Lenny Herman / Scott Taber - Magazine Cartoonists

These two guys were two of my favorite cartoonists . . . you saw their work everywhere . . . I wrote to both of them in the early seventies and begged for an original and both were kind to send me what you see here.

The jury gag sold and appeared in  ADVENTURE MAG., one of the many men's magazines proliferating at the time . . .HOWEVER, many of the magazines had just begun to disappear about this time also . . .

There is always something strange that happens when you hold an original piece of art in your hands and know that the artist too held it in his hand and looked at it as you just did, and examined it and scrutinized it.   

I have always found it extremely helpful and useful in studying the craft in this way whenever possible.

The Scott Taber cartoon shows his simple style but is deceptive in its simplicity . . . harder to do than it looks, as we all found out in our learning process.

I clearly remember my first cartoon instructor, Billy Hon, putting it so eloquently and simple:  " Before you take a line out, you have to know where it belongs. "

It gave me more reason to understand and appreciate someone like Charles Shulz.

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" It is one of the most beautiful compensations

of this life that no man can sincerely try

to help another without helping himself. "

Ralph Waldo Emerson

AMERICAN ESSAYIST AND PHILOSOPHER