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Who was the first cartoonist you ever met?
 Brian
Crane “I met Sparky Schulz just two years ago
when the National Cartoonists Society held its meeting
in New York. He was my first. My editor at my syndicate,
Suzanne Whelton, knew that I wanted to meet him, so she
introduced us. I didn’t know any cartoonists growing
up. I was never in those circles socially, so I guess
I admired them from afar.” |
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 Tom
K. Ryan “Al Capp. He came through Muncie, to
Ball State, for one of his college talks in the late ’60s—he
was a helluva talker. This is when all the students were
up in arms and protesting everything, and he had taken
the opposite point of view. So he was up in front of the
audience, rebutting everyone’s claims, getting a
lot of attention. I was newly syndicated then, so I went
backstage afterwards to meet him, and he was very friendly,
but he was an ornery little cuss. Shortly after that,
at another school, he made a play for a college girl and
the media jumped all over it. I think they set him up
on that one.” |
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 Will
Eisner: “I met Ham Fisher at his studio. My father
had a cousin who operated a boxing gym in New York, and
Ham Fisher would come in there to watch things sometimes,
since Joe Palooka was a boxing strip. My father told his
cousin that I wanted to become a cartoonist, so he arranged
for me to meet Ham Fisher. His studio was in this awesome
Tudor building, and when I knocked on the door, James
Montgomery Flagg answered! All I could think to ask him
was what kind of pen he used—I still cringe when
I remember that. He told me it was a Gilotte 290. And
then out comes Ham Fisher, ranting about an assistant
who stole his characters—referring, of course, to
Al Capp. Fisher told me he wasn’t using assistants
anymore after that, and he told me I should get a job
in a syndicate bullpen.” |
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Jan Eliot:  “Rhoda
Grossman, who kicked my chair during a seminar on drawing
for greeting cards that we were both attending. She’s
one of those people who can’t talk without moving
her whole body. She was loud and annoying, and I knew
I would like her, and I was right. She had just finished
an eight-year stint as a caricaturist at the Playboy Club
in Lake Geneva, Wis., and she was in the Bay Area trying
to get work as an artist. The same weekend I met Nicole
Hollander, but Rhoda was the first.” |
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 Rick
Detorie: “When I was working on the Chipmunks’
record albums during their revival in the 1980s, I met
Chuck Jones. He was called in to do work on the Chipmunks
Christmas special. I had been working off model sheets
of the characters that had been done in the 1960s, and
he was doing new ones to give the characters more of the
three-dimensional look. So I went to Chuck Jones’
house to look at the model sheets he was doing.”
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 Arnold
Roth: “Bil Keane. He was a teenager doing work
for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He worked in an
art department that did features to appeal to young kids—how
to cartoon, things like that. I was 9 years old, and I
wanted to meet a real cartoonist. I was familiar with
his work from the paper, and he was very approachable.
We’ve both put on a few miles since then.” |
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 Karl
Hubenthal: “Willard Mullin. I was on the track team
at Hollywood High School, and we were city champions. Willard
was working at the Los Angeles Herald Express, and he came out
to see us one day, because at that time he was doing cartoons
focusing on high-school sports. My coach knew of my interest
in cartooning and called me over and introduced me to Willard
Mullin! Willard invited me down to the paper, and we became
friends. I would show him the stuff I was working on, and he
would say, ‘Kid, you look like me on a good day.’
He went to the New York World Telegram the same year I got a
job at the Herald Express. I eventually worked my way into the
art department, and I inherited his desk. He was a great friend
of mine. He was my guru.”
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