Get out of my dream, get into my cartoon

A smattering of sex, drugs, alcohol, and general social ineptitude makes Yale the dream of every smart-ass looking for a creative outlet. In every classroom and every dorm room, there's a surplus of material just waiting to be exploited for a laugh. The ironies of college life have never been lost on the cartoonists in the student body. But recently the satirical tradition has expanded to include a more creatively diverse group of artists.

The story of cartooning at Yale begins, for all intents and purposes, in 1966, the year Garry Trudeau, DC '70, ART '73, entered Yale College. His comic strip, Bull Tales, which told the story of a Yale undergraduate named Mike Doonesbury, was published in the Yale Daily News until 1970 (alongside Peanuts, which was just as apolitical and boring then as it is now). The Universal Press Syndicate picked up Tru-deau's work immediately after he graduated from college. The strip's name changed from Bull Tales to Doonesbury, but the comic's themes remained essentially the same, although it took on a slightly more global scope. Even away from Yale, Trudeau remained a constant presence in the college's media, as the YDN continued to publish Doonesbury every day for the next 29 years.

Bull Tales began an important phase in Yale cartooning, expanding and helping to define the type of self-referential satire that is now the norm for college humor. As Trudeau sent Mike Doonesbury on a quest to get laid by aloof new coeds, all the while coming to terms with political idealism in the face of Vietnam and experimenting with drugs, he established some of the seminal themes that would continue to surface in Yale cartoons for the next 30 years.

The Yale cartooning scene existed only in the Yale Record for the next 16 years, until the Yale Herald debuted in 1986. Two comics were included in the premiere issues, both of which were similar to Bull Tales in that they drew their material primarily from the banalities of undergraduate life and, more specifically, the Yale man's quest to be laid by aloof coeds. Within a year, the comics section had turned into a comics page, with six original cartoons appearing every week. The offerings became more diverse, as the mainstay day-in-the-life cartoons were supplemented with more surreal, essentially artistic strips and less-easily categorized, generally awful things that made no sense and looked as though they were drawn by a left-handed monkey.

In 1992, Wide Gauge made its debut in the Herald Fun and Games section. Its creator, Ken Moon, TC '94,
GRD '01, explained how he came up with the concept for what has come to be the most popular comic strip at Yale: "I started drawing it over the summer of 1992--I was living in Minneapolis with a roommate who was on the verge of going totally insane. I wrote down some of the conversations we had and people thought it was funny." He submitted some of his drawings to the Fun and Games editors of the Herald and soon had his own weekly space. "I was smoking Camels at the time--they were called `wide gauge' cigarettes, so that's where I got the name."

Currently a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies department, Moon is entering his eighth year as a cartoonist for the Herald. As for whether he sees any future for the
strip after he completes his education, Moon said,
"I think I'll have to stop when I get a job. I'm trying
to become a professional. I figure it's not too appropriate for a professor to be drawing these nasty little cartoons."

Moon's work represents just one of the many different genres currently in the pages of Yale newspapers. Roberto Lugo, SY '99, is one of the editorial cartoonists for the YDN. Always interested in drawing, he began cartooning as a hobby. After seeing his drawings, a friend on the YDN staff suggested that he draw editorial cartoons for the paper. He said he enjoys the creative freedom associated with the job. "Basically, I read the newspaper and look for topics, and then sit down with the editors and discuss what would make a good comic. I take a story, add a dash of bitterness here and there and see what comes out." Lugo sees art, not humor, as the most essential part of his work. "If it comes out making sense, that's cool. Whether or not it's funny--that's sort of a crap shoot."

Unlike Lugo, Herald graphic artist Josiah Leighton, CC '00, sees cartooning as more than a hobby. As an art major, he hopes one day to make a living as a comic book artist. After being introduced to comic books as a child by his mother, Leighton began drawing on his own. In high school, he entered a state-wide comic-drawing contest and placed first with a full-length comic that managed to combine mutants, superheroes, scientific researchers from the Biosphere, and the crisis in Haiti into a coherent story. He has since received positive feedback from the editor-in-chief of DC Comics, the second largest publisher of comic books in America. He remains optimistic about his career prospects. "It's very hard to break in [to the industry], but if you break in, you're basically in it for life," he said

Another award-winning cartoonist at Yale is Matt Wiegle, MC '00, creator of the free-form, high-concept strip The Idiot's Tales, which recently placed third in a national contest sponsored by Universal Press Syndicate, the national company that syndicates Doonesbury. After submitting a portfolio of The Idiot's Tales strips, he was awarded $500 for excellence in the "other" category. "I was really surprised," Wiegle said. "Universal Press Syndicate does Garfield, and I had some really anti-Garfield material in some of the strips I submitted." He cited the commercialism of the cartoon industry as one of the main reasons why he could never pursue a career in mainstream comics. "I'd like to continue to draw comics after college, but I don't know how feasible that is. Most daily strips are extremely limited as far as content goes," he said.

Artists cite the versatility and accessibility of the medium as one of its best attributes. "You can do everything [in cartoons] that you can do in film, novels, and paint," Leighton said. "Comics are a great way to get ideas across. People realize that a manual is the best way to convey information to adults--you have a picture that shows what the words in the caption are explaining. Comics are the same thing, but for some reason, they're seen as childish."

Leighton expressed frustration about the common tendency to dismiss comics as trivial. "Just because I want to tell stories in visual form--my ideas aren't hokier because I chose that medium."

But the potential to reach a mass audience is clearly a draw. "People don't read anymore. When they open a paper, they go to the comics section first," Moon said.

Wiegle, who doubles as the Fun and Games editor for the Herald, seems optimistic about the state of cartooning at Yale. "The comics now in the Herald generally pay more attention to the technical aspects of drawing [than they have in the past]--it's eye candy.

"The quality of the artists has definitely improved," Wiegle added. "For a while, the comics page was such that we would accept anybody who wanted to draw. Now there are more people who want to do comics than there is space."

Despite their different styles, all these artists share a belief in cartooning as an art form. "It's a way of adding the student's point of view to the story," Lugo said. "I like being able to draw something, and if it ends up being funny, good. It's a means of expression; it doesn't necessarily have to be funny--it's primarily about the art."

Graphics by Sara Edward-Corbett.

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