Kim was born April 27, 1959 in Seattle, Washington and lived there until about five years ago. She now lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia with her husband and two daughters. (She lived with them in Seattle too. :) ) She has a degree in art with a concentration in Graphic Design from Western Washington University. Her cartoons have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, TIME, Barron’s, Reader’s Digest, Harvard Business Review, Funny Times, AARP Bulletin and USA Weekend.
She received the National Cartoonist Society Reuben award in the best gag cartoon division in 2000.
Like many other cartoonists, I first met Kim online. We met for the first time in person at the NCS Reuben weekend in Boca Raton, Florida in 2000.
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Did you draw cartoons when you were a kid? Was cartooning something you aspired to as a career or did you just fall into it?
Yes, I drew all the time as a kid. I have two older sisters, Alison is a year older than me and Jennifer is two years older. Mom used to get big rolls of butcher paper and tape paper over the entire kitchen table and let us draw every morning. Probably just so she could sit down for a minute. This was when we all still preschoolers, I was so little I was standing on the chair to draw. The entire goal of drawing to us was to try and crack each other up. Preferably to get someone to laugh so hard that milk came out of their nose. We would draw silly people, unflattering pictures of our family, anything that might work. I was the youngest and totally infuriated that my sisters could draw better than me. Also, Mom’s mother had a book where she wrote down the funny things we said or did as little kids. This would probably be considered unhealthy these days but it fired competition between us to get in Grandma’s ‘little red book’. She was trying to record the unintentional funny things we said or did and wouldn’t write it down if we were attempting to be funny so we tried to have a natural delivery, which of course, is something you try for in cartoon captions. So I was trying to draw and write funny from an early age. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence I wound up in a somewhat competitive form of cartooning. It’s all sibling rivalry gone wild.
I think I got the idea of being a magazine cartoonist because my parents had a ‘Colliers Collects Its Wits’ cartoon collection in the bookcase. I remember looking at it for hours, loving the subversive cartoons by Charles Addams and Richard Taylor in particular. Richard Taylor had one of a family being seated at a restaurant and the line was “Put us in the corner, we’ll likely make a scene” which I found hilarious because it was about real life and you got the whole story in one drawing. And that you could take something unpleasant and find the humor in it. Well, I think that now, at the time it just cracked me up. The book had a few pages of cartoonist bios with a paragraph and a sketch they had done about themselves. A few of the cartoonists were women and I thought if they could do it so could I. I also wanted to be a scientist, a brain surgeon and a fighter pilot but only the cartooning stuck. See the danger of having cartoon collections in the house?
Where and when was your first cartoon published? Did you go at this with the intention of carving out a career or just as a hobby?
My first cartoon was published in Playgirl in 1981. I had just graduated from college with a degree in graphic design but really wanted to be a cartoonist. I felt that if I didn’t try cartooning first it would be something I would always regret. My early cartoons were also published in Cosmopolitan, New Woman, Good Housekeeping…a lot of the women’s magazines. I lived at home and tried cartooning for a few years but got frustrated that I couldn’t break into the more serious cartoon markets if there is such a thing. I was really just floundering around submitting work to publications. I tried the New Yorker some and actually got some hand written notes back of the “Sorry nothing this time” variety from Lee Lorenz but didn’t realize that was a good sign. I eventually took a graphics job at Boeing with the intention to keep cartooning on the side but stopped drawing for quite a few years.
When I met my ( to be ) husband, I put my strip away for a couple of years too. I was just distracted. After we were married, Tim was the one who encouraged me to try sending my strip out again. (Actually, I was complaining to him that I wasn't getting anywhere with my cartoons and he told that was because I wasn't doing anything about it. Which I wasn't.) What made you decide to give things another shot? Was your husband supportive of your cartooning?
Actually my husband was instrumental in getting me cartooning again also. I had quit Boeing to stay home with my first daughter, Sara, thinking that I could draw cartoons when she napped in her cradle. I was misinformed about babies to say the least. I remember collapsing and falling asleep whenever she did for the first year or so. We had our second daughter, Kate, a few years later and I remember feeling like cartooning was something in my past that I would never do again. Then, the internet started to get big and my husband, Rufe, was trying to think of a web site to build just as a way to learn how to do it. He asked if he could do a site with my cartoons and I, prophetically, said ‘whatever’. Once the site was up, cartoonist started emailing me and even some editors contacted me wanting work. Then Ted Goff, a wonderful cartoonist that runs the chat room for the National Cartoonist Society, invited me to join the online forum. I met a bunch of cartoonists there including you, Ann Farrell and Benita Epstein. At first I was just sharing my experiences with other people and not thinking I would cartoon again myself. Regular submitting is a huge commitment and I wanted to enjoy the kids when they were little. But somehow I got sucked back into drawing again. I guess I couldn’t repress it any longer and was much happier when I started drawing again. I remember deciding that if I started cartooning again I was only going to draw stuff that made me laugh and not do drawings with the intent of getting into a specific market or anything. I started selling right away. I have to say it was very thrilling to meet other cartoonists, especially women cartoonists after having cartooned in total isolation before. That’s been the great thing about the internet. Cartooning is a very solitary thing and now we can all talk to each other. To answer your question, clearly, my husband has always been very supportive of my cartooning and frequently the inspiration as well. And I feel like the years of being a stay at home Mom and my years working in the corporate world at Boeing were probably instrumental in my cartooning success as well. It definitely gives you something to talk about.
Being true to your own idea of what was funny was obviously the right path to follow. You won the NCS Division Award for Best Gag Cartoon in 2000 and not long after that you sold to the New Yorker. Have you ever met Lee Lorenz, Bob Mankoff or any of the other New Yorker cartoonists? (what a lame question, but I'm personally just curious...do you have any new yorker stories?
I’ve met quite a few New Yorker cartoonists. I’ve gone to a couple of the Tuesday cartoon meetings where you can go in and show your work to Bob. (Going to this meeting and the lunch that follows is a pretty common fantasy among gag cartoonists) I found him funny and perceptive and as kind as someone can be that’s trying to tell you how you can improve your work, heh. I went to the cartoonist lunch also and met many cartoonists I’ve admired. I’ve also been fortunate enough to participate in books with Sam Gross, Matt Diffee, Liza Donnelly and Mort Gerberg. The first time I went to New York, Sam Gross and Pete Mueller took me to the Metropolitan Museum…the most exciting thing to me, of course, was going there with them. All the New Yorker guys are as hilarious as you imagine them to be.
How do you work? Do you have a set schedule? -and what are your tools of the trade?
I think a part of my brain is always cruising for cartoon ideas no matter what I’m doing. I’m sure you know what I mean doing a syndicated cartoon with that kind of deadline pressure. The New Yorker deadline is Tuesday afternoon so Monday and Tuesday are my big drawing days. You remember that old Daffy Duck cartoon where the gangsters lock him in a room and demand that he lay a golden egg? It feels like that…nobody here but us ducks. And yet by Tuesday afternoon I have a cartoon batch. As Daffy says, “You never know what you can do till you try.” I used to always write ideas first but I’ve started just drawing what I feel like drawing lately and seeing what happens. Frequently I find that I’m getting the urge to draw something because it’s connected up with something I’ve been trying to write about but my conscious mind hasn’t put it together yet. I get the cartoon done and then I see why I was wanting to draw something in particular. So I try to go with the flow and get out of my own way more and not box myself in. As far as tools, I like to draw with a pentel uniball micro on smooth paper. Wouldn’t it be great if we got big deals for endorsing pens like athletes do for endorsing shoes? Some people try to make you think you have to use a certain kind of pen if you’re a ‘real’ artist, but I haven’t felt guilty about not using a dip pen since I learned George Booth draws with a Bic pen. Ballpoints are very fast and you don’t have to break your drawing to dip. And George Booth is an Artist with a capital ‘A’ right? Okay, enough ranting. Once I get the line drawing pretty close I scan it into Photoshop and play with it there and add the gray or color. I might put a few drawings together on the computer to get what I want. As far as other tools, I use lists, digital photos I’ve taken and stream of consciousness writing as ways to get started if I’m stuck. The dictionary can be fun too.
The newspaper industry is facing upheaval with the increasing influence of the web and this isaffecting syndicated comic strips and editorial cartoons. What is the market like in the magazine cartooning business? Are you noticing a major decline of markets? Do you utilize the web for sales or do you see yourself doing this in the future?
I think the magazine market might migrate to the web. It’s really just a different delivery system. I do some work for clients now that only have online publications and many of the magazines have both print and electronic versions. I very much see more work being on the web in the future. So the markets aren’t declining but they are definitely changing. Also, a lot of people are experimenting with photo montages and other forms of graphic humor and I think this trend will continue. But that urge to doodle and make fun isn’t going anywhere.
Thanks, Kim!
Check out some of the book collections that include Kim's work:
Matt Diffee's Rejection Collection
Hi Kim, I've admired your work from afar; it's great to get to know you a little bit. In some basic ways all our stories seem to follow a similar path. Maybe it's a woman thing?
margaret
Posted by: Margaret Shulock | July 15, 2009 at 08:43 AM
This is wonderful, and I mentioned it on my own blog. No comment to add except that I wish my mother had covered the table with butcher paper!
Posted by: Mike Peterson | July 15, 2009 at 06:20 PM
Mike is right about that butcher paper, what a great idea! I got all the white cardboard from the shirt boxes and the backs of envelopes.
Posted by: Margaret Shulock | July 16, 2009 at 07:03 AM
Kim is great. She's a great cartoonist and a great person and friend. Plus she is totally UN-pretentious. I enjoyed your interview, Kim! Thanks for that, Sandra.
Posted by: Benita | July 18, 2009 at 11:11 PM
Great interview and the cartoons are hilarious.
Posted by: Web Design Seattle | August 14, 2009 at 06:22 PM
I'm a huge fan, and this interview madee an even bigger one!
Posted by: carolita | October 27, 2009 at 08:59 AM
Hi Kim. Very interesting! And one of these cartoons just made me choke on my coffee.
Posted by: Julia Suits | October 27, 2009 at 09:47 PM