[soft triumphant music] [soft triumphant music continues] [soft triumphant music continues] [upbeat triumphant music] [upbeat triumphant music continues] - Hello and welcome to "Comic Culture".

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guest today is Cartoonist John Rose.

John, welcome back to "Comic Culture".

- Oh, thank you so much for inviting me back, Terence.

I really appreciate it.

- Now, John, you are the cartoonist behind one of the oldest strips in syndication, "Barney Google & Snuffy Smith".

And recently we were emailing back and forth about the 100th anniversary year being put together in a digital edition by Kings Features.

So can you tell us a little bit about that?

- It was actually King Features' idea to do a digital collection, and they asked me about if there was a certain year I wanted to do, and I suggested that one and they were all for it.

So basically it's a collection of all of the Sunday comics in chronological order.

And then I did a special storyline that year, because it was Barney Google's 100th birthday, and I did about a two and a half week storyline where Barney Google kind of gets lost in the comics trying to find his way back to Hootin' Holler for his birthday.

So that was a real joy to have that whole story in the collection.

I have some special artwork that I was, that I created for it.

That was a lot of fun to do too.

So it's kind of my first foray of any kind into digital publishing.

I'm an old guy and I like to feel the paper on my fingers when I turn the pages of a book, but I really enjoyed it.

I've downloaded it to my phone and tablet and it's real readable.

I like the color.

It came out really nice I think.

- Now one of the things about a digital collection is that you don't have it on, you know, that you can hold it in your hand, but again, you can do things that you can't do ordinarily.

You can zoom in on a certain panel that you like or you can see, you talked about that two weeks where Barney is walking through the comic strips.

And I recall you sort of had him going into, you know, he's at Camp Swampy, he's visiting the Bumsteads.

So, you know, when you're doing something like that, you can kind of zoom in and look at, you know, your version of what Blondie would look like or what, you know, Beetle is going to look like.

So as a cartoonist, when you get to play with somebody else's toys, how much fun is that?

- That was a lot of fun for me, because I think all the characters that I crossed over with were ones that I really enjoy.

A lot of them that I've grown up reading, fans of, been a fan of my whole life.

So it was fun to get to have Barney Google and sometimes Snuffy Smith interact with all those characters.

- It's funny 'cause I think of my life as a comic reader being really connected to the syndicated newspaper strips.

And I was telling the folks on the show earlier that, you know, growing up on Long Island, we had two newspapers.

We had Newsday, which had three pages of comics, and we had the New York Daily News, which had another three pages of comics.

So, and a lot of times there was no overlap.

So you got a lot of different strips that you could read back and forth.

So, you know, growing up and you're reading, let's say "Hagar the Horrible", or you're reading, you know, "Beetle Bailey", what are the strips that really inspire you to wanna become a cartoonist?

- When I was growing up as a young child, I, we lived in a small town.

We had a small newspaper, but some of the comics that I really remember reading in that newspaper were "Beetle Bailey" and "Blondie".

And those were probably the, we didn't have Hagar yet, but then as I got to be a teenager, we moved into the suburbs outside of Washington DC and that comic section was more like the ones you described where I think we had about three, three and a half pages of comics.

And it really opened my eyes to so many more comics that I hadn't seen, because we didn't have the internet back then or anything to, you know, you really had to research to find other comics or look at papers when you were on vacation.

So at that point, I was exposed to a lot more like "Hagar the Horrible", you know, "Hi and Lois".

"Mother Goose and Grimm" was more when I went to college, but I really enjoyed "Mother Goose and Grimm" and "Shoe".

That was another one that really inspired me a lot.

- I remember before "Calvin and Hobbes" hit the newspapers, there was a series of ads saying that this new strip was coming.

"'Calvin and Hobbes' coming," and there'd be like, you know, a tease of the art and everything else.

And so you got excited for two or three weeks when they ran this ad and it would always be in a random spot, whether it was somewhere in the news section or the sports section or the classifieds.

So it was kind of fun and you kind of built up that excitement.

So, you know, you're talking about "Shoe" being the new strip when you're in college or something like that, what are the strips that, you know, as they've come out you've sort of been drawn to?

'Cause I know that we see new strips from time to time, but, you know, as a professional, what are the strips that you look at that are, you know, your contemporaries, but have come out after you've been working on "Snuffy" that make you say, "Wow, I gotta step up my game."

- Well, there's a lot of 'em that make me wanna step up my game.

There's a lot that I really like, trying to think off the top of my head.

I mean, I think "Pearls Before Swine" is funny.

I like the biting sense of humor sometimes.

The new "Heathcliff" is fun.

That's, I like that.

Actually, I grew up reading "Heathcliff" too, that was in my small town newspaper when I was very young.

But yeah, there's a lot.

Even ones that are carried on now, like "Hi and Lois" and "Beetle Bailey" by Mort Walker's sons inspire me every day.

So yeah, I just, I love a lot of comics and I could spend, I spend a lot of time, probably too much time reading the comics on the different comic websites and then my local newspaper.

- And, you know, as somebody who is a professional, and you've been a cartoonist for a few decades now, you know, things have changed as far as newspapers go.

It used to be, again, you know, in the 80s, it was not uncommon for me to be able to read three pages of comics.

And then we started to see that page count shrink, to now it's a two page spread and they started shrinking them so they could fit more on them, but then they stopped shrinking them and they just started eliminating them.

So as the media landscape changes, how are you sort of using the digital delivery to keep "Snuffy" in the public eye?

- It is kind of different, because like I said, I like the paper, feeling of the paper in my hands, but I definitely have gotten used to reading the comics online.

I do that a lot.

But then, for example, now with the comic strip, we're not in the Washington Post print edition, but they have an online edition and of comics in the Washington Post.

And "Barney Google & Snuffy Smith" is in that.

The same thing with USA Today, it's in the online section of USA Today comics.

So it's just a different platform and I kind of hope that, I mean, my hope is that comics will always be around no matter what the platform is, whether it's your standard newspaper or online or, you know, some other way that we don't even know about yet.

- Again, it's interesting because we're not so old that we don't know how to use those digital tools, but at the same time, we are old enough to appreciate that tactile feel of the board, the way the brush or the pen sort of draws that line of ink across the figure.

Now I know that you have a second generation cartoonist working with you, your daughter Sarah, who is a color artist who works on a few strips with you a year, but generally focusing around "Li'l Sparky".

Can you tell us a little bit about the origin of "Li'l Sparky" and how your daughter came to be involved?

- Well, basically in 2020, I was trying to kind of think, she had graduated from college.

She was, wanted to be a graphic designer and she hadn't gotten a job that she wanted, the job that she wanted at this point.

And I was trying to think of ways that maybe we could work together on something.

And I was actually out mowing the grass, mowing the yard one evening and it hit me that Spark Plug the horse could have a grandson and I would name him a Li'l Sparky.

And I just started toying around with that idea that I, you know, that he would be a younger pony, a little racehorse, an aspiring racehorse.

He wanted to be like his famous grandfather.

And it just hit me maybe that Sarah could join me on that since that's kind of a generational theme.

And I asked her about it and she was excited to join in and we talked a lot about it.

I talked about the characters and, you know, went back and forth with her with to get some input.

And then, so basically "Li'l Sparky" is kind of his own little universe of a few other animal characters there with him.

But we run Special Li'l Sparky Weeks, we have about two weeks a year, and they're all with the, just feature of those characters as the primary characters.

And then Snuffy Smith or Barney Google might show up one day out of the week, but it's always Li'l Sparky and his little duck friend of his, a chicken, a bunny rabbit, and then of course Spark Plug.

Not only the two weeks that we do the comic strips, but also throughout the year he's kind of become popular with merchandise.

So we've done T-shirts and we did a Christmas ornament that was very popular and I'm sure we'll do some other things with him too.

We even have him, I even have him on the cover of the digital book even though he wasn't even here in 2019.

But, [laughs] but now he was in a way I guess.

But yeah, so Sarah helps me with the coloring of the comic strip that those two weeks outta the year, and I write it and draw it and then she colors it.

She has a good sense of color and it's just fun to go back and forth and bounce ideas and, you know, have somebody else to communicate with on that.

And she enjoys it I think and I do too.

[laughs] - Well, as a reader, I enjoy it.

And one of the things that comes across first off, the art is it's that that fun style, that cute style that you have.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

There's-- - [John] Oh, thank you, thanks.

- A cuteness to Li'l Sparky.

And then I'm always thinking about the duck and the chicken that he's hanging out with who always kind of point out some foible that he's got.

But the one thing that really comes through is you are having a lot of fun with that strip, with that character.

And I imagine it's even more enjoyable, because your daughter is involved and you get to share something with her.

So, I mean, is it a little bit more special than just the standard "Snuffy" strip?

- It's all special, but I guess it's just special in a different way.

Yeah, it's just a little bit of a change of pace for those two weeks out of the year.

So it's fun, yeah, I enjoy it.

And it's, one thing that is neat, these characters for those two weeks, the animal characters talk and in the Snuffy Smith, "Barney Google & Snuffy Smith" standard comics, the animal don't talk.

So that is a fun element too.

- You know, I did just think about it, I'm hoping that Snuffy never sees the chicken that hangs out with Li'l Sparky.

- That's right.

- That would make me a little nervous.

And I will say I would've normally worn my Li'l Sparky T-shirt that I wear on occasion, but I was interviewing some folks who were doing a podcast about "Heathcliff" today, so I'm wearing my Jimmy shirt.

- Okay, okay, that's fine.

- So I hope you're not offended.

- No, I'm not.

I thank you for wearing it.

I see you wear it sometimes on the show and I really appreciate it.

- So when it comes to this secondary merchandise, is this something that the Syndicate comes up to you and says, "We'd really like to do a T-shirt or a Christmas ornament."

Or is this something where you go to them and say, "I think this would be a great idea."

- I think actually the, we did T-shirts first, and I think that was my idea when at that point, and they did really well.

And then somebody at the Syndicate came up with the idea of doing Christmas ornaments and or just holiday ornaments and I wanted to participate and they said, you know, "Hey, why don't you start by doing Li'l Sparky?"

So if we do one a year, it's only been the last two years, but he was the first year, trying to, I think I have it right here, and, yeah, if I can hold him up.

I don't know if you can see that or not, but it's a glass ornament.

I have him in a little festive holiday Santa suit with a cup of hot cocoa and just a fun little project to work on.

- I guess it's different, you get to stretch some different muscles, because designing an ornament might have a different, you know, work size than it would be for a strip, whether it's a Sunday or a daily.

So is this something where you have to, you know, sort of learn how it's going to be put together so that you can present the art the right way?

- Yeah, that's true.

I mean, I did, like, several different character designs for the ornaments and then ended up choosing the one I liked the best.

And I've always liked merchandise, so it's fun to get to do some merchandise art.

Like, I've loved merchandise with cartoon characters on it.

I have lots in my studio behind me.

And it's neat to have some "Snuffy Smith"-themed merchandise.

- The artist's studio is sort of a sacred space for the artist.

It's also different for a lot of artists and I've seen that a lot of the comic book artists tend to be in places where there's, I don't wanna say chaos, but a lot of chaos going on, because it seems like they're always working to get that deadline.

You know, they've got 22 pages a month that they have to sit over the drawing board and really force themselves to do, so their space is not as whimsical as well, the space that you're in right now.

So, you know, as you are working on "Snuffy Smith", how do these pieces sort of come about?

'Cause I see you've got the giant cutout of Snuffy behind you, and I know it looks like you might have some curtains with Weezy on it back there, so.

- [John] I do, yeah, yeah, I do have some curtains.

- So where does this stuff come from?

- Of course, some things I make myself, like the curtains, those are hand-drawn, I drew those.

And then my wife made the curtains from the drawings.

But then some things I find like older items on eBay, but a lot of things are just things I come across, and they're not all "Snuffy Smith"-related.

I mean, I've got, like, those old Pogo figurines that used to be on, was that Downy detergent, some kind of detergent or something, That I have all the characters, got, you know, some Bugs Bunny, a lot of Mickey Mouse stuff.

So just different comics and characters that I admire.

Just, I feel like it kind of inspires me.

Or like you said, it makes you feel like you're entering kind of a whimsical space when you go to do your work.

- And I would imagine too, because you are doing something designed to put a smile on somebody's face, maybe to get a chuckle on a Monday morning when, you know, they're getting ready for that first cup of coffee before they go off to work.

You know, I guess it helps you stay in that mindset of like, "This is a great job.

I don't have to go in the car and travel for 45 minutes to go in an office and get yelled at."

So, you know.

- [laughs] Right, right.

- So again, you know, this sense of whimsy, you know, I guess it sort of helps you stay in the mood.

- I yeah, I think you're right, I feel like it does.

And I'm lucky that my wife is patient with that and lets me decorate this little section of our house that way.

- And, you know, you mentioned the Pogo figurine and I'm thinking back to those comics that were so influential but aren't there anymore and I'm thinking of "Peanuts", and recently, I think we had the 75th anniversary of the first printing of the very first "Peanuts" strip and you got to do, I guess something for the Schulz Museum.

So could you talk a little bit about that?

- It was, what was that, Charles Schulz' 100th birthday I think, was back in, I believe it was in November.

A lot of comic strip cartoonists were asked to create Charles Schulz or "Peanuts"-themed comic strips for that day.

I kind of have a unique opportunity, because of the age of my comic strip and because Charles Schulz and his family were fans of "Barney Google", I think one of his relatives, I don't remember if it was an uncle or grandfather, somebody nicknamed him "Sparky", based on the Spark Plug character in our comic strip.

So that was kind of the angle that I took with my, the theme of the strip that I came up with.

And that was, it was a joy to create that, letting Spark Plug see that, you know, he was honored that Charles Schulz had the nickname based on his name and then to have it collected by the Schulz Museum.

And then I didn't know that they had them on display, but then another cartoonist friend of mine was actually there and took some pictures, and let some other cartoonists know that he had seen their work on the walls.

And that was quite an honor to be a part of that.

And it's a beautiful museum.

I have, I've been to the museum one time and it's a beautiful place if you haven't been and you have the opportunity to go.

- There are those cartoonists that influenced us greatly.

And to be recognized, you know, by the family, that's just gotta be quite an ego boost, you know, as you continue your work.

- It was very touching.

Yeah, it was very touching.

I mean, I had, I remember when, you know, the Snoopy was all themed in the space, you know, space outfits when I was a little kid and I had some of those, you know, when he went to the moon.

And so I've been a big fan of "Peanuts" my whole life or almost my whole life, I guess.

- Well, you know, I make this comment a lot on the show and I apologize to the viewers, but one of the things that I remember most fondly growing up was even before I could read, my mom would give me lunch, and she'd put me in front of the paper and I could just look at the pictures and, you know, I had no idea what the man with the funny hair was saying, but I knew his name was Dagwood and, you know, just kind of seemed, "Oh, he's running into the mailman again.

That's funny."

And Snoopy was one of those things, because he had the, Charles had the specials on TV, you could kind of get excited about it, you know, so I would imagine when you have a character with a cultural impact, Snuffy is going back over a century now, you know, there have been a lot of different, I guess variations of the character.

And I know that there's some in foreign languages, so when you see Snuffy appearing in another country, you know, how do you sort of react to maybe your work being translated and having no idea exactly what it's saying?

- I don't know, it's a really neat experience to see the comic translated into other languages and I'd seen it for years in Spanish, but then I got the opportunity to be asked to work on every year, we have a comic book in Norway.

It's actually now it's a digest.

They put "Hagar" and "Popeye" and "Snuffy" together in a digest form, and they sell that comic book every year around, I think it's in November before Christmas.

So yeah, to see my strips, they're usually Sunday strips from years past that I'd done.

But to see them translated and then they recolor them for this publication.

It's really neat, it's inspirational.

You never think about your work, you know, going beyond the US and it's really neat to see it.

And, you know, I think it helps, and I'm not as good at this probably as at all that as Fred Lasswell was, but I always thought Fred was a master of the sight gag, you know, very few words and rely on the art for a lot of the joke in the comic strip.

And I think that helps it too.

I try to do that, but he was a master at it.

So I think that helps, you know, there's less words to translate, a lot of it's visual, to, you know, more of a visual medium, so, but it is, it's neat to see it in in other languages.

- You attend HeroesCon in Charlotte every year and that's where we get to see each other in person.

So as a syndicated cartoonist, it's a different experience for you than it is for somebody who might be working on let's say the "Fantastic Four" or "Batman" where fans, I guess fans of "Batman" are a little bit more casual, I guess.

And it's the newspaper strip fans who seem to be more hardcore, because they have to, you know, seek you out.

So when you go to a convention, how do you sort of interact with the fans and get that feedback and that lets you know that you're doing something that means a lot to a lot of people?

- It's a lot of fun for me, because, you know, as a comic strip cartoonist, I work down in my studio by myself a lot.

So I don't hear or have a lot of interaction with readers other than emails or messages or comments on my comic strip online.

So to get out and be with the public is a joy for me.

It's a lot of fun at HeroesCon and I'm usually, and I think I am too as well this year, I'm next to Marcus Hamilton who does "Dennis the Menace".

We kinda always joke, because we say that, you know, a lot of parents and grandparents bring their kids to this Comic-Con and they go and meet all the big comic book guys and girls and then the grandparents and the parents come over and see us and that's fine with me.

- And, you know, it's interesting too, because having watched you at the table, you greet fans, you have some merch for sale.

Now do you do the sketching like, you know, you might get a Lee Weeks or a, you know, John Romita Jr., they're doing sketching all day or are you just kind of there just interacting and hanging out with your cartooning brethren?

- I interact a lot, but then I do, I'll do sketches of the "Snuffy" characters.

Like, I'll draw Snuffy a lot for people, you know, some of those characters.

But no, I don't try to do "Batman" or any, definitely not anything like Lee Weeks' standards.

- When we're talking about Snuffy, he's one of those characters that is instantly recognizable.

So I'm wondering, you know, as you are doing a strip every single day, I think you mentioned this before we started, that you're actually, we're in the middle of April right now, you're working on the Sunday strip for the last weekend in June.

Is this to keep you so that you can have some free time if you needed to go on vacation for a couple of weeks?

Or is this just the normal operation for the Syndicate?

- Basically the normal operation, but I think I'm a little farther ahead than some folks, but then there are other people that I know that try to be a year ahead of time, because then you can still be in the mood of the correct season of the year, but you're a year ahead.

So I've never been able to get that far ahead, but, you know, that would be nice.

But it is kind of fun, you know, here, like, around Christmas time when you're trying to come up with Christmas gags and it's, like, the late summer or, you know, very, very early fall, but, you know, you have Christmas music playing or watching some Rankin/Bass Christmas specials or Charlie Brown Christmas or something in August.

But it's, yeah, it's just something you get used to and I like to be as far ahead as I can be.

- I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, how long it takes you to work on a daily strip, just the art-wise, not the gag, but how long it takes you to work on that compared to a Sunday strip.

- The daily comic strip takes me about two hours after I have the gag.

I pencil it and then I will take the pencil sketch and then enlarge that on my copier and then I'll put that on a light table and then draw on some Bristol board paper, I'll ink it.

That's how I do, where I do the inking.

And so that takes about two hours to do a daily comic strip.

Everything depends on the difficulty of the art, but Sunday is about, like, three dailies.

I usually get a little more involved with the artwork on the Sunday, because most daily comics, most of the time I work within two panels.

So it's fun to be able to stretch out and, you know, have a lot more panels on a Sunday, tell a little bit more of a story, have a little bit more space to do some artwork.

So those, and then I also have to color those.

So with all that, that usually takes about 15 hours and that's just on the, but the drawing, the inking and everything is the same.

It, it helps my original art, I think by doing it on the light table, it helps the original art look a little more clean.

- 15 hours is a long time and it does show the Sunday strips are the ones I guess we get to spend a little bit more time on.

But speaking of time, we've run out of it.

So, John, I wanted to thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to talk with me today.

- I'm honored.

Thank you very much for having me again, Terence, really an honor to be here.

- I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture".

We will see you again soon.

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