Cartoons for Dads

Happy Father's Day!

Jun 17, 2022

One of the most accepting moments in my life went like this:

My dad was watering the lawn, as dads do, on a sunny afternoon. I was sitting on the deck. He paused and said, “You’re never gonna make any money are you?”

I thought for a moment and said, “No.”

He just nodded and went back to watering the lawn. A moment later we both busted up laughing. Then we went on with our day.

It’s one of my favorite memories of all time. On the surface you might react and say, how dare he! You MIGHT become a millionaire!!! But you’re wrong—I mean I’m holding on on the million—but he understood what I wanted to do (draw cartoons and be a wild wacky artist) and didn’t object. And that is so important.

My parents have always been incredibly supportive of my career. I’m lucky for it. Maybe it’s because my other siblings have totally normal stable careers so I’m allowed to be the silly dreamer, but I like to tell myself it’s because they know me. I simply could not be doing anything else. Believe me, I’ve tried! This body doesn’t function in a corporate office! For a short period of time I worked in the mail room at William Morris Endeavor, the talent agency made famous by Entourage; we had to deliver the mail to all the agents basically every hour, wear high heels and makeup, and take the job super seriously. I used to laugh so much because our job was completely ridiculous (I also used to cry in the bathroom all the time because I was miserable) and I would get in so much trouble with my colleagues for being light hearted. One time my mail cart literally fell apart on the fourth floor, which I believe was the Television department (very serious!!!) and I was in tears laughing because of it felt like something out of a Christopher Guest movie but my co-worker was close to screaming at me to stop because I needed to be more professional. Needless to say I did not last long there.

Anyways back to my father!

When I departed from my career in the film world and was heading into cartooning (even less money!!!) my dad did something incredible—he got into comics. He got an instagram account and started to follow all sort of cartoonists around the world to send me their work. I was shocked when I came home one Christmas and my dad was talking to me about the work of Amy Hwang. This is a man from Nebraska who duck hunts, smokes cigars and owns 5 grills—and now he’s interested in the humor of liberal New Yorker cartoonists on the other side of the country? It was incredible and made me so happy. He just wanted to stay connected to me—and it worked! He continues to find cartoonists I haven’t even heard about and emails me all about their drawings and jokes. It’s such a special relationship, on top of him being like, ya know, my dad whom I love dearly.