Š Copyright, 1970, S. Gross. Buy this print here!Â
A couple of years ago, I was eating lunch with Sam and a bunch of the usual Pergola crowd, and we were talking about interviews. I hadnât started A Case for Pencils at that time, but I had been thinking about how to go about it. Sam told me that the thing about interviews is that they are basically finished before they start, because the interviewer already knows how they are going to portray you, even before they talk to you. With that in mind, when I finally got around to creating this blog, I decided to go with a survey format. I wanted to do right by cartoonists, and allow them to be the funny, kind, and articulate people that they are, without my bungling things up! Ironically, this interview was done over the phone, so I hope I did right by Sam!
I recommend listening to the below audio clip of our phone call, wherein Sam talks about the difference between drawing funny and funny drawing, before you read this interview, because he is an inimitable storyteller, and I want you to be able to read it in his voice. âJane MattimoeÂ
From L to R: Sam Gross, Jane Mattimoe (me/A Case for Pencils), Mort Gerberg, Sidney Harris. The original photo (on the photographed ipad) was taken by Samâs daughter, Michelle, at Pergola des Artistes in 2016.Â
Sam: I always wanted to be a cartoonist, and at age six I drew what was possibly a cartoon, on my desk. My first grade teacher was Mrs Levy, and I guess she was my first editor, because she had my mother come in with Kirkman industrial soap, and we had to erase my cartoon from the desk. So, I knew what I wanted to do at a very early age.
Sam: Yes, I am. I am very lucky. My wife was a vocational guidance counselor âsheâs retired now. She didnât have to do too much with me.
Jane: I read somewhere that you started cartooning in 1962. Was it actually earlier than that?
Sam: I was drawing before that, and I had one cartoon that was published in Saturday Review in 1953 when I was still in college. I was doing stuff for the school newspaperâ actually very little because Morty Gerberg had a lot on that, and I finally got two weeks in when he was off on something or the other⌠Morty and I went to the same school, CCNY Baruch⌠I would say professionally, it was a little bit earlier [than 1962]. I was drawing and getting published in Europe, in France and in Germany, prior to that. We were there in â60-61. I began in earnest back here in 1962. Thatâs when I started earning an income on it.Â
Actually, the first year I earned $985 in change, and my big client was actuallyâ and I wasnât doing any drawing⌠I was coming up ideasâ but a greeting card company in Brooklyn called Charmcraft. So, then of course, after the first year I did better.
Jane: You were in the military, right? I know George [Booth] got his start in Leatherneck. Did you do anything like that?
Sam: Oh yeah, as a matter of fact, in the military I was doing cartoons for the HAC PostâHeadquarters Area Command â which, I was stationed in Heidelberg, but the newspaper was in Mannheim⌠and from that I did a book, Cartoons for the GI, which sold very, very well. I was getting statements every month, and I was making more than my Commanding Officer, which pissed him off tremendously. Yeah, I forgot about that book.
Jane: I remember you told me that someone in the military told you that youâd never be able to get a job.
Sam: Yeah, that was my Commanding Officer. He didnât recommend me for the Good Conduct Medal. He said to meâ I was leaving the army by that timeâand he said, âNobodyâs ever going to hire you. Youâll never have a job.â And he was right.
Actually, I did work in a legitimate job for six months⌠and I alsoâŚI guess I got a legitimate paycheck at work, you know, like I would have to file a W2 for⌠When I was first with that job, which actually was as an accountant, and then the other one wasâwhich you canât call full employedâ which was when I was teaching at Pratt three semesters. I would get a paycheck there, but other than that, itâs been freelancing.
Jane: Wow! So letâs see, youâve been published everywhere of note, written a lot of books, and you were also the cartoon editor of The National LampoonâŚ
Jane: Did your time as a cartoon editor affect your process as a cartoonist? I mean, did it change how you viewed cartooning?
Sam: No. When youâre a cartoon editor, the only way it affects it is the audience and the direction the magazine is going. I also was cartoon editor at Smoke magazine, and for a very brief time, Parents magazine. Now Iâm not gonna go to Parents magazine and try to get a National Lampoon cartoon in there. The only way itâs affected me is by basically the market of the magazineânot the quality of drawing or the writingâbut basically I had in mind the readership of these particular magazines.
My well-worn copy of one of Samâs classic cartoon collections.
Jane: What tools do you use to make your cartoons?
Sam: I use two old Rapidograph pens, a two and a half and a one. Theyâre color codedâ blue and brown. I actually donât think itâs very important what your tools are as long as youâre doing this thing. I know a number of young cartoonists think that thereâs something magical in a particular tool, whatever it is. You work with what youâre comfortable in.
On one occasion, and this was at Saturday Evening Post, a young kid wanted the secret for how to do this thing. He thought the secret was embedded in your tools, so he asked around, âWhat paper do you use? What pens do you use?â So he asked this guy, John Elcik, who was a cartoonist at the AP, Associated Press, and he asked him, âWhat kind of ink do you use?â And John answered with a very straight face, âHiggens Gag Ink,â and nobody corrected him because this kid was a real noodge. So itâs a running gag now, with âHiggens Gag Ink,â because itâs so ridiculous to get involved in the tools of this thing. You do what works. And you let go what doesnât work. Brian Savage, who was living across the street from me on 3rd avenue was drawing with brush and lamp black, and he said âOh you have to try it!â I tried it, and I was miserable. After a day and a half I figured, this ainât for me. There are people who instead of working with a pen, they work with a brush. I canât work with a brush.
Iâm working with these busted Rapidographs because they are drafting pens, basically. Iâve learned how to put pressure⌠alleviate pressureâŚso I can vary the line with this thing. What I have done since Rapidograph has discontinued this line of pens, and they now have cartridge pens, is⌠thereâs this guy in Pennsylvania⌠Connecticut rather, who deals in antique pens, and I got enough points and enough pens⌠cartridges that hold the points⌠I guess to last me for the rest of my life. I did it just in case they decided to change the pens, which they did.
Jane: Iâve talked to so many cartoonists who are mourning the loss of this Rapidograph pen, Like Marisa [Acocella] goes on Ebay to search for them.
Sam: Iâm going to see Marisa tomorrow, and Iâll let her know about this guy.
Š Copyright, 1998, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Sam: I was in Paris, and I wasnât taking my Rapidographs, because I donât know where and how I have to clean these things, so I went into this art supply store, and they had a sale on Staedtler pens, and I asked the lady thereâbecause France, and pretty much Europe, is not known for fantastic sales on art suppliesâ so I asked, âWhy is Staedtler  being so good to me?â and she said, of course, âBecause theyâre discontinuing these pens.â I use these pensâŚtheyâre waterproof, and theyâve got various points. Theyâre not as comfortable, but basically if Iâm in Europe, Iâm not doing any finishes, so I can use them for sketches. If I sell something over there, and they want something immediately finished, I would have to sit down and do it with a Staedtler pen.
Art supplies are diminishing because of the computer. Pretty much every art supplies store in New York is gone. There are plenty of places with art supplies departments, like Staples. The place I go now, on Madison Avenue, it used to be an art supplies and stationary store, and the guy moved over to Lexington Avenue, and he basically had the same thingâŚand also a printing businessâŚheâs sort of limping along, and I make sure I go in and buy stuff there just to keep him in business, for godsakes!
Jane: You know, running this blog has really driven home that, like you said earlier, there isnât a magic tool. Iâve interviewed dozens and dozens of people, and everyone has different tools that they prefer. So I agree, itâs just whatever youâre comfortable withâŚ
Sam: You know, Iâm not very good with colorâŚDoctor Seuss was not very good with colorâŚamong other peopleâ same with Shel Silversteinâ they had it added mechanically, and you can see that in the Dr. Seuss books and The Giving Tree. Occasionally, I have to conquer my disabilitiesâ because Iâm doing greeting cards or whatever âto work with color. So with that, I guess I use the cheapest watercolors for working this stuff. I also know my limitations on this stuff⌠and my brushes are for wash and half tones⌠probably kinda beat up, but they do the job.Â
Š Copyright, 2016, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Jane: You take a while to do each cartoon, right? You do a lot of cartoons per week, and your cartoons look deceptively simple, but I know you really think about where each line goes. I remember that you gave me some of the best advice Iâve ever gotten for cartooning, which was was that you told me to draw funny, and I think what you meant was to make sure every line help propel the joke, rather than wasting space with superfluous details. Did I interpret that right?
Sam: Well, thereâs a difference between drawing funny and funny drawing. Usually a lot of people who can draw very wellâ really good artistsâ when they go into cartooning theyâre doing funny drawing rather than drawing funny. Because theyâI donât knowâin other words they exaggerate the noseâŚwhich possibly is not pertinent to this particular cartoon. Theyâre making funny drawing. Drawing funny isâŚGeorge Booth draws funny, Bill Woodman draws funny⌠people say that I draw funny. I guess I do, in a way, but not as funny as their drawing. Sergio AragonĂŠs draws funny⌠and I takeâ sometimes, which Iâm doing nowâ I take two three weeks to do a drawingâŚjust looking at it, and deciding⌠I donât consider myself a great artist, or even that much of a good artist, but what I consider myself is a really good gag man, a really good person that can tell a joke, thatâs what I do. You know, Iâm weak in perspective, I canât draw a horse to save myselfâŚbut a lot of other people canât alsoâ Iâm in good company with horses, or lack of ability to draw horses. But I can tell a joke⌠and it takes a lot of work to do that.
Jane: Some people say either youâre funny or youâre not, but do you think people can improve their ability to tell a  good joke?
Sam: Yeah I could see it over the years. Stuff that I did In 1969, when I began with The New Yorker, and getting in jokesâŚand drawing⌠to now, you know if I just go back in my files to 1969, I guess the initial reaction would be to hold my head and go, âOh my God!â, but Iâve developed from there, and I realize thatâs where I was in 1969. And there are people, without my saying any names, that have been drawing the same way for 20-30 years, and to me itâs amazing that they can do whatever they did 20 years ago, not that I would want that. You know, Iâm very happy that Iâve advanced to the point where my drawings are totally different than I did in 1969, and before that between â63 and â69⌠and actually, up until â73 or so, when I was doing a lot of gags⌠writing for Charles AddamsâŚhe worked with gag men. I realizedâGeorge Price was actually walking around with my wife at a gallery of his stuff, and he was showing [her] various drawings there. And at that particular time, I was somewhat appalled that my idols were using gag menâ one of them of course being Charles Addamsâand [Price] turned to my wife and said, âyou know, Iâm not really involved with gagsâIâm involved with furniture,â and it really gelled, and then I realized with Charles Addams, he was involved with mood and architecture, and some of these other guys that were buying gags, they werenât very involved in germinating the idea, but once they had the idea, they could then work with it, and then come out with something really, really good. So some cartoonists are just different. You know thereâs one cartoonist that can draw anything, but for the most part he uses set gags
Š Copyright, 1991, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Jane: So I was looking at your Wikipedia, and it says in 2012 you had a total of 27,592 cartoons. Whatâs the tally now?
Sam: Well what I do is I throw out a lot of gags. Iâve probably thrown out over 5000 gags. You throw out gags cause theyâre obsolete. Letâs say the gag âthe ideaâ involves a rotary telephone, which there arenât any rotary telephones anymore! Or a phone booth, of which there are very few. I think there were two left in New York City on West End Avenue. There was an article in The Times on that. So you throw this stuff out, you throw out stuff thatâs obsolete. Including, letâs say five years from now, if I had a gag on Trump, or if I had a gag on McCain⌠you throw out a gag or idea if itâs lousy, âOh my god, what was I thinking about?!â Out of 31,500 gags  or so, I have duplicates, âOh my God I did that one, there it is again,â so I throw that out. This keeps me sharp, otherwise I would probably need a larger studio⌠Yeah, 5000 gags takes up a lot of space.
Jane: Wait so you throw away cartoons? Actual physical drawings that youâve done?
Sam: Yeah! And there are other drawings, by the way, in my booksâŚand I look at this thing, and itâs my gag, itâs my idea, and I donât get it. I donât know where my head was when this thing was germinating in my mind.  I have no idea, and I look at this thing and go âhuh?!â I just get rid of it.
Jane: So youâre not like Mort who has a storage facility with thousands of cartoonsâŚ
Sam: No, noâIâm not gonna have a storage facility. I have a studio down the block from where I am. And actually, since I own it, and Iâm paying maintenance on it, Iâm probably not paying much more than heâs paying on his storage facility, wherever the heck that is.
Š Copyright, 2011, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Jane: I used to store my cartoons in a stack under my bed in my old apartment, and the mice let me know what they thought of my work by sh-tting all over it.
Sam: Thatâs another thing by the way, with pilesâthereâs one cartoonist I know, his system, as far as cartoons are concerned, one pile is horizontals, the other pile is verticals. Thatâs his system. And what I tell some of these young people at The New Yorker, which youâre aware of, because you were one of them, is to control the volume of this. And one way is to number them on the back, and then every one of them is an inventory number. Otherwise, when stuff goes out to Whoopie magazine or something, you know that youâve sent this stuff out. Now you push scan and send it out, but you sent out 2831, 3743, with 16000⌠and you know which cartoons were sent out without having to describe them.Â
Now what I donât do, which people think I should do, and Iâm possibly gonna have to, is scan these things and put them on a disc or whatever. I really donât want to do that now, because I donât want to get into the nitty gritty, and of course Iâm gonna have to hire somebody. Iâd rather just sit down, draw, and create. And Iâve got this system well enough that if you need somethingâletâs say itâs a menâs magazineâI go to my âMenâs Magazineâ folder, and I pull something out. If you need something for natural historyâletâs say turtles â I can pull out something on turtles. As a matter of fact, I had a request a while back for dental cartoons, and I thought I never had that many, and I went into âmedical,â and I had enough there to open a full file on dental.Â
I keep it loose, but not very loose. There is a control. I can go into something, and pull it out,or get it⌠at worst I think it can take twenty minutes. But thereâs a method to this madness.
Š Copyright, 1999, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Jane: So this blog is supposed to be an educational resource for aspiring cartoonists and artists, and I was wondering if you had any advice that you wish youâd been told when you were first starting out, or that you think they should knowâŚ
Sam: Yeah, which is something you probably have experienced. Thereâs no love in this. I tell people, especially these young kids up at The New Yorker⌠sooner or later, The New Yorker is going to break your heart if youâre going to put all of your effort there. Thereâs no love thereâ I donât love The New Yorker, and The New Yorker doesnât love me. Iâve had, on many, many occasions⌠what usually has happened,or actually, what has happened, is that the market that Iâm dealing with changes editors, and all of a sudden Iâm out, and somebody else is in. I had this happen at Harvard Business Review, and the art director was a guy named John OâConnor, and I was selling to him for⌠I guess seventeen years, and the magazine was faculty run, which meant that it was run by crazies, because there were faculty wars involved, and those people were thrown in, people were thrown out, and people were in limbo, and John was able to survive for seventeen years, until he finally he became a casualty of the faculty wars there, and somebody else took over, and then I was selling sporadically, rather than the way I was selling before. Then later, I got a letter in the mail, hard copy, and they were informing me that they were buying all rights now. So I wrote them a letter back, or posted it by email, I donât remember, âPlease be advised that all the cartoons that you bought prior to this are my property. And if you get any reprint requests, please forward them to me.â
Thatâs the other thing by the way. And thatâs rights. If you own the stuff, itâll work for you. And Iâm not saying every one of them will, but we call these cartoons that grow us money, we call them evergreens. The champion evergreen for me is the frog legs cartoons. I donât have to say anything more. Everyone knows that one. The other one is the snail cartoon. âI know sheâs a tape dispenser, but I love her.â The reason that these cartoons are paying me moneyâ the frog legs cartoon is 47 years old, much older than youâ the reason that these cartoons are generating money is because I own them.Â
I had a friend of mine who was selling to Mad magazine, and he got very involved, and he was selling there for years and years and years⌠and one day he walked in there, and they told him he was too derivative, whatever the hell that means, and that they were no longer buying from him.
Sam: Well, this happens. He was lamenting to me, âThirty-five years! Thirty-five years, and Iâve got nothing.â You gotta be very careful with where youâre selling. I was stuffing an envelope in 1977 for Playboy, and all of a sudden this light bulb went off, and I said, âHey wait a minute! Theyâre paying three hundred and fifty dollars, but buying all rights,â and I said, âI canât make any money on them. Iâm gonna get the three hundred and fifty dollars, and thatâs it.â
If I had sold all rights on that frog legs cartoon, which came out in December 1970, they bought it for one hundred dollars, and thatâs what I would have made on it. One hundred dollarsâthatâs it. Now, this thing has made thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. I had a lithograph, which I think I made fifteen thousand onâjust on the lithograph.
Thatâs the other thingâ all my cartoons are inventoried and posted in an index, and when a cartoon makes money, for whatever reason, I post it, to the nearest dollar, how much money this cartoon has made. And for the frogs leg cartoon, and the tape dispenser cartoon, I had to add a page with all the action that went on with it.Â
Itâs very very important for you to retain your rights, cause otherwise youâre not gonna last. There are just so many variables going. I just sold the frog legs cartoon to a movie company, and they just came out with a movie about The National Lampoon on Netflix. Itâs a prop. I think itâs hanging on a wall that somebody walks by. And I billed them $150 for it.
Š Copyright, 1998, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Jane: Oh, sorry, I was just listening!
Sam: So again, rights are very important. Ownership is very important. If you feel like, âWell, Iâll do it just once or twice,..I need the money⌠Iâm desperate,â they feed on you. Basically, their attitude towards you is that youâre the shmuckartistâthatâs one word-âshmuckartist, and they take advantage of you. Usually, I just had it recently again, when this woman said to meâ and I wonât say what the market wasââWe only have the best interest at heart.â When somebody tells you that, theyâre trying to screw you. The same thing when they begin the conversation with âYou gotta understand,â thatâs another rotten deal they want you to go into, okay? I did this cartoon, actually it almost happened to me that way, where you walk into an office, and thereâs this guy behind the desk, and every chair in the office is occupied, so you canât sit down, so youâre standing in front, and there are guys there ( and in this particular case it was all guys)⌠and I got a cartoon out of it that was in The New Yorker. Basically, youâre supposed to stand at the desk and pull on your forelock and hunch over. I did this gag, with this big corner office,with the big desk, and thereâs four- five guys sitting in chairs, and the guy behind the desk⌠and this poor shlump is standing in front of the desk, and the guy behind the desk is saying, âWork with us, weâre trying to screw you!â I got a gag out of it, finally after these many years, because this happened when I was selling to girly magazines, back in the â60s, and sometimes something germinates after 50 years.
Jane: So youâre saying if someone has to tell you that theyâre being nice to you, they probably arenât?
Sam:Â Well, probably not. Look at it this way, this is a person at CondĂŠ Nastâ not at the magazine, but dealing with another department âmy feeling is, if sheâs telling me, âWe only have the best interest at heart,â this is not true, because being employed by CondĂŠ Nast, sheâs gotta have CondĂŠ Nastâs interest at heart ahead of mine, because if she doesnât, sheâs gonna get fired. So of course, itâs bullshit.
Š Copyright, 2009, S. Gross. Buy this print here!
Jane: I remember you would tell me and other cartoonists to be like a street rat. Could you explain that a little?
Sam: Yeah, well, you should figure out where else youâre gonna survive with this thing. For instance, I guess this was the 1980âs, when William Shawn was under tremendous pressure to resign, which it took a while⌠For some reason, he didnât take a shine to me, and I couldnât sell him for a period of 14 months, but I was up there every week, running cartoons through, and then selling to Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, National Lampoon⌠Basically, I was running this stuff through The New Yorker, and knowing, knowing, that this thing is not going anywhere at The New Yorker. However, I have this stuff, Iâm setting it up through The New Yorker⌠having this stuff now salable for other magazines. It looks pretty goodâ âHey letâs go to Cosmo. Letâs go to⌠I guess at that time, True magazine.â So yeah, you gotta be a street rat. People come up to The New Yorkerâ âWhat are you gonna do with this next?â and they go, âI dunno!â Well if you donât know, youâre not gonna survive.
Jane: Can I tell you a story about the first time I went into The New Yorker?
Jane: It was when they were still at 4 Times Square, and I was scared to death, but I remember specifically that you were extremely welcoming, and made me feel like it was okay that I was thereâŚand you invited me to Pergola [des Artistes] with all of the other guys, and you even drew a map for how to get there, which I later hung up on my wall⌠I just wanted to say, thank you for making me feel like it was alright for me to be there.
Sam: Of course it was alright for you to be there!
Jane: A lot of times as a young woman, especially in comedy, you donât get welcomed at all, so it really meant a lotâfrom you, especially.
Sam: Itâs such a tough business, that to be a hard-on in this business is disgusting, for want of a worse word. You try to make it easier for anybody and everybody, because I didnât know what your work was likeâyou were there, which was important to you.
Jane: Yeah, and you were just nice regardless, and that says a lot about you as a person.
Sam: Well, thank you. I went through my first first showing, it was at Saturday Evening Post, and I still remember Henry Boltinoff, a cartoonist there, had a sign-in list, so you signed in, and I was behind George Wolfe, and I sat down, and I was so scared. I didnât ask âWho is George Wolfe?â I just sat there, and Henry Boltinoff walked up to me and said, âHi Iâm Henry Boltinoff,â and I said, âHi Iâm Sam Gross,â and he said, âYouâre after that elderly gentleman thereâugly old gentleman thereâ (they were good friends), âthatâs George Wolfe.â So you know, after that, I showed up againâstreet ratâI showed up every week. I never was a really big seller at Saturday Evening Post. And I got in my studio⌠I think it was Sidney Harris, no it wasnât Sidney, it was Art PottierâŚ. he had taken two signup lists,  he kept them, and he sent me two photocopies. Very interesting who was on there, including a couple New Yorker cartoonists. One of them was Alan Dunn, which was a big surprise, because he was a big star at the New Yorker. He at one point had sold more cartoons than anybody else, like 1200 cartoons. But, you know, thereâs never a reason for being a putz.
The map Sam drew for me, in case the other cartoonists left for lunch while I was showing my cartoons.
Jane: Is there anything else you wanna say to aspiring cartoonists?
Sam: Again, I guess one thing is the business is changing. The whole publishing business is changing. Youâre going up to publishers now, like The New Yorker, and thereâs a desert of cubicles. Thereâs new technology goingâ for instance, now, Iâm involved with cartoon festivals⌠in the old days, being two weeks ago [laughs] no, more than that⌠you would have had to send in an original. You would have to pack it, you would have to insure it, youâd have to worry about it coming back. Now you scan and send, and you donât have to worry about any of this stuff, and this stuff is hangable, and people wanna buy itâthey can buy the original. If people wanna buy prints, which is what I prefer, theyâll buy printsâŚand even submitting to magazines now, The New Yorker, which Iâll do tomorrow, is scan and send. I basically donât have to go in. Usually I do go in, because one, it breaks up the week⌠and I have lunch with cohorts. Itâs changing, and what itâs changing into I donât know, but I am aware of it. Listen, there are very few magazines that Iâm dealing with now. A lot of people Iâm dealing with, in a way, are kinda desperate with whatâs going on. Itâs going on for them alsoâ itâs going on for us and itâs going on for them, these monumental changes. My only advice on this is to be aware of it. I canât give you advice for how to act upon it. I guess thatâs it!Â
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