Sarasota Arts & Culture Magazine - September/October 2007 - (Page 38)

“Yeah,” says Mike Peters. “As far as cartooning is concerned, Sarasota in the 1950s and ’60s really was a golden age.” Peters is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and the creator of Mother Goose and Grimm. He should know. “The cartoonists who lived there…” He thinks for a second. “V.T. Hamlin, Mort Walker, Dik Browne, Chick Young, and the great John Fischetti all lived there.” Peters is referring to the creators of Alley Oop, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, the inheritor of Blondie, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Daily News cartoonist, respectively. He continues, with his typical machine-gun delivery. “Sarasota was a great place to live and work if you were a cartoonist. It was a cartoonist’s colony—and an artist’s colony, of all different kinds. You could hang out with some of the best minds of that generation—from Syd Solomon to John D. MacDonald. I think that’s why these guys all flocked here. When you’ve got a creative mind, there’s nothing better than banging it against another creative mind. And, besides, the rents were cheap.” By the early 1990s, a second generation of cartoonists had settled in Sarasota. Some, like Chris Browne, had a family connection. He had taken Hagar the Horrible over from Mort Walker. Ralph Smith, the Sarasota Herald Tribune’s editorial cartoonist, had launched a national strip called Captain Vincible. Smith relates, “Captain Vincible combined the powers of Tim Conway with my charisma.” This offbeat bunch never failed to entertain. They also lent their talents to charity benefits, especially the Sarasota Comedy Festival—a descendent of Dik Browne’s original charity, which Chris Browne had maintained after his father’s death. “It was a great time,” says Peters. “We’d get together at these events; we’d hang out. We made the cover of a special section in the newspaper, joined by all of our characters. It was a blast. We loved it. Hanging out with guys who did what you did was such a joy.” Sarasota residents in the 1990s enjoyed the antics of the cartoonists. Browne and Peters would appear at charity functions. Browne would be dressed like Hagar the Horrible, with a Viking helmet and shield he had inherited from his father. Peters would come as himself, but accompanied by a man in a giant “Grimmy” costume, who would work the crowd in the persona of the manic, yellow dog in Peters’ strip. “It got hot in that thing,” says Peters. “That guy was a trooper.” “The ’90s was a second golden age,” says Browne. “We had fun.” By the early 1990s, a second generation of cartoonists had settled in Sarasota. Some, like Chris Browne, had a family connection. He had taken Hagar the Horrible over from his father when Dik Browne retired in 1988. his father when Dik Browne retired in 1988. Others, like Mike Peters, had been drawn here because of the talented cartoonists who arrived first. Peters notes, “Doing a daily strip and an editorial cartoon meant I could never take a vacation. My wife Marian suggested, since I never stopped working, we should move to a resort town where I could take a permanent vacation. Dik Browne had invited me to Sarasota in the late ’80s to help with his hospital charity. I knew it was just the spot.” When Peters arrived in the early ’90s, Sarasota’s second golden age of cartooning had already begun. Tom Armstrong, the creator of Marvin and Chickweed Lane, had moved here. Chris Browne never left—and neither had But all good things must end. By the end of the ’90s, Mort Walker had moved to Boca Raton, and Tom Armstrong to Bradenton. In 2005, Mike Peters shifted his address to Colorado. Chris Browne was still here—but he was planning to move. The old gang was breaking up. But for different reasons. “We left to be close to our grandkids,” says Peters. “We’re in Snowmass, now. I basically substituted one resort for another. But I miss Sarasota. I still love it.” Chris Browne loves it too. But he hates what it has turned into. Chris Browne has kept up his father’s work and lived in his father’s town for the last 25 years. But now he wants to call it quits. The reason? “Too much development,” he says. “It 38 : : arts and culture magazine

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Sarasota Arts & Culture Magazine - September/October 2007

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