My dad was a born cartoonist. He never held a job title other than that of “cartoonist.” It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that he was born with a drawing pen in one hand and a bottle of India ink in the other. He liked to tell the story of how he as a 16-year-old “sat on the editor’s doorstep every day” until he was finally hired. He loved his family and his country. He supported the civil rights movement before it became fashionable. He raised eight children—six sons and two daughters—all responsible citizens, which included a Jesuit priest and a pediatrician who served as a volunteer doctor for four years in Vietnam during the war there. All sons served in the military: three in the regular U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and three in the active reserves. Bozo was carried by Stars and Stripes, the newspaper of the U.S. Armed Forces and was popular with our men and women in uniform.
After Dad’s passing, Ham Fisher, the creator of the Joe Palooka comic strip wrote my mother a long letter of condolence, several pages long, which he ended with the tribute, “I have known very few like him in a long lifetime.”
It is my profound hope that GoComics subscribers will make my dad’s words, “Bozo will not die” a continuing reality.
(The above is from my July 2021 interview with GoComics. For the complete interview, please clock the GoComics Blog below, and(then click page 2.)
My dad was a born cartoonist. He never held a job title other than that of “cartoonist.” It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that he was born with a drawing pen in one hand and a bottle of India ink in the other. He liked to tell the story of how he as a 16-year-old “sat on the editor’s doorstep every day” until he was finally hired. He loved his family and his country. He supported the civil rights movement before it became fashionable. He raised eight children—six sons and two daughters—all responsible citizens, which included a Jesuit priest and a pediatrician who served as a volunteer doctor for four years in Vietnam during the war there. All sons served in the military: three in the regular U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and three in the active reserves. Bozo was carried by Stars and Stripes, the newspaper of the U.S. Armed Forces and was popular with our men and women in uniform.
After Dad’s passing, Ham Fisher, the creator of the Joe Palooka comic strip wrote my mother a long letter of condolence, several pages long, which he ended with the tribute, “I have known very few like him in a long lifetime.”
It is my profound hope that GoComics subscribers will make my dad’s words, “Bozo will not die” a continuing reality.
(The above is from my July 2021 interview with GoComics. For the complete interview, please clock the GoComics Blog below, and(then click page 2.)