Marty Murphy passes away

I just now received an Email from Judy, a neice of Marty Murphy, that my long time friend and collegue, passed away approximately 24 hours ago . . no other details were given . . . Strange thing, I was tentatively planning on a west coast trip this year . . and visit MM.

I first met Marty back in 1991 . . while visiting my son who had just been released from the U.S. Army active duty.

I remember my friend, Bob Weber Sr., who was a very close friend of Marty from way back when the Webers lived for a short while in the valley . . had arranged a meeting with Marty and me at the Hilton, where I was staying . . in Encino, off Ventura Blvd.

Marty was kind enough to come over to the hotel, and we met in the restaurant. I remember him exchanging a lot of stories after lunch and a few drinks . . A still have this great cartoon he drew for me in the trusty sketch pad I always carry with me.

Marty was well known for his many cartoons dipicting a hollywood tycoon in his office of Monument Pictures or something . . . interviewing some gorgeous ditzy blonde or something . . I used to adore those guys he drew . . they looked EXACTLY like a hollywood producer was supposed to look like . . or like you imagined or pictured a cartoon of him . . I asked him to draw one of those stereotypes for me and I've got it right here . .

Reader's Digest Cartoon Book CORRECTION

CORRECTION : In an earlier blog I mispoke when I said that in the Reader's Digest Cartoon Book " LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE ", that I had the most cartoons in the book than any other cartoonist . . . WRONG . . . . I was going by my stupid memory . . and my friend and collegue, Dan Reynolds just reminded me to check the facts . . and the facts and the truth is BOTH Dan Reynolds and Roy Delgado had the most cartoons in the book . They BOTH had 16 cartoons in the book . " To err is human, to forgive is divine."
( What else can I say ! ? )

I am only interested in facts. And this is a fact. Opinions, especially in Art, like what is GOOD art and what is BAD art or what is GOOD cartooning and what is BAD cartooning can cause a fairly "GOOD" cartoonist to begin to "linger" around the grape, if you know what I mean.