The National Cartoon!st Issue 5 by National Cartoonists Society

Jim SIZEMORE studies Ray BILLINGSLEY remembers Tom GAMMILL is one Doozie Greg EVANS takes a second look

The

National

A PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIETY Vol. 1, No. 5

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BROOM-HILDA UNLEASHED THENATIONALCARTOON!ST

Dick Tracy ©Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Portfolio

Chester Gould Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1959, 1977 Dick Tracy Sunday page panel with Pruneface, 1940s

Joe Kubert Reuben Comic Book – Story recipient, 1974, 1980 Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, 2009 Our Army at War page, 1960

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Bill Melendez Three-time Reuben Animation recipient Key master background set-up and production cel for The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, 1983

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Henry Boltinoff Reuben Humor Comic Book recipient, 1970 Magazine cartoon, undated

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Will Eisner Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1998 Artwork created for a National Cartoonists Society limited-editon portfolio, 1980

Frank King Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1958 Gasoline Alley hand-colored Sunday page, 1924

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My first stop was Saratoga, where a cartoonist friend of mine, Bud Fisher, was spending the month of August. Bud had bought a race horse and was there to see him run. The horse was aptly named CARTOONIST. Bud’s enthusiasm had sold me completely. He was so sure that this two year old of his could not lose the race … that I put my entire bankroll on CARTOONIST’s nose. You guessed it. I was left flatter than a crooner’s high C.

Creig Flessel, legendary Golden Age artist (1912-2008), on his work for the syndicated strip David Crane — about a young minister — to his later work for Playboy. When drawing cartoons, it is important to keep in mind the benefits of using humor in your work.

F.C. Rasul, a “writer and artist who specializes in creating training manuals,” in “How to Draw Cartoons” at ezinearticles.com.

Bud Handelsman is still funny. George Booth is still funny. I’m still funny. … We’re doing the same work, and we’re still funny. What’s changed the equation? The editor, that’s what changed.

Ken Kling, creator of the race track strip Joe and Asbestos, in his book Stuff About Steeds (1941).

Mort Gerberg,

on how older cartoonists were being phased out of The New Yorker, from “The New Kids at The New Yorker” in the Yale Daily News.

I’ve gone from piety to pornography.

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Comic Scripted

I get very suspicious [when you can define it too easily]. If you can describe it in words, really, it can’t be all that much.

The whole point of art is that it does something nothing else can do. Gahan Wilson, on defining art, in an interview at tcj.com.

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They had these wild parties during prohibition and they’d all get sauced. They’d line the walls with paper and all the artists would draw all over the walls, and they’d wheel in a piano and the Gershwin boys would play. My father remembers vividly after one of those parties they brought Charlie Chaplin up to say goodnight.

Jennifer George, Rube Goldberg’s granddaughter, on legendary parties at the Goldberg’s, in a Ralph Gardner Jr. column in the Wall Street Journal.

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Lee Lorenz, New Yorker cartoonist and the magazine’s former cartoon editor, in a lengthy interview with The Comics Journal.

It’s hard to know when you’ve overstayed your welcome. Oddly, the marketplace doesn’t always tell you. And an established comic strip is the closest thing to tenure that pop culture offers, so many creators have been tempted to draw until they drop. Not too surprisingly, my disdain for them has diminished considerably throughout the years.

Bob Wood was doing Sheena, and my desk was next to his. One day, he said, “How would you like to do some artwork that’ll get published, instead of just running errands?” And I said, “Gee, great.” So my first artwork was painting the leopard spots on Sheena’s brassiere and loincloth.

Al Feldstein, legendary MAD editor (1925-2014), on his early days in the comic book industry at the Eisner & Iger shop.

No liquor or tobacco advertising is permitted, nor sex books, pin-up pictures or any such materials, nor knives or realistic gun facsimiles, concealable operating guns, or rifles capable of firing live ammunition nor gambling devices, nor questionable toilet products. — among the guiding principles in the acceptance of advertising for comic books, as mandated by the Comics Magazine Association of America with the adoption of the Comics Code, from Americana in Four Colors, 1964.

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Dave Coverly,

on whether the Reuben nominees are all friends, in an online “Meet the Comics Pages” chat with Suzanne Tobin, at washingtonpost.com.

We’re all friends until the bar bill comes.

I have noticed a growing tendency in the colored pictures designed primarily to amuse children to make the point of the joke a matter of assault and battery, or a mean trick of some sort. Two little boys empty a pail of water on an old man’s head, or saw a plank half-way through so that some one will fall into a ditch. This can only have a bad effect on the minds of the children who see it week after week.

Palmer Cox, (1840-1924), creator of the Brownies, in an article in the New York Times, Jan. 16, 1916

Palmer Cox

Garry Trudeau, on overstaying his welcome, in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent.

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There were always people who thought they could be the next George Booth or Gahan Wilson, but we already had George Booth and Gahan Wilson. I wanted artists who could bring something new to the mix.

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President Steve McGarry mac@stevemcgarry.com THE NATIONAL CARTOON!ST Art Director Frank Pauer NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIETY BOARD Honorary Chairman Mort Walker President Bill Morrison First Vice President Jason Chatfield Second Vice President Hilary Price Third Vice President Darrin Bell Secretary John Kovaleski Treasurer John Hambrock Membership Chairman Sean Parkes sean@seanparkes.com National Representative Ed Steckley ed@edsteckley.com 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: info@reuben.org The National Cartoon!st is published by the National Cartoonists Society, P.O. Box 592927, Orlando, FL 32859-2927. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the NCSF. Contents ©2016 National Cartoonists Society Foundation, except where other copyrights are designated. All artwork contained herein is ©2016 by the respective artist and/or syndicate, studio or other copyright holder.

The National Cartoonists Society website: www.reuben.org

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NATIONAL CARTOONISTS SOCIETY FOUNDATION

The

National 9

Lakes International Comic Art Festival Plays Host to the NCS 12

NCS, Lakes Festival Partner for New International Award 20

Drawing Caricatures with Tom Richmond 18

Ray Billingsley 22

Russell Myers 25

Greg Evans 28

Tom Gammill 33

Faint Praise and Boilerplate Critiques .............................................

First Panel

Lakes International Comic Art Festival plays host to NCSers for weekend of presentations, exhibits, drawing

By Steve McGarry

As a former two-term President of the National Cartoonists Society and the current President of the NCS Foundation, the Society’s charitable arm, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend many splendid cartoon and comics related events over the years. Recently, with family in tow, I headed over to the U.K. to attend the fourth Lakes International Comic

Art Festival in the Northern England town of Kendal, and I’m delighted to report that it was an absolutely wonderful experience! The Lakes International Comic Art Festival — or LICAF, for short — is the only one of its kind in the UK. Celebrating the world of comic art in all its guises, it is an annual weekend festival that takes over the town

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of Kendal on the edge of the Lake District each October. It features a formal events program of live drawings, performances, films and presentations, a free family zone, workshops, exhibitions, a “marketplace,” windows trails and more. It is truly international with leading creators from across the world, representing all genres of comic art, attending as guests. The festival recognizes both pioneers and icons in the field, as well as up-and-coming talent. It appeals to existing fans and also attracts new audiences. It also commissions new work and works in partnership with international festivals and organizations, including the NCS. It feels like the whole town joins in the festivities. The streets are festooned with banners, wherever you look there’s comic art on display, and every event draws enthusiastic audiences. I was there primarily to announce The NCS Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art, an award created specifically to allow the NCS to celebrate outstanding international talent. This honor, named for the famed Mad Magazine cartoonist, will be presented annually to an exceptional comic artist, animator, or cartoonist at the Lakes Comic Art Festival beginning in 2017. The announcement was made to a packed audience during the festival’s opening night program, and accompanied by a video greeting and specially created art from the maestro himself. You can read more about this new award on Page 21. Featured guests ranged from “Hellboy” artist Duncan Fegredo, “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” creator Gilbert Shelton, and “Doctor Who” artist Emma Vieceli, to Eisner award winner Isabel Greenberg and “Scott Pilgrim” creator Bryan Lee O’Malley. The programs were varied, ambitious and tons of fun, ranging from a life drawing class with “The Walking Dead” artist Charlie Adlard to a special screening of “Deadpool” with Joe Kelly of “Ben 10” and “I Kill Giants” fame! To give you a flavor of the festival, here’s the diary of the McGarrys at The Lakes.

Thursday, October 13 When not performing as the indie band Pop Noir, my twin sons, Joe and Luke — who are both NCS members — have enjoyed success with their art and design outfit Fantastic Heat Brothers, creating animated music videos and designing for some of the biggest concert festivals and promoters in the US. Luke, in particular, is much indemand as an illustrator and cartoonist, with a client list that includes Businessweek, Visa and the New York Observer, and his “Sad Chewie” cartoons have become a viral sensation this year. Consequently, the organizers of The Lakes thought it might be fun to invite both generations of

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McGarry to appear at this year’s festival … so off we went! Having flown into Manchester from Los Angeles the previous afternoon, on Thursday we made the 90-minute drive north to Kendal in time for Luke to present an overview of his career to a standingroom-only audience of students at Kendal Art College. His keynote presentation included videos that he and Joe directed and edited for Pop Noir, and animated videos they created for major label bands, TV commercials and the IFC movie channel, as well as plenty of illustrations and cartoons. Mix in some live sketching on a Wacom Cintiq and he had a presentation that really seemed to connect with an audience of teens aspiring to a career in the arts. Fortyfive minutes after his talk ended, he was still sketching and signing for the students and posing for photos. We learned that another young NCS member, Canadian cartoonist John Martz (right), had appeared at the college earlier the same day to a similar enthusiastic response. It struck me that the NCS would be well served in making more of an effort to encourage more successful young cartoonists to join our ranks, as they have a connection to younger audiences that we old duffers can’t hope to emulate! That evening, the featured guests and speakers congregated at the town’s Wildman Gallery to view an exhibition of art and photographs by Finland’s Hannerina Moisseinen. Following a performance by students from the college dance program, performing to a specially composed piece of music by Moisseinen, the Festival hosted a private dinner for this year’s special guests. It was great to meet creators from all over the world, everyone tucking into a traditional Northern meal of Steak and Ale Pie, chips (that’s French fries to you) and mushy peas, washed down with a specially brewed Festival beer. The evening concluded with a hilarious Comics and Cartoon Trivia Quiz, after which new friendships were cemented in the hotel bar.

Friday, October 14 A small gaggle of cartoonists, with the McGarrys and John Martz representing the NCS, were invited to visit the Mayor’s Parlor inside the Town Hall to inspect the historic artifacts and regalia and learn of Kendal’s 1,000-year-old history. We all had to don white gloves before we were allowed to wield the ceremonial sword and hoist the solid silver mace! That evening, the Festival launched in earnest with a sold out opening event in the main theater of the town’s Brewery Arts Center, a sprawling campus of buildings devoted to culture and the arts. The theme was “Asterix vs. Tintin,” with two teams of luminaries playfully debating the merits of the two icons of European cartooning. Luke and I were stationed onstage behind two Wacom Cintiqs, live drawing the proceedings and poking fun at the speakers. At the conclusion of the debate, I took to the podium to present a keynote overview of the NCS that culminated in the announcement of the new NCS Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art. There is a lot of excitement about this award and hopefully it will serve as a tremendous calling card for the NCS in the UK and Europe.

Saturday, October 15 Luke and I began the day with a joint appearance at Kendal Library, the hub of the Festival’s Family Zone activities, where we staged a cartooning class for youngsters.

As it had been advertised that we would be teaching them to draw Minions, all the tickets had been snapped up weeks in advance … but we didn’t have the heart to turn away families that turned up on the off chance, so we ended up squeezing kids into every available inch of floor space. We spent a really happy hour teaching the most polite and well-behaved kids I’ve ever encountered on how to draw various Minions, TV and movie favorites and Sad Chewie … and then another hour in the foyer doing individual sketches for them all! A quick cup of tea and then it was a short stroll over to the BAC Main Theater to present our joint seminar, “Luke, I Am Your Father.” It was scheduled for an hour, but trying to cram my 40-year career and Luke’s decade into one presentation meant that we actually ran for 75 minutes. I think the presentation was well-received … but then again, perhaps British audiences are just exceptionally polite! After the presentation, the organizers had lined up TV interviews, so Luke and I spent the next hour chatting on camera to crews from the BBC and ITV channels. Meanwhile, Joe headed over to Ruskins pub, where Pop Noir was scheduled to play that night. As Luke and I mugged and blathered for the cameras, Joe oversaw the setting up of all the instruments, lights and P.A., for that night’s show with the festival tech crew. He and Luke then soundchecked, before we all headed back to our hotel to freshen up and change. Continued on Page 13

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NCS, Lakes Festival partner for Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art The National Cartoonists Society, in partnership with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, has announced the creation of The NCS Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art. This honor, named for the famed MAD Magazine cartoonist, will be given annually to an exceptional comic artist, animator, or cartoonist at the Lakes Comic Art Festival beginning in 2017. The NCS is known for its annual presentation of the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, the highest and most coveted award in the field of cartooning in the United States and Canada. “The NCS Sergio Aragonés Award was created to reach beyond North America and recognize and honor outstanding artists who work in the cartoon and comic arts in all corners of the world,” NCS president Bill Morrison explained. NCS Foundation president, Steve McGarry made the announcement in Kendal to the attendees and guests of this year’s Lakes Festival during the festival’s opening night program. “The National Cartoonists Society has a proud 70 year tradition of honoring the best cartoon and com-

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ics artists in our profession through the annual NCS Reuben awards,” McGarry stated. “Although artists from as far afield as the U.K., Australia and the Far East have been honored in the Reuben Awards, I’m delighted that the Society has partnered with the Lakes Festival to create this new award that’s specifically designed to celebrate outstanding international talent. It’s also very appropriate that the award will be given in the name of one of the world’s most acclaimed and beloved cartoonists, the legendary Sergio Aragonés.” A jury comprised of Sergio Aragonés, the sitting National Cartoonists Society president, the sitting NCS Foundation president and two principals of the Lakes

Pop Noir took to the stage at 10:15 p.m. that night and the place was packed to the rafters with an eclectic mix of cartoon creators, comics fans, local pubgoers and college kids — perhaps the most off-beat audience that Pop Noir has ever performed for. The hour-long set went down a storm and by the end, the joint was, as they say, jumping!

Sunday, October 16 And so to our final appearance, a joint signing at Pizza Express! One of the hallmarks of the Festival is the windows trail. Scores of shops, restaurants and pubs decorate their windows with special comic art for the festival. We’d been asked to contribute something to advertise our appearance at the restaurant and saw from the specs that the front of the store had four giant windows — so Luke created a special four-part sequential comic strip that featured the pair of us. An hour of doing sketches for a steady stream of kids and our Lakes adventure was over. As much fun as the likes of San Diego or New York Comic Cons can be, they are completely different animals to a comics festival. Here in the States, we have the likes of Kenosha and Marceline, and the new Cartoon Crossroads event in Columbus. There is a great tradition of comic art festivals in Europe that includes Angouleme in France and Lucca in Italy … and even though it is still in its infancy, The Lakes is a tremendous addition to that slate. Every comics and cartoon fan will have the time of their lives in Kendal … and I would urge any NCS members who are toying with the idea of a trip to the UK to consider attending The Lakes Festival. Especially as the dollar is so strong — and the entire trip can be a business deduction! N C ©2016 GIUSEPPE ABBÀ

International Comic Art Festival will convene annually to select a recipient. The honoree will then be invited to attend the festival as a distinguished guest and receive the award. Julie Tait, Director of the Lakes Festival remarked that “Sergio Aragonés is an icon and inspiration to cartoonists across the world and the National Cartoonists Society consists of some of the leading lights of the medium, both icons and new talent. Our festival aims to be truly international, to celebrate all genres of comic art and to encourage people to recognize comics as representing great art for everyone. This new award is a major new step towards our goal and we are extremely honored and grateful to the NCS for this opportunity.” The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is the only one of its kind in the UK. Celebrating the world of comic art in all its guises, it is an annual weekend festival that takes over the town of Kendal on the edge of the Lake District each October. It features a formal events program of live draws, performances, films and presentations, a free family zone, workshops, exhibitions, a “marketplace,” windows trails and more. It is truly international with leading creators from across the world and representing all genres of comic art attending as guests. The festival recognizes both pioneers and icons in the field, as well as up-and-coming talent. It appeals to existing fans and also attracts new audiences. It also commissions new work and works in partnership with international festivals and organizations, including the NCS. N C

Continued from Page 11

More info: www.comicartfestival.com

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I’ve always felt that the eyes of a caricature are the center of everything, literally the center of the face but figuratively the center of expression, personality and “life” as it were.

Dr wing Caric tures ............................ ..

I’ve written in past articles on drawing caricatures that you can’t really teach someone to draw caricatures… that is ............................ .. more about developing their “sight” and observation skills and also developing an ability to find that which make an ............................ .. individual face unique and exaggerating it. Since every face is different this is an exercise in personal observation and ............................ .. decision. Therefore after I have gone over the information in my pervious articles, I switch gears an concentrate on teaching rookie live caricaturists how to draw the individual features, both how to see them, exaggerate them and how to draw them in line to best effect. Here is where style becomes an issue. What I have written about previously can apply to almost any style of caricature, from the richly painted to the most minimalist of line. In these next series of articles some aspects of what I talk about will relate specifically with a style of caricature like my own… based on cartoon line either inked or in some other medium. Therefore those with different sensibilities and styles can take from it what they will and apply what makes sense to them, and ignore the rest. I will try to center my discussion on that which applies to a broader range of styles than just my own. My method for teaching the individual features begins with a lesson on real anatomy. I’m not a big believer in memorizing every anatomical name but I do believe you must have a good working knowledge of how a feature is put together in order to have a good command over the drawing of said feature. Following the anatomy lesson, I talk about different techniques to help “see” the shape of the feature and understand how to draw it, including realistic proportion. Finally I talk about interpreting the feature in terms of exaggeration and incorporating it into the whole.

Part 5:

Drawing Eyes

Tom Richmond

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Seeing and drawing anything is all about shapes and the correct drawing of them or in the case of caricature the correct drawing of the exaggeration of them. Either way you still have to “see” the object you are drawing and understand its form first. We have all seen artists raising their arm outstretched towards their models with the thumb out from the fist and squinting their eyes before drawing. That is supposed to represent an old artist’s trick of using their thumb, or hand, or pencil or some other object to measure their subject’s features relative to one another, or to see angles or other relationships. The thumb is supposed to be a “point of reference”… a constant that is used to make accurate observations of the subject. Establishing points of reference in the face is key to helping to “see” shapes and make observations. With each feature and the face overall I will suggest several things I use as constant points of reference, which I can then use as a starting point from which other observations are based. Any kind of drawing can benefit from this simple concept. Our first feature is the eyes. I’ve always felt that the eyes of a caricature are the center of everything, literally the center of the face but figuratively the center of expression, personality and “life” as it were. Therefore I’ve always place special emphasis on the eyes and begin and end with them, after the head shape, as the focus of almost any caricature.

ANATOMY OF THE EYE The human eye, RIGHT, is made up of an round orb (eye-

ball) that rests in and slightly protrudes from a socket of bone and tissue, surrounded orbital muscles and by covered by skin in the form of eyelids. The visible parts of the eyeball include the pupil (black circle in the center of the eye), the iris (colored area around the pupil) which includes the stroma (the thread-like fibers that radiate from the pupil out to the edge of the iris), and the sclera (whites of the eyes). The tissue surrounding the eyes include the inner and outer canthus (the “corners” of the eyes), the caruncula (the small, reddish, oval shaped piece of tissue in the inner corner which is sometime incorrectly referred to as the ‘tear duct’), and the semilunar fold (where the eyeball meets the caruncula). The eyelids consist of the upper and lower lid plates (the actual eyelids that fold down and up to cover the eyeball), the eyelashes or cilia, which are attached to the free edges of the lid plates in a double or triple row and are short, thick and curved hairs.

SEEING THE EYE SHAPE Despite what I said about the importance of the eyes, the eye is still just another feature and it has a shape like any other feature of the face. When I refer to the “shape” of the eye I am talking about the visible portions of the eyeball, created by the space between the upper and lower lids, ABOVE.

The exterior part of the eyes, like the lids themselves and the area that surround the eye also are very important in capturing the eye itself, but it’s that initial shape that you use and a springboard for the rest of the eye. In order to “see” the eye shape, you must ignore the pupil, iris and all the lines and visual noise that surround the eye, and look at just the pure shape. Imagine an eye this pure white like the Exorcist eye… that white is the shape you are looking for. Remember also that the eye is not flat, but protrudes quite a bit from the face and the lids have a definite thickness to them, RIGHT. Typically the eye is NOT shaped like a football or an almond. The upper and lower lids are not mirror images of each other. In fact, they are very different. The lower lid is usually much less of an arc than the upper lid, moving more straight across from corner to corner. The upper lid overlaps the lower lid in the outer corner, and is farther removed from the horizontal axis of the eye, which is created by an imaginary line connecting the corners. This horizontal axis, or “corner to corner” line, is a central part of making observations about the eye, it’s shape and it’s relationship with the rest of the face. More on that in a second. The eye shape is more of an asymmetrical ying-yang shape that a symmetrical almond. The upper lid line rises somewhat sharply from the caruncula, peaks about 1/3 of the way across the eye and then arcs more softly towards the outer corner. The lower lid does the opposite, it’s “peak” being it’s lowest point, about not quite 1/2 of the way from the outer corner in, and arcing to the caruncula. In the simplest of geometric terms, the eyes are quadrilaterals with the four points being the inner and outer corners, the highest point of the upper lid and lowest point of the lower lid. Naturally we don’t draw the eyes with straight lines connecting the dots, but in “seeing” the shape in simple terms like this we can use these points of reference to better capture the shape of the eyes, as well as using them to manipulate the feature for exaggeration purposes. Let’s get back to the “corner to corner” line I mentioned earlier. This is very useful in helping to determine not only the shape of the eye, but it’s relationship to the axis of the face. Imaging the line going from the outside corner of each eye inward to the inside corner and then onward to the center axis of the face, what we really have it the central angle of the arms of the “T Shape” I talked about in an earlier tutorial. By looking at how that line intersects the eye itself, we can see how much of the eye shape lies above the line, how much below, where the contour lines of the eye shape travel along that line. We can also see at what angle the eye lies to the center axis of the face. Are the outside corners of the eyes higher than the insides? Lower? Even? Are they the same or is one different than the other? You can use the line to exaggerate the angle you see to great effect. The Corner-to-Corner line is a great tool for observation

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POINTS OF REFERENCE

and “seeing” the eye itself, as well as a point of reference both accurate drawing and observation, LEFT. Another method I use for understanding the eye shape is to look for any straight lines in the contour of the eye. Lines that are straight or nearly straight can be used as another point of reference for seeing the rest of the eye and also used as beginning points for the actual drawing of the eye itself. In many cases, the longer part of the upper eyelid, that from the “peak” to the outside corner, is often close to a flat line. Look for straight lines and observe their relationships to the rest of the eye shape’s contour to better “see” the eye shape.

EXAGGERATING THE EYE The exaggeration of any feature must be done with the whole in mind, and not be treated as some separate entity. Seen in a vacuum, it might be tempting to exaggerate the size of the eyes because they have a round and wide eyed look. However when the rest of the face is taken into account, it might very well be that the eyes need to be small and beady within a massive face. Exaggeration in caricature is all about the relationships of the features to one another, and not the features themselves taken individually. However many of the observations you might make about the eyes can factor into the essential whole, especially the angle the eyes are at relative to the center axis, and the shapes of the eyes themselves. The angle of the eyes is the easiest thing to exaggerate. If the outer corners are higher than the inner, then you simply make them higher still, and vice versa. Once you make the observation, doing the resulting exaggeration is easy. Exaggerating the shape of the eye is a little trickier. It can be easy to compromise the likeness, but when done right it actually enhances the likeness of the caricature. That’s because the shapes of features are also describing the expression of the subject, and exaggerating expression is a central part of good caricature. If someone’s eyes become squinty when they smile, drawing them squinty-er will exaggerate their expression as well as their face, and expression is personality. Capturing personality is an essential goal. If your eye shape is squinty, make it more squinty, LEFT. If it’s wide open, make it more

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wide open. They should still look like the eyes you are drawing, but with your observations as a guide you turn up the volume a bit… or a lot if you can without losing the likeness. Take this set of eyes that are very round and intense, RIGHT: We can exaggerate the shape of them as well as their look by emphasizing the whites surrounding the pupil/iris, and the roundness of the lower eye. In this case I also exaggerate the angle of them by raising the outside corners. Not by much in either case here… what I am really exaggerating and trying to capture is the intensity of the eyes themselves. Those little observations combine to allow me to get that piercing gaze. Certain styles of caricature will go farther and “interpret” the shape and actually change it into a representation of the shape itself. Here are those eyes as might be drawn by the great Mort Drucker and Al Hirschfeld, LEFT. An artist’s individual style aside, it comes to the same… seeing the shapes and uniqueness of the features and drawing it in a way that describes it for the viewer to understand. As always, caricature is about PERCEPTION and not hard physical reality. In this picture, our perception of the eyes of this model is changed by the makeup surrounding them, RIGHT: The heavy eyeliner and over-thick exterior lashes near the outer canthus make her look like the inner whites of her eyes are much larger than the outer, giving her a “walleye” look that we can make fun of. On the next page are some caricatures from some of my sketches where the eyes are a central part of the exaggeration or personality of the subject. Drawing eyes that really look back at the viewer can make for a startling effect. Remember the exaggeration of the caricature involves all the features and their relationships. The eyes may not be as important in another caricature, but as they are one of the chief agents of human communication and expression, they are always of import. N C

You can learn a lot more about drawing caricatures from Tom’s best-selling instruction book The Mad Art of Caricature! – A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces, available directly from the author at www.tomrichmond.com, or wherever art instruction books are sold.

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Tom Richmond ..................................................................................... A humorous illustrator, 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, GQ, National 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 honored with several awards, including twice being named “Caricaturist of the Year” by the International Society of Caricature Artists, and with NCS Silver Reubens for Advertising Illustration in 2003, 2006 and 2007 as well as for Newspaper Illustration in 2011. In 2012, he received what is arguably cartooning’s highest honor: the Reuben Award for “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year” from the National Cartoonists Society. Tom served two terms as president of the NCS. He works from a studio in his home near Minneapolis, Minn. Follow Tom on Twitter @art4mad

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The First Week A Second Look Syndicated. At last. For some, years of preparation culminates in that single, initial week. But how auspicious a debut was it? Was there any hesitation of having made the right decision in style, or written the most concise of copy? Would readers even be bothered to return a second week? We forget how Garfield looked in that first week; that Peanuts featured characters in the first daily that barely survived the decade; or that Popeye didn’t

even enter Thimble Theater until 10 years after E.C. Segar began the strip. Changes that are almost imperceptible to the daily reader are held close to the cartoonist. Style evolves, characters come and go, writing becomes sharper. What may be perceived as the end all in reaching that first week is only the beginning. The Cartoon!st wondered about those early decisions, what brought hours of inspiration to the drawing board and then to fruition in papers

across America. Ray Billingsley, who created Curtis in 1988, sent us a note about a new collection of his just as we were working on the questions, which offered up a great place to begin. After Ray sent scans of the introductory week, the line at the end of the first daily made this all that more amusing: “Do you ever wish life had a ‘rewind’ button?” It seemed like a good beginning for a look back. — Frank Pauer

‘All along I was looking for something to make it still different’ Curtis by Ray Billingsley

How much did the concept change from your initial samples? he original concept had gone through several major changes, plot-wise, and dimensions to each character to make them more full were added over time. I’ve always been a believer in change and exploring the medium as far as I could, so for me these changes were necessary. In the original concept, my main focus was the children of the strip. Even they saw great changes. Curtis was, at first concept, much more “raw.” I grew up with mags like The National Lampoon, Mad, High Times and The Village Voice. Those cartoonists were certainly an influence and a product of the times. So Curtis was a bad little boy, one who talked back to his parents, tried to steal a cigarette from his dad, and even took a car on a joyride with Michelle. In the feature’s first draft, Michelle was the same age as Curtis. And LIKED him! But from the

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very beginning, I wanted to do a strip where I could do anything — free to write stories, or even change my drawing style, yet be able to touch on topical and sometimes taboo topics.

How much of the syndicate’s imprint is in these first dailies? Actually, very much and very little. When I first began developing the ideas for their approval, I don’t think they quite got it. They wanted the strip to be completely wholesome, and coming from the background that I did I knew that wouldn’t be possible. They gave me total freedom to write about everything — which I did — and noticed that their best response came from the strips that closely mirrored something that had happened in my own life. When they read about Gunk and all the Flyspeck Island weirdness, they knew I was onto something different. When developing a strip, I would always work up 365 gags, mostly roughs, before I even approached a syndicate.

I figured that way, if it were picked up I’d have a year of ideas to work on. Their idea was to make it a very happy strip. But as I began to delve into stories that didn’t have the happiest endings, and those that had a touch of realism to them, they gave me the freedom to stretch out creatively.

Anything that you really, really dislike about these? I AM MY OWN WORST CRITIC! When I look back at this first week, I just cringe. My art style wasn’t realized yet, I didn’t like how I lettered, and the word balloons were big and puffy in an attempt to gain reader attention. As you can see, at this point, I still had not completed Curtis’ father’s personality, and his word balloons covers his face only be-

cause I didn’t know what he looked like yet! Curtis’ mother didn’t even appear for another few weeks! At this point, it was all about defining the kids and what their roles would be. I was in a “creative search” even while the strip was finally in publication. To this day, I’m never happy with my first couple of drafts, and strive to develop each one better. But to me, I think what I disliked most about this first week is that it gave no indication of WHERE it was going. A strip has to give the reader a reason to come back day after day, whether they like the art or feel some connection through the writing. I’m glad they stuck with me because I had a lot to say. They grew as I grew.

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What do you like about the art or writing from this initial week? What I did like was the free-wheeling cartoony style I had at the time. The gags were fast and direct to the point. And some of the characteristics and future storytelling was already in place: The relationship between Curtis and Barry had begun, the teacher/student relationship with the strict no-nonsense Mrs. Nelson was in place, and the non-ending battle over cigarettes took it’s first breath. I had a little problem with Curtis’ hat, because it’s seen from only one view. It’s sort of like Mickey Mouse’s ears —always seen from the same vantage point. When I was about sixteen, I met Mort Walker and he told

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me a little something that stuck. He probably doesn’t even remember because it seemed so ... small. But I paid attention: “Design your characters in such a definite way that anyone could tell who they are, even in silhouette.” I took that advice to heart.

What "hook" was in place here that turned out to be one of your better ideas? Offhand, I’d say the number one thing would be the antismoking strip. At the time you could smoke anywhere. And I do mean, ANYWHERE. I remember seeing Star Wars at a theater on 125th Street that was thick with cigarette and weed smoke. It was like seeing a drive-in movie through a London

fog. There weren’t many places in New York that people didn’t smoke. They even smoked in the comics. The anti-smoking themes hit with the readers and I’ve got a lot of mileage out of it. Number two, would of course be the sibling-rivalry relationship between Curtis and his little brother Barry. Barry was to be a very cute, innocent-looking child, yet we as readers plus Curtis knew better. Barry gets away with a lot! At the time, I didn’t realize what a strong character Mrs. Nelson would turn out to be. Her character is a direct influence from my own elementary school teacher. She was one to be feared, but at the end of the year she held me after class to speak to me. I thought I was getting a detention on the very last day. She confided in me that she was rough on me all year because she saw potential in me. She knew I needed to be challenged. I still remember all that.

Were there characters or concepts that you had in the back of your mind but thought you’d introduce later? Oh yes, without a doubt. I knew I wanted to explore themes about the goings-on at Curtis’ church. I’ve actually been through several different subjects as the years went by. It seems I would do them for however long, then abandon the idea once I’m on to something else I really like. Gunther, the neighborhood barber, appeared in the second week as a daily gag. He was to be a secondary secondary character. But the moment he appeared, I received a lot of mail about him and knew he had to be developed further. Gunk is a character that at times really confused me as much as Curtis. He got to the place where he seemed to almost possess powers. And we learned that he is actually of royal blood. Each of the characters developed really deep rich traits. Supercaptaincoolman came as a gag on a napkin in my favorite diner. The waiter once asked if I could draw superheroes. So I drew up a special Sunday page, and once again, received so much mail I had to do more. Those strips are the hardest to draw — and write! An entire story — or a big block of it — has to come to conclusion in four to five panels. All along I was looking for something to make it still different. Charles Schulz once told me I had to come up with something that is uniquely mine. One thing he was very proud of was the Great Pumpkin. I was looking for a different way to talk about Kwanzaa — I didn’t want to just talk about what Kwanzaa was, and so I came up with a Kwanzaa story. An original tale I made up and drew in a different style. Something that for a few days would take me completely out of my norm. And it worked. God, I must have 10 or 15 of these original tales.

Did you have any notion about geographic location? Definitely location was very important. For years, every strip I had seen had taken place in the suburbs. Well, a lot of them. There were exceptions — Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Broom-Hilda, B.C., Wizard of Id — but for the most part, most strips took place in comfy homes. I wanted to tell a different story, one with a little grit, one not so sweet. Quincy and Luther had earlier touched on this theme, but not the way I intended to.

Curtis takes place in the inner part of any city, whether east, west, north or south. It touches on things that sometimes happen in the city, and how that environment actually shapes some people. Bullies Derrick and Onion are probably the way they are because of their own situation. Because it is a depiction of any city, I choose not to draw any one building that could center exactly what city Curtis takes place in. Jules Feiffer once told me “to be true to what I know to be true.” When I asked him how to deal with people who don’t necessarily see things the way I do, he told me two very simple words. But I don’t think I’d better write them here. They helped me greatly, though.

How many papers initially signed up? I was extremely lucky and blessed. I had 100 papers to begin with. And I can’t express my appreciation to the papers and readers that have stuck with me all these years. They saw something in me and I had never wanted to let them down. I work just as hard on this now as I did then. I’m always into getting better, perfecting my craft and keeping the audience coming back for more.

Did you ever stop to consider, with the framework you’d devised, how all this might play out after five years? I was just happy to have made it past the first five years! A lot of experimenting, feeling my way through the dark to come up with topics that would stick. Once I got rolling, and gained some confidence, I did develop definite plans as to the direction I wanted to take it. Many of them didn’t pan out for whatever the reason. But for the most part, I’ve done it all the way I had hoped to. I’ve had my controversies to deal with, and I have been censored. But I love it. To think that one of these little drawings of Higgins ink could cause such passionate conversation. There have been a few barriers, or set-backs. But as an artist it doesn’t bother me. And because I started in this business I’m pretty much used to it. I don’t mind that I’m not in 1,000 newspapers as I had planned. As an artist, all I know and want to do is create. And to be an inspiration. Art is all I’ve ever done and I feel extremely blessed to have been a part of this industry for — wow — 40 frickin’ years!

A through F — what grade would you give that first week? Honestly, I’d give it a “C.” There was still a lot that could have been done and/or should have been done that I didn’t do or pay attention to. Since I really didn’t have anyone to talk to or bounce ideas off of, I had to learn by study and practice. I did it until it became second nature, as easy as breathing. For me, life and art are to be lived, to be experimented with. To never feel satisfied with what was done but still be happy and feel fulfilled. I am a true artist, not concerned with the business of it all, just the creative side. To be an artist is to truly be free. Whether you are in 50 papers or 5,000, you are still a “child of freedom.” I can’t think of a better title. I live to create. Without it, I would probably die. N C

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The First Week A Second Look

Broom-Hilda by ‘Putting down on Russell Myers paper whatever came to mind’ 22

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She was always green — though hardly wicked. More than 45 years ago, Russell Myers unleashed Broom-Hilda from her enchanted forest onto an unsuspecting comics page. Even though Broom-Hilda is a mere 1,500 years old, it still took Russell 15 years of attempts at syndication until the character flew off his drawing board. Conceived by Elliot Caplan, Al Capp’s brother, Russell put the first week of dailies together over a weekend, and Caplan sold the strip to the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate that next week. Broom-Hilda may not smoke her cigars anymore, but the spell was cast from virtually the beginning. From Russell’s roster of characters to his surprising, surrealistic landscape, the strip is still distributed by Tribune Media Services. From 15 years of syndication frustration to one weekend of inspiration, here now, so many years later, a look back at that first week.

ow much did the concept change from your initial samples?

It didn’t change. My samples became the first week of the strip. The origination of Broom-Hilda was not ordinary. I received a call from Elliot Caplan, a man I’d never met. Charley Barsotti recommended me to him. Elliot was Al Capp’s brother and active in the comic strip world. He had an idea for a strip about a witch named

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What “hook” was in place here that turned out to be one of your better ideas?

I guess the hook was the character herself. There wasn’t any other like her. I still remember all that.

Were there characters or

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Broom-Hilda. That was all he told me. He asked if I could send him some samples of my work, which were greeting cards at the time, as I worked for Hallmark. The call came on a Friday. Over the weekend I did the first six strips, just putting down on paper whatever came to mind. I send them to him and he ran three blocks down the street to what was then the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate and sold it. Kinda sounds like the unrealistic end of a movie, doesn’t it? But it came after 15 years of trying and failing to get other strips syndicated.

Did you ever stop to consider, with the framework you’d devised, how all this might play out after five years?

What do you like about the art or writing from this initial week?

I like the kind of primitive roughness of them. I got more controlled later and I’m not sure that was good. I think the gags were pretty good and original for 1970.

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concepts that you had in the back of your mind but thought you’d introduce later?

No. I had a few other characters early on and dropped them. Eventually things just came down to the three principal characters — Broom-Hilda, Irwin Troll and Gaylord Buzzard — and then Nerwin, who came along later because I had some kid jokes I wanted to use.

Did you have any notion about geographic location?

I drew them wandering around in a forest because I liked drawing trees and rocks and it seemed appropriate for

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Not really. Of course 40 years later they look dated in some ways, but in the context of the times I like them.

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Anything that you really, really dislike about these?

How many papers initially signed up?

I think we started with around 100 papers and it grew pretty quickly. Remember, those were the days when most major cities still had competing papers.

How much of the syndicate’s imprint is in these first dailies? No syndicate imprint. They just ran it. This sounds wonderful and it was.

the kind of nonsense I was selling. It really wasn’t a conscious decision. It just happened. Nothing about the origination of Broom-Hilda was calculated or thought out. I just started doing it and they printed it.

I never considered anything like that. I just drew ’em and mailed ’em. Elliott handled the business end of things.

A through F — what grade would you give that first week?

Honestly, and I can already hear people giving me the raspberry out there (do they still use that term?), but I’d give them an A as the first week of a brand new strip. They were very spontaneous, but also the result of years of cartooning experience, failure, whining, pouting, starting over and keeping on plugging. N C

The First Week A Second Look

As Greg Evans was about to wrap up his 25th anniversary — his Luanniversary — with Luann in 2011, a post was accompanied with a photo of him at the strip’s fifth anniversary. Greg wrote, “At the time I remember thinking, ‘FIVE YEARS! I’ve done 1,825 strips! How can I keep this UP? I’ve done every joke I can think of. What more is there to these characters?’” We figure that by now he must have some sort of handle on it, but we wondered just when he might have known, in looking at

Luann The First Week – A Second Look

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How much did the concept change from your initial samples? The submission samples I’d sent to the syndicate were used in the launch of Luann. Not one change.

How much of the syndicate’s imprint is in these first dailies? Zero. There was no “development” period. The only editorial input was from Lew Little who, as with other cartoonists that he nurtured, required me to send him sketches of my gags which he would grade from A to D. The goal was to produce only “A” gags during the first year of syndication. This system resulted in me writing a LOT of gags in order to end up with enough “A” grades. After Lew’s grading period ended, I went back to the pile of B and C gags and used them, sometimes reworking them, sometimes not.

Anything that you really, really dislike about these? Besides the awful drawing and simplistic writing you mean? I do wonder why I thought the hatch lines at the top were a good idea. A couple of years into the strip a fellow cartoonist asked me, “Why do you draw spaghetti hanging from the ceiling?” I stopped.

What do you like about the art or writing from this initial week? I think I wrote some of my best gags in the early years. Now I write endless sagas. As for the art, I was too influenced by Sparky. Note the big heads, little bodies, lack of adults and Luann’s standardized shirt. But there’s an appealing hand-hewn simplicity to the art that’s gone in my current work.

What “hook” was in place here that turned out to be one of your better ideas?

I thought Luann hanging over her bed would be my Snoopy-ontop-of-his-doghouse iconic image. I tried really hard to conjure themes to match Sparky’s brilliant portfolio (psychiatrist booth, security blanket, kite-eating tree, Great Pumpkin, football-kicking, etc., etc.) but I never came up with a single one. So, no, Luann’s never had a “hook.”

Were there characters or concepts that you had in the back of your mind but thought you’d introduce later?

From the start I knew that Luann would evolve into a more serious strip. These are teens. They have issues. I wanted to deal with them. I also thought I’d do more with Luann’s imagination — in various situations she’d picture herself as a princess or a pirate or an astronaut. I don’t know why I didn’t pursue this. Eight months after Luann launched, Calvin and Hobbes came along and rode that idea to the stars.

Did you have any notion about geographic location?

It seemed important to set Luann in Anywhere, USA, so readers everywhere could identify. As it turns out, I rarely indicate weather in the strip — it’s never snowed, hardly rains and the wind doesn’t blow. So I guess they live in San Diego.

How many papers initially signed up? Seventy-four.

Did you ever stop to consider, with the framework you’d devised, how all this might play out after five years? I dreamed that my strip would be in 1,200 papers. Don’t we all? But I also wondered if I could keep cranking it out day after day, year after year. Seemed impossible to do. I can’t believe 25 years have somehow slipped by and I’ve cranked out more than 9,000. I do wish I’d named the strip something other than “Luann” though. It’s just too soft a title and it gets spelled wrong all the time in articles. What catchy name would I have given the strip instead? “Zits.”

‘From the start I knew that Luann would evolve into a more serious strip. These are teens. They have issues. I wanted to deal with them.’

A through F — what grade would you give that first week? I think these strips do what they should do: they introduce this new character (sort of a lovable loser ... hey! Just like Charlie Brown!) and set up her world. The gags are good enough to make readers want to return. But the art looks like something a grade schooler did rather than a 37-year-old. And it’s certainly not the caliber of a Peanuts or a Calvin. I didn’t break any new ground. So I guess a “B-minus.” N C

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Hello! He’s

Tom Gammill – creator of ‘The Doozies!’ If you appreciate the take on the headline above, then you’ll need no further introduction. If you’re still in the dark — just who is this guy on stage hosting our Reuben Awards? — then the following may expound on his modest website bio: Tom Gammill is a TV writer whose credits include “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Night with David Letterman,” “Seinfeld,” and “Monk.” He has been a Consulting Producer at “The Simpsons” since 1998. He is also a cartoonist. And a terrific Reuben Award master of ceremonies. We caught up with Tom at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in Columbus, Ohio, where we talked about writing for television and drawing for newspapers — and drawing about television and writing for The Doozies.

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Frank Pauer: So you weren’t even a member of the NCS a year ago and there you are — hosting this year’s Reuben Awards. Tom Gammill: I know (laughs), it was a very fast rise. Last year the Awards were in L.A. and I got invited by John Glynn from Universal Press because they’re the ones who carry The Doozies on GoComics.com. Then Mark Tatulli got in touch with me beforehand. Unfortunately there was no Simpsons read-through that week, but I told him that if you want to get a gang together we could just take a tour of the Fox lot. So I met Mark Tatulli, Stephan Pastis, Dave Coverly, Sean Kelly and Paul Gilligan and we all went on this tour. So before the first event I actually knew some members. But yet you were still not. At the last Reubens I really didn’t meet Jeff Keane. I met him last September and said that I’d like to join the NCS. And he’s like, “Gee, I’m not sure.” He kept jumping around — yes, maybe, I don’t know. By the end of the meeting I was either going to not be accepted or I was going to get the Lifetime Achievement Award. But I got Jerry

Scott, Jim Borgman and Mell Lazarus to write really hilarious letters with some back-handed compliments about The Doozies, and so I got in. Around March Jeff asked if I wanted to host, and I said sure. He said to do just whatever I want. Together we wrote the Godfather parody, which was really fun because it was so easy to plug everybody in. And not only did you host, you sang. I really wanted to go over the top with the song. A friend from college writes songs professionally for award shows. He lives in New York and we kicked around lyrics. The week before the Reubens he made me come to New York early to rehearse with him. That was a lot of work. Getting ready for the banquet was like one giant “Learn to Draw” video. And you danced. (Laughs) The dance was not prepared at all. So are you re-upping for next year’s Reuben Awards? Yeah, you bet. Jeff has already asked me to do it. It’s going to be bigger and better. You’d been a fan of cartooning since — I was a kid. I grew up in Fairfield County, (Conn.), not too far from Mort Walker’s museum. When I was in high school, I would go to those Sunday seminars and I met a lot of people because, you know, Fairfield County had a ton of cartoonists then. I met Mort, Jack Tippet and Bill Yates, who did Professor Phumble. There was Alden McWilliams, who did a strip called Dateline: Danger. I went over to

his house a few times. All those comics were in our local papers. I met Jud Hurd and Jud was really nice to me. So growing up, I had met all these famous cartoonists and it was really fun to go to the museum. And I started doing cartoons in the eighth grade for the school paper and then for the town paper. So you were already a big fan as a kid. I was a big fan as a kid. I thought I was going to be a cartoonist when I graduated. You said you were doing cartoons for a regular paper? For the school paper, and then I did

weekly editorial cartoons for the Darien News — nothing too hard hitting. And this was when you were in high school still? Yeah, but they were pretty lame. Things like “This darn traffic…” (Laughs) Then they finally replaced me with Bill Yates. Bill lived in the town over, and they liked his darn traffic cartoons better than mine. Other than the cartoonists in your backyard, did you have other influences? Charles Schulz, of course. Mort Walker and MAD Magazine. I guess it’s what pretty much everyone else says, but it’s true. I liked the way a joke was paced

in Doonesbury. That was really amazing when that started. I was fascinated with Ernie Bushmiller. Ernie Bushmiller was sort of like watching a Jerry Lewis movie, where you’re watching and you’re going this is terrible, this is terrible — this is brilliant, you know? (Laughs) And you have several of his originals. I was at Comic-Con in like 1980, and there was somebody selling originals from the ’40s for like $5 each. So I bought a ton of them — I cleaned him out. I expect that I should have bought the Krazy Kats going for $100. (Laughs) You look back at Bushmiller’s stuff from the ’40s and the drawings are

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great and the jokes are very simple and not very wordy. I love the pacing and the backgrounds. It’s pretty amazing. So what amazed you when you first saw originals at the museum? Just seeing them up close. It was really exciting to see Doonesbury and Peanuts. And learning about stuff like using a razor blade and white out and seeing the paste-ons. After that I started using a lot of paste-ons — if you picked up those originals now like a hundred pieces would fall on the floor. (Laughs) It was interesting to see how a brush worked, like in a Walt Kelly original. Those are pretty amazing. And how big that early stuff was. And the Little Nemos — beautifully drawn with those crazy weird word balloons. (Laughs) So what did you come away with when you met Mort and all these guys? That it was really fun. I mean, Mort especially, was like, “Jump in the water — it’s fine.” He was always very encouraging. By that time people were talking about the decline of the magazine stuff. Saturday Evening Post was gone. Colliers. I met magazine cartoonists and they would tell me to stay away — it was a dying business. They didn’t know how bad it was going to get, I guess. But it looked like a lot of fun, you know, they played golf on Wednesdays and they sat around and they palled around. I was looking for that kind of job where you didn’t have to wear a suit and you could laugh a lot. And as it turns out TV writers are even more like that because you can really see how much more time TV writers get to screw around. You just have to think of an idea you don’t even have to try it out. You just tell the actors. Speaking of acting, a lot more people know you from your “Learn to Draw” online videos. How did those come about? You know, it’s funny — those started during the Writers Guild strike. We would picket in the morning for like three hours. You met a lot of other writers and you lost weight — it was really kind of

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pleasant. (Laughs) And then we were like, “Well, what else are we going to do?” We [Tom’s writing partner Max Pross] always had this premise of a goofy cartoonist who thought his strip was great and his family hates him. We first thought of it for Letterman, but he never used it. We were also too young to play it ourselves, but now I’m at an age where I can play the guy and I have kids who could play the kids who hate their father. Max is the one who directs, shoots and edits them, and together we write them. We don’t even really write them — we sort of just talk about what we’re going to do. So the strip was created only because of the “Learn to Draw” premise? Yeah. The first idea was to do these videos. Originally the strip was going to be called something like the Blobkins. Blobs. Just purposely lame. So I thought that I should create a strip that I am proud of — something that would give more credibility to the videos — and to really do the best I could. The best I can is going to seem lame to some people — The Doozies is kind of a lame name in retrospect. But I started to love the strip. I was also submitting to syndicates, with no response at all. But then John Glynn came to town. He wasn’t that wild about my submission, but he’d seen all my (TV) credits. So we had lunch, the strip was appearing in a couple weekly papers and John was like, “Sure, you can be on GoComics.com.” It wasn’t a daily at first? It started as three times a week. You know, I realized it was harder to do three days a week than a daily. You’d think of an idea and go, “Hmmm, is this good enough to be only three days a week worth?” Whereas now you think of ideas and you just get it out there. It’s fun to have the pressure of doing it every day. And I don’t think I could have done it before the Cintiq. If I had to do it on paper I’d spend all day cutting and pasting and I’d only get one done a week. And you’re actually in a dozen or so newspapers as well.

A dozen or so is on the high end. (Laughs) What’s really great is getting e-mail from Jerry or Mell going, “Hey, that was a really good joke today.” I know The Doozies has a big following in TV writers’ rooms. And people are fans of the videos. It’s funny, a typical conversation I had at the Reubens was, “Hey, Tom, I really like your videos.” “But you know I do The Doozies comic strip, too.” “I really like your videos.” (Laughs) We need to back up a bit. You went to Harvard. Did you go for a specific course of study? Well, actually for the Harvard Lampoon. So you went to Lampoon specifically to … Do cartoons, basically. Not so much to write. No. You know, I was very nerdy in high school and just sort of sat in my room and did cartoons. I was thrilled when I got to Harvard and there were people as nerdy as I was. I was probably, on a level of one to ten, a five in terms of nerdiness. And so there were also equally nerdy people on the Lampoon who wanted to be writers. And they were really fun to hang out with. I liked the social aspect of writing. I didn’t want to go back to my room and do the cartoon — I wanted to hang around with the other funny people. So I ended up doing more writing in college. But I was always doodling on the side. In my 30 years as a TV writer I was always considered a pretty good cartoonist. And then I became a cartoonist and felt like, oh my God, you’re a terrible cartoonist. (Laughs) One of the reasons that Jeff Smith, who created Bone, went to Ohio State was that he could do a daily comic strip in the student newspaper, much like you going to Harvard. The Lampoon was only five times a year, though. And it wasn’t that rigid of a deadline. So you didn’t have the discipline of a daily, like the Harvard Crimson. So you never contributed to the paper. No. There really wasn’t a crossover between the Lampoon and the Crimson. It was more of a rivalry then. We spent a

lot of time at the Lampoon just goofing around, doing pranks and watching TV and talking about comedy. Without even realizing it, we were learning how to become TV writers. To be a TV writer you sit in a room with like 10 other people and you’re pitching jokes. You’ve got to learn how to contribute and not get all whiney if they don’t use your joke. The group dynamic of working on a TV show we were doing at the magazine. A lot of Simpsons writers came from college humor magazines. Going through the database it seems like you’ve worked on hundreds of TV shows, but I’d like you to talk about just a couple of them — Saturday Night Live and Seinfeld. What was the segue from Lampoon to SNL? Being in Boston in 1979, I had no idea how to get into TV — most of it was still in L.A. My partner Max Pross was actually going into medical school, and I was going to Kansas City to work at Hallmark Cards. I went in with a portfolio of drawings and they said, “Oh this is great. Would you like to be a writer?” (Laughs) But at the last minute Jim Downey, one of the original writers on SNL, had read our stuff and said, “Hey, you should work up a packet for Saturday Night Live.” We’d never written for TV, but after working on the Lampoon we knew how to work together. We were there the last year of the original cast — ’79 to ’80. It was an amazing job. I met Steve Martin on my first day of work. There was Budweiser in all the refrigerators because they were a sponsor, and people would start readings by lighting up joints. And we just thought this is the way it works. (Laughs) So at our next job at Letter-

man you weren’t allowed to drink beer in the office, and I’m like “What the hell is this?” (Laughs) Did you have the deer-in-the-headlights look at SNL? I mean, you were just out

of school working on the biggest thing to happen in years. We were the apprentice writers, so the expectations of us weren’t as big as the other writers. We didn’t write anything that became a classic Saturday Night Live sketch. I did learn a very important thing about teamwork and how good it was to work with Max: one day we were on the set and they were rehearsing a sketch that wasn’t going very well. Bill Murray came over and started yelling at us about what a piece of crap the sketch was. And he was right. But as he’s yelling at us I’m thinking that I can just walk away now

and Max will still be here for Bill Murray to yell at. (Laughs) Seinfeld. That was a great show. How we got that was right before that we had our own show on Fox called Great Scott, with Tobey Maguire. We were on against 60 Minutes, and we only did 13 episodes, but Jerry Seinfeld had seen it and liked it. And it was a Castle Rock production, as was Seinfeld, so he was inclined to put us on staff. Another thing we had done was written a spec Seinfeld script trying to get on the show. They didn’t produce it, but Larry David called us and said that he liked this one premise we had. He said that he’d like to use it and would give us a “story by” credit. And we told him that we didn’t need the credit, just go ahead and use it. I think he really appreciated that we weren’t demanding, so he was inclined to bring us on, too. Up til that point a lot of the Seinfeld writers didn’t last more than a year. We came in the fifth season, and we were writing drafts that were good enough for Jerry and Larry to rewrite. We were there for four years. What about the differences between the collaborative processes of writing Seinfeld and The Simpsons? At Seinfeld it was more like independent study. You were in an office churning out a first draft and then it went to Larry and Jerry and they rewrote it. If it was your draft, you would go to the first run-throughs — where the actors are rehearsing it — and you would be part of the editing. The other writers on staff wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Whereas on The Simpsons, one person

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would write a draft and then it goes to the table. It’s much more collaborative — every writer is involved with those scripts. That’s why The Simpsons is so dense with jokes. If you want to write something and not see it changed then you’ve got to write a play and produce it yourself. With Max, does one of you bring a particular strength into the partnership over the other? Ummmm … not really. If one of us had a particular strength we’d probably be a lot more successful. (Laughs) We’re not having those fights, like, “I earned that $50 million!” “No, I did!” We’re just thankful that we’ve been employed for 30 years. We know how to work in a room together. So you’re a consulting producer at The Simpsons. Week to week, what does that entail? It’s sort of what you see in the old Dick Van Dyke show: people sitting around a table, and you’ve got a script in various stages of development. Somebody has written a first draft and you’re punching it up going through it page by page. There’s a big TV monitor that dis-

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plays the page and there’s one person who leads the room and says, “OK, we need a better line here for Homer.” So there’s a lot of sitting around trying to think of a line. Is there an expectation that all of those in the room will come in with a script at least once during the season? What happens is that at the beginning of the year people pitch stories. Then Jim Brooks and Matt [Groening] decide which will be the stories to develop. And then the writer will go off and write the first draft. Whoever writes the first draft gets the “written by” credit. The first drafts are written by the full-time writers there. There must be about 10 consultants there — I’m one of them — and we work on the drafts after they come in. For a comedy writer it’s the best show in the world — any funny idea you have there’s a character to fit the joke. And because it’s animated you’re not limited by the three or four sets you can only do on live-action shows. I love that one week you can look out the window and there’s a volcano and the next week there’s a penitentiary. (Laughs)

Does working on The Simpsons preclude you from working on other projects? We love The Simpsons and want to stay there as long as they’ll have us. So that precludes us from creating our own show, and writing it someplace we’d have to be full-time. But we’ll do pilots — we did an animated pilot last year. What about movies? Yeah, we’ve done some movies. The movies have gone direct to DVD, though. (Laughs) Do you think writing humor is harder than writing, say, fiction? I think writing fiction would be pretty hard. Writing humor is easier than writing TV drama. So you don’t have that great American novel in you. No, it’s coming out three panels at a time. (Laughs) N C n n n See The Doozies at thedoozies.com. And watch the many “Learn to Draw” videos at youtube.com.

In early 1962, NCS member Jim Sizemore began the first of 24 lessons of the Famous Artists Cartoon Course. Founded in 1948 by illustrator Albert Dorne along with artists and illustrators including Norman Rockwell, Al Parker, Jon Whitcomb, Stevan Dohanos and Robert Fawcett, the Famous Artists School offered courses in painting, illustration/design and cartooning. The cartoon course was “planned, written, drawn and approved by men who are recognized as leaders in the field. … These men have proved that they know the what, why, and how of

making successful cartoons.” Cartoonists who lent their name to the course included Milton Caniff, Rube Goldberg, Al Capp, Willard Mullin and Whitney Darrow Jr., among others. The course stated that “all through this training you will receive sincere, individual attention by instructors who are specialists in every phase of the work you do and send in for criticism.” Jim Sizemore signed up, and the following is his story. He does not mention if he ever received “sincere, individual attention” from the likes of Rube Goldberg.

Faint praise and boilerplate critiques

Tales of a Famous Artists Cartoon Course graduate

By Jim Sizemore n March 20, 1962, I finished my first assignment for the Famous Artists Schools (FAS) Editorial and Commercial Cartooning Course, and mailed it off

to Westport, Conn. The 24-lesson course is contained in three huge custom-designed binders crammed full of pages with profusely illustrated text on good quality paper. I still have them. The FAS course name is stamped on the covers in gold, and my name is tagged, also in gold but much smaller, in the lower right corner. Ten days after I mailed the first completed lesson I had a critique in hand. The return package consisted of my original assignment drawings with tracing paper overlays. The FAS instructor corrected my crude attempts to render several cartoon heads with properly placed features, beautifully sketched in colored pencil. Unfortunately, none of my assignments from the 24-lesson course survive. I have a vague memory — like something from a fever dream — in which, in a fit of embarrassment because of the poor quality of

my work, I destroyed them all. If that is, in fact, what I did, my only regret is that I must have also destroyed the overlays done by my FAS instructors, some of whom went on to fame and fortune in the commercial art business. Also included in the Lesson 1 critique package was a neatly typed six-paragraph letter in which the FAS instructor listed the things I needed to work on if I entertained the hope of

ever making anything of myself as a professional cartoonist. Finally, there was a biography page with a photo of the instructor. Though not much older than me — perhaps even younger — he was photographed from a low angle that made him appear, at least in my awe-stuck eyes, god-like. While being photographed, I imagined that he was hard at work on one of his own pieces of cartoon art, perhaps a full-color illustration for a slick weekly magazine such as Collier’s or Look. My instructor was Randall Enos, a very successful illustrator to this day. His work has embellished magazines, newspapers, books, record and CD covers, posters and animated film. Some of his clients include NBC, National Lampoon, Playboy, Boy’s Life, Atlantic, Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Forbes. I recently saw a poster by Enos, done in his distinctive wood-cut-like cartoon-illustration style, advertising a Broadway play in the Sunday New York Times.

hen I mailed that first FAS lesson back in 1962, I was an immature 25-year-old, married with one son and another on the way, afire with the vague hope of beginning a career in the cartooning

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nos’ comments, most of which I now realize to be wellwritten and instructive boilerplate, were meant to encourage new students such as myself. Part of the FAS instructors’ job, I’m sure, was to accentuate the positive so we wouldn’t get discouraged too soon and drop out. Which may explain what I call the damningwith-faint-praise tone of the sentence in the first paragraph of the critique: “You have a nice touch with that pencil of yours,” Enos wrote, “which speaks well for your future in the business.” Even at that early stage I could see they were blowing a bit of smoke in my direction. If memory serves, the balloon heads that I drew for the assignment looked a lot like an example of a bad example in Lesson 1. The caption was “Don’t draw it like this with a single hard line.” My so-called “line,” especially in those days, couldn’t have been harder, or uglier or cruder. Then, as if he’s already tired of pussyfooting around, Enos nails me with this comment: “Your heads have an uncertainty of outline that weakens your drawing.” In paragraph three, he seems to get downright testy and writes, “Use the two guide lines to plot the turn or tilt of the head BEFORE you locate the features.” In paragraph four he uses all caps thrice again, but with what I choose to take as kindliness — or is it pity? He’s gently suggesting that my cartoon heads appear too “NORMAL,” drawn with awkward hard lines, and that they would have more “sparkle” and be less “STATIC” if I used more “EXAGGERATION.” He expands the point, saying in paragraph five that I should study my own face in the mirror — “ham it up and see how you naturally turn or tilt you head in gestures that go along with and emphasize the expressions of your face. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate these head gestures and expressions — but base your exaggeration on what you’ve

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observed.” Finally, in paragraph six of the critique, Enos tried to buck up my now deflated ego by saying, “You are off to a good start with these assignments, and we look forward to seeing your work for Lesson 2. Keep it simple! Your grade for Lesson 1 is B+.” B+? Really? Doing the first assignment I already felt awkward and ill prepared for what I had taken on with the course, so the grade surprised me. At that point I was totally intimidated by the 23 lessons that lay ahead, convinced that I had come too late to the craft of cartooning. Considering the general negative tone of the letter — and my view of the work I had done on the assignments — I would have given myself a solid D-. But I quickly got over the bad feelings. I refused to let my disappointment with my own work stop me, or even slow me down. For the rest of 1962 I sent off a completed assignment every few weeks, on average. All of which pointed to either undimmed confidence on my part — or arrogance.

y grades for lessons 1 through 10 never dropped below a B, with most of them being B+ to A-.

I don’t say that proudly. Despite those grades, I’m very aware of how crude the work that I did was. I came to suspect that FAS instructors were instructed not to drop below the “B” line for any student. The policy — if that’s what it was — I came to think of as a sort of affirmative action program for poor kids getting late starts in the commercial art game. In other words, the FAS correspondence course in cartooning was designed just for the likes of me. My assignment for Lesson 2, “The Comic Figure,” pulled a B+. Here’s one of Randall Enos’ pointed tips in his critique of that effort: “Remember that the human figure is really quite flexible — avoid rigor mortis in your cartoons.” On Lesson 3, “Inking the Head and Figure,” he gave me an A-, my best grade so far. To quote Enos: “Above all, don’t expect to master the technique of inking in a few days. Only long practice and self criticism of your own lines will give you the sure hand of a professional.” For Lesson 4, “The Head in Detail,” I suddenly had a new instructor. His name was Peter Wells, but no biography or picture was provided. But I noticed his writing style was exactly the same as that of Randall Enos. In the critique of Lesson 4, which is a full page and a quarter of single-spaced tips, Peter Wells had this to say about my inking skills, or lack thereof: “In your outlines you have a tendency to leave gaps between your pen or brush strokes. This gives your drawing a disconnected or almost ‘exploded’ look which you can overcome by joining up your lines solidly.” Wells gave me the lowest grade so far — a B. Randall Enos returned for Lesson 5, “The Figure in Detail.” The first paragraph of his critique ends with a line the various FAS instructors seem to favor: “On my tissues (overlays) I have given you some practical tips that will make this good job even better.” One of those

tips, the visual logic of which appealed to me, is something I find useful to this day “I find that it helps, when drawing hands, to pencil in the mitten shape first in the action I want,” he wrote. “Then I draw in the individual fingers, keeping them WITHIN the outline of the mitten.” On Lesson 5, Enos gave me an A-.

ith Lesson 6, “Anatomy,” I had the professional help of Bernard Thompson, another new FAS instructor. He begins and ends his letter with something at which all the instructors were well versed: that old damning with faint praise thing that I mentioned earlier. “You have done a fairly good job with your anatomy here,” Mr. Thompson wrote. “However, in cartooning we have to go a bit beyond a neat representation of the figure with all the lumps and bumps in the proper places.” He ends a page and a half later, all of it written in the usual clear FAS boilerplate style: “This was a tough assignment and, all in all, you did well with it. Your grade for Lesson 6 is B.” Lesson 7, “Pretty Girls,” must have stumped me for awhile because I finally completed the assignment a full three months after Lesson 6, the longest gap between mailings up to that point. My favorite picture in the first FAS textbook came in Lesson 7, a photograph of a naked lady. The nude model was combined with a series of drawings to make a serious point about reality versus comic illustration. I returned to that picture time and time again for close study — but I confess that not all of had to do with cartooning. And I still like the caption: “The female figure, as the cartoonist draws it, is a stylized figure based on the popular American ideal. Everything is done to accent sex. Try for a provocative line . . . without being vulgar!”

That was good advice and all the professional justification I needed to revisit the image often, without a hint of early 1960s pre-sexual revolution guilt. Mr. Thompson gave me a B+ for the “Pretty Girls” lesson, something I know I didn’t deserve then and don’t today. I still can’t draw pretty women, at least not up to FAS standards. Randall Enos returned as my instructor yet again for Lesson 8, “Action and the Figure.” Near the end of his letter he gave me a tip about what I’ve come to know as “spot shadows,” a device that has served me well over the years, including when I’ve taught cartooning Below, sample pages from the Famous Artists Cartoon Course

to kids. In his letter he called them “ground shadows,” and they were placed below and behind a running figure as an aid in giving a feeling of forward motion. He also wrote that to “give the figure additional action, get it into the air by leaving a clear space between the feet and the cast shadow.” On Lesson 8, he gave me a very generous B+.

hen came Lesson 9: “Clothes and Folds.” Of the first ten FAS lessons, this turned out to be my least favorite. As with pretty girls, I still can’t draw decent folds in clothes. So I guess it should come as no surprise that on page two of his critique, Enos inserted a minilecture in the form of four rules, all of which I believe I had consistently violated throughout the previous lessons. (Some I still do, but at least now it’s fully conscious.) Enos sets up his lecture by suggesting that having completed nine lessons in less than five months, I may have overdone it. “You are now a little over one third of your way through the Cartoon Course,” he writes, “and this is a good time to review your practice and working methods. There are several important responsibilities that you as a student should keep in mind. “1. Remember the importance of practice. You learn to draw by drawing and this means continual practice.” (I rarely practiced; I still don’t. Even now, I’m not sure what that means. I somehow got the idea that I could practice by doing, so I tend to just plow ahead, muddle through and manage to always come up with a solution of some sort.) “2. Study and practice each lesson before you tackle the assignment.” (See above, which may explain why I’m seldom happy with anything I

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a three-year course so you can spend as much as six weeks on each lesson.” (With later assignments I manage to go too far in the other direction, occasionally taking months to complete and send in lessons.) “4. Never start the assignment for a lesson until you receive back the criticized previous lesson. Study your instructor’s suggestions and corrections. Make use of their teaching in the following assignment.” (That’s one bit of advice I found easy to follow.) It’s too bad I wasn’t smart enough to figure those things out myself much earlier in the course. Still, on Lesson 9, Enos was kind enough to award an A-.

n September 24, 1962, six months after beginning the FAS Cartooning Course, I mailed in the assignment for Lesson 10, “Special Types.” The first line of instructor Peter Wells’ critique letter says: “These drawings of yours for Lesson 10 are full of good cartoon ideas and I enjoyed doing the overlays on them. On my tissues I have made suggestions which I felt would help make your good job better.” (There’s that boilerplate phrase again.) Of course the boilerplate critiques worked because the mistakes beginning cartoonists make were, in many cases, the same or at least similar. Over the course of ten lessons I noticed that once in a while the FAS instructors tried to individualize their comments. A case in point comes in the first line of paragraph four of Wells’ letter, where he says: “You have drawn your banker gesturing toward the table with that left hand. Why not have him banging it with his fist?” Then, reverting to boil-

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erplate, he continues: “Stop and think about what happens when YOU smack a loaded table. Things jump and rattle — action, good messy action results. Draw that smack and the resulting clatter and add excitement to your picture — something that INTERESTS your reader. It’s this constantly thinking of and drawing things that interest readers that keeps professional cartoonists eating.” Excellent cartooning advice, boilerplate or not, the sort of practical content I found in every paragraph of every critique letter I received from FAS instructors. Again, deserved or not, Peter Wells gave me a B+ on Lesson 10. I was pretty proud of myself when I mailed the final assignment in the first textbook of the Famous Artists Cartoon Course. One textbook down, two to go. Ten lessons completed, just shy of half of the entire 24-lesson course. Amazing. And I’d done them in less than five months! At that rate, I told myself, I should have my Certificate in Editorial and Commercial Cartooning in 15 months, less than half the 36 months allowed to finish the program. Was I feeling cocky? Sure. Was my optimism correct? No, not so much. Oh, I did get my certificate all right, just a hair shy of the three-year deadline. With the various things going on in my life at that time — a young and expanding family, work and more — turning out the cartoon assignments became harder as I went along. But that’s another story. N C For more of Jim’s work, see http://doodle meister.com/

… and some

By Randall Enos Between 1956 and 1964 I worked at The Famous Artists Schools, the correspondence art school. I worked on the Cartoon Course. We would get a student’s assignment and put overlays on it and point out various “trouble” spots and sometimes re-draw the whole situation and then send a letter to accompany the crit. The letters were standard form letters (after all everybody would make the same “mistakes”) but we would “personalize” the letter by inserting certain words that applied specifically to the student’s particular drawing. There were four or five of us doing the lessons and we would bounce the student around between us so he or she would have the advantage of more than one point of view. I was the youngest, being hired at the ripeness of 20 years. The others were pretty much retired guys in their 60’s, having had careers in the field. One of them had drawn — and continued to draw — Popeye, another had worked on the Lone Ranger, another on The Katzenjammer Kids, another on Captain Marvel Jr. and Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang

not-so-faint praise — 48 years later

and Playboy and so on. So, I’m surfing the Web and I come across a blog called “Doodlemeister.” The fellow that runs it, Jim Sizemore, had a post where he, in great detail, described critiques of mine he had received when he was an FAS student. It was a trip down memory lane, all right. He complained that I had always given him high grades and flattery when he really wanted tough criticism. He pointed out that my overlay comments were a little more to the point than my (form) letters. I made a comment on his blog post and invited him, if he wished, to send me an assignment NOW and I would give him a free crit. He was 25 then and is in his 70’s now, as I am. I promised him in addition, that this time I definitely would not give him a good grade. Here then is my crit of his assignment, because he took me up on it. Y’know, the more I look at it, the better I like his cartoon than mine. N C For much more on Randall Enos, visit www. randallenos.com, or check out his blog at www.drawger.com/bigfoot/

Jim, Thanks for giving me the opportun ity to re-live my old Famous Artis ts Schools experience. It was invigorati ng. I found your cartoon, as I said on the overlay, very competent. You’ re obviously a well-disciplined profe ssional who knows how to put a cartoon together. I had to get especially toug h on you because you ARE so good . No pussyfooting around. It is a funny idea, but I wonder if it might be even funnier if the wom an was saying, “Charlie has a far bette r memory than I have!”? I hope my comments are helpful. The first thing that struck me (afte r seeing how good you are) was that everything is a little too much the same tone and size in the picture. This is not unusual in the panel field. You’ ve made a nice “safe” picture here , but the thing that makes people like Boot h or Searle or George Price stand out is the personality and character that they infuse their people with. Your figur es are very good but I would encourage you to push them a little further. Everyone has his own style, of cour se, and I wouldn’t expect you to have the same approach as I would have . But with a few adjustments alon g the lines I have mentioned on the over lays, I think you could find a way, within your own style, to make some force ful improvements that would add greatly to the impact of your cartoons. I talk to you this way because I know you are a realist and are not inter ested in pandering comments. I know you want to seriously improve your self as we all do. I know that we may have been a little too easy on students back in the old days. I wouldn’t talk this way to an amateur. Best wishes to you. Stay in touch. In keeping with my promise not to give you a good grade this time , I’m giving you a . Sincerely, Randy Enos

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Specialty art drawn by National Cartoonist Society members for publications issued to coincide with the Society’s annual Reuben Awards Weekend. 38

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from the 1968 edition of the Reuben Awards issue of The Cartoonist

Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1955

Charles Schulz

NCS Archives

Jim Borgman and Jerry Scott Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1993 (Borgman); 2001 (Scott) from the 2013 Reuben Journal congratulating Rick Kirkman on his Reuben Award nomination

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by London

Rina Piccolo

Bobby London

Rina Piccolo

Jim Davis

Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1989

from the 2016 Reuben Journal on the occasion of the Society’s annual meeting in Memphis

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Hank Ketcham Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1952

from the 1963 Reuben Journal

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Al Capp Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1947 Specialty drawing, undated

Fred Lasswell

Specialty sketch, 1994

icate, inc.

Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1963

Unpublished specialty art drawn by cartoonists from private collections.

From the Collection of ...

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Jack Davis Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 2000 Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, 1996

Specialty drawing, 2000

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Chuck Jones Five-time Reuben Animation Award recipient Color rough, undated

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Dick Moores Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1974

Self-caricature specialty art, 1982

Art Sansom Reuben Humor Strip Award recipient, 1987 The Born Loser specialty sketch, undated

Morrie Turner

Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, 2003 Wee Pals specialty sketch, undated

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The National Cartoonists Society (above)

Willard Mullin Reuben Award-winning Cartoonist of the Year, 1954

cover art from the program of the 16th annual Reuben Award Dinner, April 23, 1962

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ABOUT THE NCS The National Cartoonists Society is the world’s largest and most prestigious organization of professional cartoonists. The NCS was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They found that they enjoyed each other’s company and decided to get together on a regular basis. Today, the NCS membership roster includes more than 500 of the world’s major cartoonists, working in many branches of the profession, including newspaper comic strips and panels, on-line comics, comic books, editorial cartoons, animation, gag cartoons, greeting cards, advertising, magazine and book illustration and more. Membership is limited to established professional cartoonists, with a few exceptions of outstanding persons in affiliated fields. The NCS is not a guild or union, although we have joined forces from time to time to fight for member’s rights, and we regularly use our talents to help worthwhile causes.

PRIMARY PURPOSES OF THE NCS n To advance the ideals and standards of professional cartooning in its many forms. n To promote and foster a social, cultural and intellectual interchange among profes-

sional cartoonists of all types. n To stimulate and encourage interest in and acceptance of the art of cartooning by aspiring cartoonists, students and the general public.

THE HISTORY OF THE NCS The seeds for what evolved into the National Cartoonists Society were planted during the volunteer chalk talks that a number of cartoonists did during World War II for the American Theatre Wing. The Society was born at a specially convened dinner in New York in March, 1946, that saw Rube Goldberg elected as president, Russell Patterson as vice president, C.D. Russell as secretary and Milton Caniff as treasurer. A second vice president, Otto Soglow, was subsequently added. Within two weeks, the Society had 32 members: Strip cartoonists Wally Bishop (Muggs and Skeeter); Martin Branner (Winnie Winkle); Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy); Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates); Gus Edson (The Gumps); Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka); Harry Haenigsen (Penny); Fred Harman (Red Ryder); Jay Irving (Willie Doodle); Al Posen (Sweeney and Son); C.D. Russell (Pete the Tramp); Otto Soglow (The Little King); Jack Sparling (Clare Voyant); Ray Van Buren (Abbie an’ Slats); Dow Waling (Skeets); and Frank Willard (Moon Mullins). Panel cartoonists Dave Breger (Mister Breger); George Clark (The Neighbors); Bob Dunn (Just the Type); Jimmy Hatlo (They’ll Do It Every Time); Bill Holman (Smokey Stover); and Stan McGovern (Silly Milly). Freelance cartoonists and illustrators Abner Dean, Mischa Richter and Russell Patterson. Editorial cartoonists Rube Goldberg (New York Sun); Burris Jenkins (Journal American); C.D. Batchelor (Daily News); and Richard Q. Yardley (Baltimore Sun). Sports cartoonist Lou Hanlon and comic book cartoonists Joe Shuster and Joe Musial. By March 1947, there were 112 members in the National Cartoonists Society. At the end of 1946, Milton Caniff left Terry and The Pirates to create the adventure strip Steve Canyon, which debuted in 243 newspapers to instant acclaim. The following May, he became the first artist formally honored by the group as the “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.” The trophy was a silver cigarette box, engraved with Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google and Snuffy Smith characters. The Billy DeBeck Memorial Award

THE REUBEN AWARD for

Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year ....................... 1946 Milton Caniff Steve Canyon 1947 Al Capp Li’l Abner 1948 Chic Young Blondie 1949 Alex Raymond Rip Kirby 1950 Roy Crane Buz Sawyer 1951 Walt Kelly Pogo 1952 Hank Ketcham Dennis the Menace 1953 Mort Walker Beetle Bailey 1954 Willard Mullin Sports cartoons 1955 Charles Schulz Peanuts 1956 Herbert Block Editorial Cartoons 1957 Hal Foster Prince Valiant 1958 Frank King Gasoline Alley

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1959 Chester Gould Dick Tracy

continued until 1953. The following year, the Reuben Award was introduced. In 1948, Caniff was elected NCS President. Rube Goldberg was named Honorary President and Al Capp became the second “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.” In 1949, the Society volunteered to help the Treasury Department in a drive to sell savings bonds by sending NCS members out on the road. A nationwide, seventeencity tour was undertaken by teams of ten or twelve cartoonists and a 95-foot-long traveling display. Through the Society, NCS members have continued to serve the nation in person and through their art. Teams of cartoonists have toured war zones and military installations around the world in cooperation with the USO. Others have entertained at VA hospitals. NCS members have also contributed to many U.S. government programs; their efforts have benefitted NASA, USIA, the Treasury Department Savings Bond division and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. Other beneficiaries have been the Boy Scouts of America, the American Red Cross and the United Nations. The tradition of lending our talents to worthy causes continues to this day. In 2001, for example, NCS members in the syndicated community dedicated their newspaper strips and panels to a Thanksgiving initiative that raised some $50,000 for victims of the 9/11 attacks, and members contributed a further $18,000 through the proceeds of a private auction.

1960 Ronald Searle Humorous Illustration 1961 Bill Mauldin Editorial Cartoons 1962 Dik Browne Hi and Lois 1963 Fred Lasswell Barney Google and Snuffy Smith 1964 Charles Schulz Peanuts 1965 Leonard Starr On Stage

LOCATION The official headquarters of the National Cartoonists Society are in New York City, with the Society’s business offices located in Orlando, Florida.

1966 Otto Soglow The Little King

1968 Johnny Hart B.C. and The Wizard of Id Pat Oliphant Editorial Cartoons

Whamond

1969 Walter Berndt Smitty

©Dave

1967 Rube Goldberg Humor in Sculpture

1970 Alfred Andriola Kerry Drake 1971 Milton Caniff Steve Canyon 1972 Pat Oliphant Editorial Cartoons

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CHAPTERS In addition, the NCS has chartered 17 regional chapters throughout the United States and one in Canada. The early 1990s saw the introduction of regional chapters within the NCS. Created to encourage a deeper participation and interaction among NCS members while furthering the aims of the Society, these chapters also afford members a more active role at the national level. The Chapter chairpersons also serve as members of the NCS Regional Council, which serves and advises the NCS Board of Directors. In addition, the position of National Representative on the NCS Board of Directors is held by a Chapter Chair who acts as a conduit between the NCS Board and the Regional Council. There are also many active Regional Chapters, including chapters in: Chicago, Connecticut, D.C., Florida, Great Lakes, Long Island, Los Angeles, New England, New Jersey, Manhattan, North Central U.S., Northern California, Orange County and Southern California, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Southeastern US, Texas, Upstate New York and Canada. New Regional Chapters are continually forming. The Regional Chapters convene on their own schedules, usually three or four times a year. They engage in a variety of social and professional activities and are always happy to receive visiting NCS members.

NCS MEMBERSHIP There are four classes of membership in The National Cartoonists Society:

1974 Dick Moores Gasoline Alley

n REGULAR MEMBERS are professional cartoonists, the quality of whose work has

been judged and approved by the Membership Committee. n ASSOCIATE MEMBERS are those individuals who work as professionals in the

1976 Ernie Bushmiller Nancy 1977 Chester Gould Dick Tracy

Dumas

If you are a professional cartoonist and are interested in applying for a Regular Membership or if you work in an allied field and feel you would qualify for one of the limited number of Associate Memberships, please contact: National Cartoonists Society P.O. Box 592927 Orlando, FL 32859-2927 407-994-6703 info@reuben.org

1975 Bob Dunn They’ll Do It Every Time

©Jerry

cartooning industry or whose expression of interest has been established. n HONORARY MEMBERS are cartoonists, surviving spouses or patrons of the art for whom the Society desires to express its esteem and appreciation. n RETIRED MEMBERSHIP is granted to existing members 65 years of age and older and retired.

ELIGIBILITY FOR REGULAR MEMBERSHIP Cartoonists who are currently earning a substantial part of their income from cartooning and have done so for at least the past three years; Work must be of a high professional quality and their reputation good. Application must include two letters of recommendation from NCS members, a short biographical sketch and samples of current work bearing a signature. Applications must be accompanied by a check covering one year’s dues, which will be refunded if the candidate is not accepted by the Membership Committee. A candidate is eligible for membership when accepted by a unanimous vote of the Membership Committee. If you are a professional cartoonist and are interested in applying for a Regular Membership, or work in an allied field and feel you would qualify for one of the limited number of Associate Memberships, please contact: Sean Parkes, Membership Chair 16647 E. Ashbrook Drive Unit #A Fountain Hills, AZ 85268

1973 Dik Browne Hagar the Horrible

1978 Jeff MacNelly Editorial Cartoons 1979 Jeff MacNelly Shoe 1980 Charles Saxon The New Yorker 1981 Mell Lazarus Miss Peach 1982 Bil Keane The Family Circus 1983 Arnold Roth Humorous Illustration 1984 Brant Parker The Wizard of Id 1985 Lynn Johnston For Better or For Worse 1986 Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes 1987 Mort Drucker MAD Magazine

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1991 Mike Peters Mother Goose and Grimm

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE NCS The National Cartoonists Society’s officers and Board of Directors are elected by secret ballot of the entire membership. The Board meets twice a year and a general business meeting is held annually during the NCS Reuben Awards Weekend. There are several standing committees, including Ethics, Social Media, Education and Publicity. These committees function as clearing houses for information pertinent to the rights of cartoonist members, help to air grievances and post warnings about any dubious practices of the firms with which cartoonists do business. The NCS, however, is neither a guild, nor a union.

1992 Cathy Guisewite Cathy 1993 Jim Borgman Editorial Cartoons 1994 Gary Larson The Far Side

OTHER NCS ACTIVITIES AND FUNCTIONS

1995 Garry Trudeau Doonesbury 1996 Sergio Aragonés MAD Magazine 1997 Scott Adams Dilbert 1998 Will Eisner The Spirit 1999 Patrick McDonnell Mutts

2002 Matt Groening The Simpsons 2003 Greg Evans Luann 2004 Pat Brady Rose is Rose 2005 Mike Luckovich Editorial Cartoons

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©Jack

2001 Jerry Scott Baby Blues and Zits

Davis

2000 Jack Davis Humorous Illustration

The Cartoon!st, the official newsletter of the National Cartoonists Society and distributed only to NCS members, covers the professional and personal activities of the NCS membership. It also contains general information of interest to the professional cartoonist, such as copyright laws, new publications, preservation of comic art, upcoming regional and national shows, events and conventions. The National Cartoonists Society sponsors special cartoon-related excursions abroad. Recent destinations have included Canada, England, Ireland, Italy and Australia. The NCS and its Regional Chapters have also organized cartoon auctions for charity, art shows, educational seminars and golf and tennis tournaments. The National Cartoonists Society maintains relationships with other organizations for professionals in cartooning and various other fields of communication, both domestic and foreign. It works especially close with newspaper and publishing groups. The NCS also often provides introductions for American cartoonists traveling abroad. Through the National Cartoonists Society, members have served the nation in person and through their art. Teams of cartoonists have toured war zones and military installations all over the world in cooperation with the USO. Others have entertained regularly at VA hospitals in various parts of the country. NCS members also contribute tirelessly to certain US government programs; their efforts have benefitted such agencies as NASA, USIA, the Treasury Department Savings Bond division and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. Other beneficiaries of members’ talents have been the Boy Scouts of America, The American Red Cross and the United Nations. In 2001, the NCS organized the Thanks & Giving Tribute in the nation’s newspapers, syndicated cartoonists raising some $50,000 for the September 11 fund. The National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Awards Weekend is a gala annual

2006 Bill Amend FoxTrot 2007 Al Jaffee MAD Magazine

Coker Jr.

2008 Dave Coverly Speed Bump

©Paul

event, which takes place at a locale selected by the President, Board and the NCS Foundation. There, during the black-tie Reuben Award Dinner, the prestigious Reuben Award (a statuette designed by and named after the NCS’s first president, Rube Goldberg) is presented to the NCS’s Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. Cartoonists in various professional divisions are also honored with special plaques for excellence. These “Silver Reuben” awards are voted on by the general membership by secret ballot). Members and their families have enjoyed the annual get-together at recent locations such as: Washington, D.C.; New York, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Pasadena, California; Scottsdale, Arizona; Boca Raton, Florida; Toronto, Canada; Cancun, Mexico; Hollywood, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; Boston, Massachusetts; Las Vegas, Nevada; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; San Diego, California and even on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

THE NCS FOUNDATION The National Cartoonists Society Foundation is the charitable arm of the National Cartoonists Society. The Foundation was formed in 2005 to continue the charitable and educational works that have been a hallmark of the NCS since its inception in 1946. The National Cartoonists Society Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) charity that works in tandem with the NCS to advance the ideals and standards of the cartooning profession, to stimulate and encourage aspiring cartoonists through scholarships and educational programs, and to provide financial assistance to cartoonists and their families in times of hardship, through its Milt Gross Fund. The Foundation also encourages the active involvement and participation of NCS members in the charitable and educational projects undertaken by the Foundation, thereby utilizing the Society’s greatest assets and strengths. The NCS has a treasured tradition of members donating their expertise and talents to good causes in person and through their art.

2009 Dan Pirarro Bizarro 2010 Richard Thompson Cul de Sac 2011 Tom Richmond MAD Magazine 2012 Brian Crane Pickles Rick Kirkman Baby Blues 2013 Wiley Miller Non Sequitur 2014 Roz Chast The New Yorker 2015 Michael Ramirez Editorial Cartoons

........................................................................................................................................................................................... National Cartoonists Society, Inc. P.O. Box 592927 Orlando, FL 32859-2927 Phone: 407-994-6703 Fax: 407-442-0786 For further information, visit the NCS website at: www.reuben.org

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“Do You Cartoon?” The Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship is here to help In these tough financial times, no one looks forward to taking on student debt. Now in its eighth year, the annual Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship aims to make that burden a bit lighter for those college students with an eye on a career in cartooning. To that end, the scholarship awards $5,000 annually to a rising Junior or Senior. (Applicants do not have to be art majors to be eligible.) But it’s more than just money that’s provided — it’s also an opportunity to meet professional cartoonists at the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award Weekend. The National Cartoonists Society Foundation has helped students from the College for Creative Studies, Ringling College of Art & Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Rochester Institute of Technology, Savannah College of Art and Design, and UCLA. The most recent recipient is Tex Minos, an animation major at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. The first winner of the Jay Kennedy Scholarship was Juana Medina, who now teaches at the Corcoran College of Art & Design. She has just turned in her illustrations for a children’s book called Smick, written by Doreen Cronin (Click, Clack, Moo; Duck for

Tex Minos

President), which will come out this year. Juana has also signed a multi-book deal with Candlewick Press, for “a series loosely based on my childhood adventures, in my native Bogotá, Colombia, with my sidekick and dog-friend, Lucas.” The first of these books should be out in the Fall of 2016. (Juana also designed the promotional art for this year’s scholarship.) Chris Houghton, the second scholarship recipient, is currently a Storyboard Director on an upcoming Nickelodeon show called “Bad Seeds,” that premiered in early 2015. He has had similar duties on the animated TV shows “Wander Over Yonder,” “Gravity Falls,” and “Fanboy and Chum Chum.” In addition, Chris has done work for Adventure Time comics, Simpsons comics, MAD Magazine and his own creation for Image Comics, Reed Gunther. Last year’s recipient was Derek Desierto, an animation major at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. Other recipients include Diana Huh, a storyboard revisionist for the

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Derek Desierto

Juana Medina

Chris Houghton

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Titmouse Inc./Netflix show “Turbo FAST”; Charlotte Mao, who works at Launchpad Toys in San Francisco, a mobile gaming company that develops educational children’s apps; and Renee Faundo, a character animation major at the California Institute of the Arts. The Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship was established in memory of the late King Features editor, and funded by an initial $100,000 grant from the Hearst Foundation/King Features Syndicate as well as additional generous donations from Jerry Scott, Jim Borgman, Patrick McDonnell and many other prominent cartoonists.

` Charlotte Mao

For more information, visit cartoonistfoundation.org

Diana Huh

Charlotte Mao Renee Faundo

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The NCS goes cruising! Jack DAVIS dreams es Tom RICHMOND caricatur Mark FIORE animates

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