You get to read the article BUN TOON! YAY!

Is it JUST a coincidence that I’m ALSO a cartoon rabbit?

 

I was travelling to a convention in Memphis when Hugh Hefner died, and didn’t get a chance to BUN TOON about it.

I’ve asked a number of people if they ALSO opened Playboys from the back, and have met only two people who said they did….and they were ALSO comic book artists.  The whole “front or back opening controversy” was clearly a test.

I’m pretty sure I passed.

When I was in my early twenties, the FIRST places I ever sent samples of my work to, was Playboy and Mad magazine.  I was rejected, and kept the rejection letters pinned over my desk for years.

I still have since worked for Mad Magazine a number of times, but never graced the pages of Playboy.

Something to shoot for.

Ty the Guy OUT!

For those of you not born a male cisgendered hetero cartoonist-in-training in the 60s, here’s what you missed:

The fantastic pin-up art of Alberto Vargas.  Often MUCH better than the photo in the middle of the magazine.

 

B. Kliban- funniest cat cartoonist of an era.

The GORGEOUS paintings of Erich Sokol

The journeyman: Buck Brown

The always funny John Dempsey

The impossibly talented Doug Sneyd (it was hard to find one that was SFW, but you get the idea)

The casual skill of Phil Interlandi

The KING:  Gahan Wilson.

The magnificent Jack Cole (creator of Plastic Man!)

Little Annie Fanny was created by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder, with occasional help from Frank Frazetta, Jack Davis, Russ Heath, and whatever illustration genius was in the building with a brush.

Hefner himself started life as a cartoonist, and had he been more successful at it, he might never have founded a magazine that went out of his way to support the best and brightest of the field.

Hefner published the MUCH better version of Mad Magazine (called TRUMP), with the original gang of idiots.  It was so good, it lasted a whole two issues.  I have ’em both, and you can open Trump from either the front or the back, it doesn’t matter, there are no naked ladies cluttering up the front of the magazine.

this is the earliest version of the Playboy Rabbit.  It can’t be a coincidence that I turned out to be a relative of some sort.

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For last week’s BUN TOON, click here.

 

 

Ty’s Parade of Cartoon Memories 2: This Time It’s Personal

Set the way-back machine Sherman - to the year 1980!

Once upon a time, I was young and pretty, and sure I was someday going to be paid to be a cartoonist like my heroes Gahan Wilson, Jack Cole, Harvey Pekar, B. Kliban, Will Elder, and the people that made the back pages of Playboy better than the pages with the naked ladies in them.

So, my teenage self submitted cartoons to Playboy, and the New Yorker,  Penthouse, or anyone willing to write me a rejection letter in return.  Last year, I found a box full of these old, first attempts at my mother’s house and was amused to see gags and drawings I created before I could legally drink.  Throughout those early years, I suffered for my art.

Now it’s your turn.

My first mistake in submitting these to Playboy…so little nudity.

See you at the Fan Appreciation Convention in Toronto.  Everyone who shows up nude gets a free sketch.  I’ll show those Playboy people I’m Hefner material!

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your Hugh Hefner Cartooning Bonus Moment:

An original cartoon that "Hef" did when HE was a teenager. To be fair, I'd have rejected him right back.

Thank god he discovered boobies and gave a generation of cartoonists a place to work.

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Read "Metal Guy", the quickest canceled comic in history!

Or go here to see the Cartoon Parade part 1:

So far, it’s a once every six months tradition!