Matt Groening in Boca Raton

While still at The NCS convention in Boca Raton in 2001 . . .

In one of the Seminar rooms Matt Groening was giving a talk on his Simpsons animated blockbuster show. Matt turned out to be a friendly informative guy who told a lot of interesting stories about the goings-on of the feature.

I told Matt that one of the most interesting character voices and my personal favorite was that Pakistani guy who works at the convenience store . . . I asked him if he was a real genuine Pakistani ( Since I'd had 4 of them working for me at one time, I thought I could tell ) But he said it was an Indian accent and the guy who does it is a young kid just out of High School. He does a fantastic job.

After his talk I passed my trusty sketch pad I always carry with me for situations just like this and begged for a " Bart Simpson " drawing. He said sure, and here it is.

Orlando Busino - 1979 drawing

On June 28, 1979 I trekked up to Westport CT from Washington, D.C. at the invite of Bob Weber ( Molly & Moose and Slylock Fox, both syndicated by King Features ) for a couple days to meet a few of the local cartoonists and have lunch. That trip I met Jerry Marcus and Orlando Busino and after lunch I asked Orlando if he'd do me a little drawing in my trusty sketch pad and half on the table and the rest of the drawing holding the pad on his knee outside he drew this neat and beautiful cartoon. I treasure it. In this series I'll show also the one by Jerry Marcus. Note the nice soft pencil wash-tone effect he put in after inking the drawing.

Sgt. Snorkel - Mort Walker

On January 4, 1981 Bob Weber and I attended a seminar by Gahan Wilson and others at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School ( Formerly The School of Visual Arts ) in New York.

I remember the title of the seminar was " How to be funny for money ".
Gahan Wilson emphasized some good points when selling your work and meeting in big important executive's offices . . the most common mistake was not dressing properly.
To get respect and having a positive influence from the get-go of your meeting.

Times have changed a little and people dress more casual now, but I personally agree with Gahan even today. ( Of course there are exceptions . . if you're a genius cartoonist or brilliant writer or computer genius-geek or have a 300 IQ it doesn't matter, . . you can wear cheap rubber flip-flop shower shoes and a raggity T-Shirt and nobody cares . . part of the Whatever Mentality. ). None of these include me, so I go with Gahan's advice.

After the seminar, Bob Weber, Joe Farris, Frank Baginski, Mort Walker and I went down the street and had a couple beers at some watering hole. By then it was about 10:00 PM at least . .
Mort Walker then graciously invited us all over to his house for a snack and a nightcap.
Of course we all said Great ! Mort showed us a lot neat stuff and while there I asked Mort if he'd draw me The Sarge in Beetle Bailey, he grabbed a pen and in a few seconds I had Sgt. Snorkel immortalized in my trusty sketch pad!
This sketch is shown above. Thank You, Mort.

Eli Stein - Cartoonist

Eli Stein drew this on my trusty sketch pad at the
World Trade Center, World Financial Center
in New York for the Wall Street Journal Traveling
Exhibit and Book Signing November 1, 1999.
I remember Eli Stein's stuff back from the 60's and
always admired his clean simple style,
and was influenced by his work. He's got a great web site:
elistein.com with hundreds if not thousands of his
great cartoons spanning 50 years on the site.
I'd gone up to the exhibit with another great cartoonist,
Marty Lowenstein from Westport.

Ernie and Bud Grace

ERNIE is one of my favorite cartoon strips around. It has like a cult following with an array of characters that remind you of people you've known but would rather forget. I think it is one of the funniest strips being drawn today. This one was done in my trusty sketch pad I happened to have with me while attending The King Features Christmas Party at the Waldorf-Astoria
in 1990. I spent the night there and took a train back to Washington, D.C. the next day.

I believe Bud Grace is a former atomic scientist turned cartoonist. A funny guy, especially after a couple of shots of Jack Daniels . . keeps everybody within earshot laughing wherever he goes.
Helluva nice gentleman. .and prolific writer and cartoonist.

Walt Wetterberg Original

This is an original I ran across while looking for something to post from some artwork I had gleaned from famous cartoonists over the years . . This one is from a regular running feature ( Ada the Ayrshire ) panel Walt was doing for a country magazine, the title which escapes me right now. ( Country Gentleman ?)
It was 1954 and I wrote to Walt who was a pretty well regular at the Saturday Evening Post at the time . . I begged him for an original, he sent me this beautiful piece executed on 2ply Strathmore and it looks like he used a Gillott 290 penpoint, which we were experimenting with at Billy Hon's Cartoon School at the time . . It was a very flexible pen point and Walt took it to it's limit.
You can see the faded watercolor blue he indicated for the Ben-Day process to be applied.

Marty Murphy

DISCLAIMER - - - THE TITLE: " TWO GRUMPY MEN " ARE NOT REALLY TWO GRUMPY MEN. They're actually TWO FUNNY GRUMPY MEN. Having just seen the movie, the title was on my mind.

On Monday, Sept. 10th, Bob Weber and I drove into Los Angeles and got together with long-time legendary Playboy Cartoonist Marty Murphy and we all sat on the porch for a couple hours and talked about the business . . I hadn't seen Marty since the late 80's . . I've always thought that Marty was one of the, if not the funniest of all the Playboy cartoonists . . . I've always liked his style. It was great to see Marty again.