Drawn and Quoted - Christianity Today

We knew it would be risky-inviting our cartoonists to convene in the a LEADERSHIP offices. For years we have laughed each time a batch of their work arrives in the mail, but what would they be like in person? Would they look like their characters? Even more scary, would they look at us and start doodling? It’s intimidating to think you might be the inspiration for a cartoon!

But when sixteen people gathered at our offices last June, we found they were remarkably normal. They had families, ministries, and (occasionally) real jobs. And while the convention was filled with laughter, for them their art is by no means a joke. As you read about these pen-sive personalities, you’ll see that humor is both a creative outlet and a ministry to those who live with the tension and stress of church life.

ROB PORTLOCK

Dubbed by his peers as “the dean of LEADERSHIP cartoonists,” Rob Portlock began drawing while earning a living as a milkman. Encouraged when his political cartoons were accepted for a local newspaper, Rob wondered if his brand of humor would fit church politics, too. It did–and his zany characters have added spice to LEADERSHIP since its first issue in 1980.

Rob claims it was early morning TV visits with Captain Kangaroo and Saturday morning cartoons that shaped his humor. “Throw in a few trips to the theater to see the Disney classics,” he says, “and another ‘twisted’ cartoonist was born.”

Rob lives with his wife, Elaine, and two children in Lake Wildwood, California, in the Sierra Foothills. He is now a full-time artist and has illustrated four children’s books. When he’s not drawing, Rob enjoys golf and “charging short vacations to my ballooning VISA.”

MARY CHAMBERS

Mary and her husband, Tim, a pastor in a small, southwest Missouri town, were both preachers’ kids. Now they have five preacher’s kids of their own.

Being so close to preachers and church “causes me to think of life in terms of sermon illustrations,” Mary says. “You know. Sin is like a stray cat. You let your kids feed it some old baloney and the next thing you know, it’s having kittens under the porch.

“If you think like that and you doodle when you think,” she says, “you could end up being a cartoonist if someone doesn’t stop you.”

ERIK JOHNSON

Erik and his wife, Vicki, danced around their living room after making their first cartoon sale to LEADERSHIP in 1980. “It was an elegant seventeenth-century minuet and bourree with only a touch of jitterbug,” he explains. “All very tasteful.”

The Johnsons live in Ferndale, Washington, where they home school their five children. Erik is associate pastor of Good News Fellowship Church, a Mennonite Brethren congregation. He’s attracted to the theological rigor and devotional intensity of the Puritans.

“Try as I will to model my ministry after Richard Baxter,” he admits, “more often than not it comes out like Garrison Keillor.”

STEVE PHELPS

A Texas transplant to the Pacific Northwest, Steve Phelps pastors a Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) congregation in Edmonds, Washington. He and his wife of 20 years, Sherry (who he claims is funnier than he is), have four children: Rashelle, Dustin, Drew, and Cameron.

Steve’s resume includes a stint in the Texas oil fields, serving as a Green Beret, and a variety of jobs including respiratory therapist, picture framer, and youth pastor.

Several factors inspired Steve to submit cartoons to LEADERSHIP, including the poverty of being in youth ministry, and the fact that Rob Portlock’s humor kept us reasonably sane during those days.”

ROB SUGGS

A freelance author and illustrator living in Atlanta, Rob is the creator of cartoon superstar Brother Biddle who has appeared in “The Door,” “Christian Century,” and “Christianity Today.” (Rob tried to convince us he’d also been published in Buddhism Today, but we didn’t believe him.)

“I began drawing funny pictures to keep other children from beating me up,” he says. “As my proficiency improved, they began to recognize themselves and started beating me up again.”

Where does Rob get his ideas? “Just from watching you.”

DOUG HALL

Doug was raised in a ministry home and now is married to a seminary student. He and his wife, Cindy, have a 2-year-old son, Jonathan.

By day, Doug is an editor and graphic designer for a non-profit health education organization. He’s also an avid reader, backpacker, and “dangerously unskilled” canoeist.

Doug long dreamed of having a nationally syndicated comic strip and succeeded briefly with “Simple Beasts,” but as a result had to overcome his 80-hour-a-week obsession. Doug won the 1992 Evangelical Press Association best cartoon award for his character, Gladys Thundermuffin, saying, “Lord, I lay before you the prayer concerns voiced this morning … even though most of ’em sound like whining to me.”

BILL FRAUHIGER

A full-time free-lance illustrator for the past eight years, Bill has specialized in humorous drawings, character design, caricatures, cartoons, and comic strips. Besides magazines, his customers include ad agencies, greeting card companies, clip-art publishers, and corporation newsletters.

When he’s not drawing, Bill likes to build scale models of show cars and motorcycles. He lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with his wife, Sally, and his 1-year-old son, Evan.

GARY PAULEY

When he was in kindergarten, Gary’s classmates would stand around his desk, watching him draw. He says it was later, “when my sense of humor began to warp,” that his pictures evolved into cartoons.

Gary, a third-generation pastor, planted Rolling Hills Church in Kansas City, Kansas, nearly eleven years ago. He’s often asked if his cartoons depict real-life situations from his own church. “Now why would they think that?” Gary wonders.

Gary and Jan, his wife, have two children, Jennifer and Christopher. Gary wants to help ministers see the lighter side of their work. “I know that ministry is sometimes a series of tragedies followed by disappointment,” he says, “but I also understand the power of laughter and its healing properties.”

ED KOEHLER

Ed’s career began when he was young, about three. “I drew on anything that didn’t move,” he says. “On things that did move, I used spray paint. “

He began copying characters in the comics Nancy, Beetle Bailey, Dagwood, Snoopy, and those in “Mad” magazine–especially the Don Martin people.

Ed lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife, Judy, and their two daughters, Stephie and Anna, who find it weird at times to have a cartoonist for a father.

In addition to cartooning for LEADERSHIP and other Christian publications since 1984, he is also a full-time illustrator and a Sunday school teacher of fourth and fifth graders at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church (PCA).

DICK HAFER

Dick lives just outside Washington, D.C. where he has been cartooning full-time for the past 13 years. Prior to that he did it on the side while serving as an art director for an advertising agency and as an advertising director for a corporation. Dick has had his work featured on 60 Minutes, Donahue, and other network broadcasts.

Once when he asked his younger son in junior high if he’d like to use his own artistic talent to follow in his dad’s footsteps, his son said, “No, Dad. I think I want a real job.”

Which explains why Dick sees cartoonists as something like prophets: neither are honored in their own home town.

DIK LAPINE

It was in Miss Amott’s second grade class in Duluth, Minnesota, that Dik first knew he was going to be a cartoonist. “I had this mad crush on her because she kept encouraging me to draw my silly little cartoons for the class.”

When he saw how his crayon cartoons could make others laugh, he knew he wanted to cartoon for a living. While it’s now only a part-time venture (Dik is also youth pastor at Marimont Community Church), he still dreams of doing it full-time some day.

Dik lives in Auburn Hills, Michigan, with his wife, Lynda, and their children, Jana and James

WENDELL SIMONS

Wendell returned to his childhood passion of cartooning after a forty-year hiatus. In between he was librarian for the University of California and for Judson Baptist College (The Dalles, Oregon), where he was also a Bible professor.

Besides drawing for LEADERSHIP, Wendell contributes cartoons to several magazines with an ecclesiastical sense of humor, has a weekly cartoon in the local “very-small-town” newspaper, and is part-time librarian for The Dalles Public Library.

KEVIN SPEAR

Kevin, his wife, and son live in Anderson, Indiana, where he works as graphic designer for Prentice Hall Computer Publishing, the largest computer book publisher in the United States.

Kevin was influenced by his grandfather, who pastored a church in Sheridan, Indiana, for fifty years and continues, at age 80, to minister to nursing home patients and shut-ins. Wanting to use art to honor God, Kevin is pleased when his cartoons help others see the humor of situations his own ministry family has experienced.

PENN CLARK

Prior to 1978, Penn was a newspaper cartoonist in Canada. When he became a Christian, he laid cartooning aside and began to prepare for the ministry.

Although he and his wife, Heather, had never seen a Mennonite church, they were invited to plant a charismatic-style Mennonite fellowship in northern New York. They have continued to pastor there for the past nine years. Penn and his children draw together during family time.

Inspired by Bill Mauldin, the World War II cartoonist whose “Willie and foe” cartoons helped raise the morale of the troops on the front lines, Penn began submitting drawings to LEADERSHIP in the hopes that he could lift the morale of pastors on the front lines of ministry.

MIKE WOODRUFF

Mike dreams of being a political cartoonist, but he faces two problems: “One, I feel called to ministry, and two, I can’t draw.”

So he makes his living doing other things–ministry (he just stepped down after eight years in college ministry), free-lance writing, and consulting with churches and businesses on management issues.

He and his wife, Sheri, make their home in Washington state. They have two sons, Austin (6) and Benjamin (3), “who both draw better than I can.”

ANDY ROBERTSON

As a child Andy wanted to be a commercial artist. He drew and doodled anything that would hold still long enough to he captured on paper. Then, when he was 14, he received a dramatic call to become a preacher. So he laid aside his art plans except for an occasional poster or clip art to promote a church event.

Now, 23 years later, he is senior pastor of First Assembly of God in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He and his wife, Cathy, have two children, Daniel and Holly, who display the proof of their own doodling talent on the family refrigerator.

In 1988 Cathy encouraged Andy to “stir up the gift within” and send his cartoons to LEADERSHIP. I have been hooked ever since, he says.

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