Zippy the Pinhead is a syndicated comic strip distributed by King Features Syndicate.  A couple of years ago, Tony Myers interviewed Zippy's creator Bill Griffith.  Tony has graciously submitted his interview and I'd like to thank him for it!

Tony Myers: We used to get three or four series "to be continued" stories a year, but there hasn't been any in a long time. Have you soured on the idea of telling long stories in a daily paper?

Bill Griffith: There will be longer "to be continued" stories again in Zippy's daily strip future. I haven't given up on the idea-- but since the Zippy Quarterly faded (replaced this May with the first Zippy Annual, by the way), the original impulse is gone. I did the continuity stories so each issue of the Quarterly would have an "anchor" (and a scene for the cover). I miss doing them, so, for that reason alone, they'll be back.

TM: Do you still paint, or does Zippy take up most of your creative energy?

BG: I haven't lifted paint to canvas since the day I started doing comics on late 1968. Maybe someday when I can no longer drag my pain-wracked body to the drawing table, I'll start again. Maybe a watercolor or two.

TM: Would you like to keep doing Zippy as long as you're able, like Charles Schulz did with Peanuts, or do you see yourself retiring from it someday?

BG: I imagine I'll keep doing Zippy daily until I'm no longer able to--if either senility or the death of newsprint intervenes. Retiring isn't currently in my game plan.

TM: In the movie Crumb, you complained about people to take offense at Crumb's work without trying to see the point of view of what he was saying. Do you get the same complaints with your own work? For example, do you get many letters from people who think Zippy is making fun of the mentally retarded? If so, how do you answer them?

BG: I rarely get mail from people complaining that Zippy makes fun of the mentally handicapped. On the few occasions that I have, I simply say that Zippy is a cartoon character, a satirical creation, and not a depiction of a handicapped person and I offer my apology for any pain reading the strip may have brought about. I've also received a number of positive responses from people in mental health over the years, saying they thought Zippy was a "role model" for mentally handicapped people, even a "super hero". Go figure.

TM: Would Zippy be much different if you didn't have to worry about the censorship that comes with the having the strip printed in newspapers?

BG: I don't feel any constraints at all in doing Zippy for "family" newspapers. If I ever feel the need to enter "taboo" territory, there's always the alternative comics world. I did an XXX-rated Zippy story a few years ago in "Young Lust" # 8. Even when Zippy was still an underground character, four-letter words and graphic sex were never a big part of his world.

TM: You've become a spokesman for the effort to keep the Doggie Diner sign up in San Francisco. Is there anything people who don't live in the area can do to help with that?

BG: Readers living outside the San Francisco Bay Area can voice their support for keeping the Doggie alive and well atop his pole by visiting the zippythepinhead.com website and going to the Doggie page. There's
info there to help anyone let the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Mayor know how they feel. Being such a tourist-oriented city, these elected officials are aware of how important SF "landmarks" (of all types) can be to non-residents.

TM: Is there still hope for Zippy on TV? The humor in the strip is pretty unique , there isn't anything that is funny in the same way Zippy is. Do you think you could find writers who could recreate the feel of the strip, or would you have to write all the scripts yourself?

BG: There is an animated Zippy TV show in the works. It's for a major cable channel. As soon as I'm allowed to divulge the details, I will do so. We've already found a few writers to work with, especially one who
made major contributions to Seinfeld. I'm naturally a little nervous about the project, but I've got all kinds of creative controls built into the deal and I'll be personally involved with as much of it as I can, including writing, model sheets, choice of voices, etc. It'll either be a great show or I'll be eaten alive by the industry.

TM: Doonesbury, Herman, and MAD magazine have put out archives of their cartoons on CD-ROM. Will there be a Zippy CD-ROM in the future?

BG: There may be a CD-ROM in Zippy's future, once the animated TV show gets on the air. Who knows?

TM: How did Zippy's habit of repeating phrases three times start?

BG: Zippy's "over-and-overs" began strictly as a kind of babbling poetry in a strip years ago. It just seemed right. Zippy often says or thinks things we all do-- but usually just to ourselves. Zippy has no sense of the difference between himself and other people's perception of himself, so he lets out whatever is going on in his head, "uncensored" by a super-ego, or "monitoring device".

TM: What do you think of the Zippy HTML editor out there (the program that adds Zippy quotes to web pages)?

BG: I'm not too comfortable with computer hacking at any level, so the HTML Zippy quote editor that's out there bothers me. But, at the same time, I don't feel any need to try to stop it-- not that I could if I wanted to. So I guess I'm neutral about it.

TM: Are there any not-well-known cartoonists that you feel are overlooked?

BG: There are dozens of overlooked or forgotten cartoonists littering the cultural landscape. One of the greatest, W.E. Hill, is completely forgotten. His strip was a weekly full page called "Among Us Mortals" and was the inspiration for my "Griffith Observatory".

TM: Do you use a computer in creating Zippy at all, or is everything still done just on paper?

BG: The only time computers are used in creating Zippy is in the coloring of the Sunday strips. I do a detailed "Color Guide" in colored pencils and it's redone in Photoshop by a colorist at American Color in Buffalo. They do a great job.

TM: Is there hope for the comic strip world to get better, or are the Dilbert's and Ziggy's going to win out? Could you tell me what you think of some other strips? What do you think of Peanuts? Doonesbury?

BG: I liked the early Peanuts and am glad to see papers running the old strips now. In general, my favorite comics are either from the "good old days" (1910-1950) or the underground. Robert Crumb is still my all-around favorite cartoonist of any era. Doonesbury is terrific satire, great writing. But I miss an emotional center in the strip. I love the original "Nancy" strips by Ernie Bushmiller. Current daily newspaper strips are mostly of little interest to me, though I do enjoy "Bizarro". A lot of the craft of comics has withered as TV has taken over the function daily strips once had.
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Mr. Griffith was very much right about W.E. Hill being forgotten. I did a web search and the only thing I could find was a college course in Dallas that uses his art collection to help teach fine art. The collection is at the Dallas Public Library, but I'm not sure if it's a collection of his work or just a collection of art that Mr. Hill donated to the library. If anyone reading this knows where I could find some examples of his work, please let me know.

The Zippy The Pinhead official page is at www.zippythepinhead.com

The Zippy Annual will be sold through Fantagraphics Books.

Note: For those out of the loop, Doggie Diner was chain of restaurants. Mort Sahl once worked in one. The Diner's sign was a pretty surreal looking huge wiener dog head. Some people were trying to get them removed. But there has been a campaign to save the Doggie. Pictures of the Sign: