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Sarah Sanders

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders got caught up in the Mueller Report last week where she admitted, under oath, to lying to the press. She called the lie a “slip of the tongue” even tough she had repeated the lie a number of times, that “countless” members of the FBI contacting her to say they had lost confidence in FBI Director James Comey who the President fired. Here’s my cartoon.

This is actually the first time I’ve drawn Sarah Sanders. She is great fun to draw, and since she’s on television all the time it would seem that I would draw her often. Maybe I will draw her more –we’ll see if she lasts.

Sanders’ uneven, “smokey” eyes and shapeless form are fun, but her asymmetric mouth isn’t really that big, certainly not big enough for a tongue so huge that she can slip on it. I took a look at how other cartoonists have drawn Sanders.

This one is by Sandy Huffaker. Sandy used to be a regular in the CagleCartoons syndicate and he has retired, but he draws a new one once in a while. I grew up watching Sandy’s work in Time Magazine when I was in school. He should come out of retirement!

 

This one is by my buddy, Taylor Jones. It’s all about the eyes.

 

This one by Pat Bagley catches her very simply.

 

This one is by Steve Sack, who catches her without one big eye.

 

Here’s one by Adam Zyglis of the Buffalo News.

 

Here’s one more, from New Yorker cartoonist, Chris Weyant, who draws symmetrical eyes, flops her mouth and adds a few pounds and loses a few pearls, but still captures her.

 

 

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The Mysterious Mr. Quist

Here’s another Randy flashback. See Randy’s editorial cartoon archive here.  –Daryl

In the late 60’s and into the early 70’s, I became aware of a series of pretty avant-garde children’s books being published by someone named Harlin Quist. I think I first saw them in Graphis, an international magazine published in Switzerland and also in a similar publication, Gebrauchsgrafik, from Germany. Quist was an American publisher with offices in New York and Paris. I couldn’t believe how beautiful these books were. Many of my favorite artists were doing work for Quist, people like Reynold Ruffins, Murray Tinkelman, Eleanor Schmid, Phillipe Weisbecker, Charlie Slackman, Stan Mack, Edward Gorey, Étienne Delessert, Alain Le Foll, Alan Cober and Heinz Edelman. It was revolutionary! Realism was fading from the illustration field and in its place was a vibrant, refreshing breath of graphic grandeur. I wanted in.

So, I found Quist’s phone number and called him up for an appointment. He told me to come by on Thursday. Thursday found me in front of an ordinary, rather bleak-looking old brownstone with my trusty portfolio in hand. I was surprised to see that his office was in his apartment. I climbed the stairs and knocked on his door. It took a while for the door to be opened a crack. It was dark in the apartment.

I couldn’t see anything but a hand that had opened the door. Then I could make out an eye peering out at me.

“Mr. Quist is not here” said the voice in answer to my, “I have an appointment with Mr. Quist”.

“He’s in Paris” said the voice behind the door. “You can leave your portfolio until next Thursday!”

It was fairly common practice in those days to sometimes leave a portfolio for a week. I was disappointed but I agreed to leave it and a hand emerged snatching it from my grasp. The door shut. I needed that portfolio but I had high hopes that I would soon be joining that stellar group of outstanding illustrators in the Quist pantheon.

A week went by and I again climbed the stairs to the ominous apartment and knocked on the door. Nothing. I knocked again… and again. No response. The whole apartment building was soundless. No one seemed to be around. I didn’t know what to do. I went downstairs to see if I could find a door that said “Super” on it … or something. NOTHING. I went outside and looked for an entrance to a basement where I might find someone to give me assistance. I found a door that looked promising. I opened it and entered going down a few steps into a dark musty basement. It was EXACTLY like being in one of those horror movies. There were passageways, overhead pipes, electrical fuse boxes. It was dank, quiet, dark and eerie. After trying different paths that wound through the vast basement, I started to hear faint music coming from a radio. I followed it to a small room where I surprised an old fellow who was sitting there. I enquired about Mr. Quist.

“He’s gone” the super said.

“But … but” I stammered, “I need my portfolio that is in his apartment”.

“NO” he said, “He doesn’t pay his rent. We kicked him out and everything in that apartment belongs to us.”

I explained that I didn’t even know Harlin Quist. That I had never even met him. That I had just left MY portfolio for him to look at. It belonged to me. I had nothing to do with Mr. Quist. He replied that nothing could be done. Everything in the apartment was confiscated. I guess I started pleading, maybe even sobbing, about how my livelihood required that portfolio and etc. and etc., because he grudgingly relented and I followed him up the stairways to the foreboding apartment which we entered and finally found my portfolio, among others strewn about the place. I showed him my name on it and I left.

Now, I see that Quist has died and that my good friend Étienne, who had done four books (sometimes written by his friend Ionescu) for Quist, has written in a recent interview that Quist and his partner Francois Ruy-Vidal were con men, crooks and charlatans that didn’t pay proper royalties (if they paid anything at all) to their contributors and even though many illustrators were warned by Etienne and others of this fact, the illustrators continued to flock to his door hoping to do one of the  beautiful, Harlin Quist award-winning books.

–Randy Enos

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Harlin Quist passed away in 2000 at the age of 69.  Read Harlin Quist’s obituary in the New York Times. –Daryl

Read more more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

Monty Python Comes to Town

Riding the Rails

The Pyramid of Success

The Day I Chased the Bus

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

The Bullpen

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the National Cartoonists Society

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Notre Dame Fire

4/16/19 A bunch of new Notre Dame Fire cartoon favorites are added below. –Daryl

It was such a horror, watching the fire consume Notre Dame. I drew a cartoon as fast as I could –a teardrop cartoon. It was the best I could come up with on short notice. The editorial cartoonists think teardrop cartoons are trite, but we all do them. Readers love the teardrop cartoons at tragic times. I went with the Charles Laughton hunchback. So sad to see this unfold.

Here are some new favorites, from the day after, 4/16/19 …

This one is by my friend, French cartoonist Robert Rousso …

 

This one is by Sean Delonas.

 

This is by Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle.

This one is by Jeff Koterba of the Omaha World Herald.

This is by Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

 

The first Notre Dame cartoon that came in to us was from my buddy, Randy Enos.

This one is by RJ Matson.

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Dumping Refugees on the Dems

President Trump threatened to dump migrants on sanctuary cities last week. The mayors of the sanctuary cities, and the governor of my sanctuary state, California, all say that they welcome the refugees and I think they are sincere in that. What Trump sees as dumping human garbage on his political opponents to prove their hypocrisy would really amount to placing the migrants in places that are the most likely to truly welcome them and help them on their difficult journey. Much of the media buzz has been about how terrible Trump’s intentions are and how the move would be illegal; little attention has been paid to the fact that it is could be good for the migrants.

My cartoon shows how Trump views the plan.

 

Here are some of my recent migrant favorites by my cartoonist buddies. The migrant plan is the brainchild of Trump’s nefarious advisor, Stephen Miller, who Steve Sack contrasts with Melania.

 

My pal, Monte Wolverton draws the weaponization of migrants.

 

Trump seems to be fenced in by the law, as seen by my pal, John Cole.

 

My buddy Nate Beeler draws our “full” country.

 

My conservative buddy, Rick McKee sees opportunities to bash Democrats everywhere.

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Monty Python Comes to Town

I grew up admiring my buddy, Randy Eno’s work in The National Lampoon when I was in high school and college. Here’s another Randy flashback. See Randy’s editorial cartoon archive here.  –Daryl

One of the really big features I did for The National Lampoon was the spoof on the Monty Python television show. It was about an 8 page spread with lots of funny bits illustrated by me imitating the style of the Python animator Terry Gilliam, the only American in the troupe. To hold the 6 or 8 pages of the spread together, I thought of the idea of a long python snake running along the bottom third of the pages continuing on through the whole feature. In keeping with the idea of imitating Gilliam’s style, I decided to do the snake with an airbrush. The only problem was that I had never used an airbrush before and didn’t have one. So, I borrowed the tool from an illustrator friend who loaned me an old one she had. As I proceeded through the long rendition of the python, the faulty, old airbrush would occasionally spit and sputter creating little blobs in my otherwise nice clean “Gilliam-like” smooth airbrush style. So, everywhere a little blob or spot appeared I’d paint in a bush or shrub to cover the mistake. Needless to say, there were a lot of little bushes and shrubs in my picture.

The rest of the pages were decorated with merciless crtiques of Gilliam’s cut-and -paste, crude, rough style. I portrayed the Queen employing Scotch taped photos of her along with fatuous British-types in an exaggerated, blotchy, messy parody of his hurried, short-hand animation style. I remember putting in the line “when in doubt, draw the queen”.

It came to pass, a short time after this parody was published that Mike Gross, the art director, left the Lampoon to start his own graphic design studio. One of the projects he tackled was a book on the Python folks. When that project was over, the Pythons had come to New York and were doing a stage show at Town Hall. Gilliam, who was always absent from the TV version of the show because he had all he could do with creating the visual parodies that peppered the show, was for the first time performing along with his colleagues in the sketches that TV viewers were familiar with.

Mike decided to have a party to celebrate the completion of the book plus their show in New York. The party was held in a loft; hotdogs, were supplied by a Sabrett wagon, complete with umbrella, parked in a corner of the loft. Besides the Python people, the guests included Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Peter Boyle and others.

I had terrors of running into Terry Gilliam, who I had made so much fun of in the Lampoon spread that I decided that I would avoid him at all costs. It wasn’t to be, however, because I was standing right in front of the elevator when it decided to disgorge, along with others, Harvey Kurtzman with Gilliam in tow. I tried to hide but Kurtzman, who knew me (I don’t remember how he knew me) blurted out, “Randy, I want you to meet Terry Gilliam.” I was dead.

Gilliam shook my hand and said, “Hey, man, I love that parody you did on me in the Lampoon!” While my wife discussed acting with Belushi, I discussed cartooning with Gilliam. At one point he asked if I had kids. I told him I had two boys. He then invited my wife and I and the boys to come to see the Python show at the Town Hall. He asked me to see him after the show and he’d take us all back stage to show us all the Python gear.

A million years later when Terry had become the famous director of Fisher King, Time Bandits and my all-time favorite, Brazil, an actor friend of ours was playing one of the doctors in Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. I asked my friend to say hello to Terry for me the next time he was on the set with him. Later on, I ran into this actor and asked if he had done so. He said, “Randy, I am VERY impressed. I told Terry you said hello and he said that you were his favorite cartoonist!”

–Randy Enos

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Read more more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

Riding the Rails

The Pyramid of Success

The Day I Chased the Bus

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

The Bullpen

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the National Cartoonists Society

 

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Julian Assange Trapped

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, was captured by British authorities this week when the government of Ecuador decided they had enough of him, and invited the cops inside tomato the arrest. The president of Ecuador described Assange as a “pebble in his shoe.” Assange was hiding out in the embassy for seven years to avoid being arrested, but he was such a bad house guest that the Ecuadorians were eager to get rid of him. Assange had sued his hosts, and expressed his frustration by rubbing his feces on the walls. It also seems to annoy the Ecuadorians that Assange didn’t clean up after his cat. I think that’s funny.

Here’s my Assange in a rat-trap cartoon.

Yes, he looks different. He grew a white beard and let his hair grow out, tied back tightly in a little “man-bun.” With that big white beard, I had to make him into a white rat.

Here are a couple of my favorite Julian Assange cartoons, from before the beard.

This one is a urine leaking Assange from Taylor Jones.

 

I love the simplicity and the odd angle of this Assange by my buddy, Angel Boligan.

I love this Assange by Kap from Barcelona.

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Teach for America

California is considering legislation that would ban Teach for America, an organization that recruits college kids for a short stint as teachers in inner city schools. Teach for America (TFA) looks attractive, with a pitch like the Peace Corps, urging bright college kids to serve society by teaching in the most troubled schools that have difficulty finding good teachers.

The group is disturbing to many traditional teachers because they reinforce the notion that teaching is something we can all just jump into, undermining the notion of teachers as professionals; after all, everyone knows how to be a teacher because we all went to school ourselves, right? Traditional teachers spend years in college earning a degree in education to qualify for their teaching credentials, but the young TFA teachers get only a five week crash course.

School districts pay TFA teachers the same as starting teachers, but have to pay many thousands of additional dollars as a fee to TFA, a fee that the California Assembly threatens to ban. California further threatens to bar TFA from the troubled schools that need the best teachers, and that are the only places where TFA places their teachers. A very low percentage of the young TFA teachers remain in the classroom after their short teaching stint, so TFA doesn’t offer a long term fix for the shortage of good teachers in bad schools.

TFA annoyed traditional teachers recently when they seemed to encourage their recruits to cross picket lines in the Oakland teachers strike, and they have annoyed teachers unions by their close affiliation with charter schools, a teacher union bugaboo.

Get a group of teachers together and it won’t be long before the conversation turns to bashing TFA. It looks like I’m the only cartoonist in our PoliticalCartoons.com group who has drawn anything on this topic –which is interesting in itself. Since the controversy about TFA isn’t in the news much, my cartoon takes the form of an explainer. I expect we’ll hear much more about TFA and the professionalism of the teaching profession if the proposed California legislation passes.

Here’s my cartoon.

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Riding the Rails

Here’s another flashback from my cartoonist buddy, Randy Enos. Like Randy, I also lived in Connecticut’s and took the train into Manhattan to visit art directors and deliver my art –back in the 1980’s (for me), and earlier, that was the thing cartoonists did. After Federal Express and fax machines came into being, illustrators and cartoonists moved away and the Manhattan cartooning and illustration culture was lost. I miss it.  –Daryl

The name of our train station in Westport is “Westport Saugatuck” or, as one wag of a conductor once announced … “WESTTUCK and SAUGAPORT”.

What’s in the bag?

I loved riding the old trains before they started looking like subway cars with the sliding doors. We used to have to climb the steps up into the train and when I would hop on about noontime, I was able to go into the dining car and eat a hearty hot lunch (or dinner as we called it when I was very young). My favorite thing was to relax in the dining car watching the landscape whirring by while a waiter would bring me my meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy and apple pie for dessert. For years, I was a night worker going to bed at 4 in the morning and waking up about 10 or 11 and hopping on that train to deliver work and pick up more in New York City. At the New York Times, for instance, the art directors didn’t even get in to work until noon.

It was either you got on the train to deliver a job or you could give a train conductor five bucks to deliver it for you in the city on his break as soon as he got to Grand Central. It wasn’t unusual to see, on the platform, a stubble-faced sleepy-looking illustrator wearing a bathrobe and clutching an envelope with his art in it looking for a willing conductor. The other thing we would do was to use the services of Ryder’s Stagecoach to deliver our art. You could take your work to Ryder’s house at any time in the early morning, like 3 or 4 and you’d go to the back screen door and quietly stick it in there for him hopefully without waking the dog. That damn dog would often wake up and bark, though.

Randy’s wife, Leann, with Randy’s 6 foot Black Indigo.

When I worked at the Famous Artists School, we would get a 3 week vacation in the summer. In my 8 years working there, I never took a vacation. I would, instead, take my vacations one day a week and use that day to go to the city to see art directors and try to sell my work.

I had pet snakes, a 6 foot Black Indigo and a 5 foot Gopher Snake. I used to take them to New York with me sometimes because my art directors wanted to see them. We’d let them slither down the hallways past the shocked secretaries at NBC.

One day, I was sitting on the train with the white laundry bag containing my 6 foot snake resting quietly on my lap as the conductor approached punching tickets. He knew me very well and often would just make believe he was punching my ticket, thus giving me a free ride. That day, as he was reaching across me to punch the ticket of the lady to my right, the snake, “Satan,” rippled in the bag. The astonished trainman said, “Randy –I do not want to know what you have in that bag!”

One time, because the trainmen knew my wife and I so well (they would often sit and talk with us when they weren’t picking up tickets) that they let Leann drive the train home. My wife was an actress and she travelled the train a lot too.

On Thursdays, I would sit with all the New Yorker cartoonists going in to show their roughs. My neighbor, Don Reilly, was always there with his friend Dana Fradon and sitting across the aisle from us would be Whitney Darrow or Bob Weber (who never had his roughs done and would do them on the train). One time I watched Whitney off to the side on the train platform in Westport, drawing a guy waiting for the train. Later, that same day, I encountered him hiding in a doorway, way uptown in the city, surreptitiously drawing a lady waiting for a bus.

Along with the artists, the morning trains out of Westport carried most of the Madison Avenue advertising world. On the way home, we often had to ride in what we called “cattle cars” which had no windows and no seats. I used to see some of the richest tycoons of advertising, finance, etc. sitting on their briefcases, lurching around in the densely smoke-filled car while reading their evening paper.

One day, the regular train wasn’t working out of Westport and along comes this shiny new- looking train car. It was a private train that a lot of really rich guys owned and it had been enlisted by the New Haven Railroad to help out in the crisis. So, that day, I travelled in luxury with stewards that took your coat and hat and brushed them off. Very plush seats –the works!

One evening the train home broke down in the proverbial “middle of nowhere”. There was no train coming to save us so the whole train disgorged its riders and we all slumped along the tracks with our gear looking for some sign of humanity in the darkness. We finally came to a small house. We all camped out in the front yard while a few guys went to knock on the door to see if we could use the phone. A startled family, who were in the process of eating their supper, graciously allowed the long line of weary commuters to enter and use the wall phone. Some time later, the cars with the wives started arriving to pick us up off the front yard, one at a time.

But, I guess the oddest thing I saw on the train was one evening, very late, about 11 or so at night. I walked down the train at Grand Central to board and noticed that all the back cars were dark but I saw a little movement in them as I passed. There were people in there, in the dark! I got on in the first lighted car I found and I was only one of two people in the car. A little while into our trip, the other guy in my car asked the conductor if he was going to be opening the rear car. The conductor said he would open it in a while. Sure enough, in a while he came back and the passenger followed him to the back door where the conductor unlocked it, took something passed to him by the man and then locked it behind him.

You see, Westport is next to a city named Norwalk. A lot of girls from Norwalk would travel into New York every day to ply their “trade.” They would then ride the late train back. Sometimes they would be sitting opposite me on the train and ask to use my portfolio as a card table. I, also, had once seen a very famous game show host (I will refrain from naming him) being “entertained” by one of them in a back seat while I was in a front seat being the only other person in the car.

So… I realized what was going on the dark back cars. Some conductors evidently had a little business going. I was riding in a rolling brothel!

 

–Randy Enos

Email Randy

 

Read more more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

The Pyramid of Success

The Day I Chased the Bus

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

The Bullpen

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the National Cartoonists Society

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I Like Theresa May

Britain’s fever pitch of stress about Brexit is cranking up, day by day, as each new deadline approaches. One thing all the Brits seem to agree about is how they dislike Theresa May, her Brexit deal, and how she has gone about pitching and re-pitching the deal to Parliament. The topic dominates the minds of our international editorial cartoonists.

I like Theresa May. I don’t think her position on Brexit matters much since Parliament and the EU wouldn’t be able to agree on anything. Whatever position May had taken would lead to the same toxic impasse. My cartoon with May struggling to support Big Ben is actually a positive cartoon about her – I think she’s trying hard in a no-win situation.

I like the vertical cropping of my cartoon better than the wide version that I sent out to newspapers. I wanted May to look small under the crushing weight of the huge tower that looms over Parliament, but I wasn’t quite sure how small she could be to still be perceived as holding up the tower, rather than just looking like she’s being crushed –which would be a cartoon that means something else. I drew this as two pieces, one was the “Elizabeth Tower” (Big Ben), and the other was Theresa May, then I placed and sized May in Photoshop, making her as small as I thought I could for the cartoon to work.

I thought the tower was pretty forgiving and I got most of the architectural details wrong along with the perspective. The circle of the clock face is especially bad – I wasn’t thinking much about that at the time but now that I look at the reduced version, it bothers me. I should have generated a good circle in Photoshop and traced it, but no, I thought my lousy cartoonist freehand was fine. Too late now; it went out to newspapers already. Water under the bridge.

I don’t think I’ve seen any cartoons supporting May in the deluge of Brexit bashing that has been pouring into Cagle Tower in recent weeks. Powerful people get no sympathy, and editorial cartoonists aren’t known for sympathy. Here’s my wide cartoon and some of my recent Brexit favorites.

 

This one is by my buddy, Steve Sack of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

This one is by the brilliant, Dutch cartoonist, Hajo.

 

This one is by self-syndication king, Joe Heller.

 

This is by my new pal. Nicola Listes from Croatia.

 

And this Brexit Mobius Strip is by John Cole from Scranton, Pennsylvania!

 

 

 

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The Pyramid of Success

My cartoonist buddy, Randy Enos, is a generation older than me and comes from the same New York City illustration background that I jumped into, fresh out of college in the 1970’s. I grew up following Randy’s work in the National Lampoon and all the top magazines as I was a budding illustrator. Randy knows all of the famous illustrators who were my heroes in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I’m delighted to syndicate Randy’s off-beat editorial cartoons and I’m enjoying the memories he’s writing for my blog –especially this one. –Daryl

Toward the end of November 1973, my buddy, Stan Mack, called me in to The New York Times to do a cover for the Sunday magazine section which he was art directing at the time. They were doing a story on John Wooden, the famous coach of the UCLA basketball team. Wooden was famous for giving his players a mimeographed sheet of platitudes which reflected his recipe for succeeding in sports and in life. He arranged these platitudes on the paper, in ruled boxes that stacked up to form a pyramid. He called it his “Pyramid of Success.” It was just a simple typed up sheet of words to live by. Each time a player was recruited, he would find this sheet of paper in his mailbox the next morning.

Stan had been at a loss as to how to feature Wooden on his cover. He wanted to avoid he obvious montage of, perhaps, a head shot with a basketball player in the background. Then he stumbled upon Wooden’s “Pyramid” in the text. Stan had seen a couple of jobs (one I remember was for Esquire) where I had done some wood-block or lino-block lettering and he thought that I could take this homely little typewritten page and do something nice and artistic and colorful for his cover. So, I tackled it in my normal lino-cut collage technique where I would print my lino block on different colored papers (in different colored inks) and then collage the whole thing together. The finished art appeared on the cover, Sunday, December 2nd, 1973.

The Randy Enos version of UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success” that ran on the cover of The New York Times Magazine.

Bright and early Monday morning the telephones started ringing at The New York Times – and they continued ringing until finally the Times had to recruit outside help to man the phones. Then the mail started pouring in, sacks of it. Then the Times gave out my phone number and address to callers and my phone started ringing and my home mailbox started filling up. Each time, I would go to the Times to pick up or deliver a job, I would be presented with a sack full of mail addressed to me at the Times. They dealt with the ones addressed to them.

This deluge was caused by readers, who seized with the passion of Wooden’s words, were demanding copies, re-prints, ANYTHING we had to offer. We were getting correspondence and calls from, mayors’ offices, corporations, law enforcement bureaus, libraries, universities, along with just plain ol’ ordinary citizens – LOTS and LOTS of them. Some were upset because they had also written to Wooden and received only a dopey little mimeographed sheet in black and white. They wanted the one in color – the POSTER!

I had created a FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER!

It went on for months and months and finally years and years … and years. My son recalls visiting a friend in college and seeing it on many students’ walls. My wife was getting tired of the constant phone ringing and cursed the Times for giving out our number and address.

Years later, people would write or call and say that their copy of the Times cover was yellowing on their wall and did I know where they could get a better reproduction of it. My answer to all of them was that I couldn’t sell them or give them a copy or a poster of it because it wasn’t totally mine. It was Wooden’s thing. I merely had interpreted it in color. They would have to get his permission and then maybe something could be worked out. They never got back to me. Finally I contacted Wooden by letter and said that he was obviously getting the deluge that I was and so perhaps we should get together on this and make reproductions of it for sale or something. Leann was already imagining a life of exquisite bliss on a tropical island where we and our 5 horses would be sipping daiquiris and never having to work again. But Wooden never replied.

Years would go by and I would think that maybe it had finally gone away. And then, the phone would ring, or I’d get a letter with the familiar phrase, “Back in 1973 you did a cover for the …”

Okay. I lied. One entity got through to Wooden. It was McDonald’s. They sent me a letter from the coach that said that I could give them the art for a Christmas card for their employees. I had previously told them that if they got permission from Wooden that I would let them use my picture for free. Of course, I never thought they’d get it. So a big black limo pulled into my driveway and I handed over my original art. Later they returned with it and magnanimously provided me with a coupon entitling me to two free hamburgers and a coke. I never redeemed the coupon. And I never saw the Christmas cards.

The Times had given out repro rights to some people like IBM, who used it as the cover bearing the Times masthead.

Many decades have passed and I haven’t had any more letters and calls for a while. Of course, I haven’t checked the mail yet today. Out of the thousands and thousands of requests that the Times and I received, not one single one was complimentary about my art (I’m sure Wooden hated my grotesque version of his beloved, mimeographed Pyramid). It was only the sentiments expressed by Wooden that captured their imagination and desire to own a copy of it (suitable for framing).

Years and years after 1973, I was at the Times one day and one of my art directors said, “Randy, I want to show you something.” I followed him to a back room where there was a closet. He unlocked it with a key and there before my astonished eyes were shelves laden with copies of the Sunday, December 2nd, 1973 edition of The New York Times Sunday Magazine.

–Randy Enos

Email Randy

 

Read more more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

The Pyramid of Success

The Day I Chased the Bus

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

The Bullpen

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the National Cartoonists Society

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

The Day I Chased the Bus

Here’s another story about being a freelance illustrator in New York in the 1970’s, from my brilliant cartoonist buddy, Randy Enos.
–Daryl

Some years ago I went into New York City with my young friend, an aspiring illustrator named Debbie; I was going to take her on my rounds with me and introduce her to art directors at NBC, New York Times, National Lampoon and more. I had been working on some big project and I was lugging my biggest black portfolio. I had to show some work to a client and then I was going to go home that evening and work some more on the project and return the next day.

This morning was going along nicely and before we were to have lunch, I thought we’d quickly go to a show of Jean-Michel Folon’s work at the LeFebre Gallery at 47 E. 77th Street. We hopped into a cab and arrived across the street from the gallery/townhouse. As I crossed the street with Debbie, I patted my pockets, as I was accustomed to do, to make sure I had everything … and … I discovered my wallet was missing! I realized it must have fallen out in the cab. I whirled around and the cab was gone! Panic!

We went in to see the show, anyway, which, ironically, consisted of collages in which there were actual coins. Each piece of art re-enforced my sense of present poverty.

Back out on the street, we assessed our financial situation. Between the two of us, we just had enough coins to get us back down near Grand Central Station by bus. So, we got on a 5th Avenue bus and headed downtown.  As we approached 52nd Street, Debbie said she wanted to visit her new acquaintance, the illustrator, Bob Blechman so I told her to get off there and I would continue down to one of the next stops, visit my art directors at NBC, and we would meet later on the train to go home.

At 49thstreet, I hopped off and walked a few steps up the street before I realized that I wasn’t carrying my big portfolio with all the components of the job I was working on. I had shoved it into the space behind the driver’s seat while we had stood in the aisle of the bus. I looked south on 5th Avenue to find my bus and instead I saw about three identical blue busses. Fortunately, I had looked at the driver when I was on the bus and he was a large black man. So, I ran quickly to overtake the nearest bus to me. As I caught up with it, at the next stop, I saw that it wasn’t my driver.

I started running to catch up with the next bus in front of that one. Again, not my driver. It was hot and I was out of breath at this point and panic was setting in as I imagined my fate of losing my portfolio and its contents to the vast black hole of the New York Transit Authority. Who do I call? What do I do? I started running again. I could see that there were two or three busses approaching the library stop at 42nd Street. Big stop. I was sure to find my bus there. My hopes were up. I ran like I have never run and probably will never run again. I swear, as I crossed 41st Street, I think I was running over the hoods of cars. I felt this was my last chance. As I got there, a bus or two had pulled away but there were still one or two left. I checked them out……. not my driver! I looked down the avenue. I couldn’t run any more. My chest was heaving, I was sweating.

Just then, a police car came creeping up. AHA! I dragged myself over to the curb and flagged them down. The window went down. I … I … tried… to … tell … them my problem. I was incoherent. The two cops looked at me puzzled. I kept trying to get the words out but I couldn’t catch my breath. They gestured for me to get in the car. I collapsed into their back seat telling them, as best I could about the lost money, the portfolio and the big black bus driver. The cop next to the driver said, “What was the number of the bus?” The number of the bus? The number of the freaking bus? How the hell did I know what the number of the bus was! He then instructed the driver to overtake the bus we saw ahead of us and see if a “n****r “ was driving. We caught up with it and driving by the left side we could see that it wasn’t my driver. I pleaded with them to catch up with a few other busses we could see. They did… to no avail. Finally at 23rd Street, where 5th Avenue forks, they tired of me and decided that I should consult the bus dispatcher we could see on the curb at our left. “He’ll help you out” they said. I went over to the man holding a clipboard and started telling him my tale of woe. As I was speaking, I looked across the fork in the avenue and saw a bus pulling away… WITH A BIG BLACK GUY DRIVING!!! The dispatcher blew a whistle and flagged him to stop. I ran across and the driver opened the door and there was my big black portfolio just where I had left it!

I slowly dragged myself along the street completely worn out with my precious portfolio in tow while a crazy bag lady screamed something at me. I paid no attention for I was now concerned with how I was going to explain why I didn’t have a ticket to the train conductor, because it was in my lost wallet where I always put them. BUT … maybe not. Sometimes I put them in my shirt pocket. I patted my pocket. My ticket was there. A little wave of joy … just a teensy one, wafted over me.

As I slunk into my train seat next to the ebullient Debbie, she was chortling about her visit with Blechman. She asked if I had a good time at NBC. I grumbled something incoherent and glared her into silence.

At home that night, I received a phone call from the man who had gotten into the cab right after me and found my wallet and my phone number therein. I told him that I was coming in the next day and he gave me his business address.

The next day, in a downpour, I trudged across the street from Grand Central to a small liquor store to buy my benefactor a nice bottle of wine. Then, with bottle in hand along with my portfolio and umbrella, I made my way up the street to the address he had given me. It was a labor union office. I climbed up a narrow stairway on which were seated a few of their members to a little office at the top with a little pay window. I asked for the man who had called me and I was directed down a hall to an office from which I could hear serious negotiations transpiring. I dragged my dripping self to the open door and was spotted by a robust fellow standing behind a desk in the midst of an argument.

He spotted me, “I know who you are” he smiled, “I saw your driver’s license picture in your wallet.”

He drew my wallet from his drawer and handed it to me. I, in turn, handed him a soggy bag which contained my gift of wine.

“No… NO” he said, “I can’t take that!”

“Please take this” I said

“No, I couldn’t take that!”

“Yes, you have to take it!”

“Oh no no no, I can’t accept that!”

Finally, I screamed, “LOOK… IT’S POURING OUTSIDE… I’M SOAKING WET AND I’M LUGGING THIS BIG HEAVY PORTFOLIO AND THIS DAMN UMBRELLA AND I’M NOT CARRYING THIS BOTTLE OF WINE ANOTHER STEP!”

“Oh… okay” he said, “Thanks!”

–Randy Enos

Email Randy

 

 

Read more more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

The Bullpen

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the National Cartoonists Society

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

The Other Ol’ Blue Eyes

Another cartooning memory from my buddy, Randy Enos.

No, not Frank Sinatra, sorry. I mean the other ol’ blue eyes… Paul Newman. Newman and his wife Joanne moved to Westport shortly after I did and was a familiar figure around town until his death in 2008. My wife Leann’s parents were in the frame shop business and Paul and Joanne were two of their best customers. The Newmans liked to frame movie posters of their films from foreign countries. Paul was also an avid photographer so he brought a lot of photos in to frame. My mother-in-law, Tecla was immune to the celebrities she dealt with in Westport which were all the famous illustrators and cartoonists plus famous writers, musicians and the like. We also had Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor and Eva Gabor from time to time. They were all just regular customers to her.

One day when Newman came in to see if he had any outstanding bills to be paid, Tecla ruffled through her Rolodex and then gave up and said plaintively to him that she had forgotten his name. He roared with laughter. John Hersey, the famous author, was a favorite customer who often ducked into the frame shop just to sit for a while to get away from the bustle of Main St..

Tecla framed the illustrators work because in the old days, work by Harold von Schmidt, Steven Dohanos, Robert Fawcett and the others were delivered to the magazines in crates all framed up nicely. The clients kept the art for the most part, especially the work done for advertising.

Everybody in town would see Newman in the photo store, the pet store and the Ship’s Lantern having a beer. He tooled around Westport in a little blue Volkswagen bug. Nobody ever bothered him. For one thing, he was well known as one who did not give autographs so no one even asked… EXCEPT, a charming young girl of my acquaintance who, by some means or other, actually got an autograph from him… on her leather jacket where she had many famous autographs (she was very kind to ask me for one also). I think Paul was amused by the fact that this girl had this beat-up old jacket with all these famous autographs scribbled all over it.

The Newmans also had a house full of Randy Enos linocuts hanging on their walls because I had a friend who was a close friend of theirs that would buy prints from me every Christmas to give them. I found out they had them hanging all over the house because their daughter Nell said so when she was attending an experimental “free” school that had started up in Westport and was a classmate of my younger son. My wife was visiting there one day and was showing the kids how to make linocuts and she was using some of my cuts as an example. Nell said, “Oh we have some of those pictures on our walls.” Nell also had a horse which was housed in my illustrator friend Bill Sheilds’ barn.

Paul came into the frame shop one day and asked my father-in-law, Jim, if he knew anyone who could make some signs for him to tell guests to shut off the water in the sauna (or something). Jim said, “Well, my son-in-law is a cartoonist”. So, I did some caricatures of Paul telling people to shut the water off.

One time Leann and I were at the Free school and I had brought my pet snake to show the kids. Paul was there with his daughter. He came over to me and asked what kind of snake it was. When I told him it was a Gopher Snake, he said that he used to play with them a lot in California and he took it out of my hand and walked around with it for a while.

But, the funniest encounter I had with him was when he brought an x-ray of Joanne’s chest into the frame shop and asked Jim if I could paint a little cupid on it with a bow and an arrow shooting into her heart. He loved the fact that he could see the shadow of her heart in the x-ray. My father-in-law brought it to me and I studied it for a minute and said, “That’s not her heart. You’re holding it upside down, it’s the Iliac crest!”

I turned it right-side up and painted a nice little cupid and bow on it for him.

–Randy Enos

Email Randy

 

Read more more of Randy’s cartooning memories:

8th Grade and Harold von Schmidt

Rembrandt of the Skies

The Funniest Man I’ve Ever Known

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part One”

Read “I’m Your Bunny, Wanda –Part Two”

Famous Artists Visit the Famous Artists School

Randy Remembers Tomi Ungerer

Randy’s Overnight Parade

Famous Artists Schools

Dik Browne: Hot Golfer

Randy and the National Lampoon

Randy’s Only Great Idea

A Brief Visit to Outer Space

Enos, Love and Westport

Randy Remembers the National Cartoonists Society