Dan Collins Cartoons.com FAQ
  • How long have you been drawing professionally?
    • I started drawing cartoons full time in 1977. I had free-lanced for a couple of years before that for Hustler as well as for the occasional sale at a 'nice' magazine like Satuday Evening Post, Boy's Life etc. And then Larry Flynt was in the mood to sign several cartoonists to exclusive contracts while the magazine was still in Columbus where I had been attending art school. I was a hometown boy to them and they decided to give me a shot at becoming a full-time cartoonist. I don't know why, I was pretty green way back then but they saw potential I guess. I was always drawing and trying to find my direction. It's hard to decide what your style should be, you just sort of have to jump and hope you land on the right one for you. The only way to find your own voice is to draw all the time. It took a couple of decades of working all the time before I began to feel as if I had found my own style.
  • Where do you get your ideas?
    • From everything I see, read, hear or imagine. Having lots of stimuli passing in front of you helps a lot. It's always easier to twist things you experience into new forms than it is to pull them out of thin air. Although some of my funniest ideas were those that fell out of the sky so to speak. I don't know where they come from they just sort of pop into my head. But those are the rare ones.
  • Did you draw a lot while growing up?
    • As long as I can remember. I always seemed to have a pencil and paper in hand. Once while chasing my sister from room to room with a freshly sharpened No.2 I hit the doorway with my outstretched arm and ran the point into my right hand. The scar is there to this day and shows that I truly have graphite in my drawing hand.
  • Do you have any hobbies or interests?
    • I love to go fishing. I like the workout that tournament style bass fishing gives you too. You're not sitting there watching a bobber like two Bubbas in a boat. Your standing on a rocking deck working a trolling motor with one foot while making repeated accurate (hopefully) casts and retrieves at times with pretty hefty lures. I used to lift weights and it has the same sort of feel after an 8 hour fishing session. And you can't beat the fresh air and peacefulness of a day on the lake. Catching a fish is a nice bonus.
      I also like to grow orchids and have since 1976 after a trip to Clearwater, Florida and the Kapok Tree Restaraunt where I bought a three inch tall seedling. Returning to Ohio I discovered an orchid green house nearby and began my collection. After all the years and all the plants I still have the descendant bulbs of that first plant flowering every year with from three to a half dozen 6 inch pink and magenta perfuming blooms.
      I also enjoy listening and attempting to play the fingerstyle guitar music of the legendary Chet Atkins. I belong to the Ohio Fingerstyle Guitar Club and am a member of CAAS, the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society.
  • Who are your influences?
    • Robert Crumb, Ronald Searle, Pat Oliphant, Sam Gross to name but a few.
  • What materials do you use to create your cartoons?
    • The process I have used has evolved (not intelligently designed) over the years. I used to draw with a Kohinoor Art pen and probably logged 100,000 miles on my favorite pen until just a few years ago when I switched to the new technical marker pens such as the Pitt and Micron brands. I still use a fine-point Scharff brush and penpoints for editorial cartoons and my Funny Paper strip. I no longer color my magazine cartoons with brush and paint like I did for many years but instead I use a computer with the programs Photoshop and Illustrator. It took a long time to 'get with the programs' but now I am glad I did. You get fantastic colors using the digital methods and effects that would have been almost impossible with traditional media. Plus the typography capabilities are unmatched. I also needed to learn how to use a computer if only for the ability to create and transfer files to publishers and clients. At last I am free of the mailman's hold.
  • What tips would you give an aspiring cartoonist?
    • Draw, learn, socialize. And draw some more. More on this later.
  • Did you go to school to learn to be a cartoonist?
    • There are precious few courses in either high schools or colleges that teach cartooning. I took fine art courses and did my 'tooning on my own outside class. But taking any class helps to develope the artist in you and a lot of times you can incorporate cartoons in the class in your imagery. I did that whenever I could.
  • What was your first published cartoon?
    • That would be my super hero from the Smithville High School newspaper The Mosaic. He was a humorous, cartoony-looking doof named Roast Ribs. Where I got that name is anybody's guess. I think I just pulled it out of thin air. He had a slightly more intelligent side-kick named Ban Man. Roast Ribs was the fall guy most of the time but being so muscle-bound he could take it. The strip was actually yanked by a self-appointed censor in the business community namely the owner of the town grocery who took a dim view of my villian character Mother Trucker. Even then I could not resist pushing against those arbitrary boundaries of "good taste".
  • Are you married? Have a family?
    • I have been married to a wonderful woman for over 30 years. We have two children; one boy and one girl.
  • What do they think about your cartoons for America's premier First Amendment publication (Hustler magazine)?
    • They know me apart from the work I do for Larry Flynt Publishing and know that I am a normal, loving parent who is not really the crazed whacko cartoonist that one pictures when reading those cartoons. Really, I'm normal, almost boring to meet in person!
  • Have you ever met Larry Flynt?
    • Yes many times. I fly to Los Angeles once a year for the magazine's Christmas party and the next day all the cartoonists meet with Larry over lunch to discuss cartoons. I have also been to his house in the hills above Beverly Hills on several occasions.
  • What are some recent projects you are working on?
    • The Funny Paper strip which I hope to submit for syndication soon. This website. A book of my cartoons. Animated versions of my cartoons for a possible TV show, more greeting cards...whew, I'm tired just thinking about it! The Captain is getting his own book real soon. Keep an eye out!
  • Your cartoons are sort of twisted; is there anything clinically wrong with you?
    • You would think wouldn't you?
  • Do you do other kinds of cartoons?
    • I do all kinds of cartoons. Editorial newspaper cartoons, humorous illustrations, strips, caricatures. You want it; I do it.
  • Is there a way to acquire original cartoons from you?
    • The Cartoonstore has original art and the On-line shop will too.
  • Are there any books of your cartoons?
    • I have been in many collection books but until recently have not had one all to myself. The super hero Capt. Hard-On is soon to be coming out in his own Collected full-color trade paperback (August 2006) from Eros books, a division of Fantagraphics Books.
  • What do you think about the field of cartooning today?
    • I think cartooning is in a state of change right now that is not necessarily good for the creators nor the art form. Change is often difficult and the process of evolution usually involves the loss of the lesser fit species but that does not keep us from mourning their extinction. Hopefully these changes allow for new arrivals to fill the void with improved species. There are new opportunities in the arena of internet cartooning but few have proven profitable enough to rely on for a cartoonist's total income. The newspapers are seeing shrinking readership which limits their ability to print large numbers of features while the syndicates flail about blindly searching for the next big hit. Magazines that use cartoons are fewer in number despite the popularity they enjoy among audiences, which is a mystery to me. My only conclusion is that the publishers of these magazines just take themselves and their publications too seriously. I would say to them that the ability to laugh at one's self is always a nobel trait. It has always been hard to find one's niche as a cartoonist but present conditions make that even harder I think than when I started in 1976. But I do envy today's new kids for all the great tools they have that we didn't back in the pre-computer era. It's truly amazing what one can do with a cartoon these days! I think cartooning will always be with us and perhaps a new Golden Era will emerge in the future that will benefit generations of toonists not yet born. There is always hope and where there is hope there will always be a kid with a pencil in his hand making funny drawings.
  • What are you favorite comic strips?
    • Mostly old ones but a few current ones would be; Fuzzy, Dilbert, Doonesbury, Mutts, Pearls Before Swine.
  • How many hours a day do you devote to drawing cartoons?
    • I draw about half the day and work on the computer the other half usually. An average day could be from 9:00 to 9:00 with an hour or so off for lunch and supper.
  • Do you know any other cartoonists personally?
    • I have met a lot of cartoonists at the Ohio State Cartoon Resource Library's Festival of Cartoon Art and just recently joined the National Cartoonist Society where I have become friends with many more. And they are all great guys and girls whom you would enjoy meeting.
  • Are you wealthy from drawing cartoons for so many years?
    • There are rewards that come with a cartoon job that transcend monetary gain. I was able to watch my children grow up and be a part of their lives and that is worth all the gold in the world.
  • Do you belong to any cartoonist organizations?
    • I am a member of the Great Lakes chapter of the National Cartoonist's Society.
  • Isn't drawing cartoons pretty much just goofing off and not really a hard job?
    • Pretty much.
  • Is doing cartoons on a computer hard to do?
    • Link 26
  • How did you get so gosh darn funny?
    • Growing up in the countryside of Ohio in a family of funny people.
  • Do the people who live in your town know what you do?
    • A lot of them do. It's hard to keep a secret in a small town. Our population is around 1200.
  • What do they say when you tell them who you work for?
    • I have never gotten a bad reaction from a single one.
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