Roy Paul Nelson
Cartooning
By LORA CUYKENDALL
Of the Emerald
"Cartoonists draw fast because they don't like to
work long hours,” says Charles Schulz.
And maybe that's why they write fast, too.
Speed is no detriment to quality, however, as Univer
sity professor Roy Paul Nelson's book “Cartooning”
proves. Drawing on his years of teaching caricature and
graphic humour courses at the University and his own
experiences as an editorial and gag cartoonist, Nelson
was able to complete his latest book in about six months.
"Cartooning,” published in April, displays over 250
cartoons drawn by 100 artists, including several from
Portland and the Northwest as well as nationally-known
cartoonists. Besides tracing the evolution of cartooning
and trying to measure its social impact, the 376-page
book also serves as a bibliography and how-to-do-it
guide.
Growing up in Portland in the I930s during the fierce
circulation battles among the city's three newspapers,
Nelson began his career at an early age. His cartoons
decorated the youth pages of the Oregonian, the Oregon
Journal and the Portland News-Telegram. It was the
crowning glory of my childhood to be published in all three
at once,' says Nelson.
Looking back, an even more glorious part of Nelson's
youth was when, at 14, he finished ahead of Mort Walker in
a cartooning contest sponsored by "Open Road for
Boys,” a magazine Nelson describes as "not a very
distinguished publication, but one remembered fondly by
today's middle-aged cartoonists." Walker s comic strip
"Beetle Bailey" has since won him a national following.
Nelson's high school years were spent laboriously
carving his drawings into linoleum blocks, in those days
the only reproduction technique which letterpress high
school newspapers could afford. He "couldn't get
enough" of drawing at Portland's Jefferson High School,
but he did get enough of seeing his cartoons
indiscriminately butchered by the editor of the high
school s newspaper
"I originally took journalism to protect myself, he
says. "I became editor of the paper and filled it with my
own uncropped drawings.
With a free scholarship and a New Deal-inspired job
which paid him 35 cents an hour for sweeping out the
YMCA, Nelson started college amidst the fever of World
War II. Attending Oregon while officially a Marine, Nelson
graduated from the University of Oregon in 1947 after
serving for a time in the South Pacific.
After stints of studying at the Art Center College of
Design in Los Angeles and working as a public relations
person for a forest industries association in Washington,
D C. and San Francisco, Nelson returned to Oregon in
1955 to earn an advanced degree and teach.
Although he rarely laughs at his own gags and
drawings. Nelson does laugh at himself In Cartooning
he wntes. that blandness had crept into my work (his
Register-Guard editorial cartoons) and was never more
apparent to me than when I received from one of my
readers a contribution labelled Typical Roy Paul
Cartoon Two persons, indifferently drawn, were shown
talking. One was saying I think Eugene is nice The other
was saying I think everything is nice.
Nelson says a cartoonist often draws himself I tend
to be bland as a person and it comes out in my drawings,
he says. I find it too easy to see both sides of an issue
He says he prefers the fine subtlety of social comment
embedded in a New Yorker style gag cartoon to the meat
cleaver approach of an editorial cartoon
footnotes: Footnotes Available for Winter
CLASS
Anth 101
Anth 102
Anth 302
Bio 102
Bio 272
Bio 302
Bio 305
Bio 322
Bio 381
Chem 102
Chem 105
Chem 332
GS 105
Geog 301
Geol 101
Geol 102
Econ 201
Econ 202
Econ 375
Econ 376
Hist 202
HE 150, 250
Psy 201
Psy 214
Psy 215
Psy 480
Ph 108
PH 116
Soc 201
Soc 201
Soc 306
RHCM 121
PROFESSOR
Moreno-Black
Carter
Tonkinson
Postlewaite
Frank
Sistrom
Herskowitz
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McConnaughey
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Mazo
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Smith
Lund
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Simeral
Grove
Grove
Simeral
Maddex
Zentner
Littman
Hawkins
Fagot
Kirkpatrick
Ebbinghausen
Lonnedes
Johnson
Moen
Hill
TIME
2:30 UH
10:30 UH
1:30 MWF
12:30 MWF
8:30 MWF
10:30 MWF
8:30 MWF
8:30 MWF
2-3:30 UH
9:30 UH
11:30 MWF
12:30 MWF
1:30 MWF
2:30-4 UH
3:30 MWF
9:30 MWF
3:30 MWF
10:30 MWF
12:30 MWF
11-12:30 UH
12:30 MWF
8:30 MWF
10:30 MWF
9:30 MWF
12:30-2 UH
10:30 MWF
2:30 MWF
1:30 MWF
11:30 MWF
9:30 MWF
11:30 MWF
12:30 M
PLACE
180 PLC
150 GEO
180 PLC
177 LA
211 ALL
150 GEO
123 SC
123 SC
123 SC
150 GEO
150 GEO
150 GEO
107 LA
207 CHA
177 LA
150 GEO
180 PLC
180 PLC
103 FEN
103 FEN
180 PLC
180 PLC
177 LA
180 PLC
180 PLC
207 CHA
150-GEO
138 GIL
138 GIL
103 FEN
331 GIL
133 GIL
Term 1976
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