Bonnie Timmons isn’t very good at telling a story from start to finish.
It starts. But it takes a while to finish.
She likes to stray. Sometimes over here. And then over there.
This is how Timmons, 43, a cartoonist who lives in rural Chester County, Pa., tells the story of her recent success.
It’s a story about how her cute squiggly drawings of people with tiny eyes and funny noses, her drawings of strange animals and funny situations, will become a new line of Avanti greeting cards that will probably make her famous.
It’s also a story about how those same cartoon drawings, which you’ve probably seen on the current AT&T television commercials, have been discovered by Hollywood. And how they are going to be part of a new NBC sitcom, following “Seinfeld,” that is already being pegged as next season’s big hit.
Timmons begins her tale.
“About a year and a half ago our house burned. The roof was on fire, and that was right before my father died. Then the rooster died. And the goat. And I fell down the stairs. I had to get away.”
Timmons wants to know if anybody is hungry. She trots down to the kitchen of the 200-year-old farmhouse she shares with her husband Bill Wunsch, a newspaper photo editor. The walls are painted like one of her cartoons, with uneven red stripes and Timmons’ elementary-school-style animal characters.
She makes turkey sandwiches.
The new television show, which is called “Caroline in the City,” is loosely based on Timmons’ life and will feature her illustrations at the beginning and at the end of each episode.
Timmons wants to add that the tadpoles swimming around in the green water inside a jar by her sink came from the pond in the pasture across the street.
That’s where her horses run and her black standard poodle, named Shane, likes to jump. Did you know he can jump 4 feet, 7 inches off the ground? Shane is at the groomer’s at the moment, but will be back soon.
Yes. Well, back to the Hollywood story.
“I was at this health spa in Mexico and they don’t have phones there. Except for emergencies,” Timmons says.
She explains that her agent lied and told the folks at the spa that there was a family emergency, when really the agent was calling to say that the very same producers who created the hit shows “Cheers” and “Frasier” wanted to talk to Timmons about a new show.
“I waded out of the pool and off to a little office with a rubber tube around me” to take the phone call, she says.
A delivery man comes to the door. Timmons, who works at home, glances up with a panicked expression at one of her two assistants.
“I’m usually working right up until deadline, and, when the courier guy comes, I try to buy more time by inviting him to swim in the pool,” Timmons says.
Kay Dixon, the image coordinator of Timmons Inc., assures Timmons that she isn’t missing a deadline; the delivery person must actually be delivering something.
It’s a get-well basket of goofy gifts from the Avanti card company people.
The card reads: “The folks at Avanti wish you a speedy recovery, and we suggest you stay away from horses, bicycles, sharp pointy objects and wet slippery floors.”
Timmons laughs as she lifts up her right wrist to show off a fluorescent yellow cast.
She recently fell off one of her horses and broke her wrist. Not a good thing when Avanti is expecting 100 illustrations by the end of December and 100 more every year after that.
“I’m always breaking things. Bones,” Timmons says, brushing off the incident. “I had an orthopedist set it so I can hold a pen.”
As a girl, Timmons liked to draw but never took art lessons.
She went to college thinking she was going to be a nuclear physicist. Her father was a rocket scientist. Really. He worked for the space program.
In her early 20s, Timmons joined the Peace Corps and went to Kenya. She worked as a photographer and illustrator documenting eye diseases among the nomadic people of the area.
When she came back to the United States she got a job as an illustrator at the Denver Post.
“I had the most incredible job. I had absolutely no art direction. I could do whatever I wanted.”
In the seven years she worked there, Timmons built up a following, and the newspaper pushed her to do unusual assignments. She followed the Gary Hart presidential campaign and drew cartoons about it. She drew illustrations for a story about cocaine abuse and even about apartheid.
Back to the television show.
It is scheduled to run at 8:30 p.m. Thursdays beginning next fall, the magical time slot immediately following “Seinfeld.”
The actress playing the cartoonist character is Lea Thompson, who was in the movie “Back to the Future.” In the show she will draw cartoons actually drawn by Timmons.
“They’ve got my work hanging all over the studio. I was on the set once, and I sat at the drafting table trying to make it look more real, with papers on the floor and ink everywhere.”
Timmons has lots of work to do, but she can’t find the time during the day to do it. The hours seem to slip right by her. Sometimes she stays up all night drawing.
Would you like to walk out to the pasture?
Timmons says she knows her life is about to change drastically. With the television show and the cards and the advertising campaigns she says she’s working more than ever.
She pats one of her horses on the rump and says she’s going to miss riding in the afternoons. But she says she wants to ride this wave of success while it’s here.
“I know it won’t last, and, while there’s work involved, I know that in many ways it’s just the luck of the draw.” She stops her sentence short and begins to giggle.
“Oh God, luck of the `draw.’ Did I say that?”
