My Start in Caricature

I got this as a mailbag question not so long ago:

Tom, have you ever written about how you got into caricaturing? When you realized this was something you could do? I used to draw cartoon characters when I was about 5, but that’s about as far as I got…LOL. If you haven’t, or if you have, maybe you could repeat it.

– David Lubin, Tampa FL

I thought this to be a bit too long a story for a Sunday Mailbag, so I left it for a regular post. Feel free to bail out when you get bored…

People sometimes ask what got me started doing caricatures. As far back as I can remember I wanted to be an artist. Comic books and Batman got me started loving art and storytelling, but I never set out nor really wanted to be a comic book artist. The truth is I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with art… I just wanted to be a “commercial artist” and make a living drawing and illustrating. Caricature was not something that particular interested me early on. I knew what caricature was, but is was not a conscious part of what I did as an artist, or what I wanted to do. As a kid I drew comic books of adventures of my friends and I… in one series we were all babies doing teenage-level shenanigans. These were all caricatures of us of course, but I never made that connection. I was just drawing us “funny”. That would all change one day thanks to a pretentious art teacher and a pointless art class at the University of Minnesota in 1985, and the change of heart of another caricature artist.

I wish I could remember the name of that art teacher at the U of M… I’d send her flowers.

The class was called “alternative sculpture”, which was one of those silly filler classes that applied to virtually no actual career direction, but was apparently just there to fill up student schedules and collect tuition money for credits. It was “alternative” because you created your sculptures with any material EXCEPT clay. I could go on about how big a waste of time that was, but suffice it to say I was very disappointed in what was my first college art class. Sadly, it was the only art class with room in it when I registered. The class was unbelievably snobbish. Our first assignment was to create a concept sculpture of a building that reflected that building’s purpose. I chose a music recording studio. I spent a lot of after hours time in the arts building creating this thing. The building was designed to look like a grand piano with the roof being the angled open lid, windows on the open face, and a guitar neck “tower” that phased through it vertically. I made the frets out of wire, the body out of wood, etc. I probably spent 5x the amount of time the other students spent on their projects. On review day I think I got a C- and was told it was “too representational”. I took to skipping that class a lot and mailing the remaining projects in at the last second.

I was skipping the class one day and wasting time in the art building commons area when I spotted a flier on the wall that said “can you draw?”. It was an advertisement for caricaturists to work at a local theme park called Valleyfair by a company called Fasen Arts. I thought I could draw, so I answered the ad and mailed them some drawings. A few weeks later I interviewed for the job with the company’s owner, Steve Fasen. I met Steve at the dojo he did karate in, and he greeted me int he lobby in a ‘gi with a kick to the face that stopped one inch from my nose. I showed him a number of drawings I had done of celebrities, and he critiqued me pretty harshly before sending me on my way with a “we’ll give you a call”.

Now, Steve is quite a guy, and today I count him as one of my good friends as well as a mentor and surrogate big brother. He’s a great caricaturist and an even better businessman. However Steve has a very selective memory. He will tell you that he took one look at my work and hired me on the spot, knowing I would really take to caricature and make it one of the center points of my career. That’s not how it happened. I in fact did not get the job at Valleyfair, and heard nothing from them for weeks (not that I blame them… despite my overconfidence I know in retrospect my work wasn’t very impressive). Just as I was figuring I was out of luck, I got a call to do a second interview at Steve’s home. There I was given a quick lesson on live work and tossed into a chair and made to draw Steve as his brother Gary watched over my shoulder. No pressure! Wish I had that drawing today… it must have been awful.

Well, not too awful. I did get a job, but not at Valleyfair. Fasen Arts had another operation in a theme park near Chicago called Great America, and they said they had a place for me there. So, I packed my bags and moved to Waukegan, IL, where I lived in a townhouse with 5 other caricature/airbrush T-shirt artists I did not know, worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week all summer and had my life irrevocably changed…. I later found out that I got the job only because another artist who they had selected bowed out, deciding to stick to gigs and fair work back in Minnesota.

I wish I knew the name of that artist (actually I think it was MN caricaturist Cindy Berglund)… I’d send her flowers, too.

That summer I fell in love with the art of caricature and cartooning at the same time I learned what it would take to realize my dreams of being a working artist. I was privileged to work with a small group of outstanding artists, most of whom went on to have very successful careers in animation, illustration, comic books, children’s book illustration, and fine art. I was humbled by the talent these guys possessed, and realized quickly this art thing was not something you just did or were born with… it was something you had to work incredibly hard at. That summer got me off my rear end and instilled a determination and drive in me that still motivates me today. I drew until my hand was sore… literally. I worked hard at my skills and did live caricatures at Great America every summer all through college, eventually being offered a manager/trainer job by the Fasens at a new operation at Six Flags Atlanta. From there I started my own caricature operations and began freelancing. It was a long road (one I’m still on), with many lucky breaks and many failures and roadblocks. I am still constantly humbled by the skills and talents of artists I admire and that continues to motivate me to improve my abilities and to grow as an artist. My philosophy is still “be confident in your skills today, but do not be satisfied if they are still the same skills tomorrow”. Today I am lucky enough to do what I love and earn a living at it, supporting my family in the process.

…and I owe it all to a pretentious art class and a caricature artist who got cold feet.