Creating cartoons for advertising

Throughout my long career as an illustrator I also did many cartoons for ad agencies. Like most kids I loved comic strips and cartoons and was determined to become a comic strip artist. My high school teacher, Margaret Stein, steered me into the commercial and fine arts. I couldn't get cartooning out of my system and through the years I have submitted many comic strip ideas to newspaper syndicates without success. It's probably a good thing I didn't luck out as I would no doubt have gotten bored drawing the same characters day after day. I will show you a few of the strips in future posts.



Above is the cover of a promotional brochure that I sent to the ad agencies. The drawings shown were done for the Detroit Free Press.



I am unable to remember who these cartoons were for but this technique was used on many of the advertising cartoons that I drew. These may also have been done for the Detroit Free Press.



This drawing was done for a Chrysler ad and the art director was George Guido at Leo Burnett in Chicago. I worked with George at Campbell Ewald in Detroit when he was the art director on the Chevrolet newspaper ads.



A Buick Opel ad done for McCann Erickson New York, the art director was Bob Shepperly.



Art Director Marty Leiberman at N. W. Ayer had me draw these cartoons for a Plymouth ad.



Michigan Blue Cross- Blue Shield cartoons done for Bill Dye at Ross Roy in Detroit.
It was a nice diversion to do cartoons in between some of the hard-boiled automotive illustrations.



Since it's almost Christmas I'll end this post with a scratchboard drawing of Santa that was done for one of my Christmas cards years ago. Happy holidays !