H. Ross Perot

That sinking feeling

Trying a little too hard with the brush there, I think- but half-way decent caricatures of Clinton and Yeltsin for just being a young college kid

Clinton stuck with Saddam

In early 1993, Iraq enjoyed lobbing SCUD missiles at Israel. With Bush Sr. out of office people wondered if the new President would keep Iraq in line.

Hand bill for my college Senior show

Holy Rollers

Way back in college (a Lutheran college no less), I had a problem with the hypocrisies of the religious right (which is neither).

Reagan/Bush Legacy

Fiscal responsibility has never been a Republican strong-suit, but labeling Democrats as fiscally irresponsible has been.

Look closely at the food in his dish

I can really see the influence of Pat Oliphant in this one I drew for my college newspaper, 'the Sower.'

Too wierd for small town Iowa

Have you heard the one about the Art Major and the Farmer's Daughter?
The summer we got married was our town's Centennial and we both worked for the local newspaper, the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper. Somehow, I talked the Publishers into running some of my cartoons for the next couple of years. I don't know when any of these actually ran, and in fact a couple of them may have ran in the college newspaper too, or instead. So I guessed the year and labeled this post on National Cartoonist Day of that year (May 5). Although, hay bales are usually something you see later in the summer and in the fall. Two of my best friends bought the original of the Elvis one at my Senior show and had it hanging in their basement for years. That was really sweet of them. Somebody make me famous so that it will be worth something for them. Thanks.

Twentysomething

A feeble attempt at a college-age aimed comic strip. Sorry that it still has wax on it from where the college newspaper staff pasted it up.

Who needs revenue anyway?

I don't know the actual date in 1992 when this one ran in my college newspaper, 'the Sower' but I love the elephant I drew. Funny how 16 years later Republicans still claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility and try to make people fear how Democrats will tax and spend when they've been cutting taxes for the filthy rich and screwing the rest of us since 1981!

Esoteric theology

So I was re-reading some of "Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts" c. 1990 by Robert Short (author of "The Gospel According to Peanuts" 1965 and "Parables of Peanuts"1968), and it once again highlighted for me how much I prefer Kierkegaard to Hegel both philosophically and theologically and that prompted me to remember this cartoon I did for my college newspaper. A Lutheran college. I dawned on me that Bill Waterson probably named his strip after Protestant John Calvin ("liberal" theology compared to Martin Luther's) and Philosopher Thomas Hobbes (sort of the opposite of John Locke) who believed that human nature is brutish, selfish and immature. Anyway, even at Concordia University, Nebraska- where they prepare more professional church workers and pre-seminary candidates than any other Missouri-Synod college, this cartoon was still hopelessly obscure and esoteric. No wonder one syndicate told me that people should be able to "get" a cartoon faster without having to read or think as much as they have to with my "Mal•Adjusted" panel.

On the Back Burner

I never seem to have much luck whenever I've tried to draw Uncle Sam. But I still like the point I was trying to make.

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.