Belltown Messenger

I became a Ward Sutton fan when he walked into the offices of The Washington Free Press in 1992 with an impressive portfolio of political cartoons he did in Minneapolis before moving to Seattle. Those offices were actually my Capitol Hill apartment, and Ward ended up donating several comics to the Free Press, a paper that still exists today and still doesn't pay people. He has paid his dues, and now he is famous.

Ward thrived in Seattle - it's the perfect spot for any artist to hone their craft before moving on to the big leagues. He ended up doing rock posters and working for the Stranger, the Rocket and dozens of other clients. Ward moved to New York in 1998 to become one of America's leading illustrators and cartoonists.

Full disclosure: I am Ward's biggest fan, and have a large collection of his work including the original art for "Start Your own Publication," a comic lampooning the Stranger and also the short-lived Month Magazine. And fuller disclosure: when art directing Month I commisioned Ward to do a cover for the April '94 issue, shortly before the suicide of Curt Cobain. Ward would deny it, but I think Curt saw the cover he ended up doing, which features an eerily Cobain-like rockstar being dolled up by corporate marketeers, and it sent him over the edge. In my mind, that one piece of Ward's artwork helped change the course of Seattle cultural history: his illustration caused Curt Cobain to commit suicide.

These days, Ward is still rocking the boat. A mild mannered Minnesotan, Ward is polite and soft spoken. I have never heard him say a bad thing about anybody, but his weekly comic "Sutton Impact" is unafraid in its radical approach to skewering powerful hypocrites of all political persuasions. He's a great writer, the secret key to being a great cartoonist, but his art is funny as hell too and his caricatures are right on. His outrage at the current administration is unparalleld, and he draws a very funny looking George Bush too.

A collection of Ward's recent work, Sutton Impact, The Political Cartoons of Ward Sutton, (Seven Stories Press 2005), has just been released in full glorious color. Ward designed the book, and his commentaries are written beneath the cartoons. He will be at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle on July 5 for a signing and a funny and provacative powerpoint presentation. To me, this is the most exciting appearance of a political mover and shaker at Elliott Bay Books since Bill Clinton swung through town, but enough of my fawning; I interviewed Ward last week and here are the results:

What's happening with the animation? I think your style of thickish line art is perfect for animation, and I loved the opening titles you did for Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy.

I worked for two years pitching two different ideas to the Cartoon Network. At the end of lots of work creating a pilot for a show, they couldn't even tell me whether the executive in charge of the decision had even seen it. I decided that if I'm going to spend all this time on something, I might as well just make it instead of making a pitch. So now I'm devoting the next year to making a short animated film. This one is lighter, not overtly political. It's about a Family Circus-esque character who wakes up and realizes he's not funny, and goes through a personal crisis. We just finished recording the voices in New York. I'm living on a farm in North Dakota right now that my wife Sue's (his business manager) family owns, with our 2-1/2-year-old, Yineth. Living for free while finishing the film.

A few of your most recent cartoons are very extreme in their metaphors. I'm afraid that as a family newsapper, the Belltown Messenger has chosen to avoid publishing some of these. Have any of your weekly papers (Sutton Impact is syndicated to about ten weeklies) balked at printing these?

I do a powerpoint presentation during my readings and that cartoon (which features Dick Cheney, Bush, Oil and implied oral sex) comes up and always gets a strong reaction from the crowd. I did a lecture in Minneapolis and my mom and elderly aunt were there (he laughs). I feel strongly about not being offensive for offensive's sake. It's not just plain ol' shock value. Bush and Cheney are doing something incredibly offensive, and so I'm using shocking imagery to get the point across.

Do you have any advice for aspiring cartoonists?

Don't think you're going to become a millionaire. I don't come close to making a living with my cartoons, it's the illustrations that pay the bills. (You might have seen Ward's work for The New York Times Magazine, TV Guide, High Times, Rolling Stone, etc.) I'd say have a passion, believe in what you're doing and keep getting it out there, keep fighting for ways to get seen, be prolific.

Why did you move to Seattle?

I moved to town because Sue was living there, and I happened to fall into the alternative comics scene, which was really happening at the time. Cartoonists were moving to Seattle as fast as musicians. That really expanded my horizons, and my peers gave me inspiration for what comics should be.

Any favorite artists?

In Seattle I got turned on to alternative comics through Fantagraphics and places like the Fallout records/comics store. It was a whole new world to me, and I was really inspired (and still am) by people like Dan Clowes, Los Bros Hernandez, etc. Locally I met people like Peter Bagge, Michael Dougan and became friends with peers like Ellen Forney, whose work I like a lot. I was simultaneously turned on by the Seattle design scene and got the chance to work on some great projects with Modern Dog and later Amesbros. I consider Art Chantry a mentor. When I moved from Minneapolis I was the cartoonist for the weekly paper there, and I thought I could walk into a similar arrangement in Seattle. I set up a meeting with the Seattle Weekly's art director, and he didn't show up for the meeting. Then someone told me "we don't really use cartoonists at this paper." It was a very disappointing blow. Then Art gave me my first Seattle freelance project for The Rocket, where he was art director at the time. He was really, really encouraging.