Saturday, June 06, 2009

New Blog: Don Orehek Cartoons


Don Orehek's cartoons followed me. When I was a kid, I read those Scholastic joke books, which had many Orehek drawings. I discovered CRACKED magazine when I was ten, and would see Don's "Shut Ups" or a gatefold comic like "A CRACKED Look At an Unemployment Office." And, a few years later, I would see Don's adult cartoon work in PLAYBOY, as well as in other magazines.
It was maybe ten years ago, when I was sitting down for lunch with some cartoonists, that the man put his hand out and said, "I'm Don Orehek."
As soon as he said it, I visualized his signature in my head and couldn't believe my good fortune. Of course, I told him, I know your work well. I remember reading him in CRACKED in the back seat of the family Chevy on a long car trip. I remember trading for one of his joke books in sixth grade.

I grew up with the guy! And now he's become a friend.

Thanks to his wonderful wife, Suzanne, he now has the Don Orehek Cartoons blog, where you can peek at his wonderful drawings. He's one of the best, you know. And, if you don't know -- just click over to Don's blog, where you can see many of his cartoons as well as some great photos!
As Suzanne Orehek writes:
"Don has never counted how many different publications have printed his cartoons. The number of cartoons he's sold in his career are in the thousands. Each cartoon in this blog will be from a different magazine, newspaper, etc. Let's see when/if we can get a total number of publications!"
Go look!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Suzy says: Thanks, Mike. You're Don's # 1 fan!

Mark Anderson said...

That's awesome! Welcome to the blogosphere, Don!

RICHIE CAPS said...

HI DON, AS A FRIEND & PATRON OF 40 YEARS IT IS NOW ALMOST TIME TO PUT YOU TO WORK ON A CARTOON DEPICTION FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER "EMMA". I WILL BE IN TOUCH SOON. I HOPE THIS COMMENT FINDS YOU & SUZY WELL-- RICHIE LOVE