Who was the best-known person you ever drew?

I assume you mean someone I sketched in person.  At the moment, the ones that come to mind are Diane Sawyer of CBS, “Famous Amos” of cookie fame–hey, you asked about famous people, right?–Jerry Clower the Grand Ol’ Opry star, and Pastor Adrian Rogers (a longtime friend whom I sketched on a plane once).

What surprises you most about Baptist humor?

Mainly that it is not surprising at all. There is no “Baptist humor.” It’s much like everyone else’s.  We’re all pretty much alike.

Are there any subject matters off limits?

There are, if you want to be published in a Christian paper or magazine!  (smile please)  I learned early on that just because I thought a cartoon was funny did not mean an editor would run it.  Gradually, I learned that Baptist editors had several different constituencies to minister to, to address, and sometimes to placate.  When they did their job well and were criticized for it, they could take it. But no editor was going to knowingly run an offensive cartoon sure to provoke a hostile response.  And who could blame them.

Gradually I learned to rein in my humor.  Much of what I put in a cartoon could be considered teasing, or inspiring in a minor key, or just plain fun.

Do you pray about your cartooning? 

I certainly do.  Each morning as I’m walking in the neighborhood and thinking about the day ahead, I pray that the Father will guide me in what I say and write, what I draw, and the decisions I make.  I am confident that the Father has seen every cartoon ever drawn and knows all the great captions.  So, I ask Him for the right one for “this” drawing. And I’ve learned to wait until He sends it.

How do you find a way to insert humor into a serious situation?

What I do with 90 percent of what I draw is to sketch the situation, then let it “set” until the character(s) tell me what they are saying (or the Lord tells me through them).  Often I’ll draw a situation without a clue what’s going on.  And nothing happens until it occurs to me what they are saying. Facebook friends know that I frequently post a drawing on my page and ask, “What’s he saying?  Help me out.”  The suggestions fly in.  Most are obvious stuff and not very funny, but here and there great ideas will arrive.  And that’s what I’m looking for.

Who influenced you most?  When your life is over, what 3 specific things to you hope to have accomplished?

That’s two questions.  1) Who influenced me most?  I was encouraged by my family (Mom first, then Dad, then my sis Patricia) and inspired by professional cartoonists (Jim Larrick, editorial cartoonist and past president of the AAEC; Bob Howie, editorial cartoonist with the Jackson Daily News; and Dick Moores, longtime cartoonist with Walt Disney, Chester Gould, and then artist behind the Gasoline Alley comic strip).  2) When my life ends, I’m not optimistic about my cartooning having accomplished anything big.  Instead of having “three specific things,” I have just one.  I want the Father to say to me, “Well done, Joe.”  That will be a-plenty, believe me.

Was there ever a time you wanted to quit this ministry?  Did you quit for a time?

Actually there was.  Sometime around 1980 (I was forty), I felt that my ego was getting too involved in this.  At the moment, I can’t recall why I felt that way.  But I remember hanging it up and telling the Lord, “I’m through, unless you give it back to me.”  I’m unsure how long the drought was, but maybe six months.  I don’t even recall when the Lord gave me back this little ministry, but He did. And thereafter, my ego was no part of it at all.  Whether an editor ran something or not seemed not to matter.  All that counted was that I did whatever I felt the Lord wanted.

And what have you accomplished in this cartooning ministry?

I have no idea. “God knows.”  And He is the only one who matters.  There have been a few highlights along the way, of course, that stand out in memory.  Many years ago, two other cartoonists and I marketed a series of books for church secretaries through Baker Book House in Grand Rapids.  In all, Instant Cartoons for Church Newsletters sold 300,000 copies in eight editions.  (This was before church copy machines when secretaries used clip art. So, our books ran each cartoon in two different sizes.  You can still find them for sale on Amazon and Alibris.com, sometimes at enormous prices.  Crazy.)

A friend wrote from New Orleans once (where I lived for some 30 years total) to say she had seen my drawings in the jury pool room at the courthouse, in the ICU family waiting room, and on a nurse’s clipboard.  I’ve gone to funeral and seen some drawing I’d done of the deceased decades earlier which the family had either dug up or held onto.

I admit to smiling when I enter a restaurant and see they have a drawing framed.  In most cases, it’s something I’d done on a previous visit there.  Oh, the famous Lambert’s Throwed Rolls restaurant in Foley, Alabama, has a whole wall plastered with cartoons I did for them a generation ago.  So, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, when I was preaching in the area, I told the host pastor I wanted to check to see if they are still there.  The place was crowded as usual.  I walked inside and looked in every nook and corner and found them, still on the wall, still looking as fresh as they had at the first.  I ended up sketching the people sitting there, then some of the wait staff.  The manager came over and said, “Joe, I remember when you drew those for us all those years ago.”  I was amazed, and then he said, “Karen was your waitress, and you sat at that booth over there.”  I was speechless.

Through the years, people will come up to me and say, “You drew me thirty years ago.”  Some even say, “Fifty years.”  For a long time I had no idea how to respond to that. “Well, okay. Thanks.”  But I finally figured it out.  Now when they say I drew them all those years ago, I say, “And have you forgiven me?”

And the most fun thing you do today? 

I love to draw a child.  I love for elementary teachers to invite me to talk to the class about drawing, and then to sketch everyone.  (I take 90 seconds to two minutes per person.)  When I was a kid, I knew no one who did what I do.  I would have thought I’d died and gone to Heaven if a cartoonist had shown up at my school and showed us how to do this.  So, I do it for myself as a child.  And I’ll tell you, the best part is when the child expresses amazement.  “Gaaa.”  Or “Wow, Karen, it really looks like you.”  Or, they’ll say, “Are you really an artist?”  I’ll tell them I am. And they say, “Gaaa.”

Btw.  I suggest that teachers make copies of the drawings and let the children color them.  Mothers love these and grandparents are thrilled to be able to stick them on the fridge.