Monday, September 22, 2008

Video: Cartoonists Circa 1982

From WAGA TV, here is a 26 year old video from their "PM Magazine" show, featuring the following:
  • The late Doug Marlette talks about "Kudzu," which had just launched the year before

  • Jim Unger, in the only video I've ever seen of him, talks about "Herman," and we see him draw (with a Sharpie)

  • Jim Davis talks about getting ideas for "Garfield," as an assistant works inking directly behind him. Observant viewers will note that there is Vince Guaraldi "Peanuts" music in the background of this piece.

  • Editorial cartoonist Sam "Scrawls" Rawls talks about picking on both parties

  • Cartoonist Cal Warlick, the multiple Emmy Award winning WAGA staff cartoonist at the time, and later, an illustrator and editorial cartoonist

  • And the video ends with 2 college age guys. Art Roche and David Theall, whose then-college newspaper strip "Comfortable Ignorance" was (they hoped) poised to be the next syndicated winner (following the same path as "Doonesbury" and "Bloom County")

Funny to think that the little baby with his Mom that opens this segment is now as old as the Mom. The video runs just under 7 minutes.

3 comments:

Jack Ruttan said...

That was a great featurette. I wish they'd do that sort of thing more often.

I was interested in the various strategies the artists used when they were asked to be photographed drawing.

I used to do political cartoons for my student paper. Graduated in 1980. Well, it's a great apprenticeship, and you get to see your stuff in print.

Mike Lynch said...

I used to be the high school newspaper cartoonist as well. I have a distinct memory of seeing the student newspaper in the stairway, crumpled up and tossed aside, with one of my cartoons printed on it, getting stepped on repeatedly as students tromped to class. That's when I decided that what I was doing was never going to be revered as art!

Jack Ruttan said...

On the other hand, I thought I was getting around.