“My brush is having a nervous breakdown,” Jeff MacNelly once told me. “Brushes don’t wear out, they have a breakdown and then have to be replaced.”
Those were some of the first words of advice MacNelly would share with this fledgling cartoonist nearly 14 years ago during a visit to his office at the Chicago Tribune.
My memory of the occasion is dreamy. We talked that day about brushes. And erasers. He showed me the cartoon he was working on for the next edition of the Tribune.
The teacher took time to look at and discuss every drawing in my portfolio. This might seem like mundane stuff to a non-cartoonist, but to someone who had wanted to be a cartoonist since age 5, it could not have been a more glorious moment.
It was also the closest thing to a mini-cartooning seminar I could enroll in. By and large, cartoonists learn cartooning from other cartoonists. To my knowledge no major university offers a degree in political cartooning. Rather young ink-slingers study the art in solitary, often practicing in their sketchbooks into the early hours of the morning. They write letters and send samples of their work to their cartooning heroes and ask for advice. Sometimes they even get to meet those heroes in person.
And if they are especially lucky, their hero invites them to lunch in Chicago.
I, of course, had thanked Jeff for his generosity and time. But I never told him just how much our meeting that day had meant to me. Jeff never knew how many times our Chicago lunch got me through many sleepless nights back at my Omaha drawing table.
Even now, every single time I erase pencil marks from a drawing, I think of our talk about erasers.
The same for every time I draw with a brush. But these days my brush isn’t having a nervous breakdown.
With the passing of Jeff MacNelly, my brush weeps ink.
I was fortunate and blessed to have known MacNelly. Most often I would see him at cartoonist conventions and other journalism functions. No matter how busy he was, he always made time to talk and ask me about my work. But even more than talking cartooning, Jeff provided inspiration to me on a whole different level.
The first time was after the passing of his son, Jake, who died in 1996 of injuries received in a rock-climbing accident. Within weeks of the tragedy, Jeff was back at the drawing table cranking out brilliant drawings once again.
Producing cartoons on a daily basis can sometimes prove to be a daunting task. Every day you have to have something meaningful to say. Something insightful, perhaps. Poignant or funny. But even while processing his grief, Jeff did his work. And did it well.
And then it happened again. When it was announced that Jeff had lymphoma, I wondered if his work would suffer. But he continued to produce the type of work that earned him three Pulitzer Prizes.
I wish I could tell Jeff how much he has meant to me and how he inspired me to push myself over the years. Perhaps the best way of thanking him is to get back to my drawing board.
