I’m happy to announce that my cartoons are now available for purchase through CartoonStock.com!
Prints range from basic posters to two types of canvas. Prints are available from 11" x 11" up to 52" x 52". An 11 x 11’ unframed print is $18.65. Also available on mugs,T-shirts and other items.
Cartoons can also be purchased for use in a book, newsletter, presentation, etc. Visit
CartoonStock for pricing details.
This past Saturday I was the Cartoonist-in-Residence at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa. Every second Saturday of each month, the Museum hosts a Cartoonist-in-Residence so visitors can meet and discuss cartooning with a professional cartoonist. The Museum does the Cartoonist-in-Residence Program to help fulfill its mission of “building an understanding of cartoonists and cartoon art.” In the lobby with my daughter, Kate. It was an honor to be there and I had a great time chatting with people. (I also sold a bunch of greeting cards, which was a nice plus.) Honestly, the best part was meeting various people of all ages who are interested in cartooning.
One girl, who I’ll call “Ericka,” stopped at my table and chatted with me for quite a while. An aspiring cartoonist, she had a thick sketchbook filled with drawings. They were excellent. Her mother was with her and was clearly very supportive of her daughter and proud of her work. She had at least 50 of Ericka’s drawings on her iPhone.
Before she left, Ericka asked me to draw something in her “artists” book. She pulled out another sketch book, turned to a blank page, and handed it to me. I quickly drew a man waving and saying “Hi Ericka! Good luck with your cartooning!”
After I drew it, I thought it looked pretty dorky. I handed it back to her.
“My mom and I have come here for every Cartoonist-in-Residence,” Ericka said. “This book contains sketches from all of them. You can take a look at the other sketches if you want.”
She handed the book back to me and I flipped through it. There were dozens and dozens of drawings done by all kinds of cartoonists. About 90% of the sketches were of various cartoon characters saying things like, “Good luck, Ericka!” and “Nice to meet you, Ericka!” It was neat that she had this huge collection of sketches from professional cartoonists (and kind of reassuring for me to see that nearly all of them were as dorky as mine).
Later, one of the volunteers came up to me and said, “You know that girl who was hanging out at your table for a while? She and her mom have come here for every Cartoonist-in-Residence we’ve ever done.”
I said, “Yeah, she mentioned that. How long have you been doing this program?”
“Nine years. She’s been coming here once a month for the past nine years.”
That blew me away. I did a few sketches on the dry erase board, which included a wiener dog, a reindeer and a guy named "Ned." Towards the end of my visit, a woman came in with her daughter, “Molly,” who was in a wheelchair, and her daughter’s friend, “Teri.” Teri did most of the talking. After asking me some questions, Teri sat down with Molly at one of the tables to draw some pictures.
A few minutes later, they showed me their finished drawings. Teri drew Snoopy and Molly drew Charlie Brown. As I was looking at Teri’s Snoopy, she said, “What do you think, Scott?”
“Very nice,” I said. “I see you made Snoopy brown.”
“Yes,” Teri replied. “I like brown dogs. Scott, you can keep it, if you want. Do you want to keep it, Scott?”
As I said “Sure,” Molly rolled towards me in her wheelchair and handed me her Charlie Brown sketch.
“It doesn’t look very good,” she said, “but I made his shirt yellow.”
“I think it looks great,” I said.
“Molly is my best friend,” Teri said abruptly. “We’ve been best friends for two years.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“I’m developmentally disabled,” Teri replied. “Do you know what that is, Scott?”
Before I could respond, Teri said, “Molly has Cerebral palsy. Do you know what that is, Scott?”
“Yes, I do.”
“People make fun of us a lot,” Teri said. “Kids at school make fun of us.”
“I’m sorry kids make fun of you,” I said. “Some people are mean. Don’t let them get you down.”
“You didn’t make fun of us,” Teri replied.
Teri saw me put the drawings in my sketch pad and said, “What are you going to do with our drawings? Are you going to treasure them forever?” She wasn't being sarcastic – in fact, I doubt Teri was capable of sarcasm. She sincerely wanted to know if I was going to treasure their drawings forever.
“I’ll keep them to remind me of today,” I said.
When I got home, I threw them in the recycling bin.
I’m kidding. I kept the drawings. They’re in my sketch pad and will stay there for a quite a while, maybe even forever.
On Saturday, November 12 I’m going to be the Cartoonist-in-Residence at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. I’m really looking forward to this. I’ve actually never visited the Schulz Museum before (which is kind of surprising since it’s only about an hour away).
I will be bringing my iMac with me so I can color a cartoon while I’m there. That’s right, drawing on the computer in front of real live people! It’ll be like a cartoonist concert. I want people to take out their lighters and wave them during the slow, emotional parts of the cartooning process.
Charles Schulz’s work was an enormous influence on me growing up, so I am honored to be a guest at the Museum.
Liz Greer, who is the editor of a blog called “Mill Valley Life,” recently interviewed me about my cartooning and greeting cards. It was a pleasure to be featured in her blog – you can read the piece here.
“Mill Valley Life” is updated nearly every day, with interesting stories about Mill Valley and the people who live there.
Thanks Liz – it was fun talking with you.
A couple months ago, I got an email from someone at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. She asked if I was available to do some cartooning for an upcoming public health advertising campaign.
“The campaign is to promote the use of female condoms,” she wrote.
For several years, I did cartooning for the SF Health Department’s syphilis prevention campaign, which featured a happy-go-lucky cartoon penis named “Healthy Penis.” Those comic strip ads were fun to write and draw, so I was interested to find out what their new “female condom” campaign was all about.
I thought, Maybe they’ll want me to draw a talking female condom. She could be called Connie the Condom!
I emailed back saying that I was available and asked for more information. Turns out there wasn’t going to be any mascot for this campaign. They had something completely different in mind.
“We want to promote the use of the newly redesigned female condom (called FC2) among gay and bisexual men,” she said. “We’d like you to draw a series of illustrations which would show men how to use it.”
I was sent samples of illustrations showing women inserting the condom. They were plain and looked like typical textbook illustrations. She asked if I could create a new a series of cartoony illustrations of a man using the female condom. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t going to be a goofy cartoon mascot involved, but was happy to accept the job.
Over the next few days, I worked on the sketches. The first drawing was a hand holding the condom. Pretty straightforward.
Then I started drawing the second sketch: a guy standing up, with his partner about to insert the condom. My wife was there for instant feedback.
“It’s weird to see one of your cartoon characters with his pants around his ankles,” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied. "It's really weird."
“What’s that behind his butt?”
“It’s his partner’s hand,” I said. “He’s about to insert the condom.”
“Don’t you think the hand should be a lot closer?”
“It’s close enough,” I said.
“His hand is like three feet behind the guy’s butt,” she said. “You have to make it much closer—he’s his sex partner.”
“You really think it’s too far away?”
“The way you have it drawn now, it doesn’t look like he’s about to have sex with the guy. It looks like he’s going to throw the condom at him and run."
She was right. It looked ridiculous.
I went ahead corrected the sketch and proceeded to work on the others. One Saturday morning, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter walked up next to me while I was drawing a tattoo on a naked butt.
“What’s that, Daddy?”
“It’s a tattoo,” I said, then quickly moved the drawing pad out of view. “Why don’t you go play with your toys?”
In about a week, the cartoons were finished and approved by the Health Department. Here’s an excerpt (censored for the kids): The campaign launched this past Monday, on Valentine’s day, at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza.
I really enjoyed working with the Health Department. They’re great. Still, I wish I could’ve drawn a cartoon character named Connie the Condom. That would’ve been a lot of fun.
I was recently interviewed by David Paccia for his Cartoonist Survey on his blog, David Wasting Paper. Over the past several months, David has interviewed more than 100 cartoonists, asking each one the same set of questions (about the favorite drawing tools, work environment, art background, etc.). You can read my answers to his questions here. Thanks David. I’m flattered to be a part of the survey.
If you’re into the nuts and bolts of cartooning, check out the archives on David’s site. Fun read.
This past Tuesday, Sarah mentioned Metzger Cartoons Christmas cards on the Sarah and Vinnie Morning Show (Alice 97.3 FM). Kudos to Sarah for having such excellent taste. Thanks for the plug.
You can listen to it here – she starts talking about it at the 2-minute mark.
The cartoonist collective I belong to, Tall Tale Features, is growing! We recently added two members to our group: Irma Eriksson (creator of “Imy”) and Norm Feuti (creator of “Gill.”) If the name Norm Feuti sounds familiar, you might know his syndicated strip, “Retail.”) We are very happy to have these two talented people in our group. Check out their strips!
Other news: a few weeks ago, I finally joined Facebook. A friend of mine, Joe Salama, created a group for MetzgerCartoons. So if you are a fan, join MetzgerCartoons on Facebook.
I was the guest on last week's Comics Coast to Coast (Episode 59). Comics Coast to Coast is a very entertaining podcast hosted by cartoonists Brian Dunaway and Justin Thompson.
We first discussed my decision to end my comic strip, "Stewart "— and how I learned that basing a strip in San Francisco was a BAD idea. (I can admit that now.) We also talked about my former strip, “Tree,” which was about a slightly dim pine tree.
I also shared my experience as the cartoonist for a public health campaign which ran from 2002-2006. It was a highly unconventional campaign. If you want to know the details, listen to the show. You will be either amused or disturbed. Or maybe both!
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