The Cartoon!st - Mar-Apr 2016

ED STECKLEY

Briefings from the Jovial Office . . . by Bill Morrison

Cartoonists take on Memphis

As I write this, the 70th Annual Reuben Awards weekend in Memphis, Tennessee is right around the corner!

I’m working with a super team of members to finalize plans for the plethora of rip-roaring events, including a surprisepacked Reuben Awards show, copious speaker sessions (including the incredible Paul Coker who’ll be receiving the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award and who, as you know unless you blew past our cover, is featured in an interview in this very issue!) and the not-to-be-missed private farewell rock & roll costume party at Elvis Presley’s Graceland!

One of the schemes still occupying my time is the Memphis Cartoon Project! This began as a request to all NCS

members to submit a cartoon or illustration related to a Memphis attraction or celebrity, to be used as a centerpiece on one of our Reuben Banquet tables. Then contributors were asked to donate their Memphis cartoon originals to be auctioned to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Finally, we cooked up a deal with the Memphis Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to grant them rights to use the cartoons to promote Memphis in exchange for a sizeable donation to help us offset expenses for our Graceland party.

Lately, on a neardaily basis, I arrive home from my studio at Bongo Comics to find one or more of these cartoons in my mailbox! Opening the envelopes has been a ritual of fun and excitement on a par with Christmas morning!

As I’ve thought about what to write about for this column, it occurred to me that it might be fun to share a pre-

view of some of these terrific cartoons with you! Maybe if you’re on the fence about registering for the Reuben Weekend (depending on when this issue arrives, there may still be time!) these delightful drawings will convince you that Memphis is the place to be this May!

And If you’re already registered, chances are you won’t be able to get around to all the tables Saturday night to see every cartoon, so this is an opportunity to see some that you’re bound to miss!

In either case, I hope you enjoy the inspired efforts of our members!

Over and Out,

Bill Morrison roswell2@earthlink.net

This issue’s cover is by the legendary MADman Paul Coker Jr. He might give pause at the description, but because he’s receiving the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award during the Reuben Weekend in Memphis, we figured that it was as apt — and appropriate — as anything else. For much more Coker, see Page 5.

NCS BOARD

Honorary Chairman

Mort Walker President

Bill Morrison 805-579-9827

First Vice President

Jason Chatfield

Second Vice President

“The Cartoon!st” is the official publication of the National Cartoonists Society, P.O. Box 592927 Orlando, FL 32859-2927. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the NCS. Entire contents ©2016 National Cartoonists Society, except where other copyrights are designated.

The Cartoon!st needs your news, opinions, drawings and photos. Address all materials to: Frank Pauer, 53 Beverly Place, Dayton, OH 45419. Phone: 937-296-0502 home, 937-229-3934 days. Email: fpauer1@udayton.edu

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All artwork contained herein, as usual, is ©2016 by the respective artist and/or syndicate, studio or other copyright holder. Pulled pork at Central BBQ, Mr. Ollie? Please address correspondence to: Frank Pauer, 53 Beverly Place, Dayton, OH 45419, or fpauer1@udayton.edu

Last-minute Memphis

By Greg Cravens

So you all have your packing done for Memphis, right? Too late to back out? OK, you can now have this handy guide to the goofier aspects of Memphis.

Yes, we have Southern accents. Don’t act surprised. Don’t gush. Yes, our accents are adorable, somewhere between Elvis and Hee Haw. Yes, your accents sound atrocious to us, but we’d never say so, Bless your heart. As I did for my Seattle sister-in-law at the McDonald’s drive-thru, though, I will help a bit. The local “Dabby Yaw?” is translated to “Will that be all?”

No, we DON’T know how to drive. It’s a problem, but the people that cause it can’t be caught because, well, they drive like bats with a threeday pass out of hell. Look both ways, and don’t assume that turn signals (or lack of them) mean a thing. Look on it as an opportunity for freedom, and for creative expression of your driving art.

Also, traffic laws are sort of a gray area in the rain. Think of your car as Gene Kelly — one minute on the sidewalk, the other back in the road in whatever lane seems splashiest.

Yes, that’s the Mighty Mississippi River, of legend and song, out the window and down the street from The Peabody. There are riverboats and catfish and whatever horrors that people in St. Louis chucked in there last week, passing by right now. Memphis (The Bluff City) sits high above its waters. It’s because of the Bluff that Memphis was able to stick around for you to come visit. Check out our Big Dirt Wall. Nice, right?

No, the area around the Airport and the area around Graceland were not designed with tourism in mind. We tried putting up big signs asking

you to “pardon our progress” as we work on them, but you know how that goes.

Happily, Elvis Presley Enterprises has been purchasing the land around Graceland very, very quietly for years. Suddenly, their development has begun to turn the neighborhood

phis has an inferiority complex because Nashville and the Smokys would prefer there were just their two stars, with a sort of a gritty smudge for Memphis.

I point this out only as a point of sociological interest. I mean, at least we’re not Mississippi or Arkansas, right?

Yes, Elvis is buried in his back yard like a family pet. But only we can say so. Also, while everyone knows your sense of humor is highly evolved — being a cartoonist — when you leave French fries or peanut butter and ’nanner sandwiches on his grave, those big guys in uniforms will come and ask you your name and next of kin. They don’t have senses of humor.

Yes, Memphians are “Memphians.” I’m told that sounds weird to people who aren’t. You tell me. Sound weird? “Mmmmemphiiiiian.” Yeah, maybe.

into something a lot slicker than it was only a year or two ago. Pardon our progress.

Yes, when you take the tour of St. Jude, you’re gonna cry. It’s OK — the work they’re doing there is astounding. You’ll discover that it’s one of the truly humanitarian things you can point to and say, “I’m behind this unreservedly.” It’s awesome and if a tear or two escapes, no one is going to say a darn thing.

Yes, Memphis is IN Tennessee, but no, it’s not really OF Tennessee. When traveling, I mention Memphis and people ask about the Smoky Mountains and Nashville, which are hundreds of miles away. Those are the OTHER two stars of the three on Tennessee’s flag. Mem-

Yes, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison helped create Rock and Roll here in Memphis. Yes, even more big names in Soul music recorded at Stax records: Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Albert King … the list is incredible. And then there’s B.B. King and all the blues musicians whose names are still on posters around town. And yes, Rick Dees recorded “Disco Duck” here — but I’m sure he didn’t mean it.

Lastly, the weather: you’d probably like some useful information on how to pack for your trip. Honestly? It’s May.

It could be anything. Dress for “Humid” is all I can tell ya.

Greg Cravens is the cartoonist behind The Buckets and Hubris and more advertising cartoons than you’d be wise to shake a stick at. He’s inordinately pleased to welcome you to Memphis. Y’all come on, now.

Besides the numerous magazines and many books his illustrations have appeared in, all the Hallmark cards he’s drawn and the two syndicated comic strips he did, Paul Coker Jr. has also created scores of cartoon characters for Rankin-Bass Productions’ perennial television productions (including “Frosty the Snowman”). Since 1962, his work has appeared regularly in the pages of MAD Magazine and MAD books — his most notable series being “Horrifying Clichés.” With six decades of cartooning behind him, Paul has no plans to retire — even though he’ll be presented with the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award during Reuben Weekend in Memphis. He was interviewed for this profile from his home studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, by John Read.

Paul Coker Jr . Drawn in Style

What do you tell a stranger who asks what you do for a living?

I either say I draw cartoons for a living, or I draw pictures for a living. Usually the next question is, “What comic strips do you do?” or “Do you do political cartoons?” And then I have to go into all sorts of things. Actually, what I do, really, is cartoon illustration. I think of myself as someone who illustrates other people’s hard work; because, almost invariably, someone else has done the idea. I get a script and fill in the blanks. That’s probably not what they want to hear.

In his 2002 book, MAD Art, Mark Evanier wrote, “When you’re at a party and the question is poised — ‘And what do you do for living?’ — there’s a certain pride, a certain amour prope, to be able to say, ‘Oh, I draw for MAD Magazine.’” Paul, do you, or did you, share that pride?

Certainly MAD has been the great thing in my professional life, mostly because it’s

given me an opportunity to travel. The MAD trips have been something I’d have never done on my own. We went all over the world. You’ve probably heard this from Jack and Sergio and anyone else who’s been on MAD trips — it’s the kind of thing you’d think about but never actually take the time to do. To have [MAD publisher] Bill Gaines plan the entire itinerary, where to eat and all those things, was just wonderful. Of course, now that Bill is dead and MAD Magazine is owned by a huge corporation, it is nothing like it was back then. After he died [in 1992] there were no more free trips.

Jack Davis told me you and he were often paired up on the MAD trips, and that ya’ll made for good roommates. Was this compatibility due to his being a Southern boy and your being a Midwestern boy?

Well, we both drink, so we had that in common. I always knew I had a drinking buddy if I wanted one. Jack and I did get along. And still do get along… although I almost never see him.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a long way from the coast of Georgia.

That was another thing about the MAD trips — you got to see each other at least once a year, and spend time together. That was especially nice once we all started moving away from New York.

How did you come to settle in Santa Fe?

My wife and I came down here for Christmas several years ago. We both liked it so much. It was one of those magical times, when the snow was on the ground and with all the lights and everything. Plus, it was quite mild, in spite of the fact that there was snow. Most people think of Santa Fe as being a place where everybody has a pool and you swim year ’round, but they confuse it, I think, with Phoenix. There is desert, and there certainly are cacti, but Santa Fe in an ordinary, fairly wet year gets an average, I think, of 37 inches of snow. We rented a place for about a year and a half, then bought the house we have now. We’ve probably been here for ten years or so.

And where were you living before Santa Fe?

We were in Kansas City. My wife still

has a place in Kansas City, and she did then. But I’m strictly a Santa Fe person.

Has it made any difference to your career where you’ve lived, after leaving New York?

I thought it might when I moved up to Connecticut, but it made no difference at all. Where I lived was only about an hour from downtown New York, though, so I didn’t have to rely on the mail. I don’t think there was FedEx, or fax machines, back then. I’d built the house in Connecticut, but I decided after a huge snowfall that I’d move to California. I enjoyed California — I liked it a lot. After selling my house and moving out there, I did think, well surely it’s going to be tougher getting work; but, what happened was, I had so much work I was committed to that the people I worked with — at the time I had a freelance contract with Hallmark Cards — just kept it coming. This was in ’70 or ’71 I believe and, besides Hallmark, I was doing one comic strip that was reasonably successful [Lancelot], and one that I liked a lot but was not terribly successful [Horace & Buggy], and I was doing MAD work, and I was doing work for a variety of magazines … so there wasn’t any let up. In fact, I was at least as busy

in California as I had been living in New York or Connecticut.

There’s a trade-off, of course. It would be much better if I was in New York because an art director is much more likely to call someone who can come to his office right away, rather than have to deal with someone by phone or fax or e-mail. I think if you’re just starting out you have to get to a major market like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or, I suppose, Dallas — any big city — in order to make a living. If you are not known at all, you are definitely going to have to move someplace close to the source of your income. After you become established, it’s another thing.

During this time, you were also doing work for Rankin/Bass Productions, right? There really was no let up for, what, 15 to 20 years?

That’s right. There was period of time when I was doing everything. I was, in the mid-to-late ’60s and throughout the 1970s, extremely busy. Unfortunately, I think, one of the reasons I could do so much work was because I wasn’t married; I didn’t have a family … no children or anything. I had no responsibilities other than to just me and my dog. I worked

whenever and wherever I wanted. I set up my own schedule.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it worked out. I had a professional letterer who lettered the strips, which was kind of cumbersome, but it helped me out quite a bit.

You penciled and inked both strips, like you did, and do, with all your magazine and advertising work?

Yeah.

You penciled the strips, sent them off to be lettered, then inked them after they’d been lettered?

Yes, that’s right. That’s what I meant about the cumbersome part.

And Don Edwing was the author of Horace & Buggy, right?

Right. Don also wrote a lot of things for MAD I illustrated.

Don told me that you illustrated a MAD piece about insects he’d written, and that he knew you’d be great for Horace & Buggy Lancelot, the other strip you drew, was written by Frank Ridgeway, who was also doing the comic strip Mr. Abernathy. I’m curious why Ridgeway signed Lancelot as “Penn.”

Frank just didn’t want his syndicate to know he was also doing another strip.

Let’s back up a bit: After college, but before going to work for Hallmark, you served in the military. What branch?

The Navy. I joined the Naval Reserve. I did it to avoid being drafted into the Army. It was for three years. I spent the entire time at Great Lakes, Illinois, just a few miles north of Chicago. I was on the staff of the visual aids department. Because it was a training base, they needed a lot of drawings of various things.

So was that duty good training for you?

Well, it was a helluva good thing in terms of my staying out of dangerous action! Because I was in the Navy, you could get a very cheap rate riding on the train. The cost of a round-trip ticket from Great Lakes to Kansas City was $12, so people

didn’t even know I’d left Lawrence because I was home so much. I didn’t make much of my Naval career …and I didn’t want to. But, to tell people you spent your entire Naval career in Chicago is not very impressive.

What was your upbringing like? What was it like growing up in Lawrence, Kansas?

Looking back on it now, with all of the potential problems that young people have, it was pretty idyllic. I started drawing pretty early on, and was encouraged by teachers, my parents, relatives, and friends. Once that happens, once people start thinking of you as “the fellow who draws pictures,” it just takes over. You get all of your notoriety for doing that.

I was extremely lucky. I was one of those Depression children, where there really weren’t that many large families. It meant that when I went out to look for work, after getting out of the Navy, there were lots of jobs. At least, it seemed that way to me. As opposed to now, when there is so much competition, and, if you’re not computer literate, you’re out of it. And since I don’t even type —

If you had come along a generation later, though, you’d have had to become computer literate if you wanted to continue working as an illustrator.

The problem was, at the time I was in junior high and high school, you were given the opportunity to take an art course or learn to type or study a language. Obviously, in all the elective things, I chose art … and I missed out on an enormous amount of information I should have had. Only now, though,

does the fact that I didn’t learn to type make a difference. I am definitely not computer literate. My wife has all sorts of — she has a printer, and two computers, one that you put on a desk and one that’s a laptop computer — and she uses them all the time. I’m an old person. I’m sure as hell not gonna change much now.

You studied art at the University of Kansas, then went into the Navy. After your naval service, your first civilian job was at a TV station?

Yes, in Kansas City. I worked there for no more than a year, probably less.

After that, you went to Hallmark, where you started as an illustrator, but became an art director?

That’s right. Hallmark had this new department, Fancy Free, and they needed to give me a title since I was supposed to be the supervisor over the five or six guys who drew these humorous cards. The title of art director didn’t mean a thing, really, because I certainly didn’t control them, or tell them what to do, and nobody told me what to do; it was a very loose kind of arrangement, something that wouldn’t go on now. I can’t remember what I was making then, but at the time it was plenty, and I was able to live well and save money.

Which is also where you met Rosemary Smithson, the lady you affectionately call Rosie?

We first met each other at Hallmark Cards, back in ’54, I think. We worked together for a couple of years before I left for New York. She was a writer; she wrote funny cards for what was called at the time the Fancy Free line. It was Hallmark’s first try at doing funny cards. It was a very successful, financially, for them, and it was a good thing for me — I was able to stop working in the factory at Hallmark in Kansas City and take a freelance contract with me to New York. Which gave me a steady income. So I was able to do my Hallmark cards, and still take my portfolio around and all that sort of thing.

I noticed Hallmark has re-released many of the cards from that era, making the statement that some designs never go out of style. I was easily able to recognize cards that feature your art. I don’t suppose you know just how many cards you drew for them?

No, but I did quite a few … it would certainly be in the thousands. And they have all the artwork that I did while I was there — it’s their property — so they can do as they like.

And you don’t get any royalties from old card designs, do you?

Not for me. And it’s the same way with all the Rankin/Bass stuff. There’s no royalty or residual payment.

The trade-off is a bigger check up front.

That’s right. And I had no idea that “Frosty the Snowman” would last more than one viewing. And it wouldn’t have made any difference. If I had thought, well, this is going to go on for 30 or 40 years and tried to hold out for more, Arthur Rankin would have just hired somebody else to do it.

A wise decision, obviously, since it led to a lucrative long-term relationship.

Yeah, I think it was 20 productions I worked on at Rankin/Bass. I’ve been very fortunate to have had such long associations. With them, and with Hallmark. And with MAD, of course.

You got your foot in the door at MAD thanks to Phil Hahn, right? I read somewhere that Phil went to them with articles which were illustrated by his friend Paul Coker.

Phil and I had worked together in Kan sas City, and we were friends. We were both living in New York, trying to find work there. He wanted to write for MAD. They liked Phil’s writing, and they thought my drawing might work out for other stories, and that’s the way it started. And it went on and on.

So what are Paul Coker’s presentday tools of the trade? Are they, as you’ve said in the past, basically “a bottle of ink and a crow quill pen”? What do you now use to produce a piece of art?

Well, it’s only changed slightly from that, and partly it’s due to — I’ve always used Strathmore 500 Series 3-ply …

For all your work — the MAD stuff, the

comic strips, advertising art? Everything? And greeting cards, yes. And, though Strathmore would probably deny it, the quality of that particular paper has, as far as I can see, deteriorated enormously. The thing of it is, I have a very few samples of their older stuff, and there is a marked difference. The problem with using a crow quill pen, at least the way I use it, is that when you press down very hard it breaks the surface of the paper, and the old Strathmore would take it beautifully. The new stuff will bleed, and I can’t use it, basically. So I’ve found another kind of Strathmore. It’s a very hard 2-ply, or possibly a 1-ply, and I’m using that instead. I’ve also done quite a lot of work with a simple felt-tip pen. With the small nib.

Is it a Flair pen?

No. I think it’s Sanford or something.

Sanford makes the Sharpie. That’s it. It’s the Sharpie. The one I use is called Extra Fine, I think. I’m using that pen more and more now.

So would you have, for example, used a Sharpie for your recent work in MAD? Probably not. For MAD I still use the old crow quill pen.

It’s almost a relief to hear you say that. Looking at even your most recent work in MAD, I can’t imagine how you’d produce the kind of lines you do with a Sharpie. You have, and have always had, such an amaz-

ing and unique command of line; one that’s always a joy to look at, and which nobody else can quite duplicate.

Well, thank you. But I find that the felt-tip pen, when I do it the way it should be done, is so much more spontaneous — and really looks better to me. And yet I don’t have the nerve to do it with my finished work, for MAD at least. They expect the slightly squiggly line, the bumps in the line, and all that sort of thing.

That’s the Paul Coker style! You drew yourself into that corner, but it’s your corner. Yeah, I know and, unfortunately, that’s what happens: You get a style that you become noted for, or that people expect, and you’ve got to keep doing it.

Bob Harvey has described your work, quite aptly I think, as “distinctively styled drawings accentuated regularly with a sort of lyric linear lurch.” [Paul laughs at this.] Mark Evanier, in MAD Art, wrote: “A thick and thin line became his trademark. A tricky line it was, and is: Thick where it oughta be thin, thin where it oughta be thick…at least, according to what another cartoonist might do. Coker, happily, was not just another cartoonist.” You certainly do have a distinctive line, one that immediately identifies a drawing as one of yours.

And, of course, it used to be more exaggerated than it is now. Some of the early things that I did, for Hallmark, and for everyone else, had more of it.

Are you a homebody? Do you prefer to stay at home over traveling?

I’m kind of a hermit. My wife travels quite a bit, but I tend to stay here. If I go anyplace, it’s usually west. My wife has a daughter in Los Angeles, and we occasionally go out there and visit her. That’s as opposed to going east. I like New York, especially the museums, but there’s an awful lot of stuff out here to see and do. And I’m involved in many, many drawing classes as a student; I don’t teach.

You do this to keep yourself “in shape,” so to speak?

Yes. I’m sure that whatever drawing I do helps with the cartoons, and I would recommend to anybody, any cartoonist, that they take as many life drawing classes, groups, workshops, as they possibly can. I find that you’re just much more confident of what you’re doing, in terms of anatomy. I don’t have to

Frosty the Snowman

Exploding a Myth

do it; I do it for pleasure.

Is this something you’ve always done, or is taking these classes now something new? Actually, I have not always done it. When I got out of school that sort of ended the life drawing classes. Not until I was living in the Monterey/Carmel area did I start going to little groups that did life drawing. Of course it was totally different than what I’d been doing in school, and I wish that I’d been able to do what I’m doing now in school. But school assignments, and just doing this for fun, are very different; it’s infinitely

looser now and more experimental. Because I’m not much of a writer or an idea man, I depend almost exclusively on drawing skills. I think that the one thing that everybody must do, whether they’re young people or old professional cartoonists, is to keep drawing. Draw, draw, draw. All the time. You are bound to improve and your work will certainly improve. It’s like a professional pianist who keeps practicing on the piano; professionals practice, practice, practice.

Do you think your style of drawing would be markedly different today had you taken

more life drawing classes?

It’s really hard to say. You never know about those things. I may be putting too much emphasis on doing quick, loose drawing. But, it’s like Richard Thompson has said, I’m always after a loose, spontaneous line.

Which, he maintains, is elusive.

It is … it is. But the person looking at it does the work, they see what he had in mind and they eliminate all these extraneous lines.

Your cartoons give the impression that you

Horrifying selections from the book The MAD Monster Book of Horrifying Clichés

Laughing at a Gross Exaggeration

Bowing to the Inevitable

do not slave over each drawing, that you are able to finish a cartoon quickly. Maybe not Sergio Aragonés-league quickly, but do you consider yourself fast?

I’ve heard that before, and to say I labor over the things is not quite right, either. I think if any drawing I do looks as if I just knocked it out, that’s a very contrived thing. I probably spent quite a bit of time drawing it and working it out in pencil before I finished it.

You spent a lot of time making it look loose.

Yes, that’s it exactly. One of the reasons I like the felt-tip pen is that those really are quick and loose, because I know that they’re just roughs and that nobody is going to print them or see them. So I’m much happier with those. In fact, I did an illustration job for a book by a mutual fund company in Kansas City, and the deadline for showing them roughs of the illustrations was very quick — I had to do something like 80 drawings in one day and then present them the next day! Since I knew they weren’t going to be printed, I really turned them out; I just wanted to give them an idea of what I had in mind, an idea of what the characters would be like and so on. So I did the roughs extremely fast. Felt-tip on regular typing paper. As it turned out, they were infinitely better than finishes. They gave me the opportunity to do all these finished drawings, in my usual crow quill pen style, to pretty them up and everything, and the felt-tip drawings looked so much better to everybody, and certainly to me, that I said, “Hey, this is the way it should go.” It made for a nice contrast between the very rigid typeset stuff and the page layout.

When you do a finished drawing with a

felt-tip, are you using a lightbox?

What I do is preliminary drawing — a very rough penciled drawing — and then the felt-tip over that. And that’s it.

And what is the process when you’re going to ink with the crow quill? Such as with your MAD work, since you said they expect to get the “old-style” Coker.

It’s essentially the same thing. When I send the faxes off to MAD, say, for them to do their editorial thing, those are all felt-tip sketches. There again, they’re much, much more loose and spontaneous, and I like them more. But once MAD has approved them, I finish them with the crow quill and FedEx them to New York. Any color I put on is simply watercolor right over the line.

Was there, for you, a defining moment, a specific job, that made you feel as though you had hit your stride, style-wise?

After I drew this book for Random House [published in 1963] called The Seducer’s Cookbook, I started getting these menu books, cookbooks and so forth. A couple of the titles I remember were The Haphazard Gourmet and Chemistry and Cooking. The Seducer’s Cookbook was written by Mimi Sheraton, an author who was a food critic in New York for many years. She wrote for The New York Times, Esquire and Time magazine. That particular book was a breakthrough for me, in terms of character and style and ideas — everything. It doesn’t hold up very well now, but at the time it pretty much changed everything for me. It was sort of like going from the high school yearbook to drawing for Playboy or something like that. It so happened that Mimi is a wonderful writer, and what she wrote just sparked a whole lot of ideas. Of course the writer is every-

thing; I’ve done it occasionally, very occasionally, myself … and I appreciate that. Whether it’s for a Hallmark card or a book or MAD Magazine — any kind of story — if the writing is bad then that’s the end of it. You can’t really do anything with it. I’ve certainly illustrated a lot of bad writing, and it’s so much more satisfying to find somebody — and not just somebody who’s writing funny stuff — whose style of writing goes with my way of drawing.

You knew from an early age you wanted to draw cartoons for a living. Did you have a strong support base of friends and family to cheer you on?

I always knew I was going to be a cartoonist. All kids draw funny pictures initially, because they can’t do anything else. I got a reaction from my friends with the cartoons I drew, and there was really never a thought of doing anything else. It starts there, and keeps on going.

I know when I went to New York, I thought, well, here is God’s gift to New York. In a sense, you needed to think that, because if you knew what was out there in terms of competition, you’d never go. It’s true my ego was so big it never even occurred to me that I wouldn’t go there and stay and be reasonably successful. What I wanted to do was exactly what I did: draw for magazines and books, and be successful.

I was an only child, and I grew up thinking I was the center of the world, since that’s what my parents thought. And, so far, I’ve had no reason to change that opinion. [Laughs.]

■ ■ ■

A version of this interview appeared in issue No. 6 of John Read’s Stay Tooned magazine.

Inc.

NCS bestow Jaffee, Roth and Walker with The Medal of Honor

By Tom Stemmle

Photos by Marie Stemmle

Just to be there! It was a night of superlatives! It was a night of collective numbers! It was a night to honor three of the best artists in cartooning history!

The National Cartoonists Society presented The Medal of Honor Award to Al Jaffee, Mort Walker and Arnold Roth at the Society of Illustrators in New York on April 9, 2016. Even the raw and rainy weather could not put a damper on this glorious evening.

Close to 80 people jammed into the Society’s upstairs dining room to witness the presentations and pay homage to these three legends. The evening’s festivities were sponsored by the NCS Foundation, King Features Syndicate and DC Comics.

NCS President Bill Morrison welcomed everyone, while Tom Richmond, former president, reviewed the history of the award. It was Tom who first realized that special recognition for lifetime achievement was needed for those who had already won a Reuben as Cartoonist of the Year. Rather than a statue or plaque, Tom designed the round gold medal inscribed with the beautiful NCS logo attached to a maroon ribbon-like lanyard. Thank you,

Tom, for filling a much-needed void with such a wonderfully crafted symbol of recognition.

For the first presentation, expert cartoon curator, cartoonist and cartoon book author Brian Walker, Mort’s oldest son, regaled us with funny, yet poignant remarks about his father. Mort, he told us, was still a “compulsive creator” after all these years, steadfastly penciling the Beetle strips before sending them to sons, Greg, Brian and Neal for completion. In addition to his family members, Mort has been assisted over the years by Bill Janocha, Jerry Dumas, Bob Gustafson, Bud Jones, Frank Roberge, Frank Ridgeway and Frank Johnson. After creating Hi and Lois in 1954, he partnered with the celebrated Dik Browne to draw the strip.

The medal was bestowed on Mort by Bill Morrison. Upon receiving it Mort briefly told of his history with the NCS, notably being an early Reuben winner before the statue was created. His “Reuben” was a cigarette box called the Billy DeBeck Award. As most know, DeBeck originated the popular Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strip. Mort was given an actual Rube Goldberg Reuben statue when it was instituted in 1954. He remains the only person to have ever won the two awards for being top cartoonist of the year.

Mort spoke of having reformed the society meetings during his reign as presi-

dent in 1959 and 1960, from a drinking, smoking get-together to an actual purposeful meeting with a scribe and guests. He described how he gave back to the profession, engendering higher awareness by sponsoring cartoon museums and publishing books. Mort ran seminars to keep interest high and engaging those interested to make a career in the varied cartoon arts professions a reality. It is fair to say that he certainly did that and more!

In addition to receiving the 1953 Reuben, Mort was given the Silver T-Square in 1961, Best Humor Strip Award in 1966 and 1969, the Elzie Segar Award in 1999, the Gold T-Square in 1999, and the Gold Key Award in 2006. Finally, as if these awards and statistics aren’t enough, Mort has created seven syndicated strips — besides Beetle Bailey — which have been met with moderate to very successful results. There was a time when Mort, jokingly had referred to his Connecticut studio as “King Features East.”

Ed Steckley, our National NCS Representative, Manhattan Chapter Chair, successful advertising illustrator and cartoonist, and the main organizer of this fantastic event was the next presenter. In humorous, deadpan introductory remarks Steckley stated that what he had to say regarding Al Jaffee came not from his head but from his heart. Placing his hand over his heart he reached into his jacket

Mort Walker, Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth pose with their Medals of Honor after the ceremony.

pocket, pulling out some notes.

After much elaboration on Al’s storied career, Ed invited him to come up to the dais. The very classy and amazingly young Mr. Jaffee was then presented with the Medal of Honor by Bill Morrison.

Al spoke with his beautifully modulated baritone voice that sounded more like a seasoned narrator than an exceptional cartoonist who is truly a cultural icon. In brief ad-libbed sentences he thanked all for the great honor bestowed upon him. As his thank you echoed throughout the room, most of us could not help but recall Al’s long and continuing successful career.

Celebrating his 95th birthday at a surprise party at Sardi’s on March 31, Al was honored with a plaque by the Guinness Book of World Records as the cartoonist with the longest career in history — 73 years, 3 months! In addition, Mayor DeBlasio declared it “Al Jaffee Day” in New York. On hand were family members, cartoonists, and MAD staffers.

A partial overview of this great man’s achievements are: NCS Reuben Award in 2007, Best Special Feature Award in 1971, Best in Advertising Illustration in 1973, Best in Special Features in 1975, and Best in Comic Books in 1979!

How can anyone think of Al without instantly recalling MAD’s “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” “Al Jaffee’s MAD Inventions,” his pre-MAD Magazine comic book work, and his now cult favorite foray into newspaper syndication with a panel that was vertical instead of horizontal entitled Tall Tales. This feature enjoyed a too short six-year life via The Herald Tribune Syndicate. Thanks to Abrams Publishing and the very savvy and capable editor Charles Kochman, everyone can enjoy this wonderful panel collection in book form with the same name. Last, but absolutely not least, is Al’s crowning glory creation — the MAD fold-in! Now in its fifty-second year, this was supposed to have been a one-shot feature in MAD in 1964. Publisher Bill Gaines wanted more; Al complied. The rest is history as the back page fold-ins continue today in every issue of MAD.

The final honoree, Arnold Roth, was introduced by Tom Gammill, creator of the comic strip The Doozies, as he’ll be quick to tell everyone. Tom and his partner Max Pross are an Emmy Award winning comedy team. They have worked as producers on The Simpsons, and written for shows such as: Seinfeld, The Critic, The Wonder Years, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,

Monk and many more. Tom has been a huge addition to the NCS, lending his time and considerable talent to the Reuben Award shows.

Tom introducing Arnie Roth was, in essence, one comedian introducing another. Tom stated that by remaining solely a cartoonist, Arnie most likely passed up making millions of dollars as a stand-up comedian.

As Arnie stood at the lectern wearing his newly received Medal of Honor, he couldn’t help but comment on the vast amount of cartoon talent that comprised the audience. He said that if Harvey Kurtzman were alive, he’d walk into the room, take one look and yell, “Let’s start a magazine!” His remark brought down the house. As many know, it was Kurtzman who, after leaving MAD, began working for Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner as editor of Trump, a slick, more edgier humor magazine than MAD. It lasted two issues, after using quite a few of the regular MAD artists. A similar fate befell Humbug Magazine, folding after approximately a year of publishing.

Arnold Roth’s freelance career is one of the most celebrated and successful in history. After meager freelance beginnings in 1951, Arnie caught a break when his submissions were accepted by the then fledgling TV Guide, which was published in his native Philadelphia.

Charm Magazine began buying spot drawings during the same time period. Having met musicians Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck, Arnie started to design jazz record albums. By 1954 he was hitting a good stride with regular magazine and freelance assignments in both Philadelphia and New York.

In 1957 Roth sold a Sunday comic strip to the Herald Tribune Syndicate called Poor Arnold’s Almanac. It was the first time that Arnie could enjoy a steady income. Having married his beloved Caroline in 1952 and now with two children, they packed up and moved to England! Arnie had done work for Punch, the great British humor magazine, and would continue to do so while drawing his regular syndicated feature. He once said that working for Punch was such a pleasure that it could be compared to drawing for one’s high school annual.

Arnie returned to America in 1961 after finding out that his syndicated feature had been cancelled.

His magazine freelancing continued successfully with various jobs, including Playboy, where he notably drew many

chapters of “The History of Sex.” Roth once stated in an interview that in creating that history, he never told one true thing. After many installments he got a call from the people at the magazine asking how long the series would last. Arnie told them that it would last as long as he was paying college tuition. Much of his celebrated freelance work included both Sports Illustrated and Esquire magazine.

A New York resident since 1986, Arnie’s career has been celebrated with many awards from the NCS, including the Reu-

Tom and Anna RIchmond

Honoree Arnold Roth with Mort Gerberg

Heather Steckley John Reiner

Jeff Keane Jenny Robb

ben statue in 1983. He has won nine division Reuben awards, and in 2000 Arnie was given the Gold Key Award. In 1995 he, along with his wife Caroline, who has always been very active in NCS events, received the Silver T-Square. He was also NCS President from 1983 to 1985.

Today Arnie shows no sign of winding down. His fantastic cartoon work is as brilliant and humorous as ever.

With Walker, Jaffee and Roth, the NCS has now bestowed this highest honor to five cartoon legends. The great MAD

artist Mort Drucker garnered the award last year during the Reuben weekend in Washington, D.C. This past February the award was presented to the inimitable Mell Lazarus, creator of Miss Peach and Momma, at a special ceremony in California.

The evening at the Society of Illustrators was everything that everyone expected it to be! Some of the best in cartooning came to pay homage from many areas of the U.S. We witnessed perfection while having a terrific time.

One of the best quotes of the evening’s celebration came at the very beginning. Cartoonist, comedian and sometime Reuben Award emcee Jason Chatfield shook hands with Al Jaffee. I asked Jason, who with other cartoonists had been to the star-studded Friars Club birthday party for Jerry Lewis the previous night, how was the celebration?

Al asked, “Jerry had a birthday? How old is he?” Jason replied that he was 90. “Ninety!” sniffed Al. “Why, he’s just a mere baby!”

Tom and Marie Stemmle Pauline Goldberg

Bob Rich

At dinner, Arnold and Caroline Roth are joined by Chip and Deb Bok

Mark Saskin with Bunny Hoest Carpenter

Andrew and Maria Scrivan

Jason Chatfield has a pointed encounter with Sam Viviano and Charlie Kochman

NCS president Bill Morrison presents the award to Al Jaffee

Mort Walker addresses the crowd after receiving the NCS Medal of Honor

Dottie Sinnott is framed by Ed Steckley, Sam Viviano and Adrian Sinnott

Brian Walker and Rachel Kochman

Abby Walker with Tom Gammill

Karen Greene John Ficarra

Under Michael Eisner’s guidance, the Walt Disney Company added seven theme parks, a cruise ship line, cable channels and increased its revenue from $1.5 billion (1984) to $30.75 billion (2004). But a shareholder revolt and a rivalry between Eisner and Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt, led to his resignation — taking home some $1 billion in bonuses, salary and stock options.

Over the years I’ve known many cartoonists — and others — who have worked at Disney, men like Pogo’s Walt Kelly, and children’s book and Rabbits Rafferty illustrator Mel Crawford, who have never had much good to say about Disney, or the company’s penny pinching policies. None of the artists I knew stayed more than a couple of years.

I spoke recently with a man who was, for a longish period, a manager at Orlando’s Disney World. I asked him if the stories I heard were true.

He smiled and said, “I was once given a raise of 30 cents an hour.”

That fits nicely with Herman Raucher’s story. Herman is a member (40 years and counting) of a writers and artists luncheon group, which meets at our various houses every other Thursday. (A woman at a party asked: “My, my, all those years! What do you old guys talk about?” Herman replied, “The first thing we do is introduce ourselves.”)

Herman, as a young Madison Avenue ad man, switched over to the Disney Company because it sounded like more fun. He oversaw advertising for films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea After a year making $150 a week, he asked for more money. They gave him a ten-dollar raise, and Herman quit. He went on to write plays, novels, and the classic film Summer of ’42

When I was a boy in Detroit in the ’40s, I lugged home from the library

Between the Lines

By Jerry Dumas

all the books about cartooning I could find. Many of them were about the Walt Disney Company, and its famous films. The name Frank Reilly, head of animation, was mentioned often, and he began to seem to me as famous as Walt Disney himself.

Fast forward to 1952, when I was 22 and out of the Air Force, a student at Arizona State in Tempe. I gathered a couple of buddies and we headed to Los Angeles. We got free tickets to concerts and TV shows, and had tours of Paramount and other studios.

On the second afternoon, I turned a corner and there were the front gates of Walt Disney Productions. There was little traffic and I pulled up in front.

“Wow!” I said. “Here it is! Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia! Let’s take a tour!”

A guard refused to let us in. “No tours,” he said. “If you don’t have business here, you have to leave. Only way you get in is if you’re applying for a job.”

“I’m applying for a job,” I said. The guard said a surprising thing: “Can you draw?”

My buddy Hulber yelled: “Can he

draw?! Jerry, draw the guy something!”

I was escorted across lawns and past fountains to a staircase leading to the second floor of a charming whitestuccoed building. In a sunlit room, a lovely young woman gave me a large sketch pad.

“Draw something,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Anything you want.”

I doodled on a sheet and she took it through a door. After a moment she re-appeared and said, “Mr. Reilly will see you.”

I entered a large, beautiful room at the end of which was a magnificent desk, behind which sat the famous Frank Reilly himself. He beckoned me to sit, studied the pad and said, “Say, kid. This isn’t bad. Want a job?”

“Doing what?”

“You’d start as an in-betweener.”

“Oh, boy,” I said. “The most boring job in the world.”

“Everybody has to start somewhere.”

“Well,” I muttered dubiously,

See Dumas, Page 19

Left and below, a pair of Dumaswritten, Disney inspired pencil roughs for Beetle Bailey.

Larry Katzman 1922-2016

Larry Katzman, a widely published cartoonist, successful businessman, avid skier and world traveler, died on March 26 at 93.

Larry drew his cartoons under the pseudonym “Kaz,” which was also the name of his company.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Electrical Engineering, he served as a first lieutenant in Germany with the US Army Signal Corps in the 3118th Service Group. A small family company when Larry took over Kaz on his return from Europe after World War II, Larry worked with his father to grow the Kaz Manufacturing Company from a start-up created to sell his father’s invention, the electric vaporizer, into a $500 million global consumer appliances company. It is today the world’s largest manufacturer of electric health appliances, with more than 3,500 employees at factories, offices and warehouses throughout the globe. Its Kaz, Vicks and Honeywell brand appliances include vaporizers, humidifiers, heating pads, air cleaners, thermometers, fans, heaters and air conditioners. He passed the CEO torch to elder son, Richard, in 1999. The company was sold in 2010.

But his passion was cartooning and was better known among NCSers for his work with the Society rather than as an engineer and inventor who held a number of patents and trademarks. In line with his business, Larry created his cartoon character, “Nurse Nellie RN,” in 1949. The character appeared in newspapers and magazines in 21 countries, five languages and was published in 28 collections. Nurse Nellie cartoons were awarded the Palma d’Oro, the highest prize in internation-

al cartooning at the 19th International Salon of Humor in Bordighera, Italy. Larry was also the creator of HeadLines and GagLines acrostic-type puzzles and a Frenchlanguage version, A La Une.

He was a long-time director and officer of the NCS and its charity arm, The Milt Gross Fund, and was a recipient of the Silver T-Square Award for service to the organization. In 2005 he was further honored with the society’s prestigious Gold Key/ NCS Hall of Fame Award.

Friend and fellow NCS member Adrian Sinnott recalled that “in 2002, Larry, Vic Cantone and myself headed first to London and then on to Paris on our way to the 21st annual cartoon festival at St. Just Le Martel. In London, we stopped at the fledgling British Cartoon Centre to meet up with Australian cartoonist, James Kemsley. By the time we got to St. Just (near Limoge), Larry was in cartoonist heaven. Having spent a lot of time traveling both for work and for recreation, this was a chance to travel for his true love of cartooning. After that trip, whenever I had the pleasure to meet up with Larry, he always wanted to know when the next festival trip would take place.”

Larry is survived by his long-time partner, Claudia Zipkin, and three children from his late wife, Shirley: Richard, John and Julie, and six grandchildren.

Dick Hodgins, Jr. 1931-2016

Dick Hodgins, Jr., a cartoonist whose work included comic strips, illustration and editorial cartoons, died from complications caused by cancer treatments on April 3. He was 84.

Best known for his work on stints for Hank Ketcham’s Half Hitch, Henry and Hagar the Horrible, Hodgins was a jack of all trades with a linage that virtually foretold his career: his father was the long-time editorial cartoonist at the Orlando Sentinal

“You’re in excellent health for a man of seventy. Too bad you’re only forty.”

A sale to the New York Mirror — for $1 — when Hodgins was 12 years old spurred him onto his career. He later See Hodgins, Page 19

New Jersey

Dan Nakrosis Report by Tom Stemmle

On March 2 New Jersey Chapter members traveled to the beautiful Princeton home of Patrick McDonnell and Karen O’Connell to judge the best comic panel of 2015, a category for Silver Reuben Award consideration.

In attendance in addition to Patrick were:  Dan Nakrosis, Tom Stemmle, Laurie Triefeldt and Don Wimmer. It was not an easy task to judge such excellent entries and narrow them down to our top picks, which were then forwarded to the NCS Board for final determination.

Kudos to Dan who had prepared volumes of duplicated work, which enabled the judges easy access to individualized packets of all the cartoonists’ work. Two hours and some minutes later the tallies were done, and our choices were ready for final votes. It was a fun afternoon of shop talk, kidding, laughing and lunch graciously provided by Karen and Patrick. Perhaps a future judging will be able to be held in Patrick’s large back yard studio, currently undergoing interior alterations from its original purpose, that of a pool house. A big thank you to Pat and Karen for providing a lovely venue and for being such gracious hosts!

In other chapter news, Patrick’s Mutts is the focus of a new PBS series which had its New York premiere on April 7. In the “Hearts and Paws” episode, Patrick is profiled by filmmaker Steven Latham. This “Shelter Me” series will debut in May on all local PBS stations. As a life-long animal lover, Patrick is an advocate of dogs and cats in shelters waiting for a loving home.

Philadelphia

Dave Blazek looseparts@verizon.net

The Philly Chapter of the NCS emerged from its winter hibernation with a robust day of judging for the

Reuben Awards. Philly members met at Chapter Chair

Dave Blazek’s new studio in Valley Forge, Penn. They spent a day making George Washington jokes, eating roast beef, drinking adult beverages and having deep discussions about cartooning. Some of the citybased folks were feeling a bit woozy but we explained those big sticks with green brushes on the ends were called “trees” and all was well.

Besides the occasional informal Ink & Drink over the winter months Philly NCS has started plans to have another major Cartoonists Run Amok event in Center City Philadelphia where the cartoonists will draw for and talk with the public.

Nick Galifianakis and Pulitzer-winner Signe Wilkinson also took a day out of their busy lives to go meet retired New Yorker cartoonist Henry Martin who lives in a nursing home just outside Philadelphia.

And finally, Philly NCS will be hosting

an official Ink & Drink Night where we will dragoon even more Philly cartoonists “interested” in joining the ranks. Burlap sacks are on us.

Florida

Mark

Simon

marksimonbooks@yahoo.com

The Florida Chapter started March with a … wait for it … phone call. Well, more of a conference call, so everyone could be in attendance. In between live get-togethers, we have recorded conference calls. So even the members who can’t bother to make it to a live call, can be enthralled with listening to a replay. At least we had slides to make it visually interesting.

Big plans for April and July though. On April 28, we will draw at the Florida Children’s Hospital. Even non-artist family members are joining us — one with a massage chair. In July, we will host our first Florida Cartoon Art Show at the Gods & Monsters comic shop in Orlando. The evening will feature a showing of current and past Florida cartoonists (whose art will also be for sale), a panel discussion with Florida artists open to the public and a closed-door session in the back at the Gods & Monsters private bar.

We know many of you have worked out of Florida in the past. If you do, or did, work in Florida and would like to include some of your work in the art show, send me an email.

Chapter member Eddie Pittman has successfully threatened chapter members, and other artists at large, to share the promotional video for his upcoming graphic novel, Red’s Planet . Nothing like peer pressure to get publicity.

Great Lakes

Polly Keener pollytoon@aol.com

A rare treat! On March 5, the Great Lakes Chapter met in Akron, Ohio, at the Keener home for an inspiring presentation by member Tom Batiuk and his collaborator, Chuck Ayers. Tom told us about work on his three strips: John Darling, Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft . He discontinued John Darling some years ago with a bang (and that’s another story) but has logged a truly outstanding record of almost 44 years doing Funky and, with Chuck Ayers, 29 years of Crankshaft.

NCS members living in an area served by a regional chapter should contact the chairman, or contact national representative Ed Steckley at 413-478-4314.. Chairmen, please send news, photos, artwork and information about your chapter to The Cartoon!st, in care of Frank Pauer, 53 Beverly Place, Dayton, OH 45419, or fpauer1@udayton.edu. Deadline for the next issue is June 3.

Chapter judging in Valley Forge are Debby Schafer, Terry LaBan, Dave Blazek, Nick Galifianakis and Tom Stiglich

Gathering to judge the Reuben Comic Panel entries are Laurie Triefeldt, Dan Nakrosis, Tom Stemmle, Patrick McDonnell and Don Wimmer.

At the “Hearts and Minds” premiere are Patrick McDonnell and Tom Stemmle.

Chapter members were very pleased to have a chance to congratulate Tom and Chuck on these comic strip milestones, to obtain autographed copies of their latest collections, and to present them with special commemorative “Funky/Crankshaft” mugs from the chapter.

Chapter members who made the trip included Ed Black, Earl Musick, Mark Szorady, Jerry and Geri Dowling, Terri Libenson and husband Mike Davis, Craig Boldman, Tim and Laura Ellis, Duane Abel, Don Peoples and chapter friends Bob Queen (all the way from Kentucky), Chris and Linda Misanko, Kevin Sullivan, John Webber, Polly and Bob Keener, and daughter Whitney Keener and son Ted Keener. We missed having Frank and Janet Pauer, but their grandson Eli Lincoln Ramsey had just been born on March 3, so they hightailed it to Washington, D.C. to be with daughter Lauren!

After a lunch featuring pizzas from Luigi’s (the Akron inspiration — “a direct steal,” Batiuk says — for Montoni’s, the pizza parlor in his strips), chapter members judged the Gag Cartoon division of the Silver Reuben division awards to narrow the field presented to NCS membership for a final vote. There were a large number of noteworthy entries this year.

And then there were the ever-present door prizes, and each judge received a copy of the commemorative mugs presented to Batiuk and Ayers.

We were sorry that Roy Doty was not with us for this year’s judging — but his drawing board was. Rescued from oblivion after his death last year, it was set up for the meeting. It’s the board shown in his caricature in the chapter cookbook, Toon Appétit . The first printing is almost sold out, and a donation of the profits will go to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in Columbus.

In other news, Earl Musick is a new Postal Ambassador and will be traveling all over the U.S. representing the USPS, in addition to his cartooning and stand-up comedy jobs. Guess we’ll need to address him as the “Honorable Earl Musick” now.

Congratulations are in order for Terri

Libenson, a Reuben silver finalist nominee for her strip Pajama Diaries and to Jim Benton also nominated for a Silver division award in greeting cards. Good luck to them both! Terri also has an exciting new book deal with Harper Collins Balzer & Bray to do two illustrated novels; the first, Invisible Emmie, will be published next year. Meanwhile, Jim Benton also has had a cartoon accepted in the Society of Illustrators comic art annual, which will hang in the gallery in Manhattan.

Joe Wos has been the coordinator for our 2016 Reuben Journal GLC ad, pulling together 17 members’ individual ads. Joe is also working with the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, which is working with the Children’s Creativity Museum to mount an exhibition of Joe’s cartoon-illustrated mazes, “Mazetoons,” that are syndicated by Creators Syndicate. The non-profits hope to mount a wonderful exhibit and could use a bit of extra support. To donate to help the exhibit come to life, there is a campaign at www.gofundme.com/mazetoons. Joe says they’d deeply appreciate any amount and although he founded the Pittsburgh ToonSeum and ran it for seven years, this is the first exhibit dedicated to Joe’s art.

Ed Black just returned from the Hollywood, Calif., wedding of his son, an animator in one studio who married the script

analyst from another. Along with Ed’s encyclopedic knowledge of cartoons and his own cartoons and cartoon articles, this is one creative family!

The chapter is pleased to welcome new official member Jason Platt, who does the comic strip Mister and Me. Welcome aboard, Jason!

The Great Lakes Chapter is planning a summer meeting (after the July Republican convention in Cleveland) at the grand Cleveland Public Library which has an editorial cartoon exhibit and a Shakespeare first folio exhibit up. Plans include special viewings of their graphic novel and Superman collections, plus a tour of their digital center, demo of preservation techniques and much more. More news soon.

Finally, if you get to Memphis, congratulate Jerry Dowling and his beautiful wife, Geri. They will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary there!

North Central

Jim Horwitz Inkman26@hotmail.com

Congratulations to North Central Chapter member Chris Browne, who is 2016 Mayor’s Awards for the Arts recipient in his hometown of Sioux Falls, S.D. The Sioux Falls Mayor’s Award was started in 1999, and is bestowed annually to important members of community who add to the culture and heritage of Sioux Falls with their work.

Chris is a long-time member of the NCS and the North Central Chapter. Since 1988 Chris has continued the legacy of the wonderful comic strip Hagar the Horrible, created by his father Dik Browne in 1973. Hagar continues to be a staple of the comics page — still appearing in 1,900 newspaper around the world, and translated into 12 languages in 56 countries. Chris also recently authored a new children’s book, The Monster Who Ate the State , which is currently available from booksellers everywhere.

Chris will be honored by the Mayor of Sioux Falls at a reception on Thursday, April 28 at Raven Industries in Sioux Falls. Those in the area are encouraged to attend. This event is free and open the public.

Congratulations, Chris!

Terri Libenson and Michael Davis

Tim and Laura Ellis

Don Peoples Earl Musick

Chuck Ayers

Tom Batiuk

Polly Keener and Mark Szorady

Chris Browne

Upstate New York

Scott Jensen jensencreative@ stny.rr.com

The first chapter event of the year was a field trip to the Syracuse University Special Collections Archives on Jan. 14. Chapter members Graham Nolan and Scott Jensen were joined by Amy Lago in the Special Collections seminar room, where Nicolette Dobrowolski, Head of Public Services and Reference Librarian for the SU Library Special Collections, and Michele Combs, Librarian for Manuscripts and Archives Processing, had assembled an amazing selection of original cartoon art and papers. The NCS members were treated like royalty by the archives staff, and given access to hundreds of items from the extensive cartoon collections of SU. Some of the artists whose work they got to view and hold included Hal Foster, Syd Hoff, Roy Crane, Milton Caniff, Herblock, Thomas Nast, Frank Robbins, George Herriman, George Wunder and R.F. Outcault (the color on those Yellow Kid originals is AMAZING!). The SU Library considers Cartoons and Cartoonists one of their subject strengths, and is working to conserve, digitize and improve search and access for the works in the collection. For a hint of what’s available there, visit their site at https:// library.syr.edu/find/scrc/collections/subjects/cartoons-and-cartoonists.php.

The chapter convened again in March, meeting in Batavia, N.Y., to jury entries in the Newspaper Comic Strip division for the Silver Reubens. Chapter Chairman Scott Jensen travelled from his home on the eastern end of the state, meeting western N.Y. members in their neck of the woods.

Manhattan

Ed Steckley ed@edsteckley.com

March and April were busy ones for us here in NYC. On March 17, we hosted a panel discussion on Will Eisner and his

alumni at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. Participating on the panel were Will’s former students: comic artist Joe Quesada, comic writer Joe Cavallieri, underground illustrator John Holmstrom, artist Al Nickerson and Paul Levitz.

We had our annual Rube Goldbergthemed happy hour at Rube’s granddaughter Jennifer’s place, and on April 9, we hosted a huge event at the Society of Illustrators: the NCS Medal of Honor presentation to Arnold Roth, Al Jaffee and Mort Walker. It was a packed house, with people from all over the country in attendance, including NCS president Bill Morrison, past presidents Tom Richmond and Jeff Keane, and enough Walkers to fill a half season of that AMC show. See much more from the evening’s festivities in this issue of The Cartoon!st with a report from Tom and Marie Stemmle.

Late in April, we’re having special guest Ann Telnaes come and talk to our chapter for a special Spring happy hour at our regular spot, Hurley’s Steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan.

Now we’re also gearing up for the Reubens, and so our next get together is June 20. If you find yourself anywhere near

NYC, email me at ed@ edsteckley.com and I’ll get you all the info!

Southeastern John Sheppard

sheart@aol.com

SEC Atlanta group members June Brigman, Bill Holbrook, Robert Pope and John Sheppard participated in a panel on cartooning and comics at the University of Georgia on April 2. The event was sponsored by the Comic Creators Association of UGA.

The SEC/NCS will once again have a table at Heroes Con (June 17-19) in Charlotte this year. All NCSers are invited to drop in and say “hey y’all,” or if you would like to spend some time at the table hawking your wares, please let James (Doodle) Lyle know at doodle@jameslyle.net

SEC Memphis group members will be stuffing goody bags for the St. Jude Draw for Kids event at the Reubens. All donations for the goody bags to be given to the kids can be mailed to SEC/NCSer Greg Cravens at 312 N. McLean, Memphis, TN 38112.

If possible, cartoonists should donate 250 items. If not, any number would be appreciated. Please make sure they are appropriate for children.

Southern California/ Los Angeles

Matt

Diffee (mattdiffee@gmail.com)

Members of the NCS LA chapter have continued to brave our bitter, El Niño winter. (Seriously, some of us even had to purchase rain boots!) We have had some wonderful events to warm our rain-soaked bodies.

In February, we were honored to have esteemed editorial cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher, aka “KAL,” visiting from Baltimore to discuss his experience cartooning for The Economist and The Baltimore Sun .

Those in our chapter who happened to be free the evening of March 3 were invited to a last-minute screening of Disney’s hit new movie Zootopia before it arrived in theaters for the general public. Dreamworks has promised to host animation screenings for us in the future, as well. Hooray for Hollywood!

March 20 was a busy day for us. In the afternoon, three of our members (Chari Pere, Keith Robinson and Chris Meesey)

Jason Yungbluth, Graham Nolan, Scott Jensen and Frank Mariani enjoy the juror’s reward of a fine feed; Ron Ferdinand (not shown) also served as a juror.

Graham Nolan and Amy Lago listen as SU Library Special Collections librarian Nicollete Dobrowolski makes a point about one of the original pieces of art.

At the Syracuse University Special Collections Archives, Upstate New York Chapter Chairman Scott Jensen, Amy Lago and Graham Nolan take a closer look at some original art.

volunteered to draw at a charity event at Sherwood Country Club to raise money for underprivileged children.

That same evening, we had our March chapter meeting featuring the husband/wife creative dynamic duo Wayne White and Mimi Pond. Prior to becoming hot stuff in the fine art world by painting often-hilarious text into thrift store art prints, Wayne designed and performed many puppets for Pee-wee’s Playhouse in the 80s, and even directed a music video or two for Peter Gabriel and

“What does it pay?”

“Thirty-nine dollars a week.”

“What?” I said. “Who can live on thirty-nine dollars a week?” Reilly said nothing, so I continued. “Right now I go to college free and even have a small scholarship. I get $110 a month on the GI bill. I make 50 bucks a week inking Walt Ditzen’s comic strip Fanfare, and that only takes 10 hours. I have almost no expenses and make over $300 a month.”

Reilly, kindly and beaming, got up from behind his desk and came around and patted my back.

“Kid,” he said, “do yourself a favor and stay right where you are.”

Several years later, working on Beetle Bailey, we often did two or three strips a year using Disney characters — Donald Duck and Mickey sitting at a bar with General Halftrack, or something.

We always got a letter from Disney Productions asking for the original, and the letter would come from Frank Reilly’s office.

One time, as I wrapped the strip in brown paper, I also wrote a note to Reilly, which said: “Hey, Frank!

Remember me, the kid in your office, whom you advised to go back to Arizona State? What bum advice. I should have stayed at Disney. I did go back to school, and now look. They’ve got me wrapping packages.”

I never sent the note. I wish I had. ■

Besides his comic strip work for more than 50 years (Sam’s Strip, Sam and Silo, Hi and Lois, Beetle Bailey, and others), Jerry has had two books published by Houghton, and contributed to Smithsonian, The New York Times and The New Yorker

Smashing Pumpkins.

Mimi’s past includes having written the first aired, full-length episode of The Simpsons , and she shared with us a sequence from her award-winning graphic novel memoir Over Easy , along with the news that she is currently working on its sequel.

If our fellow NCS brothers and sisters are planning on visiting thrilling Los Angeles in the near future, let us know so we can include you in our activities! Hey, Ho, Hey!

attended the School of Visual Arts while producing art for educational slide films and television commercials during the day. He spent two years in the Army, editing and drawing for a base newspaper in Osaka, Japan, and later contributing to Stars and Stripes.

After returning to the educational film industry, Hodgins then joined the Associated Press for 13 years, where he contributed a wide variety of art, while also freelancing for comic books and a host of other clients.

He spent five years (1970-75) drawing Half Hitch for Hank Ketcham. His work there overlapped with producing editorial cartoons at the New York Daily News for 12 years and another 12 years drawing Henry for King Features Syndicate. He left the Daily News in 1979 and then continued to create editorial cartoons for several Connecticut newspapers along with the occasional advertising assignment.

He worked with Dik Browne on Hagar from the strip’s inception (lettering and by-products) and became responsible for the finished daily and Sunday art beginning in 1995.

Hodgins served on the NCS board for several years, and was the recipient of four Reuben category awards (two for editorial cartoons and two for advertising and illustration). He was also awarded the NCS Silver T-Square in 1979.

1939-2016

William Hamilton, a cartoonist most closely associated with The New Yorker, died in a car accident in Lexington, Ky., on April 8. He was 76.

Born in Palo Alto, Calif., in 1939, Hamilton attended Yale, where he drew cartoons for the campus humor magazine The Yale Record.

While serving the US Army, he sold his first cartoon to The New

Yorker in 1965. Hamilton was noted for depicting his characters as examples of modern, affluent types — “the preppy world, the world of Ralph Lauren, the Protestant WASP establishment that was on their way out, holding onto their diminishing privileges,” according to his friend Lewis H. Lapham.

The artist once said that his greatest fans are “people who tend to see something of themselves in my work.”

Hodgins, from Page 14

Dumas, from Page 14

Presenting to the Los Angeles chapter are Wayne White and Mimi Pond

William Hamilton

“Lately, I’ve had the awful feeling that my marriage is tied to the dollar.”

A pair of graphic novels were among the 10 most frequently challenged books last year in libraries and U.S. public schools, according to the American Library Association. The annual report of the organization’s Office of Intellectual Freedom noted that Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Craig Thompson’s Habibi placed seventh and eighth on the list — right after the Bible at No. 6. Fun Home made the cut for “violence and other graphic images.” Habibi, for “nudity, [was]sexually explicit and unsuited for age group.” The ALA doesn’t state where or how many times the books were challenged, or whether they involved school libraries, public libraries or classrooms. … Hazel , the long-running panel created by Ted Key is hitting the stage in “Hazel: A Musical Maid in America,” a new play now running at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., a surburb outside of Chicago. “It’s the 1960’s, a time of great change for America, but not all of the Baxter family is on board,” begins the synopsis on the theatre’s site. “What George Baxter finds not so funny about his wife joining the work force and his maid taking over his household and his life is a laugh riot. ‘Hazel’ asks the question: can a simple maid debone a turkey, save a marriage, uncover a matter of national security and lead a conga line?” The panel was the inspiration for Hazel, the popular TV show that ran from 1961 through 1966, and although Key retired from drawing Hazel in 1993 and died in 2008, King Features continues to distribute the panel to newspapers. The play continues through May 29; see drurylanetheatre.com. … Ron Hill is about to release a new collection of political cartoons: Educartoons – A Jump Ball Mêlée of Cartoons About the Politics of Public Education. At 136 pages, the book contains some 120 cartoons published in Northeast Ohio between 2009 and 2015, all dealing with the politics of public education: testing, funding, mandates and safety. The collection will be published by his new company, Act 3 Books; Send Ron a note at ron@act3creative.com for more details. … San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum and the Children’s Creativity Museum are teaming to present MazeToons, the interactive puzzle comic by cartoonist Joe Wos. MazeToons incorporates characters, holidays and other pop culture references into each maze. Part cartoon and part puzzle, the feature is distributed by Creators Syndicate and appears in newspapers across the country. MazeToons is part of the Museum’s yearlong celebration of games; This “game-changing” exhibition is designed to harness the power of play and inspire collaborative learning across generations. MazeToons opened to the public May 4; a visit from the artist is planned for sometime in July. … Superheroes have been battling it out across New York’s City’s Times Square

in comic book-inspired films, but now those costumed crime-fighters may be committing just the crime. The city recently passed legislation that would allow the city to round up the street performers — which also include such characters as Cookie Monster, Elmo, mixtape artists and topless women wearing body paint — with plans to cluster them into specific areas that would allow traffic to move around them more easily. Aside from Times Square, some characters have also appeared in court after charges of harrassment, third-degree sex abuse and assault have been splashed across the city’s tabloids. “Times Square is one of the most iconic and visited places in the city, and the Council’s legislation goes a long way toward making the experience better and more enjoyable for New Yorkers and tourists alike,” Austin Finan, spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. … King Features has announced the publication of John Rose’s second bodacious collection of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith comic strips: Balls Of Fire! More Snuffy Smith Comics! The book contains more than 350 of Rose’s favorite strips from 2013-2015, and also features back cover text by Willie and Korie Robertson of the popular “Duck Dynasty” television show.  John began inking the strip as an assistant to cartoonist Fred Lasswell in 1998 and became the strip’s cartoonist after Lasswell’s death in 2001. The new collection is available at Amazon.com or Lulu.com, and can be found by searching “Snuffy Smith” on their sites. … The “world’s finest collection of DC comics” was recently previewed at an invitationonly event in London ahead of its worldwide tour. A one-of-a-kind, single-owner collection, the “Impossible Collection (DC Chapter)” has taken collecter Ayman Hariri more than 16 years to assemble. The collection is comprised of more than 1,000 original comic books featuring DC Comics’ most enduring, iconic characters. Many of the comic books on display are the finest known to exist. Highlights include the highest-graded copy of Action Comics No. 1, Detective Comics No. 27 (the first appearance of Batman), Superman No. 1 from 1939, Batman No. 1 and Showcase No. 4 (the first appearance of the silver-age Flash from 1956). The collection is set to embark on a global tour starting in London later this year, with future dates and venues to be announced. … U.S.-based Warner Bros. and Abu Dhabi-based developer Miral have officially announced the launch of a $1 billion Warner Bros.-themed destination on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Construction is already underway on the Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi theme park, which opens in 2018. Phase 2 will house a Warner Bros.-branded hotel and an immersive theme park. Visitors will be able to step inside Gotham City and Metropolis and experience the cartoon worlds of Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and more, all under one roof, bringing together stories and characters from DC Comics universe as well as characters such as Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry. …