I was born on St. Valentine's Day in Trenton, New Jersey. George Washington was going to Trenton when he crossed the Delaware River (as in the famous painting), but that was just a little before my time.

Later, I lived in Pennsylvania, Florida and Louisiana, places which have changed considerably in the intervening years - as I have.

At present, I am in New York.
Art Kid and Dog
I don't remember when or why I started to draw. It seems that I was just there, doing it. I have a theory that we are all born artists. A few people stay with it.

Walt Disney was my hero. Disney animated films were Special Events, experienced in the theater, where the effect was dazzling.

My Father, an electrician, worked in a factory where paper was recycled into wall-board. Occasionally, Dad would rescue a stack of comics and bring them home for me. There were titles like Sparkler and TipTop, filled with reprints of vintage newspaper strips.

My Mother always read to me, including the Sunday comics, which were populated by the likes of Nancy, Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, Etta Kett, The Willets (Out Our Way), Li'l Abner, Pogo, Brenda Starr, Steve Canyon and Smokey Stover.

There was a Magic that made those characters live. It's called great Cartooning.
I was in the eighth grade when I officially decided that I would be a Cartoonist. The school guidance counselors smiled condescendingly and asked questions along the lines of "No, seriously, what are your career goals?"

I read every Cartoon-related book that I could find. I still treasure Comic Art in America by Stephen Becker, Comics and their Creators by Martin Sheridan, the Walter T. Foster How-To books and the Higgins Ink Company's The All American Art: Cartooning.

Lurking in the school library was another book, Dr Frederick Wertham's infamous Seduction of the Innocent. I was too young to completely understand the doctor's dark and creepy revelations or to know how his book had nearly destroyed the comic book industry in the 1950s.

The school newspaper provided a quarter-page for my first printed cartoon.
Unfortunately, grown up publishers with money to pay were not as agreeable as the school newspaper. My very first rejection letter came from The Saturday Evening Post. I was fourteen. Clearly, a modest beginning was not on my agenda. I didn't know about enclosing the customary self-addressed-stamped return envelope with my cartoons. The thoughtful editor at the Post, who could have easily trashed my submission, returned the unsold originals to the youthfully ignorant "cartoonist".

Mrs. Dorothy Kennedy, my high school art teacher, loved her students. She gave us Art with no boundaries. Michelangelo to Ivan Albright. Silk-screen prints to Kabuki theater. Cartoons, too. The act of creating was the important thing.

My high school graduation was postponed by a hurricane. If that was an omen, I ignored it. I still wanted to be a Cartoonist.
In college, I supplied the student newspaper with editorial cartoons and comic strips. I also learned how to handle rubber cement and to create "paste-ups", skills that were useful while the world awaited Desktop Publishing.

Like many Cartoonists, I was interested in acting, and, appropriately, I played a comic strip character - Charlie Brown - in a production of the musical You're A Good Man Charlie Brown.

By the time that I sold my first cartoon, I had learned to enclose a self-addressed-stamped return envelope.
Since that first sale, my comic art has appeared just about anywhere a cartoon can go. I still love Disney animation and newspaper comic strips.

I haven't always loved Computers, but as this Web Site proves, I have accepted the idea that a Computer can be an artist's friend.

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