Cartoonist Sketch Collection

I have always loved cartooning, and I’ve been collecting cartoonist sketches since way back in 1972, when I first wrote to Peanuts creator, Charles M. Schulz. The collection has grown to include over 1000 artists, and it includes comic book creators, comic strip artists, editorial cartoonists, children’s book illustrators, animators, magazine cartoonists and graphic novelists. In the 1970’s, many early cartooning pioneers were still living, and I had the thrill of writing to cartoonists and receiving sketches by the creators of such iconic characters as Felix The Cat (Otto Messmer), Tintin (Herge), Dick Tracy (Chester Gould), and Batman (Bob Kane). I began the collection at a time when artists regularly answered mail and were usually happy to respond to fans. It’s much more challenging to acquire sketches nowadays, when most cartoonists are corresponding via e-mail, artists are sometimes doing their actual drawing on the computer, and the big business of selling autographs on Ebay has made many cartoonists wary of fan mail. Nevertheless, I continue to build the collection, artist by artist and sketch by sketch. While I still write to individuals regularly, I also track down cartoonists at book signings and comic conventions. I’ve called them up on the telephone and flattered, cajoled and begged them. I’ve knocked on the front door of famous illustrator Edward Gorey and had tea in his kitchen, surrounded by his nine cats. Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau once received an honorary degree at my college graduation. I managed to corner him on the stage and get a sketch on the back of the day’s program. In 1993, I saw New Yorker cartoonist and children’s book illustrator (Shrek, The Amazing Bone) William Steig walking on the streets of Boston. Over the years, I had failed to get a response from him, in spite of many letters and even a phone call where he grumpily hung up on me. Yet there he was, 86 years old and strolling down Newbury Street with his wife. I didn’t have a pen or a piece of paper, and I was terrified that I would lose him in the crowds of people. So I followed him (stalked him?) for 20 minutes, until fate intervened. Steig and his wife walked into a bookstore. Following them, I ran to a cashier to borrow a pen, and then dashed to the children’s book section, where I quickly grabbed one of his published books. Then I approached him. The nicest guy in the world, Mr. Steig chatted with me and then drew the elusive sketch inside the book. As the collection has grown, it has become a history of cartooning, covering the medium in all its manifestations over the past 150 years. I have organized exhibits on comic strips and political cartooning for schools, galleries and museums. For artists who have passed away before I could include them (or who died before I was even born), I’ve become one of those despised Ebay collectors and rounded out that cartooning history with some selected purchases. Still, most of the sketches in my collection were drawn specifically for me, and I especially cherish those. I still love cartooning, these many years later, and I’m currently writing/illustrating a 200-page graphic novel.