20 Questions with Rob Harrell

What do clowns, a poodle and Oprah have in common?

No, not one of Stedman’s weirder fantasies, but a very funny episode in a very funny comic strip, BIG TOP, the work of cartoonist Rob Harrell.

Rob had Dusty, the poodle, kidnap Oprah. The famous talk show hostess was always off-panel, but one of the funniest strips had Dusty yelling at her “It puts the lotion on its skin, or it gets the hose again.”

Rob is not only a great cartoonist; he’s also an excellent painter. Check out his paintings online and his current gig working with Brian Bassett on ADAM @HOME.


1. When you were a kid, did you want to be a cartoonist? Did you draw?

I did. All the time. It was about 4th grade when my friend Steve Farris and I got really serious about it. We’d hide out in his basement and draw comics for hours. We’d save up our allowances and buy ‘How to Draw Cartoons’ books from a craft store at the mall.

2. What was your first paying cartoon job?

Technically, it was in 4th grade. Three of us started a “magazine” called Freak Out. It was going to be our monthly Mad-style humor rag. It was mostly Mad gags and Lunch Pail Kids cards, just barely changed. We charged 25 cents for a subscription. I think only one issue came out, and we got in trouble…

3. How did you get involved with the ADAM@HOME strip?

Well, that sort of came out of the blue. After BIG TOP, I had been working on some other concepts with Universal, but I never felt strongly enough about them to dive in. So, I think when they were looking for an artist, they already had a relationship with me (knew I could hit deadlines), and also knew I was looking for work. It’s been tough. I know a lot of people hated the change in style (especially in the very beginning when, I admit, I was fumbling around trying to merge our styles). 

Brian has this great, deceptively simple linework. It was like trying to copy someone’s hand-writing. But I finally decided I had more of a responsibility to make it look "right" to me, and the comments have been much, much kinder lately. For a while there, I was ready to flee the country, though.

4. BIG TOP ran for 5 years. Describe the process you went through to get the strip syndicated.

The idea came to me on a plane trip to San Francisco. I was doing some quick drawings for a little girl that was sitting by me. I drew her a bear, a clown and a monkey, and something clicked. I then REALLY quickly burned out a month of strips, I was so excited about the idea. Submitted them and waited… I started out developing the strip for another syndicate, but when I got the call from Universal and they liked it the way it was, that was it. I jumped up and down a lot that afternoon.
 

5. What’s your favorite rejected strip or gag?

Hmm. The only thing that comes to mind was a series that made fun of Scientology. The way I remember it, we ended up taking a lot of the bite out of that series. Probably wise, but at the time I thought I was being all edgy.


6. Where do you stand in the print comics vs. web comics debate?

I’m really sort of staying out of it. I would love to do BIG TOP as a web comic at some point, if I could figure out a way to do it that would work for me. I know a lot of people have done really well, and I think that’s fantastic. It’s such a cool art form, so I just hope it keeps going in whatever format.

7. Newspaper comics are considered pretty tame compared to TV and other media. Do you find this limiting or is it a welcome challenge?

I liked the challenge. Most of the time, that is. I would have liked to have Dusty be able to say something sucked. Or blew. "Stinks" just doesn’t feel right. But it did force me to be a little more creative with my language.

8. Name five of your favorite comic strips or cartoonists.

Oh boy. POGO. DOONESBURY. BLOOM COUNTY. CALVIN AND HOBBES. John Callahan.

9. Who would win in a cage match, Dusty or Snoopy?

Probably Snoopy, as he’s older and wiser, but Dusty would fight dirty and definitely give him a good run.

10. How do you develop ideas? Which comes first, words or pictures?

Words. I don’t really come up with much until I’m sitting down with a pad and pen. Not many great ideas coming to me while I’m grocery shopping, etc. I really like to just start writing dialogue, write myself into a corner and then try to find a funny way out. The real fun comes when you get to know your characters well enough that you can kind of hear what they’d say.

11. Tell us about your paintings.

Mostly figurative, oil on canvas. I’ve shown at some great galleries around the country, which is fun. It’s therapeutic, although when I’m painting I tend to feel guilty that I’m not cartooning, and feel guilty when I’m cartooning that I’m not painting. I’m very good at guilt. And worry.

12. You’re a contributor to MAD Magazine. How did you become one of the “Usual Gang of Idiots”?

Again, that sort of came to me. They were looking for some new blood, and I guess someone got hold of the BIG TOP book. That’s one of the coolest calls I’ve gotten. I grew up devouring that magazine from cover to cover, so it’s such an honor when I get to see something of mine in there.

13. What kind of editor do you prefer, hands-on or laissez-faire?

Well, my editor on BIG TOP (Lisa) was fantastic. She kind of let me do my thing, with just gentle nudges here and there when something ‘seemed kind of lame’. And that seemed to work great. Despite BIG TOP not being around anymore, I’m really happy with the strips I put out there.

14. What are your favorite books, TV shows, songs and films? (Yes, that counts as one question.)

Books – John Irving, Tom Wolfe, Updike. I loved The Pillars of the Earth and its sequel. Roots. The Time Traveler's Wife. I could go on for awhile. I’m kind of a book nerd.

Movies – The Graduate, Diner, Annie Hall. I loved There Will Be Blood. Boogie Nights has a special place. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. TV shows – Arrested Development! LOST, 30 Rock…

Music – I listen to a LOT of music – Right now it’s The XX, Say Hi, Them Crooked Vultures, Late of the Pier, Blitzen Trapper. But Elvis Costello will always be my guy.

15. What are your tools of the trade?

I’m working on a Wacom right now, but I’m really starting to miss pen and paper. Love Micron pens, especially after the tip breaks a little.

16. What’s the best part about being a cartoonist?

Getting to try to be funny. The actual job of trying to sit down and come up with something that makes you laugh is invaluable in the effort to not take things too seriously. I sometimes default to "miserable," and it’s really hard to do that when you’re writing gags.


17. Have you met any of your cartoonist idols? Under what circumstances?

The one that jumps out the most is Garry Trudeau. I met him at the NCS Reubens weekend, and couldn’t believe I was standing there having a conversation with him. Really surreal, but he couldn’t have been nicer. I don’t think I’ve met a cartoonist yet that I didn’t like.

18. What advice would you give aspiring cartoonists?

Learn investment banking, or become a specialized surgeon. Actually, no, I’d say to keep drawing, but more importantly keep writing. The best drawn cartoon in the world won’t work if it doesn’t have solid writing, or at least thinking, behind it. And keep your day job. Seriously.

19. How important are awards?

I hope not very, as I haven’t come close yet.

20. What’s something that nobody knows about you?

Hmm. I went to Africa for five weeks on the day BIG TOP started in papers, so I didn’t get to see it in print till I got back. Caught Malaria while I was over there, but it cleared up nicely so I could hit the road running when I got back. Deadlines, always deadlines.

20 Questions with Brett Koth

I’ve worked with Brett Koth for fourteen years and, frankly, I’m sick of him.

He’s always writing and drawing funny strips and creating brilliant sight gags. He’s prolific, professional, and has a seemingly endless imagination. On top of that, he’s a helluva nice guy.

Cut it out, Koth.

In all seriousness, Brett Koth is a one amazing cartoonist -- a born funnyman with drawing chops right up there with the best in the business.  Brett’s worked with Jim Davis on GARFIELD for over 20 years and he recently got the green light for his own syndicated strip: DIAMOND LIL. You can check out LIL on the Creators website and at Brett’s new blog. The strip is scheduled to launch March 1, 2010.

1. When you were a kid, did you want to be a cartoonist?  Did you draw?

It’s all I ever wanted to do.  I was five or six when I took the birthday dollar grandma had sent me, and bought the book MORE PEANUTS with it — it cost a dollar — and that was it for me.  I was with my father (he paid the tax — thanks, dad), and I still remember the drug store where I bought it.  I even remember what the bookrack looked like, and where it was in the store.  If it had been any closer to the ice cream counter I might never have become a cartoonist.

I always drew, and was always encouraged to.  I had a drawing table in my bedroom before I was ten, so I guess you could say I was focused.  I drew bulletin boards in school, drew for the school newspaper, the whole nine yards.  I’m still a compulsive doodler to this day. In fact, I tend to prefer my doodles to my finished work.

And, by the way, I still have that book.

2. What was your first paying cartoon job?

Doing caricatures at Southern California amusement parks.  I started out at Movieland Wax Museum (gone now) in Buena Park, and then moved down the street to Knott’s Berry Farm, where I worked for a company called Harvin Artists, which had a booth there, and two more at Universal Studios in Hollywood.  I think there were about ten of us on staff, and our schedules rotated between both parks.  We were also available for private parties, conventions, etc.  I actually put myself through Cal Arts doing this for four summers and weekends/holidays during school, that’s how well it paid.  We did two-minute quick sketch profile (big head/little body) caricatures with stinky bullet point black Design Art Markers on gloss stock, and I could do 150 to 250 of these on a busy day.  It turned out to be good training for the real world, too, as those $2.25 (what we charged for a sketch then) art critics were still among the most brutal I’ve ever encountered.

3. You’ve worked with Jim Davis for over 20 years.  How did that come about?

In early 1986 I was working at Marvel Productions in L.A. on a CBS half-hour BLONDIE special, the only memory of which I retain is meeting Penny Singleton when she toured the studio.  It was one morning during the 10 a.m. union break, out at the “roach coach” in the parking lot that I first heard Jim Davis was looking for a new assistant.  The hitch was, you had to move to Indiana.

Jim had put out the word through Phil Roman, the producer of his television specials in California, that he was seeking someone to assist on the art for his then new second strip, U.S.ACRES, who had animation experience as well, so they could also assist in the storyboarding of future TV projects.  As far as I know, Bob Scott, myself and another name I’ve forgotten forever were the only three people in Los Angeles to apply for this job.  Bob was a fellow “Cal-Artian” working at Marvel too at the time — I believe on the MUPPET BABIES series.

The three of us applied at Phil’s studio; he Xeroxed copies out of our portfolios and Fed-Xed them to Jim, and the next day, Bob and I got phone calls from him inviting us out to Indiana for interviews.  So my wife Mona and I, and Bob and his then fiancée Vicki  all flew out together, wondering which one of us would get the job.  Jim hired us both.

Long story short, Bob and I split the drawing duties on U.S.ACRES for the rest of its run.  Eventually, I fell into the writing side of things for both strips, and Bob ended up returning to animation in California.  He’s worked at Pixar, in Northern California for many years now, and has a great new strip, MOLLY AND THE BEAR, running on Comics Sherpa.  I continued to work with Jim, and still do, from my home in Virginia.

4. Your new comic strip, DIAMOND LIL, distributed by Creators, launches March 1.  Can you tell us about the strip, and how it got syndicated?

LIL took me by surprise.  After years of many carefully thought out submissions, she just seemed to fall out of my head one day.  The writing came so fast that I had a package ready to send out in only two months, and that had never happened before.  I sent it in November of 2008, and got the call from Creators in February. 

Lillian Bilious is a blue-haired 75-year-old widow who has lived in the same house in the same small town all her life (Turkey Knuckle, Indiana).  She enjoys saying exactly what’s on her mind, because let’s face it, who’s going to tell an old lady to shut up?   She’s a mash-up of many older ladies I’ve known in my life.  I had a great aunt Lillian, who was a character, and I’ve always loved that name.  The “Diamond” in the title refers to her age, and the fact that she’s the hardest substance known to man.

Samples of the strip are now up and running daily on the Creators website under “New” comics, and the newspaper launch is set for March 1^st. Somebody pinch me.

5. You’ve been involved with several strips, including U.S.ACRES and BUGS BUNNY.  What can you do with animal characters that you can’t do with people?

Interesting question, because in the writing I never thought of them as animals, unless the gag was animal-specific.  I suppose you do have more latitude with animals, since belief is already suspended once they start talking or walking around on their hind legs, but as long as the personalities of the characters are strong enough, it shouldn’t make a difference who’s doing the talking — you write to the character, not the species.  Although it is more fun to blow up a rooster than a farmer.

 







6. What’s your favorite rejected strip or gag?

That’s a tough one, because there have been so many over the years.  I’d have to say it was probably a horrific pun.  I love puns, but we can’t use wordplay in GARFIELD, as it won’t translate into other languages.

There was another one, too — a television gag where Garfield was watching a talk show, and the guest had a mole on his thigh shaped like Morey Amsterdam.  Proper names of public people are verboten in the strip, too, so that one died a quiet death, although I think the rough did turn up in one of the anniversary books.  I always liked the punch line in that strip — “Some people just shouldn’t wear bicycle shorts.”

7. Where do you stand in the print comics vs. web comics debate?

I’m in agreement with several of your other interviewees — I see them as apples and oranges, so why not have both?  Good work always speaks for itself, and I think the web is a great venue for that.

8. Newspaper comics are considered pretty tame compared to TV and other media.  Do you find this limiting, or is it a welcome challenge?

Oh, yeah, it’s extremely limiting.  And the challenge is to try to stretch those limits without setting off too many alarm bells. My approach is to simply write what I like, and if there are objections, pick my battles.  Sometimes I find it’s simply best to just kill a gag rather than go back and monkey with it, just for the sake of appropriateness (I had a friend in college who used to call this “murdering my babies,” a term I love). 

And sometimes what constitutes “appropriate” in a comic strip can cause forehead dents in a gagwriter’s drafting table. When I was writing the BUGS BUNNY  strip, rules came down from on high (after I had violated said rules) that Porky was not to stutter, and that Sam and Elmer could not carry firearms (although I could blow characters up — that was okay).  Now I ask you, what kind of a threat is Elmer Fudd without a shotgun in his hands?

Of course, this was almost 20 years ago, and I’ve gotten over it now.  Can you tell?

9. Name five of your favorite comic strips or cartoonists.

There are so many, but off the top of my head, Charles Schulz, Johnny Hart, George Herriman, Virgil Partch and George Booth.  There was also an animator I worked under for a short time at Disney named Chris Buck, who, just by watching him work, taught me more about drawing and posing characters in eight months than I learned at Cal Arts in three years.  He was amazing.

10. Who looks worse in a bikini, Cathy or Hagar the Horrible?

Well, my father in-law is a native Norwegian, and even though I’ve never seen him in a bikini (thank God), I’d still have to say Cathy looks worse.  I’d hate for “dad” to go all “Viking” on me.

 

11. How do you develop ideas?  Which comes first, words or pictures?

The GARFIELD gags are laid out as they’re written, so a little of both, depending on the gag — some are straight  pantomime.  I’m a doodler, so that often works, but sometimes it’s the words that provide the spark.

In general, I usually follow a writer named Gene Fowler’s advice.  He said, “Writing is easy, all you do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

12. Do you ever worry about running out of ideas?

You can’t.  That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 







13. What kind of an editor do you prefer, hands-on or laissez-faire?

I prefer a hands-on editor, but one that also trusts me.

14. What are your favorite books, TV shows, songs and films?  (Yes, that counts as one question.)

The TV I watch anymore is baseball, and stuff like the History channel, the National Geographic channel and Ovation. 

Music would be jazz, blues and classic rock. 

Books would include anything by S.J. Perelman.  Also Robert Benchley, James Thurber, E.B. White, Raymond Chandler, Woody Allen, Roger Angell, David Sedaris, and Ian Frazier, to name a few.  There’s also a new author I enjoy a lot named Simon Rich.

Favorite movie, bar none, would have to be a 1967 Jerry Lewis epic called The Big Mouth. There, I’ve said it, and I’m proud.

 







15. What are the tools of your trade?

I will generally scribble on and with anything within reach.  I’ll confess to being somewhat of a pen freak, though.  For years now I’ve preferred sketching with a disposable fountain pen made by Pilot, called a Varsity.  For years before that, it was Rolling Writers.  Lately, I seem to have developed a strange fascination with mechanical pencils.  I still can’t figure that one out.

Up until a year ago all my strip writing was done in sketchbooks, but then the boss sent me a pen tablet called a Cintiq, made by Wacom.  Currently I do all my work on this.  I can sketch up an idea on it, and email it directly to Jim, who has one, too.  He can then make any changes or notes on the image, and zap it back to me.  The writing itself is done on whatever paper is handy — written in longhand with small sketches where necessary, but as little drawing as possible.  When I have the idea the way I want it, I take it to the Cintiq, so that when I draw it up, it’s for the first time.  This seems to work best for me. 

I work on a Mac, and the program I use is called Sketchbook Pro.  For other jobs that require finished art I remain Old School: blue pencil on 2-ply plate finish Bristol, Winsor & Newton #1 brush, Higgins Black Magic and white out.

16. What’s the best part about being a cartoonist?

Making a living doing the thing I love best.  I consider myself very lucky.

17. Have you met any of your cartoonist idols?  Under what circumstances?

I met Sergio Aragones at a cartoonist’s meeting in L.A.  He was a big hero of mine growing up.  And during my college years I was lucky enough to have met Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett on different occasions.  Also Walter Lantz.  And, of course, I know Jim, but that’s about it.  I don’t get around much, do I?

18. What advice would you give aspiring cartoonists?

Something I read once:  “Great writing can save bad drawing, but great drawing can never save bad writing.”  I can’t remember who said that, but boy, is it ever true.  Also, never try to hand-letter the word “flick” in capitals.

19. How important are awards?

I don’t have any, so I wouldn’t know.  Jim has quite a few of them.  They look like they’d be tough to dust.

20. What’s something that nobody knows about you?

I’m Spider-Man.

20 Questions with Leigh Rubin

I first saw Leigh Rubin's comic strip, RUBES, in the Antelope Valley Press in the early 90s. Always fresh, funny and inventive, RUBES showcases Leigh's wonderfully original sense of humor.

Check out all things RUBES at Leigh's website. You can get RUBES cards, RUBES books, RUBES calendars, and inquire about speaking engagements. For a generous donation, Leigh will even come to your house and clean out your fridge.

1. When you were a kid, did you want to be a cartoonist? Did you draw?

All the time. I think I was born with a pencil in my hand. That may explain why my mom had such a difficult labor.


2. What was your first paying cartoon job?

I sold a greeting card (of my own design) off the counter of my father’s print shop. I made fifty cents. That was big money back in 1979.

3. Describe the process you went through to get RUBES syndicated.

It was a very long and tortuous ordeal. You’ll have to wait for the RUBES biopic starring Johnny Depp. Of course, you may be waiting for awhile so if you just buy me a beer, I’d be happy to tell you.

4. Vultures show up quite often in RUBES. Any particular reason why?

Because, unlike my kids, they actually clean up messes.

5. What’s your favorite rejected strip or gag?

I haven’t had any. That’s because I reject them before anyone else can and into the trash can they go.

6. Where do you stand in the print comics vs. web comics debate?

I take a neutral position. Whoever eventually wins the debate, that’s whose side I’m on?

7. Newspaper comics are considered pretty tame compared to TV and other media. Do you find this limiting or do you welcome the challenge?

I enjoy the challenge of pushing the limit within the limits. So much of pop culture these days is “in your face,” and it leaves nothing to the imagination. Having some limits is a good thing because it tends to stretch your own imagination to be more clever.

8. Name five of your favorite comic strips or cartoonists.

I tend to read only what’s in my local paper but the ones I read consistently are ZITS, GET FUZZY, LUANNE, PEARLS BEFORE SWINE and DILBERT.

9. Who would win in a mud wrestling match, Gary Larson or Dan Piraro?

I would appreciate it if you would please try to keep your twisted fantasies out of my interview.

10. How do you develop ideas? Which comes first, words or pictures?

This is like the chicken and egg question isn’t it? Well, let’s see...I’ll have my chicken fried and my eggs over easy. The truth is that there is no magic formula. I just take whatever comes first and that’s that.

11. Do you ever worry about running out of ideas?

Only when I die...and at that point, who cares?

12. Who do you want to portray you in the inevitable biopic?

I don’t have a preference as long as I get 20 mil up front and 20% of the gross.

13. What kind of editor do you prefer, hands-on or laissez-faire?

I prefer the kind of editor that puts my cartoon in his or her paper.

14. What are your favorite books, TV shows, songs and films? (Yes, that counts as one question.)

Since it’s a combo question I’ll give you a combo answer. On the weekends I watch/listen to a lot of CSPAN 2. (Book TV) It’s terrific as I can listen while I work since it’s mostly authors reading from their books and answering questions from the audience. I’m exposed to multiple viewpoints on politics and history and I can actually learn something at the same time. A couple of my recent favorite authors are Christopher Buckley and Christopher Moore though I just finished an interesting bit of fiction (Beat the Reaper) about a hit man turned M.D. by Josh Bazell. Interesting stuff.

I am partial to the TV shows Bones and NCIS. It’s fun to see David McCallum after all these years. My brother and I were big fans of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in the 60s.

As far as films go I am not a big action pic kind of guy. I like movies that are unpredictable without a lot of blood.

Oh, music. Mostly classic rock, which apparently my 14-year-old and friends also very much enjoy. The other day my son had on a Grateful Dead shirt and his friends had on Journey and Van Halen shirts. I asked them what new bands they liked and they said, “New bands suck”...Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

15. What are your tools of the trade?

Paper, pencils, pens, ink, lots of caffeine and the desire to avoid real work at any cost.

16. What’s the best part about being a cartoonist?

Being asked to do thought-provoking interviews.

17. Have you met any of your cartoonist idols? Under what circumstances?

Thou shalt not have any other idols before me.

18. What advice would you give aspiring cartoonists?

Stay in school. Study hard. Become doctors and lawyers. I don’t need any more competition.

19. How important are awards?
Statues make good doorstops. Cash is better.

20. What’s something that nobody knows about you?

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20 Questions with Danny Hellman

Danny Hellman (better know in some circles as “Dirty Danny”) is a helluva illustrator (pun intended). I love his slick line, use of color and the humor he brings to his work.

Danny is also behind the fine comics anthology TYPHON. And I just found out he’s a fellow MAD MEN fan, so I like him even more now.

Keep up with the latest (and greatest) from Danny at his blog.



1. When you were a kid, did you want to be an artist? Did you draw?

Most kids enjoy drawing. The real question is: Why do most kids stop drawing? Up until about Age 10, I drew with the same amount of interest as my playmates. After Age 10, it seemed as if the other kids were losing interest in drawing, while I was spending all my spare time filling one hardbound sketchbook after another with drawings and cartoon stories. I'm sure it had a lot to do with my Mom's encouragement. By Age 12, I knew that I wanted to draw for a living, although I had no idea what that meant.

2. What was your first paying cartoon or art job?

In the Summer of 1988, I collected a pile of music posters I'd drawn for the band Floor Kiss, and showed them to SCREW's Art Director Kevin Hein. I had no idea what to expect, but Kevin couldn't have been more approachable and easy-going, (as a multitude of NYC cartoonists will attest). We quickly established a close working relationship that lasted until SCREW's demise in 2006.

At SCREW, I learned how to meet deadlines, how to cut zip-a-tone, and how to do color separations. From there, I went to the Village Voice, the New York Press, Guitar World, Entertainment Weekly, and nearly every other publication you can name.

3. What's SCREW magazine's Al Goldstein really like?

The number of times I actually crossed paths with Goldstein can be counted on one hand. For most of it's existence, SCREW occupied two floors of a cruddy building on 14th Street, just West of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Goldstein's office, the paper's business office, and the Midnight Blue studio were on a lower floor, while the art, editorial, and production departments were on a higher floor. Apart from the weekly editorial meeting, Goldstein rarely visited the upper floor, and the only time I visited the lower floor was when there was a hang-up about a check, which was pretty rare.

For a few months in the mid-90s, I had a weekly gig watching the press runs for SCREW. The paper had switched printers, and someone was needed to monitor the press runs to make sure the new printers didn't fuck things up too terribly. I was an awful choice for this job, because the press runs happened in the early morning, just a couple of hours after I typically went to sleep. The gig didn't last long, but somewhere in the midst of it, I was introduced to Goldstein for the first time. It was at a SCREW Christmas party at Pete's Tavern in Manhattan, when Managing Editor Manny Neuhaus presented me to the boss as "Danny, the guy who's watching the press for us," to which Goldstein replied, "so, he's semi-useful." And that's really the extent of my interaction with Goldstein.

There was another time I saw Goldstein. This was towards the end of SCREW, around 2005 or so. The paper had moved into much smaller digs, and Goldstein, who had recently lost his Sutton Place townhouse, was now co-habitating with his incredible shrinking SCREW staff. The paper was losing money, and Goldstein was fighting the employee harassment case that would eventually seal his doom. I stopped by the office one day to visit Kevin, and witnessed the sight of Goldstein, clad only in red shorts, stomping around in a large room strewn with cardboard boxes packed with his belongings, hollering, "I want to go home" like a three-year-old in mid-tantrum. The lesson I came away with? Live within your means, because the Golden Goose comes stamped with an expiration date.

4. Tell us a little about TYPHON.

TYPHON Vol. 1 is a full color, 192 page comics anthology featuring work by 42 of my favorite cartoonists from across the US, Canada, Japan, Europe & South America. The book's contents are eclectic; there's scary stuff, sexy stuff, funny stuff and artsy stuff. I think most alt comics readers will enjoy TYPHON, and I invite everyone to come check out a PDF preview here:

5. How important is it for an illustrator to have a website?

It's vital to have a website. When I started as an illustrator in the late 80s, we all had these unwieldy leather-bound portfolios, which we'd drop off endlessly magazines' reception desks all over Manhattan. Now, everything travels digitally, and an illustrator's website serves the same function that the portfolio once did. It's a place for art directors to see your work, and see where you've been published.

6. Name five of your favorite cartoonists.

Narrowing it down to five is tricky. My answers might be different if you asked me tomorrow, but for today, I'll say my top five are: Wally Wood, Jim Steranko, Will Eisner, Robert Crumb & Moebius.

7. How did you get the nickname "Dirty Danny"?

In the mid-90s, I drew illos for a wide variety of porn mags, from HUSTLER to LATIN INCHES. At that time, Sam Henderson decided to create a cartoon character based on me, which he named "Dirty Danny." Initially I wasn't overjoyed to see this character, but as the years have gone by, I've had no recourse but to embrace Dirty Danny. In the fullness of time, God will punish Sam Henderson in Hell for what he has done to me, and I will laugh, because God's Justice Is Always Funny.

8. Are you at liberty to discuss the story behind LEGAL ACTION COMICS?

Certainly. Legal Action Comics Volumes One & Two are B&W comics anthologies I published in 2000 and 2004 to help raise awareness about Rall v. Hellman, a nuisance lawsuit I struggled to fend off from 1999 to 2004, (or so).

Rall v. Hellman started in August of 1999, when the Village Voice published a feature story attacking MAUS author & RAW editor Art Spiegelman. The article was written by a political cartoonist named Ted Rall. In my opinion, Rall compensates for his meager cartooning skills with ceaseless efforts to stir up controversy, and I believe the Spiegelman attack piece was just one of those efforts. In his article, Rall jabbed at Spiegelman from every conceivable direction, but he primarily sought to paint Spiegelman, (one of the most respected figures in the field) as a petty tyrant who doled out plum assignments to his cronies, while blocking access to all other cartoonists who'd neglected to kiss the master's ring. To many cartoonists, myself included, the story rang false.

A few days after the Voice published the story, Rall and I exchanged a few snide emails, at which point I made the mistake of playing an email prank on him. I sent an email mimicking Rall's boastful writing style to approximately 35 cartoonist types, most of whom had seen, (or even engaged in) similar email pranks over the preceding months. I also sent the email, (titled "Ted Rall's Balls") to Rall, who apparently failed to see the humor in it. Within days, I was named the defendant in a $1.5 million dollar libel lawsuit, filed by Rall's attorney in NY State Supreme Court.

At first, I thought the lawsuit was some kind of prank itself, but it soon became clear that it was no joke. The lawsuit gave me a choice: hand Rall $10,000 to go away, or fight him in court. I chose to fight.

From 1999 to 2001, my defense personally cost me over ten thousand dollars, (plus thousands more raised at a benefit concert organized by NY Press editor John Strausbaugh, featuring the band Soul Coughing). When I ran out of money in the Summer of 2001, my first set of lawyers cut me loose. After a few months of floundering as a pro se defendant, a kindly lawyer named Erik Jacobs took pity on me and took up the case pro bono.

After many years of legal twists and turns, depositions, motions for summary judgment and appeals, the case finally halted in the mid-2000s when Rall's lawyer tragically died of brain cancer. Rall v. Hellman has never been officially dismissed, but I strongly doubt that Rall has the will or the cash to retain a new lawyer and resume a case that many saw to be a flimsy one.

9. What's the future of comics? Is it all going to go digital?

A lot of folks, (many of whom work in electronic media) seem to be excited about the so-called "death of print." I certainly won't argue that most of what gets printed amounts to an huge waste of trees. Having said that, I will now emphatically state that I love books. I love reading them, and I love making them. They are an important part of human culture. I have books on my shelf that are over a century old. Meanwhile, I have optical discs that have become unusable after just a few years of careful storage.

I have yet to see a Kindle, so I can't say whether or not the experience of reading text is diminished in any way by the digital format. Truth be told, I haven't physically read a book since my daughter was born in 2006. I get my news from NPR, and I do all of my long-form "reading" via audio books. I suspect that when the technology is perfected, reading digitally will be just as enjoyable as reading a book. However, I sneer at the idea of reading comics or looking at art on hand-held gizmos like the iPhone, (but maybe that's the sneer of an arthritic brontosaurus).

My gut tells me that as far as comics are concerned, most of the crap will quickly go digital, (superhero crap, amateur minicomics crap, and the crap that's already web-based). Meanwhile, the good stuff will remain in print, available to a small audience who are willing to pay for a quality format.

10. Do you have a favorite piece that you've drawn? A least favorite?

I've drawn a bunch of SCREW covers that I feel are holding up nicely as they age. I'm pretty happy with a 2 page spread drawing I did of our daughter Alice that's running in Glenn Head's upcoming anthology HOTWIRE #3. I'm also proud of a couple of illos I drew of Leslie Nielsen that will appear later this year in ROYAL FLUSH #6. I'm still satisfied with the drawings I did for DC's BIZARRO WORLD anthology in 2004.

On the flipside, I've done tons of drawings that make me cringe. Sometimes, short deadlines make it impossible to do good work, and at other times I'm just not feeling it.

11. Do you keep a sketchbook? If so, how often to you draw in it?

I have heaps of old sketchbooks that I filled in my twenties. Before I started drawing for a living, I thought of sketchbooks as precious accomplishments in themselves, but now I see sketches as utterly disposable steps in the process towards a finished drawing. These days, I do my rough sketches on loose sheets of paper, rather than in books. I used to toss them, but a couple of years ago, my friend Pshaw conned me into thinking that I might be able to sell them some day, so presently I'm letting them pile up in a big, flammable stack. Anyone who wants a rough sketch of co-op board members sitting around a conference table discussing building repairs can email their best offer to: hellman@dannyhellman.com.

12. Who would win in a cage match, Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali?

I think Picasso would pound Dali's ass in a fight. I'm not an expert on either Picasso or Dali, but Picasso strikes me as a tough guy when compared to Dali, who's just a simpering sissy with the world's stupidest moustache. I'm not a fight fan, but I'd gladly sit on a museum bench and stare at a painting by either of those guys.

13. What kind of art director or editor do you prefer, hands-on or laissez-faire?

I love an art director who says "great, it's perfect!" to every sketch I submit, but I also like an art director who comes to me with a fully-realized concept, thus allowing me to put my brain on auto-pilot and deliver exactly what they're looking for.

It's also great when I get an art director who sees my sketch and makes suggestions that actually improve the thing. Those are the really good ones, and they are rare indeed.

What I don't like is an art director who thinks they know what they want, only to change their mind once I sketch out their dumb, unworkable concept. Inevitably, these types put me through endless revisions until we arrive at something so lame that all concerned parties want to kill themselves.

14. What are your favorite books, TV shows, songs and films? (Yes, that counts as one question.)

I'm drooling in expectation of reading Blood's A Rover, the final chapter in James Ellroy's American Underworld trilogy. I'm listening to the audiobook of Rick Perlstein's Nixonland right now, and enjoying the Hell out of it. These days, I try to stick to nonfiction, history, & political stuff. I read a lot of science fiction in my teens and twenties; authors like Phillip K Dick, Cordwainer Smith, Larry Niven, and Roger Zelazny, and I still remember that stuff fondly.

Our daughter doesn't allow my wife and I to watch much grownup TV, but we did catch ABC's Earth 2100 a couple of weeks ago, and found it riveting. The show features great cartoon art wrapped around information that no one should miss. Most of my favorite TV shows are old ones, like the original Star Trek, The Prisoner, Columbo, The Avengers, stuff like that. I thoroughly enjoyed The Sopranos and Rome on HBO.

With a few exceptions, I've largely lost the thread of contemporary pop music. I'm still listening to all the New Wave and Classic Rock crap that I grew up with, and I've always been a fan of classical music. Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev, you can't go wrong with that.

I do watch a lot of movies, and it's as hard to list favorite movies as it is favorite cartoonists. Here's a few off the top of my head: Barry Lyndon, Zardoz, Strangers on a Train, Bedazzled (the original), The Bride of Frankenstein, The Asphalt Jungle, All About Eve, Blade Runner, Die Untergang, I could go on and on.

15. What are your tools of the trade?

I draw with non-repro blue pencil and Koh-I-Noor rapidographs on Denril vellum.

16. What's the best part about being a cartoonist?

The best things about being a cartoonist would be the generous financial compensation for all that effort, and the teeming multitude of sophisticated, appreciative readers who support my work. But seriously, the best part of being a cartoonist for me is having the freedom to draw whatever I want to draw.

17. Have you met any of your idols? Under what circumstances?

When I was doing the Legal Action books, I reached out to a lot of folks for contributions, and as a result, I got to meet a bunch of my underground idols. I spent an afternoon with Spain Rodriguez out in San Francisco, a guy whose work I've always loved, and who turned out to be just the sweetest guy with the best stories. I also spent an afternoon with Art Spiegelman, who also turned out to be a wonderful guy who helped me out in a huge way. I hadn't really seen much of his work besides MAUS at that point, but I've since made the effort to take a wider look at his work, and he's done some truly amazing stuff, (I just saw some ultra-cool Spiegelman sketchbooks on sale at the Strand, and I need to go back and buy those).

I briefly met Robert Williams, and he also struck me as a swell guy. Skip Williamson came and stayed with us for a couple of days at our old place in the West Village a few years back, and he was another incredibly sweet guy with the most amazing stories about working in Adult Publishing when it was fun.

18. What advice would you give aspiring cartoonists?

I have three pieces of advice. First of all, learn to draw. Draw from nude models. Draw from photographs. Draw what's around you. I know there's a vogue right now for young hipster cartoonists who can't draw for shit. Personally, I'd rather be an dedicated craftsman with solid, respectable skills.

Advice for the short term: these are terrible times to be a commercial artist. Print media is writhing in what might be its death agony, and while there are a few exceptions, the internet doesn't use illustration. Don't enter the illustration field with the expectation that you'll make a living. The situation may improve when the economy gets back on its feet, but right now, things are brutal.

Advice for the long term: think very carefully about what you want to do. Do you want to create highly personal work, or do you want to be a commercial artist whose work gets widely seen? To put it another way, do you want to draw exactly what you want to draw after you clock out from your miserable day job, or do you want to suck at Corporate America's teat, and struggle to find some small satisfaction while grinding out some of the most insipid assignments imaginable? It can be tough to strike a balance between being an artist and making a living. I've had a lot of fun as an illustrator, but commercial art is, by its nature, disposable. I've watched my contemporaries crank out heaps of comic pages while I've only managed to eke out a few strips in-between illo gigs. While I enjoy illustration, I'd love to do more comics, but I don't know if I'll ever get the time. Think very carefully about what you want to do.

19. How important are awards?

I've never received an award, and as a result, I don't think awards are important.

20. What's something that nobody knows about you?

Tough question. While I'd like to confess that I'm a cross-dressing auto-erotic asphyxiator, I'm just not that interesting. How's this: only an ultra-exclusive, elite inner circle know that I'm not a bad cook.

20 Questions with Justin Thompson

Justin Thompson is the mirthful mastermind behind the beautifully drawn and very funny strip, MYTHTICKLE, which runs on the GoComics website.

In addition to the strip, Justin works at the Charles Schulz studio, hosts the Comics Coast to Coast podcasts, and is a former actor and stuntman.

This is a guy I want to party with! (I’m serious, Justin. I’ll bring the snacks and beverages and meet you halfway between Indiana and California – how about Colorado?)

The first collection of MYTHTICKLE strips will be published in January. Check out Justin’s always informative and entertaining blog for more info.



1. When you were a kid, did you want to be a cartoonist? Did you draw?

Sure, I drew all of the time. Chalkboards, paper, walls, myself -- it was an innocent obsession. I really loved reading the comics in the newspaper as a kid. I remember cutting them out and collecting them -- taping the ones I really loved into notebooks. My favorites were PEANUTS, B.C., and FAMILY CIRCUS.

I get the artistic drive from my mom’s influence; she was an artist too and always really encouraged me to keep going with it and to always do better.

She wanted to be a commercial artist when she was first looking for a career and took the Art Instruction School correspondence courses back when Charles Schulz was involved with them. I found those old books of hers just last year and looked at the staff photos of AIS and there he was, Charles M. Schulz. She gave me those books long ago and now here I am, working at the Charles Schulz studio, going to work every day to the same building where he drew PEANUTS. That’s a nice cosmic circle.

2. What was your first paying cartoon job?

In high school. The hometown paper, The Phoenix Gazette, had a young people’s page in the Sunday supplements back then. I’m pretty sure that they threw me a few bucks for it, I don’t know, money never was a top priority for me as a kid.

I had a comic strip running in there, this was back in the late ’70s, it was called HOOPS. It was about a high school basketball team. When baseball season came around I changed it to DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, and it became about a high school baseball team. In my last semester of high school, The Arizona Republic, the sister paper there in town, hired me on as a freelance illustrator for special- interest stories. I did three or four; those were the first jobs I remember getting paid for.

3. How did you develop MYTHTICKLE? How has the strip changed over the years?

I distinctly remember getting the idea for the strip about five-and-a half years ago. I was driving along a stretch of I-80 out here in San Francisco’s notorious East Bay, a town called El Sobrante. I think about it every time I pass that stretch of road. I like to think of that idea as some little patch of fog hovering over the highway that I drove through and it just stuck in my head. All of a sudden I just up and decided that I wanted to create a comic strip with this dragon character that I had been doodling for a while.

Y’know it’s weird, I recently looked back into my old notebooks from Grad school, which contained far more sketches than notes, and saw that Dragon, my main character in MYTHTICKLE, sketched all over the place. These notebooks came from the late ’80s, almost twenty years before I got that idea for MYTHTICKLE. I hadn’t realized that my character Boody went that far back, I was surprised. But anyway, the name for the strip hit me at about the same time as the decision to do the strip, and as soon as I got home, I started trying to come up with a few more characters. The knight, Sir Dudley, was the second one I created. I figured start with two main characters, and see where that goes.

Let’s see, how has it changed over those past 5 years? I guess the biggest thing other than the transition to a brush pen would be that the characters have taken on stronger personalities. When it started the knight character was a nice guy; so was the dragon. I soon discovered that doesn’t exactly breed comic behavior. So I made the knight crass, cranky, and argumentative and dumbed the dragon down more, and made them classic opposites. That has made it all a lot more fun. I originally wanted to have them in a school with gods and deities from mythology but I had trouble with the school strips at first so I put that off a bit until I had the characters identities pinned down more.

Thor joined the group soon, then while eating with my family at our favorite Chinese Restaurant near Berkeley one afternoon, I remember thinking that the strip needed a Buddhist influence. So I created a little girl named Karma. She actually IS karma. A few more characters came about as the years went on and still do. I now feel much more comfortable with putting the characters in the classroom, since I know them so much better. I love having a character-driven strip.

4. How did being a stuntman prepare you for a career as a cartoonist?

Well it doesn’t really; the two careers couldn’t be farther apart. Tremendous focus would be something that they both might have in common. That’s something you have to have whether you’re doing motorcycle stunts dressed as Batman in the middle of summer, or trying to create an interesting and consistently readable comic strip from day to day. Start getting distracted or lazy and your productivity suffers. Only in stunt work, the suffering becomes more immediately tangible.

Actually, being a stuntman could have been detrimental to my being a cartoonist. I almost lost my drawing finger in a broadsword fight one day during a live show when I was playing Robin Hood. The Sheriff of Nottingham sliced a little low (or I parried a little high), and hit my hand under the hilt with the edge of his blade, and his sword cut all the way down to the bone. I had to rush to the hospital to get 4 stitches real fast so I could get back to the show before I had to joust. If that strike had hit me just a little bit harder, the comic strip and this interview never would have happened. So yeah, they’re different worlds, but I’ve always enjoyed hopping from planet to planet in my life, trying to find one that suited me best.

I miss acting and stunt work a lot. Cartooning is really fun though, and probably my best destiny. I love creating my MYTHTICKLE world.

5. What’s your all-time favorite strip or gag?

I love that FAR SIDE gag with the frog that latched his tongue to the bottom of a jet plane as it was taking off. Along with being maybe the funniest gag ever, it surely sends chills down the spine of anyone with a fear of success. He captured so much with such simple lines. Gary Larson is a miracle.

As for favorite strips, PEANUTS was my first love. I used to carry those old paperback reprint books from the ’60s everywhere I went as a kid. I adore so many things that Vaughn Bode did. CHEECH WIZARD and SUNPOT were huge for me. When I saw his work in National Lampoon back in the early ’70s, that was when I first knew that I had to become a cartoonist someday -- had to create worlds like that. That was when it all changed from having a winsome dream, into to a fervent drive.

Bode expanded my mind and inspired me to really reach when I create. He has been my biggest comic influence and I’m sure always will be. No one can touch Bode on creativity.

6. Where do you stand in the print comics vs. web comics debate?

I stand very far away from that pool and don’t want to get splashed. I do not read about this debate, I do not join in on this debate and I don’t want to know anything about it. I don’t see how getting heated up over all that can be very productive for anyone and it usually winds up being very mean. Debating something like that means nothing at the end of the day and breeds a whole lot of useless negativity. It creates division in a group that is so small, and really should be working together.

Cartoonists must be the last breed of American tradesmen who never unionized and...well, that’s a lame tangent, so I’ll get back on track: When I read these angry debates I end up absorbing all of that bickering in a bad way and it is impossible for me to work from a place of negativity and frustration. Maybe some people thrive on it, I don’t know, and for their sake -- if that’s where they work best from, then good for them. Let them scream and debate and fight and be as horrible as they can to each other so long as it helps them create. I just can’t be a part of it. I stay away from web boards for the same reason. We cartoonists are in big trouble. The old trusted well of income for cartoonists is drying up. Newspapers as we know them are fading away, and if you want to get anything published yourself it’s so expensive that it’s hardly worth doing.

The web hardly pays anything. So is the best, most constructive way for us to interact with each other right now to create hostility? When has that ever worked? If there is a solution out there that will save the careers of the traditional cartoonist, we sure aren’t going to come up with it by angrily debating the virtues of pen vs. pixel. Like what you like and enjoy it. I just can’t hang with the “mine is better, yours sucks” stuff. I’m too thin-skinned. I take things very personally; I can’t help it. I don’t take hostility or negative criticism particularly well. So I step back from debates like that.

Hmm, I seem to have “gone-off.” Did I just get splashed?

7. The web allows more freedom, but would you be interested in doing a newspaper strip?

Absolutely! I really believe if I could get that lucky to be in print nationally, I’d get a strong following. MYTHTICKLE is a unique strip. Not so much in its execution all the time, but in its concept. A lot of people have really responded to its themes of mythology and legend, and that stuff generally has gathered a much wider audience in the last decade. It’s starting for me, I’ve been on GoComics for about two years and I’m really happy with the nice little collection of subscribers the strip has generated in my short time there. I’m hoping it continues to rise. As to web syndication, it’s good. I wish I could reach more people though. I love being exposed to more people than I did for the three-and-a-half years I was on Comics Sherpa, but average people just aren’t used to going to a website to read comic strips. They are used to going to papers to get their comics. That’s where I would rather be. Ideally, a Sunday-only strip would fit best since my panels are so large, the drawings are sometimes detailed, and I color each one. Shrunk down, my frames would look like mud and I’m not changing the strip to fit some soulless, arbitrary constraint that is put upon cartoonists now n so many papers. So yeah, Sundays would be the only way that could happen, but that’s perfectly fine.

8. Name five of your favorite cartoonists or comics.

I can’t just name five, but I’ll come close. Aside from Charles Schulz, who is a given and should be at the top of every single comic strip creator’s list, I’d have to say Vaughn Bode’s CHEECH WIZARD; Chris Sanders’ KISKALOO; BIZARRO is amazingly consistent and hilarious every single day; and I love Berke Breathed’s comic strips and children’s books. Alphonse Azpiri’s various works are dazzling. John Buscema was my favorite comic book artist; I would read anything he illustrated. His comic art seemed to move, like I was watching a film.

9. Who’d win in a cage match, Stephan Pastis or Mark Tatulli?

Aw, that’s cruel, both of them are my friends! Hmmmm, well Stephan is super-strong with a big height advantage but Tatulli is really scrappy and he bites. Also, Tatulli does two comic strips so his super-speed could be a factor over Pastis’ limited one-strip-at-a-time method. I’ve also noticed that since Mark’s strip has no words, his mind moves in sort of a silent hyper-drive. But where Tatulli has the warp-speed-head, Stephan’s mind is quite extraordinarily warped and thus both of their intellectual approaches to the fight would be negated. So I’d have to look at brute strength as being the determining factor in this match and therefore I would have to give the edge to Stephan, who would rise from the mat bloody and bitten, calling down to the pulped and pounded pantomime cartoonist, “Anything to say NOW?!”

10. How do you develop ideas? Which comes first, words or pictures?

Words, definitely. Charles Schulz always recommended just drawing and seeing what happens. He got a great many ideas just from doodling. I have tried doing this on occasion, but nothing ever happens. After 5 years of doing MYTHTICKLE, I’ve come up with maybe one or two strips this way. It’s frustrating and I’m too up-in-my-head, clearly. I wish I could work like that, but I just have to wait until ideas come to me then filter out all of the puns. Readers don’t like puns. They’ve let me know.

11. Do you ever worry about running out of ideas?

Every day. I have yet to come up with a method of writing, I’ve talked to many cartoonists and they all have writing routines but I’m completely haphazard. I keep a small Moleskin notebook with me all the time and when something finally comes to me I write it down. It gets very scary sometimes, just nothing there. Then occasionally I’ll get a nice little stream of three or four at once. I love the little charge I get out of writing, molding an idea into a script so that the joke makes sense. It’s a little shock of joy, and I really think I get more out of that than actually drawing and inking the strip.

12. What’s more important, raw talent or perseverance?

I wish I knew. All you can do is look at what’s out there and see what is successful and try to figure out why. I’ve seen plenty of web-only comics that are completely brilliant, and some syndicated stuff that is such crap it honestly depresses me. Perseverance is noble, and essential in any career, but if what you are repeatedly foisting upon editors just doesn’t turn them on, then you are not going to change their minds unless you change the material. But if you keep changing and modifying the material, what you wind up with isn’t really your own anymore anyway. You’ve created something purely for money and without soul. It might come down to just having a knack for what the syndicate editors are going to like, since they are the ones who green-light what gets syndicated, I don’t know. Is that the bigger talent than what you actually put down on the boards?

To qualify the question, I might ask; “Is perseverance more important, or the raw talent for being able to understand editors?” That’s more than talent; that’s a super-power.

13. Tell us about your day job at the Schulz studio.

There are only a handful of us working here, and what we do is work to preserve the integrity of Mr. Schulz’s art and vision when working with licensees that use PEANUTS on their products -- from books and treasuries, to shirts, figurines, and golf bags.

We make sure that the art looks right on the product and the characters are acting in accordance with their personalities. But at least one copy of every officially worldwide licensed item of any kind that has PEANUTS on it must first come through our studio offices for scrutiny and ultimately approval. We each have our groups of licensees that we deal with, and I handle Japan mostly. The biggest benefit of that, besides being able to see the awesome creativity and art that the Japanese licensers produce, is getting to go over there each year and meet with them. I also get to write and give a speech and presentation there and that’s just great. It’s the only chance I get to perform in front of an audience anymore. I completely love traveling in Japan. Getting to go there is a highlight of my life. I also get to do illustration work at the studio, I illustrated five PEANUTS children’s books last year which was a huge opportunity and honor.

14. What are your favorite books, TV shows, songs and films? (Yes, that counts as one question.)

Favorite books are The Prince of Tides, Lonesome Dove, Shogun, Zen In The Art of Archery, and the Lone Wolf and Cub series of graphic novels. Those are the ones I’ve read the most times. I’m also a huge fan of The Count of Monte Cristo, and I love reading biographies.

Movies: Hana: The Tale of a Reluctant Samurai (2006), Henry V (1989), Fandango, Cannery Row, Phörpa (The Cup), Seven Samurai, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and all of Kevin Smith’s stuff.

Songs come and go for me, but the one that always remains is “A Pirate Looks at Forty”by Jimmy Buffett. It rings so true. I love Buffett; I’ve been a “Parrothead” since 1983.

15. What are your tools of the trade?

I write my text and frames in Illustrator CS3, to get my spacing right. I then print those pages (two frames per regular copy paper page) and rough sketch the cartoons on that with a regular ballpoint pen. I go to my light table and take a couple more pieces of regular paper and trace those rough lines with a Japanese brush pen (I hate erasing). I scan that in, place the Illustrator-made text and frames into it, color it in Photoshop CS3, and that’s it. Instant mediocrity.

16. What’s the best part about being a cartoonist?

That’s a smart question because it’ll usually get a simple, one-item-answer. Now if you had asked, “What do you NOT like about being a cartoonist,” you’d probably get pages of stuff, lists of things, it would go very long and boring so I’m glad you asked what you asked because this whole thing is probably long and boring enough by now. The best part about doing this would be all of the great cartoonists I’ve been able to meet since I’ve been doing this. Because of my work at the Schulz studio and my “Comics Coast To Coast” podcast, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and talk with Berke Breathed, Dan Piraro, Patrick McDonnell, Carlos Castellanos, Mark Tatulli, Wiley Miller, and Chris Sanders, just to name a few. I think that has been the most rewarding thing. I love talking with these geniuses and listening to how their minds work. Plus, being at the Schulz studio, I work just down the hall from PEARLS BEFORE SWINE creator, Stephan Pastis! Being able to be sitting quietly at my desk and have someone of Stephan’s caliber just pop around the corner and punch me in the ribs may be the very best part of being a cartoonist.

17. Have you met any of your cartoonist idols? Under what circumstances?

Oops, I’m afraid I might have answered this question in #16, but I’ll elaborate. Some of them I have met through doing my “Comics Coast To Coast” podcast with cartoonist Brian Dunaway. I don’t think any of that would have happened if I had not been hired to work for Creative Associates at the Charles Schulz studio. Here at the studio, we have a few brilliant cartoonists I’ve been able to learn a lot from; Stephan Pasts, Paige Braddock of JANE’S WORLD and Alexis Fajardo of the KID BEOWULF graphic novels. Through Jeannie Schulz, I was able to get in contact with Mark Bode – the son of Vaughn Bode, my favorite cartoonist -- and have actually hung out with him in San Francisco. He’s a wonderful guy and very talented in his own right as an artist and creator. He took me down to his basement and opened up a whole treasure chest of his father’s work and imagination. I saw pencil sketches, 3-D models Vaughn had made, and I even touched Vaughn Bode’s drawing table! Among other projects Mark is carrying on his father’s work with COBALT 60 and just doing a tremendous job with it. I can’t wait to see him again. It’s meeting creators like Mark that make my job the greatest I could ever possibly have.

18. What advice would you give aspiring cartoonists?

Sign up with your comic strip on Comics Sherpa.com and make yourself a schedule, such as “I will publish my strip every day, or five times a week or three times a week” –whatever -- and really stick to it. Make it mandatory for you, a top priority, and commit to it. Once you’ve created that real structure for yourself and made it a discipline, you’ll be surprised after a year how your work attitude will have changed and how much better you’ve gotten. After two years you’ll REALLY surprise yourself. Do not focus on fame, do not think about getting paid, do not listen to haters, just focus on creating your world and the characters within that world and getting better. If you do Comics Sherpa right like that, you will learn how to do this the right way and it’ll work. But you have to commit and allow yourself to change.

19. How important are awards?

If I ever win one, I’ll let you know. I would think that winning an award would give you extra clout with newspaper editors who, say, might be looking to trim a few strips from their comic page. If you find yourself on the bubble between another strip, the editor might say, “well I’ll keep this one, they just won a Reuben Award.” And there ya go. You get to stay another month. Of course, being acknowledged by your peers is huge. That HAS to make you feel good I really hope that happens someday. Legitimacy is a wonderful thing.

I’ve won a few acting awards back when I was doing that, but those only come about because of the incredible amount of support you get from fellow actors and directors making you look good. It’s more of an ensemble. I have only won one award completely by myself. I took first place in a fencing tournament in college back at Arizona State. I have no idea where that award is right now, but I am very proud of it.

20. What’s something that nobody knows about you?

I have not advertised it much because I don’t have it in my hands yet. Until that time I’m not crowing about it, but by the time this interview sees print it just might be a reality so I’ll mention here: My very first book is being printed right now and should be available by early or mid January of 2010. It’s a collection of my strips from its first year plus a bonus story. It’s titled One: The First MythTickle Collection and I am thrilled about it and can’t wait to see it. As I mentioned before, legitimacy is a wonderful thing.

Other than that, I’ve been pretty open about everything else in my life through Facebook, my blog and my podcast. The people who go there regularly know I’m vegetarian, was adopted, and am a crazy Denver Broncos fan...there is something that I haven’t talked about in any cartooning circles so I might as well blab: I was in therapy for a time and still suffer from clinical depression and chronic fatigue syndrome. I’m doing pretty well with both now but sometimes still struggle.

The particular issue I dealt with in therapy is also dealt with in a story I wrote once called “Yochi, A Samurai Tale.” Coincidentally, I have illustrated this story and included it in this first book of mine that’s coming out, One: The First MythTickle Collection. So you can read that story and try to figure out my little bit of darkness. How’s that for a marketing strategy?