Cartoonist and illustrator located in New Jersey. 

Cartooning happened rather suddenly for me, and I would never have predicted its arrival in my life. My more formal studies were in Computer Science,  and that led me to a career in that field for most of my adult life. It kept me busy too, that and raising a family. Bits and bytes are very analytical, theoretical, non tangible. Sure, it helps make the world better (it really does) and that created deep satisfaction for me, but on the creativity scale, it’s low compared to say, artwork.

The truth is, when I got out of high school, I didn’t know what to do with my life. After a few years of odd jobs, a friend suggested going to school for computers. So I did.

But it’s only when I look at the past, I can see how I arrived at cartooning. There aren’t any computer scientists in my family. They are mostly creatives. My father, a graphic artist. His brother, a graphic artist and commercial illustrator. Their father, an architect. My brothers had careers revolving around photography.

Throughout my life, there was always a burning desire to create things, so I did. I love to work with my hands and having learned woodworking from my father, I built and made things. Humor and quirky things came out in different ways. Like my father, I’ve always created birthday cards, never store bought. I loved to create our home videos, peppered with humor and a little production value. Later on, say 2008, I started to create a series of first person humorous video shorts.

But what about cartoons? I’m getting there 😄

Again, it’s about nature (my family perhaps) and nature, those influences along the way.
Like any kid of the 70’s, I watched TV (a lot) -cartoons, sitcoms, you name it. We all read the daily and Sunday comics. My go-to were single panel cartoons, I don’t think I had the attention span for multi panel. I never drew cartoons, I consumed them. When I was older, Gary Larsen’s ‘The Far Side’ came along and THAT was for me. Unlike anything before it. It was the only cartoon that I collected in book form. Movie wise, I’m a big fan of schtick. Anything from Mel Brooks, like Get Smart, and all Mel’s movies. Woody Allen, Larry David, etc. Comedy movies are my favorite.

​

​

The influences continued. Like I said, my father, Stan, was a graphic artist. We lived in New Jersey but he would commute to Manhattan every day. I remember my sister and I visiting him and his studio. It was like a candy shop of wonder. Pens, markers, paper, desks, lights, rubber cement, rulers tools, color. He and his business partner had artwork hanging all over the place. We would just play and create “artwork” all day. Manhattan was bigger than life and since my parents were from Brooklyn, the city was second nature to them and so to us as well. 
 

Fast forward to 2008. Those videos I created? My father loved them. While he could at times be serious, he was also humorous. Not a joke cracker, but smart and funny in his artwork, cards and more.  

My videos were mostly pantomime, set to music, sometimes very precisely, and the said it reminded him of the French actor, Jacques Tati. That sent me down the rabbit hole of all his movies. Brilliant stuff. Like the precursor to Mr. Bean, also brilliant.

​

Fast forward to 2018. Here comes the cartoons.
We were visiting my father and step mom in South Carolina to ring in 2019. My father had remarried after my mom passed away in 1998. 
My Dad, now 93, had brought out a bunch of manilla folders, with artwork and graphic projects from over the years.  But one folder was full of single panel cartoons that he made back in the early 1950’s. I was stunned.

These were New Yorker type single panel gags, very professionally drawn, with captions so funny. I could get over it. Here they were for over seventy years, these gems. He never told us about them.

​

The story goes that he did this on the side while working his day job as a graphic artist. He loved the New Yorker and followed all the cartoonists at the time.  He sold a cartoon quite soon to The Saturday Evening Post, then another to The American Magazine, but then a long lull. So he got back to his day job.

I went on and on, I was transfixed that he created these, he had artistry, humor, scenery, all in one perfect package. My dad! With a sense of humor like this! Wow.

​

We went home from that trip but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I asked myself, if I were to create a cartoon like that, what would it be.

I never tried, I couldn’t draw, I didn’t write jokes.

 

But I tried. I remember it. Riding my bike, I saw telephone lines with birds on them. I imagined that the birds could listen in on phone conversations with their feet. We had just ‘cut the cord’ on our home telephone line, opting to just use our cellular phones, so maybe one bird says to the other that gossip has really dried up since everyone was switching to cellular. (I know, not great but it was something). I didn’t think I could draw it, but I tried.  I used an app called “Paper” for the iPad. 
It wasn’t New Yorker caliber stuff, but I created it all by myself, the joke, the scene, the crude drawing. It felt pretty good. So I tried again, and again. The more I tried, the more ideas came to me. It fed upon itself. My hands still couldn’t draw what my mind was thinking, but I kept at it. At least I knew what didn’t look right, and focused on it until it was passable. It became a compulsion. I could stop. 
 

And that’s how it started. Cartooning created a deep bond between my father and I. We spoke for hours about cartooning. He also turned me on to a lot of cartoonist’s work. Two that stood out were André Francois and Saul Steinberg. 

Then I revisited The New Yorker, which in my younger days, I just didn’t get. Now it all came together. They were smart, funny, goofy, absurd. Everything! The single panel gag was the perfect encapsulation for me. The feeling I would get, the process of idea, to rough to finish cartoon, it was like the perfect fitting glove, it just felt right. 
 

I’m glad I was able to share that love of cartooning with my dad. He passed away in 2022 at 95, but he was able to see my work published in a number of places, and that was heartwarming for us both. 
 

Well, that’s me.

My cartoons have appeared in Air Mail Weekly, Narrative Magazine, Wall Street Journal, The London Times, Alta Journal, American Bystander, Woman's World, Narrative Magazine,  Weekly Humorist and elsewhere.

I also like woodwork, photography, guitar, home and landscape design, cooking, cycling, and nature. I also create and sell wood sculptures.


David