The Cartoon!st - Volume 23, Number 1

Jeff Knurek is one puzzling guy T h e N e w s l e t t e r o f t h e N a t i o n a l C a r t o o n i s t s S o c i e t y ■ V o l u m e 2 3 , N u m b 1 er 1

Last Dispatch of the Decade by Jason Chatfield

Get Ready for the 2020 Reubens in Kansas City!

ANTON EMDIN

HELLO and happy holidays, fellow NCS member! I hope this finds you safe and well, ready for the oncoming season.

At time of writing, we’re gearing up for the biggest party of the season — the NCS Holiday Bash at the Society of Illustrators. This is a national event, and you do not need to be a member of the NCS, nor of the Manhattan Chapter to attend. We’re looking forward to a fun night! We will always post the event information on our new website at nationalcartoonists.com.

SPEAKING OF the new website, I hope you’ve had a moment to update your personal information and upload some artwork to your portfolio page. If not, please check your inbox for instructions on how to do so. Alternatively, you can connect with our webmaster at info@nationalcartoonists.com with any questions. We have made a simple how-to video on YouTube to assist if you’d find that easier.

Keep an eye out for more new content and features coming to the website soon.

IF YOU’D PREFER to read this newsletter on paper, feel free to print any part of this issue out — we are still producing The Cartoon!st as per our usual schedule, however

we will only be distributing them in the non-tree-destroying form for all but one issue; the post-Reubens bumper issue. Our thanks, as ever, go to our fearless editor, Frank Pauer, for putting this issue together.

KANSAS CITY

2020

CALL FOR ENTRIES! We are now calling for entries for all categories for the 74th Annual NCS Reuben Awards. You will have received an email with all details on how to enter. If you did not receive the email, please check your spam folder, or get in touch with latisha@nationalcartoonists.com.

SAVE THE DATE — JUNE 5-7, 2020 We are excited to officially announce that the 2020 Reuben Awards will take place in Kansas City, Missouri over the weekend of June 5-7, 2020. We will be hosted by our generous friends at Andrews McMeel syndication who will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2020. We have a really exciting line-up this year with some big surprises, so block out your calendars and start booking your flights. This one is not-to-bemissed!

THE HOTEL The Reubens weekend will be taking place at the Marriott Kansas City Downtown, at 200 W. 12th Street — a mere 7-minute walk from Andrews McMeel headquarters, where our welcome party will take place.

The Marriott is a beautiful newly-restyled hotel in the heart of Kansas City’s rejuvenated downtown Power and Light District, with all of the premium features you have come to

This issue’s cover is by the multi-talented Jeff Knurek, who among us is best known for creating the Jumble. There is so, so much more, though, to his career, much of which you can read about beginning on Page 5. As for the cover — it is a real puzzle that Jeff created just for us, which had the newsletter copy desk stumped on the fourth jumble, but once we solved that we were able to figure out the surprise answer without even having to finish the other clues.

“The Cartoon!st” is the official publication of the National Cartoonists Society, P.O. Box 592927 Orlando, FL 32859-2927. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the NCS. Entire contents ©2019 National Cartoonists Society, except where other copyrights are designated.

The Cartoon!st needs your news, opinions, drawings and photos. Address all materials to: Frank Pauer, 53 Beverly Place, Oakwood, OH 45419.

Email: fpauer1@gmail.com Deadline for the next issue: Jan. 26

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NCS BOARD

NCS COMMITTEES

NCS FOUNDATION

President Jason Chatfield First Vice President Ed Steckley Second Vice President John Hambrock Third Vice President Teresa Logan Secretary Joe Wos Treasurer Drew Aquilina Membership Chairman Greg Cravens National Representative Karen Evans

The Cartoon!st Frank Pauer fpauer1@gmail.com

President Steve McGarry mac@stevemcgarry.com

Ethics Steve McGarry mac@stevemcgarry.com Education Rob Smith Jr. rob@robsmithjr.com Greeting Card Contracts Carla Ventresca

expect from our fantastic Reuben Award weekends.

For questions about accounting, membership, database and dues renewals, contact: National Cartoonists Society P.O. Box 592927 Orlando, FL 32859-2927 407-994-6703 info@reuben.org

The National Cartoonists Society Web Site: www.nationalcartoonists.com

All artwork contained herein, as usual, is ©2019 by the respective artist and/or syndicate, studio or other copyright holder. Getting hungry for a pulled pork platter, Mr. Ollie?

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“The Cartoon!st” new email address: fpauer1@gmail.com. Please change your contact information.

WHAT A RATE! We are pleased to report that we have negotiated a fantastic rate at the hotel of just $169 per night, which is available to our members for 3 nights pre- and post-our event. For more details on the Marriott Kansas City Downtown, visit http://bit.ly/ReubensHotel2020.

When you call or email to book, be sure to quote Block Code “National Cartoonists Society” in order to receive our special reduced rate. If you would prefer to book online, feel free to visit our exclusive NCS online booking portal at: bit.ly/reubenshotel2020.

IT HAS BEEN a productive year already for the NCS, with your new board having held seven meetings since May. We have accomplished a lot of exciting things in the process. We are currently in the process of reorganizing our membership categories to better adhere to the very different industry we are now catering to.

Much has changed since we wrote our early membership regulations, and we are very pleased to say we’re making a lot of progress in modernizing your NCS to accommodate a broad range of professional cartoonists from all over.

LASTLY if you have been paying

attention to our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) you will notice our new Social Media Manager, Ellen Liebenthal. She has been doing a fantastic job of curating some fun and engaging art from our talented members. If you have something you’d like to submit for consideration, be sure to email Ellen at social@nationalcartoonists.com.

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS, and we’ll see you in the new decade in Kansas City!

Jason Chatfield president@nationalcartoonists.com

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NCS New Member Profiles

You know Jeff Knurek, right?

The Jumble guy?

Well, maybe you don’t know much at all. He’s a musician, a consumer product developer, an illustrator, an industrial designer, an app developer.

Does brand licensing and development. Develops and licenses children’s magic tricks and products for Las Vegas headliner Mac King.

“The goal isn’t the exit — it’s the corner office.”

He donated a kidney to a family member.

Sofia Warren Sofia grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes in a tree in Rhode Island. She studied film and psychology at Wesleyan University. After various stints in the film industry (art, production management, producing), she eventually — preposterously! — wound up drawing for a living, as a freelance 2D animator. She also makes cartoons and comics, which have appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 2017, and have been published in Narrative, Popula and elsewhere. She lives in New York City, where you can find her drawing on the subway.

And with his partner Dave Hoyt, Jeff is better known in some circles as an award-winning toy and game inventor. Which is where we began our conversation in the downstairs studio of his home just outside Indianapolis.

“When a man sends ten thousand troops to attack you, it means he has a crush on you.”

Pat Sandy My comic strip, Next Door Neighbors, revolves around the world of the neighborfrom-Hell Norm Dewey — a clueless dimwit, happily underachieving his way through life — and his family.

NDN is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication/GoComics and has been published daily (M-F) since 2016.

I have a BFA in Graphic Design (’83) from The University of Akron, where I drew editorial cartoons for The Buchtelite, winning several regional and national awards. My cartoons have appeared in The Wall St. Journal, Woman’s World, and many other publications. I’ve also illustrated a handful of children’s books for Lerner Publishing.

In 2018, I retired from a 35-year career with American Greetings in Cleveland, where I worked in a variety of roles as a cartoonist, illustrator, graphic designer and writer, as well as art director and

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Jeff Knurek is just toying with us Frank Pauer: So along with the number of many other endeavors you tackle, rumor has it you’re also a cartoonist.

Jeff Knurek: Yeah, in my spare time (laughter).

program director. Not all at the same time, of course, but occasionally it seemed like it. Currently under contract with Recycled Paper Greetings, and I’ve also taught at The Cleveland Institute of Art and Cuyahoga Community College.

I live in Rocky River, Ohio with my wife, Joyce, and our rescue dogs, Petey, and Lizzie. We have two sons, Eric (31) and Michael (29).

So I’m interested in your road to all this. You were a toy designer before you became a cartoonist.

You got an degree in industrial design in college at Michigan, but how did that morph into toy design?

Well, when you’re in industrial design you’re trying to decide what — industrial design is product design — you want to design when you get out. By my junior year I was hedging between geriatric products or toys.

I was still watching “Pee-Wee’s

Playhouse,” I was still watching Saturday morning television and I’d find myself lost in Toys R Us for hours.

Sounds like an obvious choice.

Our college student design association once went to Chicago to visit studios. We’d heard that Chicago was the epicenter for toy invention. Those skills that we were learning as industrial designers would lend themselves to toy inventing. So somewhere toward that junior year I decided I wanted to be a toy designer. I also majored in

Jeff (center) Spikeballing it with friends

art education, and was taking education classes.

That was your fallback?

Yeah, my mother and stepmother were both educators and I always knew I could be a great teacher. But knowing that art teachers don’t exactly give up their jobs easily — they’re usually at a school forever — I decided to at least design.

So then it was off to Chicago?

When I left school I knew that Chicago was where I wanted to go. Marvin Glass was the

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name of the company that was the toy inventing studio of the world. Marvin employed probably about 120 people.

There were no windows, and security — at the end of the night everyone would put their inventions in a vault or cover them with black cloth.

Were the employees competing with co-workers or was this a collaborative atmosphere?

The atmosphere they created was that high tension invokes creativity.

From what I knew they would do a spring and fall cleaning of employees and fire three or four just to get everybody else in line. So that’s where I wanted to work.

Sounds ... ummmm, challenging.

I cold-called a toy studio for the first time, as I wanted to practice my spiel before I got to the big boys, and I called this place called I.D.E.A. They told me that Marvin Glass would soon be going out of business. What I didn’t know was that the partners at Marvin Glass were dissolving the company.

And Chicago was now scattered with smaller toy invention studios. So I went to Chicago and talked to I.D.E.A. They looked at my portfolio and loved me and said, “When can you start?”

And that’s where I started designing.

Back to Glass, if you’re an employee and your game — say, Operation — becomes enormously successful, does the inventor get a cut of subsequent monies?

Is that something negotiated?

If you’re the company you have a licensing agreement with the manufacturer, and they’ll pay you a royalty of the wholesale cost.

Those can fluctuate between two and ten percent depending on the creation. As it pertains to me, here’s —

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It doesn’t have to pertain to you specifically — No, no, I can give you a lesson in my life that I’m dealing with to this day, 30 years later. My first invention with I.D.E.A. was the game Spikeball. I invented it and it came out for about three years. It was advertised on television, MTV had a spring break tournament and such. But it came out in one of the worst sum-

mers ever — the country was like 50 degrees the entire summer. And it just never really took off. It was on the shelves for about three years until Tomy, who was the manufacturer, just stopped making it.

If a manufacturer stops making your product the rights revert back to the inventor. So I.D.E.A. and the owner got those rights back.

By that time I’d left; I’d been there for three years, and I wasn’t making enough money. We as employees were in a profit share if something took off, but until then you just got a salary.

So you left.

So I left. And then around 2006 I started getting emails from a group who loved Spikeball and wanted to know if I had any extra sets. I told them no, and they’re like, “Well is anybody making it, cause we’d like to buy some more.” So I called my old boss and wondered what was going on with Spikeball. He told me he was still showing it, and the companies that he was showing it to. And so I got back to those guys and said, “Look, it’s still being shown around and hopefully it’ll be made soon.” And they kept coming back for a year and then finally said, “Well we think we might want to make it.” But they didn’t have the rights and no money — but they really wanted to make it. And I didn’t know what to tell them. What am I supposed to (laughs) say? So I went to my old

Jeff game “What’s in Ned’s Head?”, FamilyFun’s Toy of the Year

the trademark or whatever was necessary to secure the rights?

When I was being approached for that year, to see if the Spikeball was available, I should have ponied up the $325 and secured the trademark. It would have given me a lot of leverage since Spikeball is the best name for the sport. Other products on the market have names like Battle Bounce, SpyderBall, Slammo...

boss with their offer. At that point in time my mentality was yeah, I was the one who thought of it and designed it and named it but I was paid to do that.

I didn’t consider it mine. I loved my old boss and I wasn’t going to do that to him; I wanted to make sure he got paid. Eventually I got tired of nothing happening and thought that maybe I could help them. And then I never heard from them again.

I’m guessing not the end of the story.

So in the meantime those guys got some money together from their friends and got a lawyer. The lawyer tells them, “Look, the trademark is dead. No one is using it so you can apply for it.” And there was no patent at the time, because we didn’t patent everything invented. Tomy never patented it. So these guys started producing Spikeball. And in 2014 they were on “Shark Tank.”

They were smart enough to gear up inventory-wise, cause they knew the second it was on television everyone was going to look it up. It took off from there and now it’s one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Next year, the world championships are in Belgium.

The national championship is on ESPN; the college championship is on ESPN. And I’m not. Getting. A. Dime. For the biggest sport. It’s a tough pill to swallow.

Before the “Shark Tank” guys entered, could you have obtained

Had you wiped you hands of it all?

So tomorrow I’m going to Chicago to meet with a partner in a game that I had. “What’s in Ned’s Head” is one of my inventions. It won toy of the year; it’s been a great game. And now it’s finally getting moved to a bigger company. But tomorrow night I’m going to be playing Spikeball with a bunch of 20-year-olds who know I’m the inventor. I am, though, getting back into the Spikeball world and putting my own company together — Clubspike. net — and will be developing products for the sport.

You’re still inventing.

Yeah, I still enjoy it. I just don’t have the time to present. I go to toy fair every year in New York, and occasionally I’ll bring my iPad or prototypes and try to sell some ideas.

Are you looking for investors there?

You’re talking to the manufacturers.

Every manufacturer in the world is there. Back in the day not as many of them used inventors, but now probably everybody is open to them. In the old days, they used to only use people in house, but now most companies understand that there are a lot of independent, really smart people out there.

Since you left I.D.E.A. have you’ve just worked on your own?

I became creative director at a premium toy company, Adpack. They created cereal box and fast food toys for Kelloggs and General Mills. Taco Bell. I worked for them for about a year. It was a family owned business and the daughter and I didn’t see eye to eye. And one day she had her dad sit me down who said, “You know, we think you might be happier working on your own.” It was just a cheap threat to get me to fall in line, but I sat and thought, you know, I think I WOULD be happier on my own

(laughter). Thank you. I left, and then like a month later they called me up and said, “Uh, Jeff, would you like to do some work for us?” I worked as an independent for five years after that with them.

At maybe two or three times the money?

Yeah, an hourly rate, and they gave me a retainer every month so I got a big check to work from. Eventually I got onto their health-care roll. [Grabs a ball from a shelf] This is the Astro Ball which went into Rice Krispies. This was Kellogg’s biggest-ever free-in-themail offering — 750,000 requests for it.

After this came out, the manufacturer in China knocked it off, and every single gift and museum store in the country has high-bounce rocks with this exact same mold. So I invented this giant high-bounce ball that I see everywhere to remind me that I’m not getting a dime for it (laughs).

for. When I’ve gone back to Michigan to the school of art, students ask me what I wished I would have learned at school. And I’ve said — to the Dean as well — that I think they need to have a semester of law that covers trademarks and copyrights and contracts.

The business of art.

Yeah. Chances are if you’re going to art or design school you’re going to be an independent contractor. No one is hiring a staff anymore. So they need to prepare people on how to write a contract they won’t get screwed on.

Do you have an agent for the toys?

I had, but I haven’t used him in like forever. I would only show to the companies I knew. But you have to assume your idea is going to be rejected 99 percent of the time, and you have to get used to that. So after I’ve exhausted my ability to show, I would turn it over to the agent and he would go show it to smaller companies.

So while you were [Gestures to a wall] on retainer, did that On the other side mean that anything of this wall I have Jeff Knurek’s fourth-grade self-caricayou might create prototypes left and ture, with artistic, stylized signature otherwise they had a right. They’re games, at bottom first look at? Say you mostly. Even though came up with a board they’re sitting there game. and haven’t been looked at in ten years That wasn’t their business. I only did they’re just as viable and good. I need work they asked me to do. I invented to pull them out and start showing something called Scissoring Spoons, them again, cause they don’t really go which were spoons that reached out. It out of style. came out after I left the company but it had my patent on it. I had a royalty You don’t consider any of those games agreement that, depending on what a flop. their order was, I got x amount for.

Oh no, I don’t waste my time on But they also did Chomping Spoons flops. I’ve done this long enough and which were dinosaur heads that would recognize what makes a successful chomp on cereal that went throughgame. So you try to find the right fit. out the entire General Mills line for For three days I’ll walk up and down Jurassic Park. So they produced like 30 the aisles at toy fair and I’ll try to find million Chomping Spoons. Of course the company that would be a good they argued that it wasn’t my patent, home. and they never paid me for that.

Some of your products have cartoons as Sounds like a tough business. part of the package, so how did cartooning It is. People need you, but they fit into all this? Did you do cartoons in, don’t want to pay you. They think that say, high school? paying you hourly is what you’re in Well, yeah. My father was fairly

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artistic and we always had paints and pencils and pastels around the house. [Retrieves a spiral-bound blue sketchbook] Here’s my fourth-grade sketchbook. I was doing characters and giving them names. I tried to recreate Doonesbury and Beetle Bailey and, of course, Peanuts. Even in industrial design you’d have human-scale drawings because you wanted to show your invention used by people. I couldn’t draw real people, so I had cartoon characters using my invention.

Did you ever do a panel or comic strip in school?

No, cartooning was just drawing characters.

Do you think your interest in cartooning had any subsequent influence on your getting into industrial design?

No. I was always the best artist in high school. I was rewarded or got acknowledged as the top art student. Watercolors were my favorite medium; it wasn’t so much cartooning as real art. My high school art teacher knew I was thinking about college and he told me that I needed to look into industrial design, that I would be good at it. I looked up what it was and he was right; I was good in math and good in science. My father and stepfather were engineers, but I wanted to go to an art school. So I had to split the baby a bit and look at both industrial design and art.

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higher or lower the next card is going to be. So I met with Dave and was pulling out my game and I said, “Well you know the game Hi-Lo—” and he said, “I’m going to stop you right there. I’m going to show you what you’re going to show me.” He pulled up a file on his computer and it was a game called ESP. And I’m like ... crap (laughs). I pulled out my game and it was virtually the same. He’s like, “No, no, that’s great. It shows you’re thinking the same way I was.”

So you started working together?

He went on to show me what he’d

Jeff’s first Jumble appearance in newspapers, drawn in the style of the previous artist, Henri Arnold.

So what was your transition then into cartooning? Was this when you met your partner Dave Hoyt? Because until then you had really not done all that much with it otherwise.

No, not at all. But when you’re doing toys you’re doing a lot of cartoons, creating characters. We’d do a lot of action figure lines and have to come up with characters. And at the time I was independent, I had a few gambling type games. My toy agent knew of this guy who worked in the gaming industry, and told me that I needed to meet Dave Hoyt, who had great connections with gaming. I had this game Hi-Lo, which was basically a board version of the game Hi-Lo, where you look at a card and you bet how much

done. Among other things, he was working on video slot games. So I went home and came up with like three themed slot machine concepts. And did all the art boards from the main screens to the bonus screen. I went back to see him after a couple weeks and he was blown away. At that point in time he was working with a couple other guys, and none of them did art so they were going to utilize me not only for my creativity but as their artist. So I started doing slot machine games.

Now on the side, David had made his way into the Tribune company. He had a game for a crossword puzzle game he loved. He wanted to know if they could help him sell the game. As Dave looked

at the portfolio that Tribune already had, he saw the Jumble, and came up with Jumble Crosswords. They had never licensed anything other than the syndicated newspaper puzzle. And he ended up with a deal with them.

Is this how you got involved?

He and his partners were also working with a company who did all the bar top games at the time — you know, in the corner of a bar there’d be this little touch screen game. They got Tribune interested in having a licensed Jumble game for that, but they wouldn’t let him use any of the artwork. They told him if he wanted to do the puzzles and create the art, then go crazy.

So Dave asked me if I could draw cartoons, and I’m like, sure. So he gave me a cartoon idea and wanted me to draw it. I drew this cartoon on a cocktail napkin, and he’s like, “Wow, that’s awesome. So here’s the deal: we need to do Jumble cartoons and I’ll give you the puns and we’ll pay you per cartoon.” They paid me $10 per cartoon, and I did like 3,000 cartoons for them.

And they were horrible; they were done quickly and I didn’t much care about the quality.

But that did well, and then Dave is like well, what else can we do? We ended up creating eight of their online Jumble games.

I’m a bit surprised you guys could even come up with so many variations on such a similar concept.

Dave and I are the world’s most syndicated puzzle creators. Besides the Jumble, there’s Boggle BrainBustsers, Word Roundup in USAToday, and then Dave has on his own, Jumble Crosswords, TV Jumble, Up & Down Words and online he basically owns the online puzzle world. We’ve figured out that between the two of us we probably have 100,000,000 readers a day.

It’s been a good partnership, and we both create together really well. We’re the same age, we both like the same types of movies and television and we draw from the same experiences. If I say half a sentence he knows exactly where I’m going.

art for the titles and such.

So there was all this online Jumblizing, but not on the syndicated panel?

We were doing all these Jumble things outside of the newspaper. That was not be touched. Finally the licensing director realized that they would be losing us, as we weren’t making enough money. And he saw the opportunity for me to become the cartoonist for the feature, because Henri Arnold was turning 90. They couldn’t initially get Dave in on the words because the other writer still had a contract. I had to do a couple weeks worth of panels for them to see that I could do it, but I was told I had to draw like Henri. It was in the contract that I had to for an undetermined time. At the end of the day, it was the best thing to happen to me, because it allowed me to realize how to properly draw Jumble.

What to show, what not to show, and it allowed me to create and slowly evolve into a style.

I wasn’t a cartoonist who had a style — but I didn’t want to draw like Henri. He drew everybody in profile and he would not draw anything in perspective.

I’m an industrial designer, and I couldn’t do that — everything has a vanishing point, and everyone has two eyes.

How long did you have to maintain that look?

I probably stuck to Henri’s style for five months or so, basically recreating his characters in a new scene.

It was a long slog. Now when I open up old Jumble books I see my evolution and cringe.

Did you initially find it difficult to communicate in such a small space?

Yeah, but I realized where the art was going to be placed and that I couldn’t get too crazy.

Unfortunately now I do get crazy because I have an iPad as opposed to paper and pen. When I go around the country and buy newspapers I see the difference. Here in Indianapolis it’s great big at the beginning of the page. And they put my name first, which is nice — the bonus of living here.

Local boy makes good.

Yeah. Where you go to Los Angeles, and in the LA Times it’s a postage stamp in the back of the classified section. And I don’t get that — editors are just clueless. Do you know who’s buying the newspaper? We’ve had people try to take us out of papers, and 48 hours later we’re back in.

A pair of self-referential Jumbles: top, with his family on vacation and, above, at a concert of his favorite band, Wilco.

So Henri was doing the panel, and you guys were doing the books and all the related online puzzles. Was there any pushback from Henri or his partner about what you were doing?

No. They didn’t care. They got paid; they got paid really well. When I took the job I didn’t get the Henri Arnold share. I had to take 30 percent less and be happy with it, and I do ten times more work on the Jumble. I run the website, I run the fan page, I do all the social media, I invent games and do the interviews. And they weren’t doing any of that. And we’re still

creating the game deals. Our app, Just Jumble, has over a million downloads and we have way more than a hundred million plays. And the app itself works specifically on the art to get the pun.

People will complain about wanting it the traditional way, but we’re not going to undercut our newspaper partners.

Are you creating new art for the app version?

No, they’re going back four or five years. Occasionally I’ll do some new

I read that your readership tends to skew towards older women.

Yeah, yeah, I think puzzles and online games in general appeal to older women, like 40 and older. Our demographics are older, obviously newspaper buyers. But at the same time, if you look at the demographics of our Facebook fan page, the second most popular city of our fandom is Calcutta, India. We’re huge in India. They love the Jumble — they’re learning Western idioms, for one, and they love tackling an English puzzle. We need to remind ourselves that we are big in India, and we are big in Canada and Australia and to not do so many baseball, or so many football, puns.

It’s much more diverse.

If anything that I’m proud of, is that I’ve brought diversity to the Jumble.

There was only fedora-wearing men and apron-wearing women in high heels in the kitchen before. I try to bring a humanity to the drawings and

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we were OK. I put more work into this week than any other because it’s like herding cats. Although the group this year has been really good about getting all the artwork in quickly. Where some years it’s like, please, I have to turn these in.

[Scrolling through images on his iPad] Superhero comic book. Full color.

A trio of Jumble guest cartoonists: Jim Davis, Cathy Guisewite and Jeff Keane draw scenes that people recognize in themselves. There’s a woman wearing a hajab. There’s an African-American family. There’s a gay couple holding hands. And no one gives me any grief.

Well, occasionally I do get racist emails, telling me to stop drawing blacks in the Jumble. That sets me on edge when I get those; I can’t even imagine what an editorial cartoonist goes through on a daily basis.

So David creates the pun and the words, but do you do the little gags within the art?

Yeah, I do all the dialogue. We’ll occasionally get together to create puns.

He, unfortunately, realizes that I can do his job but he can’t do mine. He does a great job — I can’t believe he still comes up with new puns. We do pop culture, we do history, we’ve broadened the horizon of what Jumble allows us to do.

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And occasionally you have guest cartoonists do their take on a Jumble. What’s the genesis of that effort?

It’s funny that today [Nov. 20] — of all days — you ask that, because today’s guest cartoonist is [The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee’s] John Hambrock. John and Anne are in a way the reason that I’m part of the NCS. I’d gotten tired of working in the basement and not knowing any other cartoonists. Among my own syndicate I don’t know many.

So I saw something about the Kenosha

Fesival of Cartooning that Anne and for five or six years and I was pretty John organized, and I lived in Chicago, comfortable in my position to sugso I drove up there. That year I think gest this, so I decided I just wanted a the geusts were Hilary Price, Dave Covweek for others to try a Jumble. I met erly, Tom Richmond, Stephen Pastis, a few who were like, “Oh yeah, I do Rick Stromoski. So I’m there, knowing the Jumble — I love Jumble.” And I was who these people are, but not knowing well, if I can do it, you can do it. That any of them. I did want to meet Dave, first year I had Dave, Jeff Keane, Hilary as I had once written him and got an Price, Dan Piraro and I thought well, original Speedbump about a kidney dowho else? I looked up the membership nor. So I kind of introduce myself, and book and wrote Jim Davis a note. And as cartoonists do he hours later he resaid, “Come on with sponded, which was us.” So he introthat not only would duced me to everyhe do it, but sent me body. At the end of the finished artwork the night, I kind of and the puzzle. So hung out and we’re I was like, alright, all going to a bar — you’re first (laughas cartoonists are ter). He also had his known to do — and corporation behind they’re like “Well, him and they did are you going to the press releases and reReubens in Pittsally set the thing off. burgh?” And I told It was all so nicely them that I didn’t received. Some, like belong to their little Bill Amend, were club so, no, probably totally all in and innot. And Rick Strosisted on doing their moski said, “Dude, own words. you’re in. Fill out your application and And for that week come join.” your readers assume that you’re just lying Jeff’s comic book The Slate Twins, with So was this group around on a beach.

“Slate” an anagram for (Nikola) Tesla. among the first to Oh yeah. I got an contribute as a guest cartoonist? email today, where someone saw there At that point I’d been doing Jumble was a guest cartoonist and wondered if

This is for a client?

It’s for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. A friend of mine was hired by them to do a book of electronicthemed crossword puzzles. When adult coloring books were such a hot deal, they asked him if he knew anyone who could do one for them. He gave them my name, and I did an adult and children’s coloring books for them.

After that, they said, “Hey, we’re thinking we’d like to do a comic book with superheroes. Would you want to do that?” Well sure, but I wanted to know what they wanted it to be about — what was the premise? And they didn’t know. They wanted me to write it and everything. So I gave them this fairly hefty estimate, cause I’m not going to waste my time. I didn’t hear back from them for like five months, but then they wanted to get started and pay me what I wanted.

Had you ever done a comic book?

I’d never written one before. I gave them four or five premises, and they picked two, so I combined a couple.

I said the writing was going to be important, and I wasn’t going to draw anything until the script was written.

It took me a long time to do it — I told them I had a full-time job and this isn’t what I do. But then I started penciling and it was way more than 20 pages, and as I looked at it thought it was a hot mess. I did some different looks, but then the client got obsessed with Spider-Man and the Spider-Verse. And I thought well OK, that’s not my thing.

So I reached out to Chad Frye, knowing that he does character development. He came back with character styling and model sheets — he took what I had and made it tight.

[Jeff shows and describes an elaborate story that involves twins, Nikola Tesla, traveling through electricity, prosthetic arms and eyes, nefarious doctors and death rays.]

And the client was happy?

These people are very happy. So now they’re already talking about second and third issues. Because of my connections and the world we live in, I can dangle the carrot of television and animated specials with people like Chad. STEM education is just so huge right now that this could lend itself into some PBS, “Magic School Bus”-type deal. Then come in toys, and I have

those connections.

Your own universe.

I create my own value — if you want to keep employing me and help me pay for my kid’s college I can make this bigger. But I am going to make sure the contracts reflect that I will get paid (laughter).

And you’re doing everything on an iPad now.

Yeah. The great thing is the program, Procreate — an $8 program. I am upset that I don’t do work with ink and paper anymore. I love feeling things. But every stroke and every drawing in this program is captured. I have videos of every drawing I’ve created on this thing.

I have six years — if you want to watch me draw Jumble I can go back to the day and hit “show me the video.” The program will allow me to pick the amount of time the video takes — usually 30 seconds, as real time would take forever.

And occasionally I’ll put one online for our fans.

Was there much of a change in drawing style in adapting to the tablet?

I only have this little box for the Jumble, so I have to be cognoscente about the bottom for the clue, but I know I can squeeze my drawings and move them. The program has allowed me to change my line quality. I used to use a No. 3 Micron, and that seemed to be the right thickness to emulate Henri Arnold’s style. I am still cognoscente of using minimal lines and keeping things Jumble-looking, but I vary my line weight more than I used to.

Adapting to every opportunity.

The toy stuff has allowed me to know that Jumble has so many other lives outside. I could be doing this for a while. Dave and I bring those talents and abilities and connections that Henri or no one at the Tribune had. We are occasionally reminded how valuable we are, but Tribune’s leadership turns over every so often, and we have to re-introduce ourselves and say, no, your nephew cannot draw the Jumble. But if you want to replace me to save even more money you’re going to be giving up all this. The guy who’s putting the website together, who’s answering emails, who’s getting the game deals together.

And who gets to draw every day.

I’ve become a cartoonist; I didn’t start off as a cartoonist. I was a guy who was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and knew how to draw. Because of what Dave’s presented me and allowed me to be I am finally comfortable being in the cartooning world. I’ve got a good gig. n n n See much more of Jeff’s portfolio at brainstorm-designs.com

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Chapter News

Chicago

On exhibit n The Cartoon Art Museum presents two new exhibits.

The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco presents an exhibition of original comic book art from the heyday of storied publisher EC Comics, “Pre-Code Horror: Scary Stories and Ghastly Graphics from EC Comics,” on display through March 1, 2020.

From 1950 to 1954, EC Comics dominated newsstands with titles including Tales from The Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt of Fear. An array of talented artists including Jack Davis and “Ghastly” Graham Ingels thrilled readers with tales of terror and suspense, and created some of the most unforgettable comic book stories ever published.

The Museum celebrates the artistry of the Golden Age of EC Comics with a showcase of several acclaimed short stories published in 1952 and 1953, at the peak of EC’s popularity.

Also on exhibit: In conjunction with the official launch for Batman: The Definitive History of The Dark Knight in Comics, Film, and Beyond, written by Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago, The Museum will also launch “The Batman Armory: Movie Costumes and Props from the Bronze Armory Studios,” on display through Feb. 16, 2020. The exhibit will include replicas of the batsuit worn by Michael Keaton in 1989’s Batman; the George Clooney Batman; Christian Bale’s Batman from The Dark Knight; and other costumes.

Numerous replica hand props and weapons from the films and some from the 1960s TV show starring Adam West will also be on display. n Aside from the ongoing displays, the Charles M. Schulz Museum has mounted two new exhibits.

Early on, birds appeared in 12

Peanuts, but a special bird arrived in the later 1960s, capturing hearts with his unique personality and eccentric ways. Named for the iconic 1969 music festival, Woodstock may be the smallest Peanuts character, but he has a huge presence. From typing up Snoopy’s correspondence to helping him lead the Beagle Scouts, his devotion to Snoopy became a foundation of the strip. In celebration of the music festival’s 50th anniversary, take a trip through the life of Woodstock — from namesake to nest — in the exhibit “Peace, Love, and Woodstock.” Through March 8, 2020.

Also: With nearly 8,000 original strips in the Schulz Museum’s collection, there are many treasures that have yet to be displayed. Some are strips that have recently been acquired by the Museum and others haven’t quite fit into an exhibition theme. In the new exhibit “Hidden Treasures: Unseen Originals from the Collection,” peek into the pillars of Peanuts through never-beforeexhibited original strips by Charles M. Schulz and enjoy a new look at classic favorites. Through May 25, 2020.

See schulzmuseum.org for more. n A exhibit at the Catholic Historical Research Center in Philadelphia presents the history of Catholic cartoons in America, running until October 2020.

“Cartooning Catholics” assembles images which show how readers viewed the Catholic Church and how the church used this usually lighthearted medium to get its message across, which also includes Catholic comic books from the golden age in the 1930s and 1940s. The oldest items are a series of 1870s cartoons by

Thomas Nast who, while the father of American cartooning, was also a bigot in his presentation of Catholicism. Other cartoons in the exhibit are upbeat, including cartoons from The Family Circus by Bil Keane — the Philadelphia-born artist drew his first cartoons while a student at Northeast Catholic High School for Boys. n Queens Museum in Queens, New York, has mounted “The Art of Rube Goldberg,” the first comprehensive retrospective exhibit since 1970 to celebrate the groundbreaking art of one of the most influential cartoonists of the twentieth century.

The exhibition spans from Goldberg’s earliest published drawings and iconic inventions to his Pulitzer Prizewinning political cartoons. Chronicling all aspects of the artist’s 72-year career, the exhibit brings together never-before-exhibited original works of art, preparatory drawings, video, and related ephemera. The retrospective begins with a look at Goldberg’s innovative early work, then follows his rise to fame as a nationally syndicated presence in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibit also prominently features Goldberg’s crowning artistic achievement: his invention drawings.

Through Feb. 9, 2020.

n The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has mounted a pair of exhibits.

From the first female political carSee Exhibits, Page 20

————— T. Brian Kelly ragstandman@msn.com We have enjoyed a great year in 2019 and it’s not over yet.

We set a goal many years ago to one day try to put together a group art show to exhibit the cartoon and comic art of the talented members of the Chicago Midwest chapter. It sat there on the agenda every annual meeting and local watering hole get-together we staged, but somehow we just couldn’t find the right location or circumstances to bring this dream into existence. Until this year.

Our first ever chapter cartoon art show, “Drawn to Humor: the Art of the NCS Chicago Midwest Chapter,” opened on Sept. 15 at the Beverly Art Center on the South Side of Chicago, and ran until Nov. 3. Nineteen chapter cartoonists participated in the art exhibit, featuring 85 separate works of art including a pair of 3-by-4-foot vinyl cartoon enlargements by Jon Plotkin; a large caricature of Muddy Waters performing on stage, done masterfully in oil

by Chuck Senties; color digital print examples of the syndicated comic panel Free Range by NCS Chicago Midwest chapter members (back row, from left): Dan Beyer, Al Rothe one and only Bill zanski, Ken Krimstein, Bill Whitehead, Bruce Quast, Chuck Senties, T. Brian Kelly, Whitehead; process Jim McGreal, Spencer McGreal, and Richard Laurent. (Front row): Holden Henry, drawings of the awardPat Byrnes, Ryan Pagelow, and Jackie Theibert. winning webcomic Buni

by Ryan Pagelow, MAD magazine cartoons and feature illustrations by Johnny Sampson; New Yorker cartoons by Ken Krimstein, single panel cartoons in vibrant watercolor by Brian Diskin, a unique Superman collage image by Jim McGreal; fine examples of the syndicated comic panel Long Story Short by Dan Beyer, and many other works too numerous to mention.

More than 50 talented young student cartoonists exhibited their work in a different gallery over the same time period at the art center, with their families and friends also attending the September opening. In addition, Richard Pietrzyk and a few of his favorite cartoons

Right, new NCS Chicago Midwest member Richard Laurent

Jim McGreal and his longtime friend and colleague local NCS Chicago Midwest chapter member Ed Letwenko we also put together a small historical section that showed original and signed print cartoons of Chester Gould, Dale Messick, Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonists Joe Parrish and Jeff MacNelly, and the recently retired Chicago SunTimes editorial cartoonist Jack Higgins.

We reconvened at the BAC the weekend following the exhibit opening for a one-day Cartooning Open House that offered two hours of video presentations in the historic Baffes Theater by Richard Pietrzyk, Jon Plotkin, Johnny Sampson, Chuck Senties and current “Underdog”

NCS members living in an area served by a regional chapter should contact the chairman, or contact national representative Maria Scrivan at maria@mariascrivan.com. Chairmen, please send news, photos, artwork and information about your chapter to The Cartoon!st, in care of Frank 13 Pauer, 53 Beverly Place, Oakwood, OH 45419, or fpauer1@gmail.com. Deadline for the next issue is: Jan. 26

cartoonist Matt Hansel. Live caricatures in the gallery by Chuck and Ellen Lustig were also quite popular, as well as Jon demonstrating his iPad cartooning techniques on a large flatscreen TV. Short and informal cartoon workshops were available for kids and adults with books, posters, prints, and original cartoon sketches also available for purchase at both the exhibit opening and open house. It was a lot of work, but it was sure worth it.

In the membership department, we welcomed Holden Henry as our first 27 Club member early in 2019. We’re very glad to have him in the chapter as he really helps in bringing down the average chapter member age. We need that.

Richard Laurent also threw his baseball cap in the ring and joined NCS as a regular member this summer. Richard has extensive experience in the cartooning and illustration fields, drawing for a wide variety of clients including Business Week, Outside magazine, the American Bar Association, and the Chicago Sun-Times. He is deeply involved in the social justice fine art initiative “The Art of Influence: Breaking Criminal Traditions” and has organized a show of original artwork on this topic that is traveling around the U.S. He also

published Laughing Matters!, his first book of editorial cartoons showing his take on President Donald J. Trump. And Matt Hansel is still preparing his NCS application, polishing it to a fine warm glow before submitting it at some point soon, we hope.

Tim Jackson, former editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Defender is also in the process of applying to the NCS for regular membership. We wish them both the best of luck in these noble endeavors. And we need the dues.

See you in 20-20. Ha! As Foghorn Leghorn would say, “…That there’s a joke, son…”

Manhattan ————— Ed Steckley ed@edsteckley.com

It’s getting cold here in the Big Apple, and we’re still out braving the cold for various events around town.

In October, our chapter hosted the NCS booth at New York Comic Con, and not long after that was our Fall happy hour, at the

Overlook Lounge in Midtown (above).

Our big news now is the upcoming annual Holiday Party!

This year it’ll be bigger and better than before, as now it’s an official NCS function! Come one, come all to the Society of Illustrators on Wednesday, Dec. 11 for a fun night of holiday cheer, revelry and booze!

Gonna be in NYC? Head over to ManhattanNCS.com to to secure your tickets! We’ll have a few honors to bestow on some worthy members, so you won’t wanna miss this one!

Stay in touch: www.manhattanncs.com www.facebook.com/groups/ManhattanNCS/.

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Bill Hinds takes the cake in celebrating Tank McNamara’s 45th anniversary.

Anniversary guests included, top, Miggy Aguilar and Milburn Taylor; above, David DeGrand and Kit Lively; and near left, Eliamaria Madrid Crawford, Laura Irrgang and Kez Wilson.

Far left, David DeGrand’s Official Meeting Poster

Texas

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————— Hector Cantu hdcantu@aol.com The Texas chapter (Texas Cartoonists) held its annual summer party in August, and took

the occasion to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Tank McNamara, launched in 1974 by Bill Hinds and Jeff Millar.

NCS members attending the party and joining Bill to celebrate were Paul Anderson, Hector Cantu, David DeGrand, Kit Lively,

Steve Sicula and Milburn Taylor. They were joined by chapter members Miguel “Miggy” Aguilar, Rob Chambers, Dick Collier, Eliamaria Madrid Crawford, Laura Irrgang and Hector Rodriguez. Special guests included Keith “Kez” Wilson and Ron O’Neal of Andrews

McMeel Syndication. more adventurous members David DeGrand produced the were seen cruising around the “official poster” of the summer resort property on their personal meeting. modes of transportation. Greg “It’s always fun to get Cravens on his unicycle and everyone together to talk about Mark Simon on his motorized projects and to have fun,” said off-road skate board, which chapter chair Cantu. “Of course, made for an interesting sight it was extra special to celebrate as they cruised along. They cerTank’s anniversary with Bill, and tainly turned heads, especially with a fond remembrance of Jeff as they rode through one of the as well.” wedding parties! I’m sure the Representatives from the City bride and groom are still shakof Keller in DFW were on hand to ing their heads. announce an exhibit of original In keeping with the traditions art by member artists. The event of cartoonists everywhere, a Connecticut — “Texas Cartoonists Exposed!” resolute group of ink slingers ————— — is scheduled for Jan. 6-Feb. were up late Saturday night Brian Walker 19, 2020, at Keller Town Hall. An having some “discussions” in HiandLois@aol.com opening reception is set for Jan. the breakfast room who were Connecticut Chapter members at the Firing Circuits Open Studios 16. Members exhibiting include then reminded by the hotel in Norwalk, Connecticut on Friday, Nov. 8. Back row left to right: Bill DeGrand, Crawford, Hinds, staff there were guests trying to Janocha, John Lind, Greg Walker, Brian Walker and Chance Browne.

Irrgang and Taylor. Also showsleep. When I checked out on Front: Abby Walker and Maria Scrivan. Chance’s band played music ing pieces are Richard Brooks, Sunday morning, I was told by in the 19th-century factory building which is now an artist co-op — William “Bubba” Flint, Davy the desk clerk that it sounded and where Brian has a studio.

Jones, Kevin Middleton, Donnie like our group “had a good Pitchford and Clay Sisk. time last night.” As the chapter ...............................................

Kit Lively has been named chair, I couldn’t be more proud managing editor of the humor site Weekly of them!

Proceeds of the auction will be distribHumorist (WeeklyHumorist.com), whose From all accounts the meeting was a uted between the chapter, the NCSF and new political satire novel “From the success which just increases the pressure a local art center. Yet another highlight ...

Campaign Trail or Thereabouts” by WH to put on a better one next year. We’ll start they keep on coming ... of the weekend scribes Michael Bleicher and Andy Newton planning soon. was having the artists of six legacy strips is currently available everywhere. in attendance and under one roof. They were Greg Southeastern Cravens, chapter vice ————— chair (The Buckets), John John Sheppard Rose (Snuffy Smith), Marshepart@aol.com cus Hamilton (Dennis the Menace), Jim Scancarelli The Southeast Chapter held its Annual (Gasoline Alley), James Fall Meeting the weekend of Nov. 1-3 Allen (Mark Trail) and Main Braselton, Ga. at the Chateau Elan son Mastroianni (B.C.).

Winery & Resort. It was a perfect setting Just when you thought with perfect weather made even betthere could be no more ter by the attendance of 23 cartoonists highlights, two of our from across the southeast. It was the best attended meeting since the Jack Davis honoring in Savannah in 2011. Speaking of Jack, this year’s recipient of the Jack Legacy cartoonists included Greg Cravens, John Rose, Mason Davis Award was presented to Mastroianni, Jim Scancarelli and Marcus Hamilton. none other than Jim Scancarelli of Gasoline Alley fame. Jim has been working on the Alley for the past 40 years, and prior to that Treasurer Tim he worked on Mutt and Jeff. The (Mr. Ollie) Jack Davis award is the highest Oliphant acknowledgement a cartoonist and Chapter can receive within the SECNCS. It Chair John represents excellence is cartoonSheppard at ing over many years and Jim has the chapter’s certainly done that. business Another highlight of the meeting.

Gasoline Alley’s Jim Scancarelli displays weekend was the silent auction 15 of original comic and cartoon art. his Jack Davis Award.

Great Lakes ————— Rich Diesslin rldiesslin@gmail.com

GLCers and friends Tom Batiuk, Craig Boldman, Duane Abel and Bob East attended the Akron Comicon, along with (and at the invitation of) Dan Gorman, who is the new co-owner of the Comicon and Rubber City Comics.

Our new chapter chair is Rich Diesslin. It is possible that he only won the electoral college but hey, he didn’t make the rules. Rich is the cartoonist of a weekly single-panel cartoon called Out to Lunch among other things.

Also he was able to add his profile on the new website, so it can’t be that hard to do.

In our last chapter news update we omitted Don Peoples in the list of people who participated in the Reuben towel — FYI and sorry about that!

New Jersey

————— Dan Nakrosis Report by Tom Stemmle

Doug Goudsward.

Our lunch with the great Hy Eisman at the Glen Rock Inn was, as always, an extra special occasion! Don Wimmer, Dan Nakrosis, and I were in unique company, as Hy, an expert raconteur, regaled us with incredible stories from years ago, going back to the late 1950s. That period was casually known as the end of the “golden age” of the cartooning profession. To bridge that amount of time was significant, indeed. Cheers, Hy, and thank you!

The kick-off fall meeting in Hightstown’s beautiful Tavern on the Lake was well-chosen due to perfect perfect evening temperatures.

This allowed us to dine on their outdoor patio which overlooked the Peddie Lake. We were happy Laurie Triefeldt joined us, along with Dan Nakrosis, Ken Branch, myself and chapter friends Tom McWeeney and Marc Mackenzie. The food, drink and great conversation was on par, and even a bit better than the beautiful surroundings!

Over the summer and into the fall the NJ Chapter got together for two meetings and one picnic. The Annual Tom and Marie Picnic was held in Piscataway, N.J. on Sunday, Aug. 4. Our yearly “Lunch with Hy” at the Glen Rock Inn, in beautiful (downtown?) Glen Rock, N.J., was a few weeks later on Friday the 23rd. Finally, we met at Tavern on the Lake in Hightstown, N.J. on Wednesday, Sept. 25, for our kick-off fall meeting.

The Tom and Marie Picnic was a huge success with the weather cooperating by way of an 85 degree temperature and low humidity. We were able to accommodate 35 people comfortably, under three large tents in our backyard. Two patio grills filled with hamburgers, Andy Eng and Chris Krauss turkey burgers, hotdogs, kielDoug Goudsward and Helene and Bob Parsons basi and brats and a full indoor Tom Stemmle with Sam Viviano buffet table with assorted foods ably fed the crowd. Many ice chests held beer, soda, wine and water to keep all guests well lubricated and jolly! Seventeen of the 35 picnickers were from the New Jersey, New York, Lunch with Hy Eisman (right) included Dan Nakrosis, Don Wimmer The chapter’s fall meeting included Laurie Triefeldt, Dan Nakrosis, Philadelphia and Tom Stemmle Tom Stemmle, Ken Branch, Tom McWeeney and Marc Mackenzie. and Long Island

Grace gave Mason Mastroi————— anni some Scott Jensen digital jensencreative illustra@stny.rr.com tion tips, and Dave The Upstate Gilbert NY Chapter reported gathered in on his Liverpool, N.Y. From left to right are, top row, Scott Kallstrom, Scott Jensen, for their summer David Gilbert, Erika Gilbert. Middle row: Mason Mastroianni, Frank experiences at barbecue. The Mariani, Bonnie Marianni. Front Row: Grace Bloom, Diane Bloom, this year’s shindig was gra- Mick Mastroianni John Bloom, Amy Lago and Terry Wynne.

Reubens. ciously hosted It was a great time, commemorated with

by Amy Lago and her husband (the “Grillmasthis group photo taken on the stadium ter”), and featured vegetables, hamburgers, bleachers in Amy’s backyard. Because we and the regional fav, Hoffmann’s franks and should all have stadium seats in our backconeys (as served at Liverpool’s famous yard (“perfect for entertaining!”).

Heid’s Hot Dog stand, just up the road).

Chapter Chairman Scott Jensen won Mick Washington, D.C. Mastroianni’s car in a brutal game of Lad————— der Toss, which he later donated to charity Carolyn Belefski (Mick). Mason Mastroianni shared news cartooncarolyn@hotmail.com of an Indiegogo campaign for the new B.C. On Oct. 26, we had our seventh annual animated movie, Frank Mariani showed off a “Cartoonists Draw Blood” blood drive event newly-published book that features a bushel with the American Red Cross. The event works of his illustrations, John Bloom’s daughter

Upstate New York

like a regular blood drive, however blood donors get to meet local cartoonists and take home an original piece of art created for them as a thank you.

Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Gainesville, Virginia was a new location for us and I setup some mini pumpkins and gourds to make our table festive. The Prince William Times posted an article announcing the event. The results of the drive were fantastic: 43 total donors, 13 first time donors, 42 units collected, 126 potential lives saved! They have already invited us back for their next blood drive in February 2020.

Participating in the annual “Cartoonists Draw Blood” blood drive are Matt Rawson, Hannah Churn, Carolyn Belefski and Al Goodwyn.

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

16

Chapters. The remaining “normal people” were many friends and neighbors. We thank all who brought all types of food, drink and goodies! We are always extra appreciative that many traveled a long distance to our annual blow-out. Guests included the wonderful Bunny Hoest and John Reiner; Helene and Bob Parsons; Andy Eng and Chris Krauss; Sam Viviano; Ed Steckley; Richard and Kathy Greene; Patrick McDonnell and Karen O’Connell; Dan Nakrosis; Mike Grassia; and

Philadelphia ————— Dave Blazek looseparts@verizon.net

hosted by our own Richard Greene.

Coming up in early December, the chapter will appear at the Mercer Museum just outside of Philadelphia to celebrate an exhibit of Peanuts cartoon originals in conjunction with

Lots of news from the Philly Chapter ...

First was one of our periodic Ink & Drink Nights in Center City Philadelphia to welcome new members and entertain prospective ones while they’re too drunk to run away. To that end, welcome Art Spikol, our newest member.

He’s an award-winning illustrator and a masterful sketch artist who also, in his spare time, was once editor of Philadelphia Magazine.

Chapter members made several appearances under our CartoonOn the panel are Mark Tatulli, Tom Stiglich, Dave Blazek, ists Run Amok banner. First, Tom Gary Kopervas and Richard Greene.

Stiglich, Dave Blazek and Gary Kopervas appeared at the legendary Steel City arts and music venue in subrban Philadelphia. Steel City also exhibited Blazek’s Loose Parts cartoons on the walls for the following six weeks. The gang also made a day-long appearance at the Collingswood Book Festival in South Jersey. Andrea Beizer, Debbie Schaefer, Mark Tatulli, Rich Greene, Gary Kopervas, Tom Stiglich and Dave Blazek all made a day of drawing and meeting with festival goers. Tatulli, Stiglich, Blazek and Kopervas also took part in a public panel discussion about cartooning

the Schulz museum. The Washington Post’s Amy Lago will come up from D.C. to talk about her time working with Sparky.

Andrea Beizer has a new page for her Alice cartoon on the Humor Times website. See it at humortimes.com. And Angie Jordan with her Wacom Studio Mobile Pro tablet entertained and drew her live digital caricatures at the Quick Book Connect conference in San Jose, CA. And finally, chapter member and Philadelphia Inquirer editorial cartoonist Signe Wilkinson wants to give a shout out to the Inquirer.

The paper is running a special all-cartoon

Angie Jordan caricatures in California. Left, chapter members and friends gather for an Ink & Drink night.

Opinion section in mid-December. They called for open submissions from cartoonists everywhere and, yes, are paying them for the cartoons. Woo-hoo!

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Lee Salem, 1946-2019 Lee Salem, editor and former president of Andrews McMeel Syndication, passed away Sept. 2 after suffering a severe stroke on Aug. 19. He was 73.

“Lee was respected and revered by associates, creators and representatives throughout the media industry,” said Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU) Chairman Emeritus John McMeel. “His contributions have been immeasurable. Over four decades, he was instrumental in discovering and nurturing relationships with creators as trusted editor, sound adviser, valued friend and insightful champion to extraordinary talents such as Garry Trudeau, Bill Watterson, Cathy Guisewite, Gary Larson, Lynn

Johnston, Bill Amend and many others.”

“A skilled negotiator, his ability to simultaneously advance the best interests of creators and AMU is unparalleled. It is hard to imagine AMS without Lee’s fundamental involvement; his legacy lives on through entertaining millions of people around the world with the work of our creators.”

A native of New Hampshire, Lee joined Universal Press Syndicate (later AMS) as assistant editor in 1974. He was named vice president and editorial director in 1981, became president of UPS in 2006, and remained in that role until his retirement in 2014.

“Working with Lee, you never felt like you were being edited,” said Trudeau. “He was more like a Good Samaritan who, for no reason at all, had stopped to help you do better work, or, in my case, keep you from embarrassing yourself. And in times of trouble, he turned into a human firewall, taking all incoming from irate clients in stride, talking them down with that calm, reasonable voice of his.

Lee made wildly insecure artists feel supported and safe and empowered to take creative risks. He will be missed terribly by all of us.”

Prior to his retirement in 2014, Lee was honored by the NCS with the “Silver T-Square Award,” which is bestowed by unanimous vote of the NCS Board of Directors to persons who have demonstrated outstanding dedication or service to the society or the profession of cartooning.

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

By Cathy Guisewite The package of scribbles my mother made me send to a syndicate in 1976 landed on Lee Salem’s desk. Any reasonable person would have tossed it in the return mail with a form rejection letter. Lee sensed the tiny heartbeat of a comic strip in there. He was the reason there was a comic strip called Cathy.

Lee was the rock behind Doonesbury for four decades — the guy who calmly parried every call from every insane editor who thought Garry Trudeau had gone too far. He discovered, nurtured and/or was the driving force behind For Better or For Worse, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, Fox Trot, Cul de Sac, Lio, Stone Soup, Tank McNamara, Non Sequitur. He championed voices as diverse as Ziggy and The Boondocks … text features from Dear Abby and William F. Buckley to Roger Ebert to Ann Coulter … editorial cartoonist giants from Pat Oliphant to Glen McCoy. Lee was responsible for some of the newspaper features that made the most noise in history while gracing our industry with his quiet strength, vision and steadfast commitment to the impossible.

As editorial director of Universal Press, Lee helped revolutionize the comic pages by doing something no one except his mentor, Jim Andrews, had ever done before: he sought out strips he knew some people would hate — but that others would relate to in a new, intensely personal way. Strips by and about women, minorities, insects, talking stuffed animals, computer geeks, angry kids from the hood — all kinds of original voices.

In doing so, Lee revitalized and extended the relevance of the comic pages for decades, broadened the type of humor seen in everything from greeting cards to animation, 18

challenged other syndicates to expand their horizons and inspired legions of aspiring cartoonists to create edgy new submissions.

Lee didn’t just seek out and inspire new kinds of strips.

He raised the bar in what it means for a syndicate to have a creator’s back. He gave strips a chance to evolve. Lobbied with editors and salespeople to give new strips more time.

He’s legendary for giving creators all the credit when things went well, and hopping right down into the fire with us when they didn’t.

Lee encouraged creators to push the edge. Sometimes he helped push the edge. And when we went over the edge, Lee propped us up, fielded the irate calls, had drawing supplies brought in and arranged for bedside Federal Express pickups.

As President of Universal Press and then Universal UClick, no one worked harder than Lee Salem to reinvent the future of syndication. To keep up with and ahead of the times. To create digital, mobile & online places for our work beyond newspapers. To forge new kinds of partnerships between syndicates, papers, computers and creators.

Generations will benefit from the doors Lee opened, the rules he changed, the precedents he set, the risks he took, the opportunities he created, the future he helped forge AND the vacations he lobbied for and helped many of us get.

No one in the world is more beholden to Lee than I am for the incredible life his belief in me allowed me to have.

But every cartoonist — now and in the future — should remember him with profound gratitude for the thousands of ways his work helped us do our work. For the millions of smiles he helped us bring all over the world.

We will miss him so much.

Dana Fradon, 1922-2019 Cartoonist Arthur Dana I revered when I first Fradon, died surrounded joined them on the by his family at home in magazine’s pages,” Woodstock, N.Y., October 3, wrote Edward Koren at 2019. He was 97. newyorker.com. “I had Dana, as he was called, closely noted and adwas born in Chicago in mired Fradon’s work for 1922. As the child of imyears, and studied with migrants during the Great care the many gifts Depression, he suffered that he brought to this through extreme poverty singular form of storythroughout his youth. His telling. As a fledgling family was saved by Frankartist, I paid attention lin Roosevelt’s New Deal, to the breadth of his which put food on their curiosity as well as the table and allowed him to mastery of his drawreceive an education. The ings — the structured “ ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ O.K.! Now, what’s the New Deal also informed and washes and tones and second-best policy?” steered the course of his life. the animated line.“ After serving in the Army and Air Force in World War “Fradon’s elaborate drawings were generous masterII, Dana attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the pieces of compressed fun.”

Art Students League of New York, where he met and Dana Fradon was a “generous mentor to many stumarried comic illustrator Ramona Fradon. dents and friends and a loving and dedicated father,” The New Yorker published Fradon’s first cartoon in the family wrote in an obituary. “He loved antiques, 1948; over his career he contributed some 1,400 drawhistory, art, politics, food, old movies and good conings to the magazine. He also sold to the Saturday versation. He dedicated his life to his career and social Evening Post, Playboy, and other magazines. After retirejustice through his cartooning, and he believed more ment, he published a series of award-winning children’s than anything in a just government which would take books. care of everyone with no one left behind. He died hop“Fradon was one of a group of comics elders whom ing for that.”

Skip Morrow, 1951-2019 Dennis B. (Skip) Morrow, illustrator, artist and musician, died unexpectedly at his Wilmington, Vermont home on May 28, from natural causes. He was 67.

Born in Elizabeth, N.J., Morrow learned to play guitar at the age of 12 and performed in a rock band called Mother’s Little Helpers in high school. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1974 with a degree in communications and a focus on photojournalism. But “unable to land a job in this field after graduation, he turned to his talent as a singer/guitarist/pianist and began playing musical establishments.

All the while, he loved to sketch.

His art mostly consisted of cartoons, although he was talented in several mediums.

“He just kept a book,” Gary Henry, a former band mate told the Brattleboro Reformer. “He decided he was going to try and get a book deal. And being naive about it, he just went to New York and started banging on publishers’ doors. They all told him the same thing: ‘You don’t just bang on doors. You have to have an in somewhere.’”

Henry said at one publishing house, Morrow was

being told the same thing from a receptionist when one of the executives came in and took a look. That led to a deal.

In 1980, The Official I Hate Cats book was published.

It went on the New York Times bestsellers list and launched his fulltime career as an illustrator.

Morrow published many other books, calendars, and greeting cards, and did commissioned and freelance work for numerous corporations.

“Everything still starts with a sketchbook,” he told the Burlington Free Press in 2011. “When home, I’m up in my studio doodling.”

In 2001, Morrow opened The Art of Humor Gallery, a two story, 2,500-square foot display area, in Wilmington to showcase his originals and prints for the collector.

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The Last Panel

Exhibits, from Page 12

Gahan Wilson, 1930-2019 Gahan Wilson, the master of macabre cartoons whose beautifully rendered work graced the pages of Playboy, The New Yorker and National Lampoon for decades died from complications of dementia on Nov. 21, in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 89.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Wilson remembered always drawing. In a 1986 interview on Fresh Air, Wilson said as he went through his parents’ estate, he found “one box which had these drawings I’d done as a little teeny-bitsy kid. And they were pre-literate. And they’re monsters. And there’s — I remember one has — in a mother’s loving hand that says, strange monster come to kill us all.”

Wilson also grew up reading the comics pages, and in a 2005 interview in The Cartoon!st, particularly noted the influence of Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy.

“The thing about Tracy that fascinated me was that it was very grim, very unsparing. Gould got away with the most astonishing stuff.

He’d have horrible murders, very graphically depicted. Also, Little Orphan Annie. Horrendous stuff in that one.

Wilson served in the U.S. Air Force and went to the Art Institute of Chicago. His interest in cartooning took him to New York, where his work was much loved, but infrequently printed.

“When I started out, the stuff I was doing was astonishingly far out,” Wilson told The Cartoon!st.

“I would keep going around to the Collier’s and Look and all that; I did not go to the Saturday Evening Post because I knew it was hopeless. So what would happen is that these editors would look at my stuff and laugh and laugh. They’d say, ‘We really like your stuff, kid, but we’re afraid that the readers just wouldn’t understand them.’ So I would sell these things to little markets and get by, but it was a squeak.”

A new editor at Collier’s, who didn’t realize that people weren’t expected to understand Wilson’s work “thought they were funny. So he bought them.”

Wilson’s career was hardly limited to the drawing board. He published cartoons and film reviews for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and was a movie review columnist and a book critic for other magazines. Wilson wrote and illustrated short stories to several publications. Wilson also created a computer game, and wrote the 1992 animated short Diner.

In Nuts, a series of one-page stories in the National Lampoon’s “Funny Pages”, Wilson was charged with coming up with something horrific, “so I thought about the most awful thing that I could think of,” he told The Cartoon!st. “Well, of course, being a kid. Everyone is trying to force you into this society which makes no sense at all. It’s just amazing that we survive it.”

Among several other collections of his work, Fantagraphics Books released Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons in 2009, a slipcased, three-volume collection of his cartoons and short stories for that magazine. A collection of his work, Fifty Years of Gahan Wilson, was published in 2010.

In 2005, Wilson was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the World Fantasy Awards, and he received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1981.

He also received the National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

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toonist and the first female-created superhero, to the feminist voices that emerged from underground and alternative comics, “Ladies First: A Century of Women’s Innovations in Comics and Cartoon Art” is a celebration of how women have defined the field of comics and cartoon art for generations.

Drawing on women’s voices from the margins to the center, this exhibit surveys women’s innovations in comics and cartoon art, tracking their contributions to the field.

Included are works from early suffragette cartoonists, the queens of the comic strip pages, mainstream comic book artists, communities of self-published minicomics creators, and everyone in between.

The exhibit features works by Dale Messick, Edwina Dumm, Aline Kominsky Crumb, Nell Brinkley, Lynda Barry, June Tarpe Mills, Barbara Brandon-Croft, Trina Robbins, Marie Severin, Rose O’Neil, Jackie Ormes, Lynn Johnston, Alison Bechdel and dozens more.

Through May 3, 2020.

Also: Pennsylvania-based illustrator Drew Friedman has employed his intensely realistic, warts-andall style of caricature to satirize celebrity and authority for four decades. In his latest book from Fantagraphics, All the Presidents, Friedman builds on a centuries-old tradition of cartoonists satirizing those in power and points his pen at the exclusive club of the United States presidents.

The exhibit “Drawn to Presidents: Portraits and Satiric Drawings by Drew Friedman” features the original artwork created by Friedman for All the Presidents, as well as his presidential-themed original art created for, among others, SPY, MAD, TIME, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Observer, and TOPPS “Wacky Packs.”

Through Feb. 9, 2020. See cartoons.osu.edu.

At long last, Jeff Smith’s award-winning fantasy epic You may not be bile and broadcast. “We Bone is being adapted for animation. Netflix has secured the able to live the life of a are approaching each rights and plans to develop Bone — which was named one big-time syndicated carshort as its own film, of the “10 best graphic novels of all-time” in Time magazine toonist, but you may be and not as an episode — into a children’s animated series. Originally published in able to at least drive like in a series,” said Peter 55 comic book issues from 1991 to 2004, Bone followed Fone one. A 1965 Rolls-Royce Browngardt, executive Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone — the Bone cousins Silver Cloud III Saloon producer. “Our mantra — on an that was originally on the shorts is story, adventure purchased by famed carcomedy and reverence through toonist Allen Saunders for the classic Looney a vast, is for sale. Saunders is Tunes of the ‘30s and uncharted best known for his work ‘40s and the way they desert on the Mary Worth, Steve used a more cartoonand into a Roper and Kerry Drake ist driven animation.” mysterious comic strips and was the … Lalo Alcaraz valley. “I’ve originator of the phrase recently won the SoCal waited a “life is what happens to Journalism Award for long time you while you’re busy Editorial Cartooning for this,” making other plans.” from Los Angeles Press Jeff said.

One of only 1,072 built Club for his drawing “Netflix is in left-hand drive and “Prototypes Exhibit in the perfect with only 33,221 actual Mexico.” On Facebook, home for Bone. Fans of the books know that the story develops miles, the car “is finished Alcaraz posted, that “I chapter-by-chapter and book-by-book. An animated series is in the stunning factory was getting discourexactly the way to do this. The team at Netflix understood the color combination of aged after not winning property. They understood the characters. They understood the Shell Grey over Masons any national awards yet setting.” After a failed attempt to negotiate a movie with NickBlack with a Grey Conagain this year, espeelodeon in the 1990s, Warner Bros. bought the rights in 2008, nolly leather interior.” cially when the topic but that 10-year agreement ended with several attempts but Offered at $99,900 (immigration) I’ve been without any resolution. Jeff will serve as the executive producer through Daniel Schmitt drawing furiously about for the first season of the series. & Co. Classic Car Galfor 25 years is the daily lery in St. Louis. … CQ headline, but, I’ll take Roll Call cartoonist this as a sign to not give Robert “RJ” Matson has won the National Press Foundation’s up.” … Gertie , an animated film from the pen of Winsor Clifford K. and James T. Berryman Award for Editorial CarMcCay once thought to have been lost forever has been resurtoons. The Foundation’s judges wrote that “Matson’s cartoons rected. Gertie is the original film out of which McCay created combine visual clarity and instant impact. His drawing is the widely available classic, Gertie the Dinosaur, in 1914. Gertie fresh, clean and was a film which McCay used in his vaudeville act, telling beautifully comthe audience that he would bring a dinosaur back to life. A posed. Matson’s projection of the animated creature would then appear behind dry satire helps him, and McCay interacted with the dinosaur, asking Gertie break down to bow to the audience and do tricks. So that the film could be complicated screened without an actor on stage, McCay made Gertie the issues and zeroes Dinosaur using excerpts from the original film, inserting and in on his point.” deleting scenes.

Syndicated by Unfortunately, Cagle Cartoons the original Matson previGertie didn’t ously worked survive all the at the St. Louis cuts and changPost-Dispatch and The New York Observer. The judges also es. The film was awarded an honorable mention to Rob Rogers, the now-freebrought back lance cartoonist who was fired by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to life through over editorial differences. Rogers was the 2015 winner of the the combined Berryman award. … The bunny — along with other efforts of the iconic Warners Bros. animated characters — is back in a new Cinémathèque series of Looney Tunes Cartoons. According to Variety, Looney québécoise Tunes Cartoons is a series of new short-form cartoons — with and the National Film Board of Canada, with support from each cartoon varying from one to six minutes in length — the University of Notre Dame in the U.S., an undertaking that starring the beloved Looney Tunes characters. Each “season” spanned three years. The some 200 missing drawings were crewill produce 1,000 minutes of all-new animation that will be ated by hand by an animator, who tried to reproduce McCay’s distributed across multiple platforms — including digital, mosense of style and motion.

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