Wednesday September 14th, 2011 - Kenosha, WI One of the first things I can remember doing that I enjoyed enough to want to do when I grew up was draw comic strips and cartoons. I loved it, and used to spend hours inventing my own characters and dreaming of seeing my work appear in a section of my hometown Milwaukee Journal called ’The Green Sheet’. That was where all the comic strips were. For whatever reason, they used a mint green dye to color the daily four page section and it’s one of the first things I remember reading as a kid. There were all kinds of great strips like ‘Mr. Tweedy’ by Ned Riddle, ‘Priscilla’s Pop’ by Al Vermeer and ‘Freddy’ by some guy who just called himself ‘Rupe’. I would read them and then try to draw them as well. I must have been only seven or eight when I came up with my own strip called ‘Buffalo Boris’. I thought Boris was a funny name, and he was a cowboy who lived inside the city limits. He rode his horse on the freeway to get to work every morning, and in the mind of an eight year old kid that was big time funny. I even sent it in to try and get it published. My grandpa encouraged me to send it to the Green Sheet, and I remember being thrilled to get an envelope back a few days later. I was crushed when I got rejected, but it was still a fantastic experience. I kept doing it and eventually had a booklet of cartoons with a few of my friends ’published’ by our class at school. Our teacher ran them off on the copier. She even let us charge five cents for it and I remember selling a few and splitting up the loot with the guys. My grandpa told me on his death bed how proud of me he was that I’d start all of that up on my own, and I forgot all about it until today when I attended the first Kenosha Festival of Cartooning at the Public Museum there. It brought it all back to me. My comedian friend Gary Pansch saw it advertised and asked if I wanted to join him for the presentation by Paul Gilligan who draws ‘Pooch Café‘ and John Hambrock who has a strip called ‘The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee’. They both spoke about how they began in the business and took questions at the end. It was very interesting, and I’m glad I went. Cartooning is exactly like comedy or singing or acting in that a lot of people think it’s a glamorous pursuit when in fact it’s extremely difficult and requires an abundance of extra hard work. I respect both of those guys for their work ethic, and their talent is world class. I can’t honestly say I would have had a chance to get one of my strip ideas published if I had stayed with it. It’s such a long shot, and I don’t think my drawing skills would be in a class of either one of these guys. They were both consummate pros, and I enjoyed hearing them talk about of a lot of the same difficulties I have to deal with in the comedy world. They also brought in some other artists including a guy named Tom Richmond who’s a contributor to Mad magazine. I loved Mad as a kid, and both artists tonight spoke of how much they loved it as kids as well. Tom didn’t present tonight, but will be doing it Friday at the same location. I just might have to come back and see him. This was a lot of fun.
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