What Charles Schulz Taught Me In Cartooning
By Rick London

In early 1997, I became a cartoonist. Sort of. Before I started this "cartoon journey", might be helpful to know what I was doing. Finding someone like Charles Schulz was not an easy matter for someone like me at the time who knew nobody in the business. But I felt "why not start at the top and work my way down"? I found a friend of his willing to ask him if we might chat a moment. He surprisingly agreed. It felt "awesome" that other top cartoonists also agreed to wield "trade secrets" with me. Fortunately, I was both too young and naive to know NOT to bother the masters. So when Charles Schulz picked up his phone, I started asking the five journalistic Ws (Who, what, when, why, and where). His (and others) advice turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. I was starting to wax philosophically regarding just what "this business of cartooning" was really about.

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