Action Packed Viewing

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Fast forward to March 2003.

Nixon hailed as a national hero

I don't remember the publication date of this one in my college paper, but the Tiananmen Square uprising was in 1989 and the opera "Nixon in China" ran on Broadway 1983-87. All I know is that whatever the news item was that inspired this was an excuse for me to draw Nixon.

Reagan earns an Oscar

Miami's Nice

Don't you think that EVERY president should get to be a "War President?" It makes them look SO good!

Wolfe Tone

When I was a freshman in college I wanted to be more "edgy." I felt like my style in high school was too clean and Mort Walker-ish (Beetle Baily) so I came up with a coyote who wore a leather jacket and camouflage fatigues and listened to the Ramones. This was my "underground" cartoonist period.

But ever the pseudo-intellectual, I named him after an obscure eighteenth century Irish political philosopher, Theobald Wolfe Tone. I was also really into my Irish heritage at that time- U2, especially. This was a bad choice because right away people thought he was a wolf, not a coyote and they thought he was named after 80's rapper Tone Loc. Since I was drawing editorial cartoons rather than a strip with story lines and character development, he really wound up just being a distraction.

Be-Bop's

The summer after graduation, before college, I was a short order cook at a 50's night club run by the mob. Okay, I sucked at being a short order cook, so I begged them to make me a prep-cook rather than just a dishwasher and I don't know for sure that it was owned by the mob, but everybody said so. Our boss did kind of remind me of Tony Soprano. Anyway, he asked me to illustrate some fliers for them and this was one of the pictures I drew for him. Bad business model; just volunteer to do something without negotiating compensation ahead of time. Another bad business model; don't do stuff for mobsters. Anyway, it was cool to see this on pink table "tents," but it was a lot of work for just a summer job.

Here's how much better it could've been if I had had Photoshop back then-

Corollary to the First Amendment

Above is a cleaned up version, like it may have appeared in 'the Shadow,' and below is a raw scan with non-repo blue and wax and age discoloration and the whole 9 yards.
Back when I was editor of my high school paper, the Supreme Court ruled on the Hazelwood case declaring that the principle of a Missouri high school was essentially the publisher of the student newspaper and therefore entitled to censor content.

Cowboy Movie Actor

I was paging through some of my old stuff from high school and was painfully disappointed with how lousy I was. Finally I found this one that wasn't too bad. As far as I remember, it's the first time I drew Ronald Reagan.

Can I have your number?

This would never happen today. No one has rotary phones, and no one passes notes on paper, they text on their cell phones. Nor are there many time and temperature numbers anymore.

USA for Africa

There was a Cartoon Aid project, kind of like the Band Aid one. Even though I was just in high school, I wanted to participate. This was my offering.

Academia

Back when I was in high school, there was an afternoon daily called the Phoenix Gazette that has since been absorbed by the Arizona Republic. Every Wednesday they ran a section they called the 'Teen Gazette.' I had made up my mind the summer before my Freshman year that I wanted to have a weekly comic strip. Their previous cartoonist was a Senior who was graduating. I loved his strip, it reminded me of Funky Winkerbean. I created Howie Smith, an "everyman" who looked a lot like me, only skinnier. He attended "Orangewood High, home of the Fighting Tangerellos." I LOVED Doonesbury and was tempted to name my strip "Bull Tales," after his at Yale, because we were the Shadow Mountain Matadors, but it occurred to me that the Teen Gazette was for the whole Valley, not just my school. So I leaned toward what Berk Breathed had called his Bloom County when he was in college, the "Academia Waltz." But of course, copyright law freaked me out, so I just called it "Academia." 20 years later, I still admire Doonesbury, but the older I get, the more annoying I find Bloom County and Opus. Tastes change, whatchya gonna do.

Space travel had become routine

I don't remember if this was from Challenger 6 in April or Challenger 9 in October of 1985, but the point is that we had become almost too comfortable- even complacent about space travel. In January 1986 the Challenger broke up after lift off killing all aboard. I was in Newspaper class at school and we all gathered around a TV. Our advisor had been a finalist for the teacher in space program and had known Christa McAuliffe personally. Talk about traumatic.

Pencil sketches

Here's a couple more pages from my assignment book when I took a cartooning class at Scottsdale Community College. Think that I felt like teachers were kind of intimidating?

Teachers Point us to the Future

Here's a page from my assignment book when I took a cartooning class at Scottsdale Community College, home of the Fighting Artichokes. Notice our teacher liked my work!

Prom Night

Dedicated to my friends Kevin & Ireen. Kevin & I worked together at a Baskin Robins when he was a Senior and I was a Junior. Naturally I had to work and he thought it would be cool to call me from the limo. Senior year I had a date but came down with a 106° the day of Prom. Fortunately for my date, our mutual friend, Chris was home on leave from the Marine Military Academy and had his dress uniform so he could pinch-hit for me without having to rent a tux.