Well I am published, again....
Sunday, June 12, 2011 at 8:33PM Do you remember the movie Forrest Gump? Almost over 15 years ago it won the hearts and minds of generations of people. It was about a slow-witted man with a big heart and how he somehow saw the history of the world unfurl right in front of his own eyes.
Now I am not a slow-witted man, at least I don’t think so. I did graduate college (so did Forrest Gump) and I have held a few jobs here and there(Gump did too…man, I am not winning this argument.) But I am a real person and I grew up in Wisconsin with a brother and 3 sisters and both a mother and a father to support my endeavors, whatever they areor were. I also have not seen the change of the world as close as Forrest Gump has, but I can say this…”Well, I am published…again.”
Now looking back I can remember many times of how I was in the local newspaper for winning a poster contest or dressing up as an Indian for Thanksgiving or whatever. Big deals at the time, but remember it was just the local newspaper. When I got older I was featured in a national magazine (Autograph Collector) and my letter was printed by the the Editor of Entertainment Weekly. I was on the local news twice (for drawing caricatures, not for a heinous crime- give me some credit.) And that local newspaper still knows who I am around here due to my art skills and my affiliation to my old school as their art teacher and what we all do there besides taking art tests. Plus being a pretty good caricaturist, I get some notice once in awhile, too.
Well, I have to say it again, I am published…again. This time on a bigger stage, the Sunday Comics page! That is right! In full color!
I entered an idea for Dan Pirarro’s Bizarro cartoon. Every so often, Dan asks for puns from his readers and one day as I was checking in books and movies at the library, an idea struck! After the millionth time, some person checked out the Twilight stories I thought about the original Twilight series…the Twilight Zone.
The Twilight Zone starred almost every actor from the early 1960’s and its host was Rod Sterling. Rod smoked on television and spoke in an unusual manner, but he was the narrator and guide to the macabre, weird and unusual world where fact meets fiction. In fact Rod Sterling’s personification would not be a big sell in today’s market. He does not come off as a Jeff Probst-type.
Anyway, I thought of the Twilight Zone and how pizza Hut has a Pizzone, a knock-off of a real Italian cuisine, the Calzone! Put the two together and voila! you got the Twilight Calzone. I even had an idea of a cartoon: Rod Sterling, standing in front of take-out place, and discribing his order like so… “Picture if you will, a man orders a deep dish pizza filled with anxiety, despair and extra cheese, turned and flipped into a self baked pocket of it’s own doughiness…The Twilight Calzone!”
I thought that was a pretty good idea and sent it to Dan Pirraro. He agreed and then asked how I came up with it and I wrote that I was just doing my duty at the library when lightning in a bottle happened. He liked the idea and said it would be in an upcoming edition…. and so I waited.
The waiting took a bit longer but today I did see the final published cartoon. I am happy with it, but Dan did change it to a different idea but he did give me credit and I am very happy for that. I can see how he could not cram in my idea as two other people had their own stuff to deal with also. I was just glad to have that spark of influence in creating this piece.
So like I said, unlike the fictitious Forrest Gump, I have been published in a wide variety of ways and I hope to do more of it in the future. Hopefully this is a way to have my art seen by more people. The more people that see my art, the more people might like my art and if they like it, they might buy it, too. There is always that first step, and hopefully with the experiences I have had, good things will come together for me.
Reader Comments (1)