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Marschall: A lot of these people are ones that you mentioned in the feature in Hogan's Alley #1, your favorite gags. What hits you best -- drawing style, gag delivery, composition?
Hart: A combination. Dick Cavalli always comes back to mind. It was something that he did -- people with straight spines, they always stood there, with their eyes half closed, they weren't haughty or anything, and their mouths were open and they had a kind of squinted look . . . how would you describe that sort of expression? A little noncaring . . .
Marschall: Insouciant? A little bit detached?
Hart: Yes! That is what it was. And then they just announced these captions. That was always a look that I really loved.
Marschall: I always wondered who was the first to do that. Was it Cavalli? Or Zeis? When I was growing up everyone who drew magazine gags seemed to draw expressions like that . . .
Hart: There was some guy who used to draw characters with their mouths open like they were always screaming. Remember? That used to infuriate me. The guy is just saying something, but . . . is that a bowling ball or a mouth? I don't remember that cartoonist, or if he's still around, but I've got a suggestion for him.
Marschall: Close the mouth, open the eyes . . .
Hart: Leave the eyes closed, if you want. The mouth should do it.
Marschall: How about newspaper strips when you were growing up? Did you read the Sunday funnies? Was it more gag cartoonists that turned you on than newspaper strip artists or comic book artists?
Hart: My favorite comic strip was Dick Tracy, because of all the bizarre characters. Dick Tracy was really a good strip, you know? I don't think it was well-drawn, and I knew that when I was a kid! But there was just some kind of magic about Dick Tracy. It kept you in it, you know? And it just moved you around and you followed all this good stuff and then it had the bizarre things like . . . the same way that Herriman invented backgrounds, Gould invented unbelievable characters!
Actually, my favorite character, I think, was Fearless Fosdick! [laughs] You know Al Capp's Fearless Fosdick? That was one of my favorite things I ever saw in the comics; it was such a great parody. I always remember this one where Fearless Fosdick runs down the alley, and these gangsters are after him. He jumps in a garbage can. And this big, black limo comes by with machine guns firing, and in the end the garbage can, it's just like a sieve with 5,000 holes. The lid lifts off, you know, and Fosdick steps out unscathed. He says, "Had to do some mighty fancy footwork in there."
