European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 22, 1948, Darmstadt, Hesse Portrait of the Young Man As a cartoonist by Don Sheppard in which the author Shep lays Bare the Vicissitudes of making one s Way in the cartoon Industry if my father had t been a Tomb Stone Salesman i suppose my particular Bent would t have been Dis covered until it was too late. As i turned out so Mother says they Dis covered me painfully copying head stones out of his catalogue one Sabbath morning and happily decided it was latent Talent the other Midnight i painfully signed my 300th attempt a survival through cartooning. There Are a number of ways in which an ambitious boy can get his training in the illustrated he said she said Branch of Art quite a few Young hopefuls Are proselytes by a seductive correspondence school and a neatly stacked blonde in an invisible bathing suit or a Rabbit wearing a Bowler hat make big Money you too can learn to draw. Most. Victims Are unwittingly groomed by childhood buddies who like to have Leggy females inked on their jackets. A few eventually graduate from this raw medium to the printed Page but the rest eventually turn twosome More rewarding line such As sign painting Auto repair or heavy construction work. My own initiation came through the columns of the stars and stripes. It was during that Post be Day period when All the stripes cartoonists had gathered their Points and were hustling Home to pipe slippers and Syndicate. Ravaged by guard duty and late hours i glibly persuaded a Paris colonel that he would t find a More Point shy artist outside the wehrmacht and was immediately whisked away to the camaraderie color and excitement of the overseas publishing game. A pfc by Trade i was pretty Well up on the Mili tary life and while not exactly at Odd with its character building value i Felt that i had bettered myself by making the move. I waxed smug and rejoiced Over my Triumph. Today almost 29months later my Victory looks about like that of a Kamikaze Pilot who made Good. life once behind me it was Only a matter of tune before i left my ods piled on the floor at Home and came to new York. Now this vision of hayseed covered boys bearing card Board suitcases 4o the big City is about As mistaken As it is popular. I arrive with a bulging Val Pak and had t l even seen a. Hayseed since a regrettable incident just outside Garmisch Parten Kirchen. But the rest of what has t Hap nation of artist writer and minstrel show Endman. This May not sound like much forthe family to brag about and i m not looking for sympathy. Just the same Idon t think the fun Loving american Public is quite aware of the ordeal by which one becomes qualified to snap open a Magazine and shove it under the noses of admiring friends a trick effective after All Only when you have your stuff printed in-4t like firing on the Range the act of drawing cartoons May be accomplished from any one of three positions sitting standing or sprawling. The usual procedure is to shift from one to the other in Hopes of jogging few ideas. By the time one has achieved professional status All three have been incorporated in a habitual Slouch which is at least partly accountable for the fact that cartoonists Are frequently mistaken for vagrants or assassins by. Suspicious cops. Some of the first car Toons Ever conceived have been lost to the Public because they have been re corded Only on the Walls of some local the process of creation the cartoonist having assumed his preferred starting stance prepares himself for inspiration by allowing his life to Pas before his eyes in my own Case i find the general effect of this about like that of watching an unedited Home movie produced by the inmates of a mental institution on a Rainy night. Slowing these flashes to a Lope the cartoonist attempts to coax them toward 8v�x 11 inches of White resulting frustration usually produces a state of Shock which can Westbe remedied by compresses soaked in hot Coffee and diluted Benz Edrine. A alternative is to slap the victim smartly with opened packages of his favorite Garet. Once he is revived and it May not be Worth the trouble his images begin to dribble across the Blank paper in a horizontal sequence of plunging dreadnoughts Little old ladies stray dogs dented fenders irate bar keeps sardonic Farmers and precious brats. Cutting diagonally across them. Groups of two or More chatting figures some of them animals,-.Jerk by like shooting gallery targets. The usual crowd includes a suburban couple shouting Over Coffee"1 cups a Petty criminal making Alf eyes at the Bench or a potted missionary with some aboriginal ups. Occasionally Mystic snoozing on spikes will do a slow Roll right through everything. The epic proceeds in pantomime wives Bellow safes plunge into Concrete institution Burn to the ground and the whole uproarious works without even whimper. Not that cartooning is completely silent apart from the Ordinary night noises jostling molecules a a wrist watch his .is., fairly deafened by the Ima Gmary Dia Logue he Hopes to slap under a passing vision. It takes quite a flare for. , what with the sound track for two prospectors droning on during feature . Her Girdle. Renegades even a few of the More familiar signatures contrive to beat this rap with a system called the a kind of literary Shell game it May be played by one or More and. Consists merely of inventing your own sentences to go under other Peoples. Published works. A crude variation is to put someone else s line under still another Man s drawing but most wipers could make More k Nock ing drug stores. O matter How fresh it seems on the drawing Board there is Only one test of a night s work they Call it rather him an editor. The first one 1 met outweighed me even had me on reach so i banked on my youth and suppleness of wit out he was t buying either of these but warily asked me what i had under my Arm. I held out my hand recited my name and said i was glad to meet him. Lacing his hands on the. X desk he turned his head sideways like Gary Cooper would in speaking to a n Friendly cartoons sure i began. I was a cartoonist for several months on the army paper in Ger let s see he peered non commit ally at a Fly drowning in an open inkwell sitting in a deep leather chair opposite him i lovingly fished out my. Dozen sheets and reached them to cushioned. I seat of my chair was just High enough off the floor to keep me from being trampled. The Only Ash tray m the Roo was next to his Elbow almost As if it were planned the psychological Adan. his. About All i could see were his sleeves and hands As my work weaved in mid air these All your own ideas he asked from behind a sheaf of drawings. Yes sir i peeped Over the Edge of the desk. One. After the other the first four drawings Slid Back toward me. He let the fifth flutter aside turning it so .1 could see this thing s been done a million times he yawned of i stared Back As if i d never seen the thing More hit the desk. He held the next up above his head then at Arm length toward the sunlit window. He looked at me. I looked at Bot turned to the paper. With a slight.Jerk of his head he asked what the hell this supposed to be a cat i blinked hoping he could spit out the head of a thumb tack he had been chewing the sight of the next drawing he started to Grin and then chuckle silently. Heartened l began chuckling too. Still smiling head cocked to one. Continued on Page 22% ripened follows tradition i Auchtoo close for Comfort. " Heady wishes presented drawings to the humor editor of the thickest Magazine on the Newsstands. " remember it was a wednesday. Mutiny anteroom 4hat funnelled into editor s office reminded me of those prints which you see carts filled with Gentry rattling Oft to the Guillotine. These nastily dressed people clutching of their t Rief cases their throats Hadje achut r other it seems were cartoonists Ewas pm three months later i sold my Rusty a f i r cartoon to a plasma soaked adventure to Magazine a theother Side a j5ince then living on the modern Asj to Etic sad Lett of Coffee an cigarettes Bea wifely available to these hawkers they must f to exist in an age of movable Type and High literacy. Least to adapt themselves that was no ladle that was my knife the successful cartoonist is a frenetic combi weekend May 22, 1m8
