38
HOTTER
May 1905, Pag8
Shoemaker
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Photos by Joel Sartora
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oward Shoemaker is a very funnyman . . . sometimes.
That humor is to be expected, of course. That's how
he makes his living creating rib-tickling cartoons
that pinpoint the humor in everyday situations. His
vignettes are funny. Some of the nation's top magazine editors
agree on that.
So there's little wonder that a few snickers spill into Shoemak
er's daily life. He's a funny guy . . . sometimes.
And sometimes he's not. Sometimes he's quiet and thoughtful,
reflecting on life's puzzles and confusion. That's Howard Shoe
maker for you. Complex.
Mostly, of course, he's funny, viewing life from a slightly
different stance. An oblique look is the secret to cartooning, he
says.
"Just twist it just a little bit," he says, tipping his teacup on the
edge of the long, wide coffee table. "It isn't here (on the table) or
it isn't on the floor. It's right in between . . . right at that
moment."
Shoemaker credits his Council Bluffs, Iowa, upbringing for his
sense of humor. He and his family lived across the alley from a
mental institution and down the street from a home for student
nurses.
"I've always used that (the mental institution) as one of the
reasons my work is a little warped," he says.
Shoemaker says he never thought about becoming a cartoonist
when he was a boy. "We were too busy looking in the windows at
the nurses' home." How old was he then? "Oh, 27, 28," he says
with a deep laugh.
Shoemaker says he and his younger brother and sister learned
to pay attention to what was going on around them.
The funny things in life last only seconds, Shoemaker says. To
enjoy them, you must spot them quickly.
Most of the 53-year-old cartoonist's work focuses on people and
funny things he sees on neighborhood walks with Janice, his wife of
32 years.
"I just have a different outlook, I think, on what life is. I don't
believe in people taking themselves too seriously. There are human
foibles inside us all."
Shoemaker's cartoons are his way of bringing people closer to
reality. He says people sometimes forget how inconsequential their
lives are. Two newspaper clippings taped to the yellow walls of his
second-floor "garrett" studio are reminders of the vastness of
time and space.
The first article reads: "If the distance from earth to sun were
downsoled to one inch, get this, the nearest star, Alpha Centauri
still would be 4 13 miles down the pike."
A second article deals with time: "If you look at the earth's
evolution on a time scale of one year, when do the dinosaurs show
up? Mid-December, and they died out the day after Christmas. The
Ice Age ended a minute before midnight on Dec. 31, the Roman
Empire lasted five seconds, the United States got started less than
one second ago."
That's not something you'd expect to see on a Playboy cartoon
ist's wall.
Shoemaker also has drawn a time scale, from when earth
formed to the present. The green line measures three or four feet
along the wall. At the end of the scale, when mankind first walked
the earth, the length should be only 150 of an inch.
People's lives are cleary insignificant when compared with such
time and space, Shoemaker notes.
"Maybe that's why it ain't any big deal," he said, with emphasis.
"We're not no big deal."
Despite his fascination with such information, Shoemaker
doesn't have much confidence in organized education. He says
education "always seemed like it bends things the wrong direc
tion." Following a curriculum is important, but he thinks some
people would be better off if they learned from experience rather
than to rely on education.
Shoemaker acknowledges that "there are some holes" in his
own work, "that education would have filled in."
"I just can't put my finger on it, but I know there are certain
things that I get stuck on ... and maybe having an academic
approach to it might solve it."
He says he couldn't go back to school now, but he knows he
would be further in his career if he had attended a German or
French art school.
Art school was not a consideration for him because he more or
less stumbled into the cartoon business.
Before beginning his career as a freelance cartoonist, Shoe
maker worked at Omaha television stations KMTV and WOWT,
Bozell and Jacobs advertising agency and Christensen and Kennedy
animation studio. While busy at those jobs, he freelanced for
American Greeting Card Co. in Cleveland for 13 years.
Something, he doesn't know what, compelled him to begin
drawing cartoons while working at the ad agency. He started
submitting cartoons to magazines, but everything was rejected.
That is, until his friend and boss at the animation studio, Dennis
Kennedy, took some drawings along on a trip to Chicago.
Kennedy went to the Playboy offices and handed the cartoons to
one of the editors. The editor said "OK" and Shoemaker's career
with Playboy took off.
Playboy published Shoemaker's first cartoon in August 1959.
Since then, the magazine has published his work almost monthly.
Road and Track readers have seen Shoemaker's single-frame draw
ings in every issue for the last 24 years.
His thoughts shift from their sojourn into the past and the
rocking chair creaks as he crooks his leg over the arm. He sits in the
shadows. As he speaks, his nearly bald head turns toward the dim
light from the window. He periodically gets up to turn up the
furnace, saying he feels cold.
Shoemaker's trademark, his handlebar mustache, has been
obscured slightly by a beard. He says he grew the beard to protest
not having received a check. The check arrived, but the beard
stayed. He'll shave it soon, he says, because everyone knew him by
the mustache.
He makes few pretenses, clad in blue jeans rolled up at the
hems, cowboy boots and an old checkered flannel shirt. He says he
doesn't even own a three-piece suit.
Shoemaker liked the freedom his job offers him, but he adds
that his time is still regimented and disciplined. He gets up every
day about 7 or 7:30 a.m. and goes to a little coffeeshop near his
home to read the morning paper. He walks his wife to the bus and
then begins drawing about 9 a.m.
Shoemaker works until noon and then walks the 2V4 miles
downtown to the Old Market. He visits his wife who works at a little
speciality shop and talks to friends at the local bars until about 5
p.m. Then he walks home and goes back to the drawing board. "I
work by myself up there in that room and the walls close in on me
after a while. I gotta get out," he says. "There's just me and the cat
here in the daytime. He doesn't converse very readily."
Shoemaker says his afternoon activities are due partly to his
zodiac sign. "Most Sagittarians that I've ever met are always in the
bar and they like to sit and talk all afternoon. That's definitely me,"
he says, laughing loudly.
Shoemaker well remembers one such afternoon. He was talking
about his cartoons to a woman seated next to him at a bar. She told
him she always had wanted a tattoo, but she wasn't sure she would
like it. She asked him if he could draw a butterfly. He said yes. She
asked if he would do it right there in the bar. He said yes again.
Then she unbuttoned her blouse. She wanted the butterfly drawn
on her left breast.
Shoemaker didn't hesitate a moment. He cupped her breast in
his left hand and drew the butterfly with his right. The "tattoo
artist" had drawn one wing and the body when he suddenly felt
that something was wrong
"I turned around and this guy who is about the size of Riming
ton (Dave Rimington, the 1982 Outland and Lombardi trophy
winner) ... is standin' there. And he says What in the hell are
you doin'? That's my lady.' I thought 'oh, God, here it comes. He's
gonna knock me out' She talked him out of it."
Although that was probably the strangest thing that ever hap
pened to Shoemaker, he has done a few other zany things.
He once attended a masquerade party dressed as the Red Baron,
