Portraits of the Artist

There’s a long tradition of artists doing self-portraits to study themselves. I think I first began drawing myself as a cartoon character in illustrated letters I wrote to friends who were comic book collectors in the late ‘50s. It was kid’s stuff, but I started doodling self-caricatures in other notebooks as well just for the heck of it. It was pretty much an unconscious thing.

Then there were some really embarrassing tokens of love I drew myself into to impress my first wife, Dana. Oh boy, hide that stuff! After we were married in 1965, I drew a number of strips in my sketchbook about our unsuccessful attempt to live in Europe, called “The Silly Pigeons.” Then in Zap Comix and other early underground comics I sometimes appeared as “the editor” or as “Mr. Sketchum” to introduce the comic. I was having fun referring to myself as an underground folk hero and labeling myself “America’s Favorite Underground Cartoonist,” but it turned out to be a joke that everybody took seriously.

At the time I was a hippie living on welfare. After I stopped taking drugs in 1973, I tried to improve my drawing by working from life because some of the work from my popular hippie period is just a tad sloppy to my eye. Also my wife, Aline, and I began drawing ourselves in “Dirty Laundry Comics” at this time. Because of her example and influence, and what I saw in Justin Green’s autobiographical comic, “Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary,” my work became much more personal.

I have always been critical of everything, including myself, and I’m just trying to understand this reality better so I can evolve to another, hopefully higher level and maybe even take my fabulous record collection with me.