Don Orehek 1928-2022

I got the email late last night that Don had passed. He had been in hospice these past months, just a few miles away from his home and Suzy, his wife, who visited every day. The email was from Adrian Sinnott, chair of the Berndt Toast Gang.

"Very sad news indeed. I just heard from Suzy that Don passed away this morning. 

"Don was an incorrigible cartoonist. He was incredibly prolific with thousands of gag cartoons working their way from his pen to the pages of all the major magazines. He was also a lightning quick and amazingly talented caricaturist.

"Wherever Don was there were sure to be smiling faces and occasionally blushing ones. 

"His work spanned a special time in this industry that we will not see the likes of again. We were very lucky to have Don share that with the Berndt Toast Gang!"

Don was a vital part of the Gang for many years, until they moved to Washington state to be closer to their daughter. Adrian described Don as “incorrigible,” and I smiled.

 

When I first met him in person, back at a Berndt Toast luncheon, he said, "I'm Don Orehek." And a visual of his signature popped in my head.

 

 

(From a book collection of Cracked Magazine's "Shut Ups" feature from Suzy Orehek's blog about Don.) 

He was born August 9, 1928 in Brooklyn, to a Slovenian family. His dad was a musician with a local Slovenian band, as well as a bootlegger. When Don was as young as three years old, he was taking a bucket of hooch across the street to Orehek clients. He was sent to a Catholic elementary school, and hated it. He was not a good student, always doodling, not paying attention. He got a lot of whacks on the knuckles and couldn't wait to get out of there. He then attended the High School of Industrial Arts.

After graduation, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserves from 1945-49. He created an old crotchety navy veteran cartoon character named "Cyphers" for the base newspaper. Returning to New York, he took classes at the School of Visual Arts. By 1952, upon graduation, he was freelancing full-time. 

 

 

(Detail drawing of "Old Cyphers," his 1940s US Navy cartoon character, drawn in 2008. More here.)

 

From The Daily Cartoonist:

 

"He would contribute gag cartoons to a long list of magazines: The Saturday Evening Post, 100 Jokes Magazine, Look, Good Housekeeping, Playboy, McCall’s, Humorama, Christian Science Monitor, Modern Maturity, Family Circle, Cavalier, True Adventure, Broadway Laughs, Saturday Review, Reader’s Digest, and more."

 

From the National Cartoonists Society:

 

"In 1966 Don married Suzanne Whitney originally from Iowa and raised in Washington, DC. They have two children: Errol and Holly and three grandchildren: Emma, Owen and Haley.

"Don has received the National Cartoonists Society’s annual “Best Magazine Cartoonist” award four times. Twice he received awards at the Pavilion of Humor, Man and His World Exhibition, Montreal. His interest in caricatures was solidified in 1966 with a trip to Vietnam under the auspices of the National Cartoonists Society and the U.S. Department of Defense. Shortly after returning, Don and fellow cartoonists were invited to the White House to be personally thanked by President Lyndon Johnson for entertaining American and Vietnamese troops.

"Don’s career, the likes of which no longer exists, encompassed an amazing number of “markets.” His wife created a blog to determine how many different places where his work has appeared over the years. Hundreds! Check out his blog to see"

 

He lived in NYC in the 1950s and 60s. I remember he told me had a car in the city. A good looking car, but not reliable. Sure enough, one time the engine overheated and Don opened the hood. Steam is pouring out. This was in a not-so-nice part of The Village. Some dubious looking fellow walks over, asks what the problem is. The car needs water, Don says. Dubious guy smiles and says, "I'll be right back." He runs over to an apartment building and then a minute later comes running out, carrying a steaming bucket of dirty water. "What is this?" asks Don. The guy says, "I took outta this bum's bath. He don't mind." With that, water was poured in. Don turned the key and the engine came back on -- the dirty bum water worked. I have no idea what the poor bum's reaction was to the guy dipping into his hot bath water to help Don out -- but it's a favorite story. "Ahh, only in New York, kids. Only in New York," to quote Cindy Adams. And ... when I have car problems, I think that if only I had a bucket of hot Bum Water to pour into the radiator, the car would revive.

He began really plying his trade of gag cartooning at all of the major magazines in the late 1950s. He wrote some of the gags himself and also used gag writers. Gag writers are great and can help a gag cartoonist's productivity level for sure.

I know that one of Don Orehek's gag writers was a prison inmate and one time Don used the guy's inmate number on a prisoner gag cartoon -- and the inmate gag writer guy got very angry when he saw it in print. "No one can use my number! It's MY number!" he told Don.

 

And he never sent any more gags to Don.

 

 

We had more than a few dinners at their home in Long Island. After a couple of schnappes, he would get out his hat collection and we would all wear different hats and someone would take photos. I spent time with him in his studio. Don was a cartoonist for Playboy and Cracked magazines, as well as a variety of Scholastic joke books, gag cartoon magazines and other markets. We would sift thorugh his originals and stacks of books like Lawrence Larier's Best Cartoons of the Year books. His color art was vital and he showed me “the dots;” those watercolor sets you get in the dime store for a couple of bucks. He got such amazing effects out of those. 

 

He told me that, back in the day, if you did the Wednesday rounds -- where all of the cartoonists would go from magazine office to magazine office, showing the cartoon editor their batches, you could -- if you got to the offices early enough -- grab a free donut. After the rounds were done, most of the cartoonists would meet at the Pen and Pencil restaurant for lunch and drinks.

In the early years, Don also sold original paintings on the street in Greenwich Village. Years later, when he and Suzy moved from the Village to Long Island, and Don was going to the Long Island Berndt Toast Gang lunches, one of the BTG members came up to him and introduced himself. It was John Reiner who was, then, assisting Mort Drucker and then, later, would be drawing (and still is drawing) King Features' syndicated cartoon panel The Lockhorns. Don told me that John says to him that they met years before. And he told Don about the one time in the 60s when he bought one of his paintings off the street from him in Greenwich Village. Small world!

 

(This cartoon of Don's appeared in the November 20, 1971 issue of Saturday Review.)

I was a kid in the 60s and 70s and knew Don's work from the Mad Magazine rival Cracked Magazine, where he did a lot of work. His vital cartoons, full of life and mischievousness, were always great to pore over. Lots of things to see in an Orehek cartoon. If you were lucky, you might see a self-caricature of Don or a drawing of a cat. 

 

Don and his wife loved cats. For many years, he had a black cat and one time a very superstitious guest was at their house. "Oh, black cats are bad luck," the appalled guest said. "He's not all black," observed Don. "His asshole is pink." The guest was now even more appalled, but I laughed when Don told the story. 

 (Above: a St, Patrick's original that he sent in the mail as a surprise, signed "Donnie O'Rehek.) 

 

Don really was a drawing machine. I remember one time, we were talking on the phone. He mentioned a cat calendar. We were both under deadline for the same calendar that Sam Gross was then editing for Barnes & Noble. After maybe 15 minutes of telling stories, I said I had to go and draw some more cat cartoons -- and Don informed me (with a loud laugh) that he was drawing HIS cartoons the whole time while we were talking!

That's how ya get ahead in this business!

And that's how you win four (1972, 1982, 1984, 1985) NCS Gag Cartoon awards!
 

OK. Another story. There's another time we were talking on the phone and (as usual) we talked and talked about gag cartooning and what the markets were like, etc. Finally, I had to go and get back to the board and draw — so I told Don I had to go. Don said, “Oh. I’m drawing now.” I asked, what are you drawing? “Rears. Women’s rears.” What? “Women’s rears.”

 

 

(What I like about Don's work is how alive his cartoons are. There's a real joy of drawing there. I mean, look at the expressions on his people: the evil sneer of the guy, and the helpless look of the French cutie!)

Men's magazines were Don's bread and butter. By the 1960s, Don was a contract cartoonist with Playboy. When you’re a contract gag cartoonist, that means that the publication has first rights: they get to see your cartoons first and get the right of first refusal. Don was a longtime Playboy regular, with gag cartoons in most issues. I remember at one point, I had sent 200 cartoons in to Playboy, with no sales. Don advised me not to give up. He was always very supportive and generous. We were both part of a show of original art at The Illustration House, and he asked me to pick up his original when I was getting mine, which I did. When I called him to tell him I had it and I would bring it to the next Berndt Toast, he insisted I keep it.

(Above: Just look at those colors! And take in the details: the water, still choppy from her slicing through it, the husband's smoldering cigar, the other couple peeking into the hole, the woman's look of wide-eyed hope that this umpteenth stroke got the ball in. This was the original that was in a show at the Illustration House that he gifted to me.)

 

Don was fine at driving cars, but I remember one time we were driving from his place to Huntington. We had picked up illustrator Sandy Kossin and everyone was chatting as we drove east on Route 25 toward the Berndt Toast lunch. Don pulled out a stack of 20-30 gag cartoon originals. “Take a look,” he said, one hand on the steering wheel and the other handing me the stack. There was a theme: women’s wrestling. All of them were women’s wrestling gag cartoons, ink and wash on Bristol. Beautiful Orehek originals! And all of the women were topless. There was, he explained, some kind of fetish magazine that bought these back in the day and he just came across the originals. As he talked, the car slowed down a little. I was getting nervous. Every time he talked, the car slowed. And Long Islanders use Route 25 as a highway, basically. I was envisioning the cops pulling us over, and then seeing these crazy risque cartoons we were passing around. Thankfully, nothing happened.

In 2005, when I helped put together a big group of cartoonists to draw on the wall of The Overlook Lounge bar and restaurant, Don came prepared and drew a large, color cartoon of the wolf and the three pigs. Except the wolf is old, and toothless, and he's hanging with the Three Little Pigs, sitting at a table, playing cards.  The pigs are also old. And the wolf is saying, "Remember the time I blew your house down for the insurance?" A terrific gag cartoon, that originally appeared in Playboy. "You know who thought of that?" he asked me when he was drawing it. "It was Suzy. One morning, she came outta the shower and told me the cartoon. It just appeared to her in her head. It's a great gag." I waited until he was done and then drew my cartoon next to his. (Look for the tiny penguin with glasses in love with the bowling pin, whic is dinky and to the right of Don's grand tableau.) It is, so far as I know, still there on the wall for all posterity. 

Don is survived by his wife Suzanne, his two children and three grandchildren.