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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1979-10-17, Page 19 (2)Serving South Huron, North Middlesex EXETER, ONTARIO, OCTOBER 17, 1979 His drawings ... not his body Randy Jones in Playboy By MARY ALDERSON I was a little apprehensive as I knocked on the door of the Jones home on Marlborough Street. After all, weren't artists always a little -- well, uh, -- strange? Especially cartoonists? And this one lived in New York city, and drew cartoons for Playboy, of all things! What would I say to him? I needn't have worried -- there's nothing "grange" 'about Randy Jones, except that he has a very good sense of humour and an excellent drawing hand. Before long he is doing a caricature of me. I ask him if he has noticed my "chip- munk cheeks". He has. It really does look like me. But Randy says he'd rather be drawing men than women. You can give men hooked noses a:id five o'clock shadows. Women don't like it if you do that to them. Randy is a freelance artist living in New York. Last week he visited in Exeter with his parents, Ted and Donna Jones, and was re- acquainted with the town where he gew up. And what sort of things does a freelance cartoonist do. I wonder. Randy describes one of his most recent jobs. A reporter had done an article for the New York Times comparing Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy. According to him, Kennedy was doing everything in a great flamboyant style, while Carter just plodded along. The Times asked Randy to illustrated the story. Randy drew Carter and Kennedy as babies playing in a sand box. Both were in diapers, bibs and bonnets. Jimmy was playing with an overturned sand bucket, while Teddy had built an enormous sand castle, complete with elaborate turrets and spires. "It was funny, too funny," Randy says. The New York Times likes a certain amount of humour; but they also like to preserve their image. Since this was a front page car- toon, they asked Randy to tone it down. Randy changed Carter and Kennedy to adults - but still in caricature. Instead of a child's sand box, he moved them to a beach. But the message was the same while Jimmy had a bucket, Teddy built flamboyant castles. The Times botlght it - it was just funny enough. Prior to that cartoon, Randy did one of Bob Strauss, the Middle East peace negotiator, for the Times. Again he was given an article to read, and came up with his own idea of what to depict in the caricature. One word stuck out in Randy's mind, Strauss had been described as a "maverick". As Randy went to work with ink, Strauss became just that - a rootin', tootin', cowboy complete with six guns, black hat and big cigar. Underfoot were Arabs, Israelis. and the pyramids. Strauss liked it, when it appeared in the Times. He phoned Randy, and asked him if he could autograph a copy and send it to him. Randy told Strauss that he had the original. Strauss replied, "Maybe you could give that to me to hang up on the wall." To which Randy replied "I don't like the word 'give'." Strauss was embarrassed to learn that what Randy meant was "sell", and quickly said that selling the original was a really good idea. Strauss bought it for $300. The New York Times paid Randy $250 for the drawing, and he gets an additional income if it's reprinted. Randy says it took him an evening to do the cartoon. Randy says that Strauss has an easy face to caricature, much easier than Carter's. He says that Carter is giving many cartoonists problems with his increasing number of lines and wrinkles. Carter also did something that threw them off - he had the nerve to change the part in his hair from one side to another in the middle of his career. "It was a very insecure thing to do," Randy says. So how does a boy from little, old Exeter, Ontario become concerned about the way the President parts his hair? I ask Randy to tell me his life history. Embarrassed, he hands me a magazine article written about him a few years ago. It reads that Randy was born underan oak tree on the bank of the Ausable River, on May 7, 1949." Randy laughs. "That's about it," he says. . He attended grade school in Exeter and went on to take grade nine at South Huron District High School. But at that time there were no art courses, and all Randy wanted to do was draw. So arrangements were made, and Randy went to board in London, so that he could attend Beale Technical School. Here he received his only art education. But let's make it clear that Randy's talent goes far beyond a clever cartoon. His mother points to a detailed oil painting of an aged man's wrinkled face that's hanging over Randy's head. Randy did this oil when his mother requested something to hang on her living room wall. Beside him is a wooden carving of a seaman's face that he did to sit on his mother's end table. Donna says she'd like him to do more oil painting or sculp- tures. And there are the copper etchings that were turned out on an antique press in limited editions, and the ornate drawings that he did each year for the family's Christmas cards. His mother also brings out some books that he's illustrated. I agree, this is versatility. How versatile is he, you ask? Well, could you sketch a good, wholesome Sesame Street character for a nursery rhyme book in the morning, and then switch to a raunchy love scene bet- ween a beer -guzzling slob and a space creature suitable for Playboy in the afternoon? Doing the Sesame Street nursery rhyme books was fun, Randy says. When he agreed to illustrate the two books he wag sent to the Muppet factory in New York. It was strange. Randy says - there were boxes full of eyes and big rubber noses. He set up the cute Muppet faces around him and went to work depicting such things as the cow jumping over the moon. The books were the "pop-up" kind, so lots of extra work making the parts that move was involved. Randy en- joyed the job, but his only regret was not getting his name in the book. Because Jim Henson invented the muppets, no one else is given credit. When you get a personal memo from Hugh Heffner, you know you're doing something right. Last February, Randy and a writer started a comic strip in Playboy. Heffner likes it. It's called "Through Space and Time with Schwimmer and Jones" and it's about them - Schwimmer, the writer and Jones, the car- toonist. His mother laughs at the way he draws himself. He really does have a chin, she says. Schwimmer and Jones travel through outer space and have affairs with weird blobs in this science fiction funny. Jones is seldom seen without a beer can in his hand. That's what Heffner likes - Keep up with the beer - guzzling slob, his memo said. When Randy graduated from Beale Tech he went on to Toronto to try his hand at freelancing. One of his first jobs was illustrating Faust. The characters are a cross between Dickens type and the grotesque. "I'd like to illustrate Shakespeare," Randy says. He also had cartoons and drawings in the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, the Canadian, Macleans, and Quest, but still he barely made a living. But he heard that money could be made in New Yrok. At first he was reluctant to go there because "I believed all the things I heard about New York," Finally in 1973, he "got up his nerve" and moved there. He's never looked back. He used to have the oc- casional cartoon in National Lampoon, but "it got too gross". He is kept busy with the New York Times, the Washington Star, Playboy, and The New Yorker among other magazines. He likes collaborating with 'other people, as he does with Eugene Schwimmer for Playboy. "I like drawing other people's fantasies," he says. He also has taken a crack at a syndicated comic strip - he has great admiration for Charles Shultz and how he "lives". with Charlie Brown. Before you sell a comic strip, you have to produce over 300 strips (a year's supply) and about 50 colour comics. But that's for the future. Right now he enjoys the luxury of freelancing - taking time off when he feels he needs it. Last spring he travelled to South America and had a chance to practise his hobby, photography. This fall he came to visit his parents, so he could relax in their comfortable living room and talk to the Times - Advocate. He's turned down jobs teaching art. The future - "I'd like to do a humour magazine." He describes something bet- ween Mad and National Lampoon. He enjoys satire. He's in the process of buying a building in New York, to share studios with other artists. This will end the hassle with landlords. Or maybe there will be another depression. Car- toonists always do well during a depression. People want to laugh, Randy says. In the meantime he's sharing his apartment with his mongrel dog Ackbar Jones. He'd like to bring Ackbar to Exeter sometime, but "he's a real city dog ." ONE OF RANDY'S OIL PAINTINGS — an old man hangs in his parent's living room. ONE OF RANDY'S CARTOONS — At left is Norman Lear, the creotor of mony of our favourite television shows. You should recognize Archie Bunker and family, Maude and her friends, and Sanford and Son. Norman Learowns the original of this drawing. A "MAVERICK'.' — Robert Strauss; tftejs;., negotiator, liked the way Randy drew him for the New York FROM ONI EXTREME TO ANOTHER — Randy Jones shows his mother Donna his comic Times lost August. In fact, he purchased Rondys original strip in Playboy • not exactly in the same category as nursery rhymes. drowing for 5300. LUCAN MON. TO SAT. 9:900 - 6:00 FRI. 9:00 - 9:00 . 22 7-408 2 HURON PARK MON TO SAT. 9:00 - 6:00 FRI. 9:00 - 9:00 228-6754 EXETER MON., TUES., SAT. 9:00 - 6:00 WED., THUR., FRI. 9:00 - 9:00 235-0420 Every WEDNESDAY aII persons 65 years of age or older upon presentation of their Government Health & Welfare Identity Card on purchase up to $50.00 will get 5% discount. VALUABLE COUPON Grade A LARGE EGGS .a 78° -With this coupon and a '10.00 food purchase. Limit one Coupon per family. Coupon expires Saturday, October 20, 1979. VALUABLE CO P IGA Sliced BREAD 3 24 oz. loaf F 0 R 4.00 With this coupon and-ci'10.00 food purchase. limit one Coupon per family. Coupon expires Saturday, October 20, - 1979. a VOTE FOR THE DARLING EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH And Have A Chance To Win A '25 00 Food Voucher Vote for the employee who pave you that hale brt of extra aitenhon o' who made Your shoppnp a 14114 more pleasant 11 .1 your Chance to °rye that employee the recopnrtion he or she deserves EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH AT DARLING'S Name Viet - Address Telephone No. My choice for Employee Of The Month Is EACH MONTH A ORAW Wlll SE MAGE ANO A LUCRYCUSTOtat WILL RECEIVE A '2500,1,000 VOUCNEII FOR SARTCIFATNO IN OUR CO$ttST 40 PURCHASE REOUIREO V VALUABLE C • P Sliced the way you like it COOKED HAM ro 1.79 With this coupon and a'10.00 food purchase. Limit one Coupon per family. Coupon expires Saturday, October 20, 1979. Fresh Side SPARE RIBS Ii„ s1.29 Fresh LEG '0' PORK '(Shank'Portion) Ib. 98 • People Come First at FER