This site is updated frequently

I worked as a staff artist / cartoonist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1950-'79. In '75 I created a socio-political comic strip, Cecil & Dipstik, that appeared on the Op-Ed page until I left in '79. C&D floated around in a couple of whiskey-soaked syndicates in '80-'81' burpin' in the P-I, Palto Alto CA and Bogalusa LA. They ran off to Mexico but reappeared in HBC Publications in Nevada from 1990-'96.

In the fall of '96 Cecil & Dipstik wandered off on the Mojave Desert.

Now they're back-- (and front, too)

Cecil & Dipstik are good, decent, patriotic citizens (they NEVER vote Republican) and I'll use them to show you what I know about cartooning. Cartooning comes from the Fine Arts and the French Impressionists deduced, in order to simplify what you see (and there's a difference between "looking" and "seeing") it's possible, in your mind's eye, to use a combination of four shapes.

You can train your brain to do this to things you see--

These shapes aren't made out of concrete; they're made out of rubber and can be "stretched"and "squashed" in your imagination.

Imagination is a very important tool in cartooning--

It doesn't turn me on to indicate 3D on a 2D surface so I seldom use the Western theory of "chiaroscuro" (light and shade), but I do subscribe to the Eastern theory of "notan" (given areas have their own value). You can imply light and shade by adding little shadows under Cecil's hat, ear, nose, behind the collar, under Dipstik's feet,in the sleeves and under the rock. I think every line added to a drawing distracts from the idea. Remember the ol' saying: " A good idea can carry a bad drawing, but a good drawing can never carry a bad idea."

Ideas are everything--

Assuming you've scrolled down and looked at this

page, please go back to the top and try to "see" it.

Questions ? Answers ? Doubts ? UFO sightings ? E-mail here

To read a collection of my vignettes go to the Write Connection and click on "essays"