Sunday, January 16, 2011

Charlie Campbell, Evergroove's Overlooked Cartoonist






The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington is known as being an early venue for many fine cartoonists, and whenever the topic comes up the usual list of illustrious names are recited.

But there is one name I have never heard in that lineup. It should be.

Charlie Campbell.

Yesterday I sorted through a bunch of old issues of The Cooper Point Journal, Evergroove's campus newspaper, and caught up on the Fall 1979 to Spring 1986 material. I graduated in 1979 and returned there to work for a couple years, starting in mid-1986. So reading these papers sort of filled the gaps for me. Yeah, I know, 30 years too late. So I'm slow. So what?

Campbell's single panel cartoons, which appeared in the CPJ in 1984, struck me as a delightful cross between two other cartoonists I admire, James Thurber and John Callahan.

With the help of private dick Arnie Wormwood, I tracked down Campbell to his Portland, Oregon based commercial music and sound design business and Charlie graciously allowed me to scan and post some examples of his 1984 CPJ work.