I’ve said before that editorial cartoons were never an influence on me growing up, as I never paid attention to them, and for the most part that’s true. But there was one huge exception, and that was a cartoon drawn by Paul Fell in 1990 for what was then known as the Lincoln Journal.
Peru State College had won the NAIA Division II national championship, beating Westminster (PA) College at UNO’s Al Caniglia Field. This was 20 years after Nebraska had won a national championship and still several years before their winning ways would resume.
For the people in and around Peru, this cartoon could not have been more perfect. I remember having it hanging in my locker at school. You’d see it hanging in store windows and on the library bulletin board. This particular photo is of a copy I had, which I colored with Crayola markers and hung up in my bedroom (I was 12). It’s still hanging there in my parents’ house, stained by almost 20 years of sticky tack.
It was most definitely the first editorial cartoon that captured my attention. If anyone reading this blog — cartoonist or reader — remembers the first cartoon that really grabbed you, I’d love to hear about it.
I remember enjoying Jeff MacNelly and Herblock when I was a kid (both were still alive and we got a paper that ran them thru syndication). I didn’t actually “get” the cartoons, but I liked to look at their artworks.
My interest in editorial cartoons, however, was minimal (my heart was closer to comics, and still am, really), so after they died, I stopped following editorial cartoons.
Then came the 2004 election, I discovered “This Modern World” by Tom Tomorrow and started following it. Later that year, “Prickly City” by Scott Stantis began and despite the weak start, I became a loyal reader to the strip (I even have an original inscribed to me by Scott himself).
The rest is, as they say, history.
Seriously, I never really paid much attention until I was in college. Harvey Perlman was Duck Man, Dennis , oh I can’t remember, the President of UNL at the time, was Mum-Ra from the Thunder Cats TV cartoon series, there were others. A constant lampoon of UNL. That was when I started paying attention to political cartoons. I don’t remember just one that started it, but I do remember the quit-smoking-day Cartoon that said “In case of emergency, smoke this cartoon.”
Do you have copies of all your old DN cartoons?
Tony,
It’s a long process but I’m slowly getting all the old DN cartoons uploaded to the site. I started from the beginning, then started working backwards from the end, and now I’m trying to fill in the middle. Here’s a rough outline of the progress:
Fall 99 – Complete
Spring 00 – About halfway done
Fall 00 – None uploaded
Spring 01 – None uploaded
Fall 02 – None uploaded
Spring 03 – About halfway done
Summer 03 – Complete
And I’m flattered that I was the first political cartoonist you paid attention to.
Personally I always watched bugs bunny and tom & jerry everytime I visited my great grand parents when I was little. I never read much cartoon strips, mostly tv. I wonder if my own children will think of bugs bunny as something really old like as when I think of cartoon characters like betty boop and popeye..