This is the intangible that goes beyond

the features and captures the personality or essence ofthe subject. It could be nothing more than capturing anexpression that describes that subjects demeanor or itcould editorialize in some way. The artist must be tryingto say something about the subject they are caricaturing.It might be something to do with the situation the subjectis drawn in, it may just be a play on their personalitythrough expression or body language, it might be as simpleas making visual fun of some aspect of their persona or im-age. Exaggeration itself can accomplish this in some cases.The best caricatures say something more about the subjectthan that they have a big nose.

By my definition, a successful caricature thereforelooks like the subject, is exaggerated to varying degreesand also has something to say about the subject. In livecaricature at a theme park, that third item is often turnedway down or ignored completely, but in the case of carica-tures for illustration, its an important part.

TEACHING SOMEONE TO SEE

Ive been working with young caricaturists at themeparks for 25 years now, and Ive learned one very impor-tant lesson its impossible to teach someone to drawcaricatures.

I can teach them to DRAW that isnt so hard. Learn-ing how a face looks and works by learning anatomy, howexpression changes the features, how the angle the face isat changes the perception of features, how hair grows andfalls about the head those are things that can be taught.

Drawing caricatures, on the other hand, is a lot moreabout seeing what makes the person in front of you uniqueand interpreting it than it is about making good, confidentmarks on the paper. I can explain to someone exactly howto draw a circle, but if I place a circle before them and askthem to draw it and they draw a square well, that is allabout seeing and not drawing. The ability to see, and afterthat the ability to exaggerate what you see for humorouseffect in a caricature, that has to be developed. For mostthat means a lot of drawing and a lot of looking.

Have you ever been walking along at the mall or where

ever and along comes somebody with some crazy, incred-ibly distinct face that maybe sports a gigantic nose or aCro-Magnon brow or some other obviously out-of-the-ordinary features? Caricaturists have a term for that kindof face its called a field day.

Think about it for a second why is that face so ripe forcaricature compared to the next persons? Are the featuresreally that different? If you took a ruler and measured thesize of Mr. Schnozzs nose compared to Mr. Normal, thedifference would be minimal. So why is Mr. Schnozz somuch easier to caricature? Because you are SEEING a dif-ference based on perception, and that is giving you yourspringboard for a caricature. One observation of what

makes this person different from normal, and you are offand running.

The obvious features are easy observations its Johnnyand Susie Normal or, worse yet, Johnny and Susie Super-

model that are the challenge. That is where developing anability to see becomes important. There is no face thatdefies caricature, you just sometimes have to dig a littledeeper to find the keys to unlock the more difficult puzzle.In caricature, the old adage of practice makes perfecthas never been truer. The ability to see doesnt spring upovernight, and I often tell eager young caricaturists theyhave about 500 or so bad caricatures in them they have todraw out first before they start noticing the subtle thingsthat hide inside the ordinary face.

Although I say its impossible to teach someone todraw caricatures, its not impossible to help them developtheir ability to draw them. There are many ways and tech-niques to help an artist develop their ability to see what

is in front of them, recognize what makes what they seeunique and then amplify that uniqueness to create a suc-cessful caricature.

THE FIVE SHAPES

The human face is perceived by many as an incrediblecomplex object. There are about 52 muscles in the face,depending on your source and its categorization. Age, sex,race, expression (the face is capableof about 5,000 expressions) weightand environment can all play a rolein the look and perception of a givenface. Sounds pretty complex. Not

really. Every building, no matter howcomplex, starts out with a foundationand framework. Look at this simpledrawingAT RIGHT.

Show that drawing to any humanbeing in the world and ask themwhat it is. Barring a language barrier, they will tell you itsa face. No other information needed. In its most simple

form, the humanface is made up ofonly five simpleshapes, as shownin the drawingATLEFT .

Place these shapesin their properrelationship, andyou have a humanface. It really is thatsimple. Drawing theshapes accurately,so they recogniz-ably represent thesubjects features,is the basis for a

good likeness. Beyond that is nothing but details thingslike dimples, wrinkles, eyelashes, cheekbones, etc. They


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are the decor to your building themillwork, furniture and drapery thatmakes the place unique and filledwith life. Without the strong founda-

tion, made up by these five simpleshapes, it can all come tumblingdown.

What does that have to do withcaricature? Everything. I mentioneda single word in the last paragraphthat really is the secret to caricatureas a whole no matter what techniqueor approach you intend to practice:RELATIONSHIPS.

Its the manipulation of the rela-tionships of these five simple shapesthat create the foundation for yourcaricature. In fact, Id argue that 90

percent of the entire caricature residesin how you relate these five simpleshapes to one another. It is the foun-dation upon which the rest of your building is built, wherethe real power of exaggeration is realized. Make it goodand almost all the heavy lifting is done, the rest merelyreferring to details. What do I mean by relationships? Imean the distances between the five shapes, their size rela-tive to one another, and the angles they are at in relation-ship to the center axis of the face. Distance. Size. Angle.

In traditional portraiture, the head is divided into clas-sic proportions meaning the relationship of the features

are within a certain, accepted rangeof distance to one another, size andangle relative to the face and headshape. You achieve your likeness in

a classic portrait, in its most basicform, by correctly drawing the shapand then the details of each featureaccording to the model in front ofyou while staying within the framework of the classic proportions. Ocourse each face varies minutely heand there, but still you do not strayfar from the classic formula.

In a caricature, like a portrait, thelikeness is also achieved by drawingthe features as they really look buyou change the relationship of thefeatures based on your perceptions

of the face. The relationships youchange are as I listed before: distansize and angle.AT LEFT, look at the

VERY simple drawings that demonstrate how you canchange the relationships of the five shapes and create verdifferent caricatures.

No detail, and all the shapes are basically the same (wthe exception of the head shape, a unique element to cacature) but all are distinctly different and when the detaare added will make for highly varied caricatures. Thedifference is the relationships between the features, andhow they have been exaggerated and changed. Caricatur


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A humorous i llustrator,

cartoonist and caricaturist,

Tom began his career as a

caricaturist at a theme park

in 1985 at age 18 while

studying art in St. Paul, Minn.

He now works as a freelancer

for a great variety of clients

including Scholastic, Sports

Illustrated for Kids, Na-

tional Geographic World, Time

Digital,Penthouse, Marvel

Comics, The Cartoon Network,

WB Animation, and many,many more. He designed

the character Achmed Jr.

for superstar comedian and

ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, for

whom he also does product

illustration.

His art and character designs

have been featured on the

animated MAD TV show as

well as in several feature

films and commercials. He

is best known as one of the

Usual Gang of Idiots

at MAD Magazine, where his

caricatures and illustrations

have been featured in film

and TV parodies and feature

articles regularly since 2000.

His work has been hon-

ored with several awards,

including twice being named

Caricaturist of the Year by

the International Society of

Caricature Artists, and with

NCS Silver Reubens for Ad-

vertising Illustration in 2003,

2006 and 2007 as well as

for Newspaper Illustration in

2011. In 2012, he received

what is arguably cartoonings

highest honor: the Reuben

Award for Outstanding Car-toonist of the Year from the

National Cartoonists Society.

Tom is the current president

of the NCS, serving in his

second term.

He works from a studio in

his home near Minneapolis,

Minn.

Follow Tom on Twitter

@art4mad

is not about choosing one feature and making it bigger, itsabout all the features together and how they relate to oneanother.

BELOW LEFT are some quick studies of the five shapes next

to a few caricature sketches.The relationships differ in distance, size and angle from

one another. The bigger the differences are from classicproportions, the more exaggerated the caricature. Its mucheasier to see the differences when the details are removedand only the 5 shapes are left. Its also much easier to createthose differences at this simple, fundamental level. Its easyto get caught up in details when the important informationrests beneath the rendering.

How does one determine the correct changes to maketo a given persons feature relationships to make a goodcaricature of them? Well, thats the trick, isnt it? That iswhere that pesky seeing comes in.

In his book How to Draw Caricatures, Lenn Redmanuses a concept called The Inbetweener as a basis foralmost every observation. It is basically the classic portrai-ture relationships used as a point of reference for makingobservations. Every caricature begins with the observationsthe artist makes about the subject, and how their particularface is perceived by them.

MAD Magazineslegendary caricaturist Mort Drucker hasbeen quoted as saying that there is no one correct wayto caricature a subject. Any given subject can have severaldifferent interpretations with respect to the exaggeration ofthe relationship of their features and each may be as suc-cessful as the other.

Thats one of the unique things about caricature as an art

form. Portraiture is basically absolute Your drawing eitherlooks like the person with the correct features, proportionsand relationships, or it does not. Caricature is subjectiveto a point. The artists goal is to draw how they perceivethe face, and exaggerate that perception. The result may bedifferent than how others perceive that face, but if the threeelements we described in our definition are present its stilla successful caricature. Hirschfeld used to say he once drewMr. Schnozz himself, Jimmy Durante, without a nose atall, yet it was still recognizable as Durante.

Thats not to say that any observation is appropriateafter all you cant give someone with a small, button nosea gigantic potato nose and call it exaggeration. Thatsnot exaggeration, its DISTORTION. You can, however,

choose NOT to exaggerate the noses smallness but ratherfind something else to exaggerate. That is the caricaturiststask, to find what it is about the subjects face that makesit unique and alter those relationships to exaggerate thatuniqueness.

nnn

You can learn a lot more about drawing caricatures fromToms best-selling instruction book The Mad Art of Caricature! A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces, available directlyfrom the author at www.deadlinedemon.com, or wherever artinstruction books are sold.

Tom Richmond......................................................................................

NC 2014 E.C. Publications,
http://twitter.com/art4madhttp://twitter.com/art4mad


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Bill Watterson is the Bigfoot of cartooning.He is legendary. He is reclusive. And like Bigfoot, there is

really only one photo of him in existence.

Few in the cartooning world have ever spoken to him. Evefewer have ever met him. In fact, legend has it that whenSteven Spielberg called to see if he wanted to make a movie,Bill wouldnt even take the call.

So it was with little hope of success that I set out to try andmeet him last April.

I was traveling through Cleveland on a book tour, and Iknew that he lived somewhere in the area. I also knew that hwas working with Washington Post cartoonist Nick Galifianakon a book about Cul de Sac cartoonist Richard Thompsons aSo I took a shot and wrote to Nick. And Nick in turn wrote toWatterson.

And the meeting didnt happen. Bill apparently had

B y

S t e p h a n

Pas t i s

An unlikely duo createcomics for the ages

STEPHANBILL

Right and on the folowing pages,

original art from

Pearls Before Swineby Stephan Pastis

and Bill Watterson.Scans courtesy of Todd Hignite of

Heritage Auctions.



25/64


something to do. Or more likely, wanted nothing to do withme. Which is smart. But Nick encouraged me to send an emailto Bill anyway. I said I didnt want to bother him.

But a week or so later, this Pearls strip ran in the newspaper:

And I figured this was as good of a time to write to him asany.

So I emailed him the strip and thanked him for all his greatwork and the influence hed had on me. And never expected

PASTISWATTERSON

to get a reply.And what do you know, he wrote back.Let me tell you. Just getting an email from Bill Watterson is

one of the most mind-blowing, surreal experiences I have everhad. Bill Watterson really exists? And he sends email? And hescommunicating with me?

But he was. And he had a great sense of humor about thestrip I had done, and was very funny and oh yeah he hada comic strip idea he wanted to run by me.

Now if you had asked me the odds of Bill Watterson eversaying that line to me, Id say it had about the same likelihoodas Jimi Hendrix telling me he had a new guitar riff. And yes,Im aware Hendrix is dead.

So I wrote back to Bill.Dear Bill, I will do whatever you want, including setting my

hair on fire.

PearlsBeforeSwine

2014StephanPastis


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So he wrote back and explainedhis idea. He said he knew that in mystrip, I frequently make fun of myown art skills. And that he thought

it would be funny to have me gethit on the head or something andsuddenly not be able to draw. Thenhed step in and draw my comicstrip for a few days.

Thats right.The cartoonist who last drew

Calvin and Hobbesriding their sledinto history would return to thecomics page.

To drawPearls Before Swine.What followed was a series of

back-and-forth emails where wediscussed what the strips would be

about, and how we would do them.He was confident. I was frightened.Frightened because its one thing

to write a strip read by millions ofpeople. But its another thing topropose an idea to Bill Watterson.

The idea I proposed was thatinstead of having me get hit on thehead, I would pretend thatPearlswas being drawn by a precocioussecond grader who thought myart was crap. I named her Libby,which I then shorted to Lib.(Hint, hint: Its almost Bill back-wards.)

At every point in the process,I feared I would say somethingwrong. And that Bill would disap-pear back into the ether. And thatthe whole thing would seem like awisp of my imagination.

But it wasnt that way.Throughout the process, Bill was

funny and flexible and easy to workwith.

Like at one point when I wantedto change a line of dialogue hewrote, I prefaced it by saying, Ifeel like a street urchin telling Mi-

chelangelo that Davids hands aretoo big. But he liked the change.And that alone was probably thegreatest compliment Ive everreceived.

I dont want to say any moreabout our exchange because to doso would probably be to compro-mise the privacy he so zealouslyguards. But I will offer you this onebiographical tidbit: technology isnot his friend.

I found that out when it came to

the logistics of the artwork. I drewmy part first and then shipped himthe strips. I wanted him to fill inthe panels I left blank, and simply

scan and email me back the finishedstrips.I asked him to do this because I

did not want to be responsible forhandling his finished artwork. Part-ly because I knew it would be worththousands of dollars. Partly becauseI knew he wanted to auction it offfor charity. And partly because myUPS driver has a tendency to leavemy packages in the dirt at the endof our driveway. (I could just imag-ine the email Id have to write thenext day: Dear Mr. Watterson, The

first comic strip youve drawn in 20years was ravaged by a squirrel.)So this left doing it my way.

Digitally.And this is when I found out

that Bill Watterson is not comfort-able with scanners or Photoshopor large email attachments. In fact,by the end of the process, I was leftwith the distinct impression that heworks in a log cabin lit by whale oiland hands his finished artwork to aman on a pony.

So I proposed working out ourtechnological issues over the phone.But he didnt want to.

At first I thought it was becausehe didnt own one. Or have electric-ity. But then I remembered we wereemailing.

And so I soon came to the sadrealization that he probably justdidnt want me to have his phonenumber. Which was smart. BecauseI would have called that man once aweek for the rest of his life.

And so we worked through thetechnological problems via email.And unlike every other technologi-

cal problem Ive ever had, it was notfrustrating.

It was the highlight of my career.The only thing Bill ever asked

of me was that I not reveal he hadworked onPearlsuntil all three ofhis strips had run. And so I did notreveal his participation until the se-quence ran. And it was the hardestsecret Ive ever had to keep.

Because I knew I had seen some-thing rare.

A glimpse of Bigfoot.

By Chris Sparks

In early June several Team Cul de Sac te

members got together at Richard Thompso

house outside of Washington, D.C. We were

joined by two particular TCDS members, Bi

Watterson and Stephan Pastis.

Stephan was the first to commit to Team

Cul de Sac and brought early attention to t

project. Then, as you may remember, Bill di

a painting of Petey for the cause. It was Bil

first public art in 16 years, and the publicit

surrounding his donation put our project o

the cartooning map and helped raise ne

Original Pea

N C


27/64


$125,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Bill, who has become a most vocal sup-

porter in the quietest way possible, delivers

the goods. And he did it again in his collabo-

ration with Stephan on Pearls Before Swine.

Bill had sent me an email a few months

earlier that he had a TCDS secret, and then a

few weeks before the strips appeared he told

me the news about the Pearlsdailies.

For the first time since December 1995,

Bills art appeared in newspapers.

I had the privilege of having breakfast

with Bill on June 4, and I handed him the

morning paper. I watched as he read his first

newspaper work in 19 years. The print was a

little smaller than he remembered from the

good ol days, but I dont think hed mind me

saying that he was grinning from ear to ear. I

know I was.

A huge thank you to both Bill and Stephan

for all of the support they have given Team

Cul de Sac.

Support that will pay even greater divi-

dends: At Bills request, the artwork is being

sold for Team Cul de Sac on behalf of Cul

de SacsRichard Thompson, who is battling

Parkinsons Disease.

The original artwork for the three comic

strip collaboration between Bill and Stephan

will be sold at Heritage Auctions on Aug. 8,

with proceeds from the sale benefitting The

Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons

Research. Profits from the sale of the art

(Heritage is also waiving the sellers fee and

will contribute half of the buyers premium)

will be donated to the Foundation.

To follow the auction, visit HA.com.

For more on Team Cul de Sac, see

teamculdesac.blogspot.com .

rtwork to be auctioned

http://teamculdesac.blogspot.com/http://teamculdesac.blogspot.com/


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S

o what, like, 30 years agodid I sit across from youat this drawing board?

(Laughs) Yeah, this

very table. They toldme I could take it withme.

I remember then howyou were struggling withstyle, trying to find yourown voice.

You know, I feel likeit was (laughs) a particularly painfulgrowing period for me, but maybe itfeels that way to everyone. In the earlydays, on any given day you could lookat my cartoon and figure out who I

had been looking at the night before(laughs). I went through a MacNellyperiod, I went through an Oliphantperiod. Peters, Searle, Booth. Unlike alot of people I didnt grow up wanting

to be a cartoonist. I suddenly had thisjob before I had done all the kind ofminor league development. So I was re-ally learning while on stage. There seemto be a few geniuses who seem to springfull grown onto the scene, but most ofus have worked our way through theseinfluences to come to some sort of syn-thesis of our own.

And that synthesis arrived . . . ?I started in 76. Id say that by ten

years down the road that sounds likea long time I was no longer think-ing so much about how to draw. It hadgone from conscious to unconscious.And I think thats when you start hav-ing fun. When youre not thinking somuch about whose style youre work-ing in, whose voice youre speaking

through. You finally integrate that stuand then youre just drawing. There wa period in the early-to-mid 90s wherit felt like I was in the zone, and each

day I was inventing something new.

In Smorgasborgman, your first collection, you cite a laundry list of influencesfrom Searle to MacNelly, Heinrich Kley,Springsteen (Borgman laughs). Aside frany stylistic influence, what did they brito your drawing board?

Springsteen I think about a lot. Hebeen an ongoing influence for me,and I think the reason is not only thegreat heart he brings to everything, bhis sense of place. He didnt try to beuniversal he tried to be particular.

He talked about the boardwalk in Jersand particular streets. And doing thatfelt like our story. Thats what I came like about that part of my cartoons when Im able to plug into that sense

of place, you know, these big doughypeople that populate my cartoons.Those are people I live among, those people Im watching when Im havinbreakfast with my mom at the DelhiBig-Boy. The houses they live in areauthentic to this area. So once I had tmid-western voice established to mywork I felt more comfortable.

What about, say, Searle, who doesntbring that sense of whats goingon in his neighborhood?

No, he doesnt.For Searle I think itsalmost all style. Thatamazing electricity in hisline. (Looks at the Searle originals onthe wall in his office) What sometimelooks like abandon. Certainly artistic

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Except for the three Ronald Searle originals

on the wall, the office looked the clutter of

just another move. Empty boxes awaited

more files, shelves were just half-full, a pile

of discarded books sat in the corner. A stack

of slips reminds everyone about his new

contact information. Hell be there past

midnight, boxing up a lifetime of work.

After 32 years of editorial cartooning at

the Cincinnati Enquirer, Jim Borgman was

leaving. Just walking away from the 19th-

floor corner office, with spectacular views of

sports stadiums below, the Ohio River and

Kentucky to the south, and to the west, the

area of town where Jim was raised.

Hed probably be the first to tell you that

while it may be about location as in that

west side of Cincinnati it is not about

this corner office. Therell be no memorial

to cartooning left here.

The one that took 32 years to build is

already in place.

Two days before Jim was to leave in 2008,

I slipped into a chair across from him, and

with pizza and soft drinks resting on the

same drawing board where he won the Pu-

litzer Prize in 1991 and the Reuben Award

a couple years later we chatted about his

leaving and his legacy, staying out of the

spotlight and big doughy people.

Frank Pauer



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muscle, artistic courage to just put linesdown and not fuss with them. When youlook at those originals theres somethingmoving through his pen, a real energy

that I love. At my worst, my lines get verystatic; at my best they have that quiver tothem that I think I learned from Searle.

Getting back to that Springsteen sense ofplace, you once said, I didnt savor the bigmoments as much as chronicling the smallerchanges. How the news trickles down to ev-eryday lives, how people adjust and cope.

Yeah, thats him, isnt it. Did he saythat or did I?

You did.(Much laughter) Thats good. I mean,

there was a point in my career when Ibecame less interested in what was goingon in Washington and more interested inwhat was going on in my neighborhood. Inever abandoned Washington, of course,

readers became. Im on the 19th floor ofa downtown office building, but when Imeet Cincinnatians they feel they knowme. And I feel like I know them, too. It

just turns out that weve been exchang-ing a couple sentences a day over coffee(laughs).

Youre not talking down to them as muchas engaging them.

Thats a nice thought. I hope thatstrue. I never thought the point of politi-cal cartoons was to necessarily make youlaugh or to make you do anything justbe on the wavelength of whats going onin the world and try to capture it. Peoplehave been writing me as I leave. Imamazed at how many of them write, You

made me laugh. You made me cry. Thelaughing part Im proud I can do thatsometimes. But to be able to say that youdid a drawing and it affected someone, ittouched their heart thats a pretty big

but I felt a little like a fraud, drawing allthese Washington-centric cartoons fromCincinnati, where people are workingand raising their kids. They dont have

this luxury to study House bills and allthis wonkish stuff. Im grateful that somepeople do, and Im grateful that I had ajob where I could, but after a while it justfeels like youre talking to yourself in thistown. So I started doing more and morewhat I call domestic cartooning, people intheir houses talking to each other aboutstuff. Its usually not profound, but itskind of how the news finally drifts downand impacts them. I started feeling like Iwas on a more authentic road.

So youre in the neighborhood, but then

youre the only one who can draw.It came to be, over time, a conversa-tion that I was having with readers inthis town. I still marvel at how impos-sibly intimate my relationship with these


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deal. Im proud of exercising that wholerange of what drawings can do.

So you made them laugh, you made them

cry what about those readers who are justpissed off?

(Laughs) You read my blog! Theblogosphere just brings out the worstin people. Well, look Im a fairlyliberal person in a town thats stronglyRepublican. Ive been rowing against thecurrent all these years, politically speak-ing, yet they still tolerate me. Probablythe most common comment I get is, Idont always like what you say but I doenjoy your cartoons. (Laughs). It givesme the sense that theres a lot of peoplefor whom Ive been the devils advocate

in this town. Thats OK. A place like thiscan get pretty tight if somebody isnt outthere insisting on some elbow room.

But youre not elbowing them that hard.If you looked at my work long enough

youd certainly see my political bent.But I dont think that day after day Imideological in my work. An awful lot ofit is just common sense. Observations.And a lot of it has nothing to do withpolitics. I would always dip down and doa Bengals or Reds or cicada cartoon. Itsan instinct, that after Ive tested every-ones patience, to bring us back togetherand talk about something less volatile.Its a natural cadence tomy work.

We should back up abit. Did you do cartoons incollege?

Yeah.

Were they editorial car-toons was it some obviousprogression from there tohere?

Its a pretty unlikelystory. I was a junior atKenyon when I was giventhe assignment of doingcaricatures of famous Ke-nyon alumni. RutherfordB. Hayes. Paul Newman.Jonathan Winters. So I didthese David Levine-type caricatures. Thatwas my first time in print, to speak of.

But you must have already cartoonedsome something they would have seen.

You knowwwww barely. I remem-

ber in high school drawing Paul Simonoff of an album cover. I think I wasdrawn to caricature initially. But it wasan adopted interest in college to start

learning about cartoons. A friend wasinto very old political cartoons Puckand that kind of stuff. I was interested,but not so much. Then I found Oliphantand MacNelly in the papers. My momwould clip them out and send them tome.

Did you end up doing political cartoonsfor the school paper?

I think I did one in my junior yearand then each week in my senior year.You have to remember I got [theEnquirer] job in like January of my senior

year, so I had done a dozen, or 15, politi-cal cartoons.

Your entire portfolio!(Laughs) That was my entire portfolio

when I was hired to do this job. And youmight think that they were fabulous car-toons. They were not fabulous cartoons(laughs). They were very derivative, obvi-ously, and not very astute. But this is myhometown, and like a bumpkin I sentmy work in to the editor. [Enquireredito-rial cartoonist] L.D. Warren had retireda couple years earlier. Dwane Powell hadthen come in, but that didnt work out.They were passively looking for someone

and I think they figured that since I wasfrom here I might understand the politi-cal scene better. I didnt, but I didnt tellthem that. And so I arrived very, verygreen one week after I graduated, hav-ing drawn maybe 20 cartoons. My first

month here I doubled my lifes output(laughs).

Were you an art major?

Yeah.

What had you otherwise thought aboutdoing?

Im astonished how little I gave itany thought. I think I imagined myselfpainting somewhere, or doing prints.My mentor in college was a print-makea lithographer doing obscure imageryand stuff, and all of us were his discipleWhere I thought that was going I dontknow.

So there you are, one week after gradua-

tion, hired as theeditorial cartoonist of amajor metropolitan daily newspaper.(Laughs) Yeah.

What do you think they were thinking?I think they thought they could mol

me, is what it amounted to. They prob-ably thought OK, the guy can draw andhe doesnt have many political opinion which I was very up front about and so we can make him a Republicancartoonist to replace L.D. here. But it wimmediately clear: I was a kid of the 60and that was not a natural fit for me. Abegan developing and reading more anmore I was not in line with the Enquire

editorial philosophy.

Did that ever come tohead?

It was only a coupleyears later that I wasstarting to get job offeI went to my editor ansaid, You know I wouunderstand it if youwanted a cartoonist wwas going to be more line with your politicaphilosophy here, but not me, and if its notme maybe you could me now while I haveother options. And tword came back, Nowe like you and think

readers understand that when your sig-nature is on it its you talking and not uIf youre going to do strong work yourgoing to have to feel strongly about it. go to it. Thats a pretty remarkable thito be told when youre 24.


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the ones that have more soul in them.

But initially I think I tried early on to be that angry

young man in my cartoons. It just didntfit me. I dont have that Olympian voicethat Paul Conrad or Herblock had. Iadmire them, but I dont have it in my-self. For me, the art form has been moreabout me picking up the rock, turning itover and holding it up to the sun to seehow the light bounces off of it. I have afairly strong set of principles and politicalbeliefs, but at the end of the day Im OKwith it if people just looked at my workand considered it. If it made them firmerin their own opposing viewpoint, thatsall right I had some role in the debate.

Its by putting it out there that you sparkother peoples voices, and thats where myfaith is.

So aside from growing up with these people,where did the visual spark come from?

I started looking at George Booth at onepoint. And it was his characters that sortof got me going. It was that sense of, like,a world he lived in and these people whopopulated it. It was all unarticulated, butthere was this feeling that there was thisworld there, and it would be interestingto find that world myself. My own world.And thats when I started doing more ofthose common man scenes, which devel-oped into a whole vein of my work.

What about a cartoon that youve done or a series of cartoons that have had somedirect effect on an issue.

Boy . . . so rare. There were a few cases.Robert Mapplethorpe, the photographer,had an exhibit here at the ContemporaryArts Center in the early 90s. Our sheriff,who was a prosecutor at the time, shut itdown because in his mind it was porno-graphic. He had just gottenHustlerout oftown, and was building steam as a kindof puritanical sort of force. I didnt havestrong feelings about Mapplethorpe, but Ifelt this was going in the wrong direction.So I was really leaning into him and thetide of opinion began to turn against him.I dont know how much of it was me, butthe show re-opened and he was sort ofshut down for a while.

Did he ask for the originals?No. (Laughs).

Local boy makes good.

But did following L.D., who had a veryconservative voice, affect your earliest work,thinking that maybe you should be careful inhow you began?

Youd think. But, no (laughs). Naivetcan be a gift sometimes. I was far moreformed by the editorial cartoons I waslooking at than by the writers aroundme. I wasnt thinking strategically, I wasjust thinking about what I wanted to say.

Not playing it safe.No. A guy from the paper who liked

me came in one day and said, You betterwatch your ass. You shouldnt be gettingaway with the stuff youre getting awaywith. (Laughs.) I think it startled every-

body. That my body of work has beenpopular within the context of this news-paper and this town is not a natural fit.

In your first collection theres a lot less ofthose doughy folk that you love to depict. Ijust assume there was a conscious effort todo national-topic cartoons because thatswhat you thought you had to do as an edito-rial cartoonist?

Yeah. And in those days you alsothought, OK, now Ive got a job, howcan I get syndicated? At the time itseemed unexciting the days I had to low-er myself to do local topics. I say all thatin quotes, because in time I feel like thoseare the ones that really matter. Theyre


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There cant be many cartoonists withmy story. I bet there once was. I bet itwas once more common for a person tocartoon in their own hometown.

Given that, how different do you thinkyour work might have been if you had, say,spent most of your career in San Diego?

I remember Signe Wilkinson telling methat when she went to San Jose she wasdoing her kind of characters. Her editortold her, People dont look like that inCalifornia. And it dawned on her that hewas right. So I think she started drawingthin people jogging and stuff (laughs).I tend to think that wherever I went Iwould have absorbed the culture of theplace. Whether I would have gotten good

at capturing a place other than the oneI grew up in I dont know. I also dontthink I would have been a very good car-toonist in a big city. I thrive better whereIm not in the spotlight. I dont have toperform on the big stage, I can just hearmyself think and follow my own vibe.This place has been good for me that way.I thought that was why a lot of humoristscame out of the Midwest. We have thisperspective on things. You can see wherelife is happening from here, but its not . .. here (laughs).

Not many television reality shows basedin Ohio.

(Laughs) Were good observers here inthe Midwest.

Speaking of careers, youd once said thatgrowing up you wanted to be a priest or azoo-keeper. Do you think that you achievedsome

Perfect synthesis? (Laughs) Yeah, Ido. It sounds funny, but there is actuallysome truth in that. A priest has that senseof right and wrong, a moralistic thread.A zoo-keeper is just watching the animals(laughs). Editorial cartoonists do the per-fect synthesis of that.

Do you think most readers realize just howhard this job is?

I hear the Is that all you have to do?One cartoon a day? kind of thing, or Idont know how you come up with oneevery day. I imagine that most readerspicture us living a lot more frivolous andwhimsical a life. I grind away all day,mostly. I come down to the office virtu-ally every day, work in the newsroomwith my sketchbook full of notes and

stare deep, deep, deep into that whitepaper for most of the day.

Any work that youve come to regret?

(Long pause) Im not sure Im going tobe able to come up with a good answerto that. Ive always felt like this is a workin progress. Its a conversation, so whatI say today is not necessarily my bottomline. Its where I am today, and as thedebate goes on I may end up in a differentplace. Im not sure I challenged my biasesenough about Ronald Reagans message.He had a hold of something that was true.I didnt like him, and I still dont end upon his side of the debate. But thats trueof a lot of presidents. I thought Carter wasa dunce. You know, draw the guy with a

big smile and make fun of him. But now Ilook back, and he wanted to base foreignpolicy on human rights. Thats a prettydamned profound thought, and we justthought that was all silly. Would I go backand change things? I suppose, but notenough to worry about.

You dont always have that clear, moralvision at the outset.

You hope to get there.

I think most of us know that your first wifedied unexpectedly in 1999. I can only imag-ine how that must have affected you person-ally, but how did it affect you professionally?

Thats a great question. (Pauses) Lynnwas a fabulous partner. I look back andthink that, during those 20 years together,I was able to focus on my work in an

almost inordinately pure kind of way.When she died I realized what a luxurythat had been, because then I was a sindad with two kids. Now I was the one

late paying the bills, and arranging to to the parent conferences and workingaround all the things a parent has to dAnd your attention gets divided. I thinthere was a period of several years, atleast, where a, youre just getting backyour feet emotionally; and b, you startrealizing that this is the way that mostpeoples lives are. Split attention, cutticorners, taking shortcuts, trying to hoit together with spit and duct tape andbody English. I was out of that goldenera, where I could come in here and hthe luxury of just massaging a drawing

all day long. It was several years beforegot back on my feet that way. I remarrin 2003, and weve found our way bacto that feeling again.

I guess we were fortunate that you got inwhile the getting was good its not the bof times for editorial cartooning.

Its like the rapture for cartoonists were all just at once ascending into thesky. In some ways it makes sense ifyoure the bean counter whos runningnewspaper you can get rid of this positiwithout missing a beat in your produc-tion. I was given the luxury of a nicevoluntary severance package, so Im noreally talking about me, and my publishad a lot of reluctance to allow me to tthe buyout. But looked at another way,its like Matt Davies said to me, Newsp


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pers are burning their heirloom furnitureto heat the house. People like cartoon-ists and columnists give a newspaper itspersonality. So in one sense its easy to cutthem but it also seems pretty shortsighted you just become another cold newsdeliverer. Readers have a lot of optionsof where to get their news, and if youhavent made yourself distinguished insome way with personality and color thenwhy should they choose you?

What about filling this chair?Id be more happy moving on if I

thought thered be some kid coming in totake this spot. But even at this, by movingon I may have protected the jobs of a fewpeople out in the newsroom, youngerpeople who are starting to raise their fami-lies and who may grow into their voices.Its appropriate to move on at a certainpoint, but its harder for me knowing thatthere may be a Sprite machine here wherethis drawing board is (laughs).

What are you not going to miss aboutleaving?

I never liked being in the spotlight. Ialways liked that my picture didnt runin the paper my work could be knownwithout me having to be out there. None-theless, this job does require you to besomewhat of an ambassador for the paper.It never fit me right.

But you did do a lot of school talks, presen-tations to various groups. . .

I did as much of that as I could, and itwas all good, but it never fit my personal-ity. I will just like doing the strip in ano-nymity, and not being out as much as thisposition required me to. Ive also gotten

tired of defending my point of view to an-gry people on the phone I wont missthat. I wont miss meetings. I dont knowhow much Ill miss the work itself.

Are you going to miss covering the election?Yeah, if I had my druthers the timing

would have been different. But its a funnything about the stuff you have to do you dont know how much you like itbecause you have to do it. Thats going tobe the revelation for me: when I look upin a couple months and dont have to doanything with the news. Will it just fadeaway for me or will I find some impulsethat wants to comment?

But come January, youll be doing a weeklypiece for the Enquirer. Will this be anythinglike Wonk City? How did that come about?

Mark Alan Stamaty did a thing calledWashingtoon for The Washington Postthat ran on Mondays on the op-ed page.Mark went on and Meg Greenfield calledand asked if Id like to do something inthat spot. Its like getting a call from theVatican. So I concocted this thing, anddid it for two years. It had a continuingcharacter and it was sort of about life asI imagined it to be inside Washington.It was all made up I did it from here(laughs). Nobody ever remembers it tome, and I dont think it made much ofan impact, but it gave me an appetite fortrying to tell a story. Thats something youdont get to do in editorial cartooning. SoI think that primed me to do Zits, and itprimed me to what Im going to do herenext, once a week for the paper. I alwaysliked what Phil Frank did. Mike Keefe didsomething called Cold Facts Avenue. Justthe concept of doing a comic strip on

your town and not caring if it made anysense outside of your readership reallyappealed to me. Its very intimate.

So itll just be more of these big, doughypeople.

Yeah (laughs). The mascot here is theflying pig. Its a long story this was abutchering capital for a long time. So Iseized on that, and thats going to be mymain character a little flying pig wholives in a chili parlor. Beyond that I dontknow much more (laughs). I dont thinkits going to be very political. At themoment I dont feel like talking aboutpolitics.*

Everyone else seems to be doing childrens

books.I dont think about childrens booksso much, but I once did a series aboutwhere you get your ideas that becamea poster. Thats a subject that interestsme the creative process. What its likeliving a life where you have to come upwith ideas everyday. Id like to maybe doa book on that.

You were using those party-hat charactersas far back as your first collection.

Long time ago. Its been in the back-ground all these years.

Ever pinch yourself and think for themost part that it couldnt have beenbetter?

I really do. I really do. I think how un-likely it was to find a job that pulled to-gether all the things Im good at. I cantdesign anything better caricature,writing, I get to read and sit and doodleand daydream. I get to chew on thesethoughts that interest me and then drawthem in a way that will engage people.I feel really, really lucky. And I thinkabout my dad, a sign painter on the westside of town, a real working-class part oftown. We got theEnquirerevery day andspread it out and did the Jumble togetherand read the comics and all that. Its notlike I lived thinking, Boy, if I could onlywork for the paper. That was too lofty athought nobody in my family did thatkind of stuff. That anyone would havesaid that I would grow up to be the faceof the Cincinnati Enquirerstill just seemsimpossible to me. And when I think ofmy dad, who died years ago, he wouldhave thought that was something reallycool.NC

*Unfortunately,thatweeklyseriesneve

rcametofruition.


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Frank Pauer: I think most of us know you for your print work, but

you took a roundabout way of careers to get here.Stephanie Piro: When I started to submit my work to maga-

zines must have been in the late 70s nobody wouldpublish it. I kept getting rejections. Very nice rejections, butI wasnt selling anything. When I showed cartoons to friendspeople seemed to respond to them, so I thought I would cutout the middleman and go the craft show route. I taughtmyself silk-screening, which wasnt easy, and I did just verysimple silk-screening just black line on very cheap T-shirts,which was all I could afford. The first craft show I went to I hadthese feminist shirts and all these women gathered around andlaughed and laughed. At this time there wasnt a lot of humorgeared toward women, as there is now. I sold all the shirts that

Shes the Saturday Chick.Sometimes Sunday, too. The rest of the week she self-syndicates t he panel

Fair Game, runs her ow n T-sh ir t co mp an y an d an ex ten si ve Caf eP re ss

store at cafepress.com/saturdaychick, de si gn s je we lr y, il lu st ra tes bo oks

(her most recent collection is My Cat Loves Me Naked) an d te ac he s ki ds

how to cartoon. Throw in an hour on the phone, too.

PI

RO

S E P H A N E

A

WOMANS

PERSPECTIVE
http://www.cafepress.com/saturdaychickhttp://www.cafepress.com/saturdaychick


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I had brought, and that started me on aT-shirt career. Which was a back door tocartooning. I was selling cartoons, justnot to a publication.

And you turned that into a lucrativeventure.

This was in 1984, so I started a com-pany called Strip Ts Design Company.I did that for a number of years. Peopleresponded to them and I did very, verywell selling T-shirts. And through theshirts a licensing agent spotted themand wanted to license my stuff to calen-dar companies. For a number of years Ihad calendars with different companies.Greeting cards were another deal.

But all the while you were still attempt-ing to break into magazine cartooning.

I was still submitting to magazinesand couldnt get published. Finally, afterhaving this whole other career Glamourmagazine bought my first cartoon.

Do you remember the gag for that firstone?

Yes, it was a line I actually took froma speech I had to give. My husband usedto give a Robert Burns Supper every yearand I was chosen to do a toast to theladdies. One of the lines was I like the

concept of men ... its the reality I haveproblems with. I used it in one of myearly feminist cartoons, which Glam-ourbought, and went on to buy manymore.

Did you grow up with an interest incartooning?

I did, from my earliest ability to read.I grew up on Long Island, and therewerent any bookstores close by. Once ina while wed have to go to the airport at that time it was still Idlewild andthere was a bookstore there. My mom

would buy the Peanuts collections, andI probably learned to read with those. Idont even remember it in the newspa-pers. It had such an impact on me Ijust loved Charles Schulzs line. I dontthink anyone has been more expressivewith such deceptively simple lookinglines. I just fell in love with black andwhite pen and ink work. My parentsbought the Charles Addams collections,the New Yorkercollections. My motherhad scrapbooks of cartoons that she hadcut out of magazines through her teen

years. She also liked Ronald Searle. Wealways had cartoon books around. AndEdward Gorey.

You attended the School of Visual Arts.Did you attend the school specifically topursue cartooning? Did they have much tooffer in that regard?

No, I wanted cartooning classes, butended up with fine art the first year andillustration the second. There werentmany cartooning classes that I remem-ber. I would have loved animation,but as I remember the few classes I washoping for were filled. I did have BurneHogarth for art history, so that was theclosest I got.

What was the best thing that you cameaway with from the school?

Mostly that it was a very freeing, lib-erating experience. It was the 60s afterall, and I had wonderful teachers. I re-member I had Robert DeNiro Sr. as a lifedrawing teacher, and Steve Kaltenbach,who was a terrific conceptual artist.

And so then all through the 80s you werestill pursuing print publication.

It was very funny: Cosmohad a youngeditor who wouldnt buy anything buthe really liked my work. He suggested

that I take all these cartoons and doa theme. So I put together all theserelationship cartoons, and he lovedthem. He even took them around on hislunchtime to other editors to get thempublished. No one did, but they becamemy book,Men! Ha!

Do you think that some of your work wasrejected because you were a woman, or wasit for the work?

Maybe early on, though a couple ofmy supporters were guys. But yeah, Ithink I was too overtly feminist. From

a womans perspective. Sometimes Itried to say that to womens magazinesthat I was submitting to: You know,youve got all these guys writing froma womans perspective, but how abouthow women feel? Why not open it up?The New Yorkerhas done that, but theNew Yorkerhumor is kind of . . .

Occasionally not very funny?(Laughs) A couple people I do find

funny. Even cartoonists that I like, some-times when theyre in the New Yorker

theyre less funny. (Laughs) I think thatcartooning had always been kind of that50s, white male profession. It was a guything. Theres still a difference in whatpeople find funny, but its changed a lot.Its easier. Although now that its easier,

there are less places to get published.

At what point did you realize that youhad a specific voice?

I think it was when I was trying to dothe strip The Terrible Tea Time, about twowomen who lived in a post-apocalypticsociety.I just really got into it. I had agood time doing those. I always likedsingle panels, but I really liked develop-ing the characters for that strip. Theolder I get, the harder it seems now.While I might have ideas for a strip I


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I think theres a real difference of peception in humor that appeals to menand humor that appeals to women. Ithink that it used to be that a lot of meditors would look at a strip for or

the national cartoonist issue 1

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