Aaron Alexander: Do tools make the cartoonist? Probably not. Still they say something about your approach, and it always interesting to hear about. What are your cartooning utensils of choice? (Let’s say sketching and final work).
Mick Stevens: I use my trusty Uni-Ball pens and good quality bond for roughs, Arches 140 lb. acid-free watercolor paper for finishes, pencil and/or ink wash on my finishes for publication. When I do color I use Dr. Martin’s dyes. During my 10-week stint as the New Yorker Dailycartoonist (my last one was on June 20), I was working strictly for web publication, so I didn’t need physical finished art. I drew on bond and used pencil (Mirado Black Warrior HB2) for shading, then photoshopped the results and tweaked them for the finals.
I draw several roughs for my regular weekly batch, and when I’m satisfied (or my deadline encroaches), I use a light-table to trace off clean versions. These are still roughs. If the mag wants a finish, I get out the watercolor paper and use the light-table again to do the finish, add tone, and send it off FedEx to the New Yorker.
“For a long time, Etta was the only female editorial cartoonist,” said Ben Sargent, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist at the Austin American-Statesman.
“It was always a delight to see her at our conventions. She was like a den mother to all of us wild and crazy cartoonists. But she never made a big deal about being a female cartoonist. She was just a cartoonist. And her cartoons were so amazing.”
SEP: Where did the name Hazel come from?
PK: My dad maintained that the name Hazel came “out of the blue.” But, funny story, he later found out that Bob Fuoss, then the managing editor of the Post, was given the silent treatment by his sister for three years when the cartoon first started running. Her name was Hazel, and she thought Fuoss had selected the name to ridicule her.
SEP: Were his ideas used?
PK: Well, yes, but Rockwell didn’t like having cover ideas dictated to him. So, it was a bit of a dance. My father would sell cover concepts to Ken Stuart, the art editor at the time. Then Stuart would call Rockwell and ask him what he was working on. Rockwell would tend to say he had several projects going, but if he wasn’t specific, Stuart would run my dad’s ideas by him, and typically Rockwell would reject them all. Then a few weeks later Stuart would call Rockwell and again ask what he was working on. Rockwell would say, “Oh I have this great idea!” and it would be one of my dad’s concepts. In fairness, Rockwell always made these ideas his own.
“I started doing the strip with John Saunders about 23 years ago,” said Giella. “At that time Saunders was the writer on the strip, a former TV anchor man based in Chicago. When his father passed away he took over the writing of the strip. Prior to me starting the strip they gave me some references. I noticed that Mary had little round black eyes from the way the previous artist drew her. They looked like little raisins. I thought to myself that it just doesn’t look right. So I gave John Saunders a ring and asked him, ‘What’s the deal on the eyes? I was thinking of making her eyes blue.’ He said, ‘I’m glad you called me because my mother always had blue eyes.’ I said, ‘Your mother? What does she have to do with the strip?’ John said, ‘Well, that’s what the character was based on. My father’s wife.’
“I knew Joe before I started writing ‘Mary Worth’,” said Moy. “He always struck me as a real gentlemen and I was also a fan of the ‘Mary Worth’ strip in general. I loved both the art and the stories. When the previous writer of ‘Mary Worth’, John Saunders, became ill, I tried out for the job, and based on my scripts, was hired by the editor as a temporary ghostwriter. After John Saunders’ death, it was a natural progression for me to continue to write the strip. I eventually received my own byline.”
"I always scared myself off trying a comic strip because it seemed too difficult and incomprehensible. How could I build a water-tight character that'd walk off the page and respond in ways that'd surprise me? Then I'd see Walt Kelly do it with ease, and I'd want to punch him."
"All I want is what I... I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."
If you got to meet Charles Schulz, how was that?
Tremendous. Kind, dear, quiet man. He left a huge impression on me. We went up to his property when they were working on a book or something to take photos with him, and he had invited me to come to his office, if you will, and watch him draw for a few minutes. I got to stand next to the drawing table in his office. It’s a vague memory but in his museum they have his office set up like it was, and when I saw it, it was the same.
"You can break into the minor markets (sometimes) with a half-baked, underdone sort of cartoon - but amateurish, mediocre work never, never gets into the Big Time."
- John Huehnergarth, American Artist Magazine interview, 1950
"He decided to 'stand for office but not run for it,' he said at the time. 'It was a ‘You can vote for me as a protest against the war if you want to’ kind of thing.'' He recalled getting about 30 percent of the vote."
"In 1986, Barsotti told the Chicago Tribune about an incident a year earlier: Patrick Buchanan, then President Reagan’s newly named communications director, asked for an autographed original of a Barsotti New Yorker cartoon that featured Buchanan.
"Barsotti declined, even after Buchanan wrote a letter to him on White House stationery: 'It would be much appreciated and would hang in a place of honor either at my residence or in my office — for Sam Donaldson to see. If not, thanks for — as the President might put it — making my day.'
"But Barsotti was no fan of the conservative Buchanan and declined.
"'Politicians don’t trust you if you give them something for nothing,' Barsotti quipped. 'They respect a trade.'"
"'It got approved by the queen, they tell me,' Barsotti told The Star. 'I would have hated to not be approved by the queen.'"
"… both the traditional world of a Thurber and the contemporary sensibility of a Roz Chast. With his simple repertory—including a nameless but lovable pooch and a monarch whose kingdom consists of a guard and a telephone—Barsotti manages to miraculously dissipate the clouds in people's minds with his unexpected humor."
- from THE ESSENTIAL CHARLES BARSOTTI by Lee Lorenz