Who was the first cartoonist you ever met?

Brian Crane “I met Sparky Schulz just two years ago when the National Cartoonists Society held its meeting in New York. He was my first. My editor at my syndicate, Suzanne Whelton, knew that I wanted to meet him, so she introduced us. I didn’t know any cartoonists growing up. I was never in those circles socially, so I guess I admired them from afar.”

Tom K. Ryan “Al Capp. He came through Muncie, to Ball State, for one of his college talks in the late ’60s—he was a helluva talker. This is when all the students were up in arms and protesting everything, and he had taken the opposite point of view. So he was up in front of the audience, rebutting everyone’s claims, getting a lot of attention. I was newly syndicated then, so I went backstage afterwards to meet him, and he was very friendly, but he was an ornery little cuss. Shortly after that, at another school, he made a play for a college girl and the media jumped all over it. I think they set him up on that one.”

Will Eisner: “I met Ham Fisher at his studio. My father had a cousin who operated a boxing gym in New York, and Ham Fisher would come in there to watch things sometimes, since Joe Palooka was a boxing strip. My father told his cousin that I wanted to become a cartoonist, so he arranged for me to meet Ham Fisher. His studio was in this awesome Tudor building, and when I knocked on the door, James Montgomery Flagg answered! All I could think to ask him was what kind of pen he used—I still cringe when I remember that. He told me it was a Gilotte 290. And then out comes Ham Fisher, ranting about an assistant who stole his characters—referring, of course, to Al Capp. Fisher told me he wasn’t using assistants anymore after that, and he told me I should get a job in a syndicate bullpen.”

; Jan Eliot: “Rhoda Grossman, who kicked my chair during a seminar on drawing for greeting cards that we were both attending. She’s one of those people who can’t talk without moving her whole body. She was loud and annoying, and I knew I would like her, and I was right. She had just finished an eight-year stint as a caricaturist at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wis., and she was in the Bay Area trying to get work as an artist. The same weekend I met Nicole Hollander, but Rhoda was the first.”

Rick Detorie: “When I was working on the Chipmunks’ record albums during their revival in the 1980s, I met Chuck Jones. He was called in to do work on the Chipmunks Christmas special. I had been working off model sheets of the characters that had been done in the 1960s, and he was doing new ones to give the characters more of the three-dimensional look. So I went to Chuck Jones’ house to look at the model sheets he was doing.”

Arnold Roth: “Bil Keane. He was a teenager doing work for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He worked in an art department that did features to appeal to young kids—how to cartoon, things like that. I was 9 years old, and I wanted to meet a real cartoonist. I was familiar with his work from the paper, and he was very approachable. We’ve both put on a few miles since then.” Karl Hubenthal: “Willard Mullin. I was on the track team at Hollywood High School, and we were city champions. Willard was working at the Los Angeles Herald Express, and he came out to see us one day, because at that time he was doing cartoons focusing on high-school sports. My coach knew of my interest in cartooning and called me over and introduced me to Willard Mullin! Willard invited me down to the paper, and we became friends. I would show him the stuff I was working on, and he would say, ‘Kid, you look like me on a good day.’ He went to the New York World Telegram the same year I got a job at the Herald Express. I eventually worked my way into the art department, and I inherited his desk. He was a great friend of mine. He was my guru.”