Mort Gerberg on the Scene

MORT GERBERG ON THE SCENE A 50-Year Cartoon Chronicle

Preface by Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist

Ann Telnaes

New York City, Washington, D.C sketchbooks, 1965 & 1966. London sketchbook, 1967.

Women’s Rights

in february 1968, the abortion rights issue was responsible for my meeting my wifeto-be. Judith, who was an early activist, had gone to Puerto Rico to support a friend who had to have a procedure there. Judith then went to St. Thomas for the long Lincoln’s Birthday weekend.

That same weekend I, too, went to St. Thomas to recover from the shock of a sudden fire in my Greenwich Village apartment that left me out in the cold without a place to live and work. And, yes, we were booked at the same hotel. It’s called “meeting cute.”

My personal and creative involvement in the women’s rights movement increased dramatically the following year when, at the conclusion of our wedding ceremony, Judith asked the rabbi why we couldn’t both stomp on the wine glass.

Joining her in women’s marches and consciousness-raising forums provided me with a mass of new material. I soon realized, though, that I had not only gained a new wife, I now had an additional perspective on my shoulder — particularly when I was creating sex cartoons for Playboy. I would tell Michelle Urry, the magazine’s cartoon editor, that my roughs were already Judith-approved, hoping to coax more ok’s from Hugh Hefner.

Beyond panel cartoons for magazines from Cosmopolitan to Playboy to The New Yorker, the subject warranted a wider arena, so in 1971 I drew

Right On, Sister, published by Grossett & Dunlap, a collection of cartoons, sketches, and nursery rhymes that poked fun at all sides of the movement from male chauvinist pigs to women’s libbers.

Then, in 1972–’73, in a different genre that allowed longer and more dramatic narrative and fun, I experimented with my own form of limited animation.

I wrote, drew, and animated (and voiced, with an actress friend of Judith’s) several three-minute humor skits for a television show called Woman. You can see this one, “Mrs. Claus Wants Credit,” on YouTube or mortgerberg.com.

In “Koky,” a comic strip that I drew with Richard O’Brien’s words (syndicated by the Chicago Tribune in 1979), I continued publishing women’s consciousness humor for several years in daily and Sunday newspapers. Koky was a housewife with a husband and three children who wanted to develop a career for herself, mirroring the desires and challenges and frustrations of millions of women in the country.

The women’s marches—too bad we still have to march, for abortion rights, equal rights, etc.— provide continuing opportunities for on-the-scene sketch reportage, like the series here, drawn in the mid-1960s. {

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MORT GERBERG ON THE SCENE

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Wo m e n ’ s R i g h t s

“Why can’t you just nag me the way you used to?”

“You never heard of a lady guru?

That just goes to show how unenlightened you are.”

“A woman’s work is never done.”

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MORT GERBERG ON THE SCENE

“Would either of you girls like to comment on that viewpoint?”

“It might not look as sexy, but it’s a lot more gratifying.”

“We’re collecting for Amy. She’s not going to have a baby.”

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Wo m e n ’ s R i g h t s

FEMINIST MARY Feminist Mary, quite contrary, How does your movement grow?

Through radical stands and sharp demands Attacking the status quo.

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