AstroNerdBoy:  In addition to Mother Goose and Grimm, you also do editorial cartoons. Are there any other comic strips you are involved with?


Mike Peters:  At the present time I am only involved in doing MG&G and editorial cartoons. In the mid 90s I worked on some animation ideas with Dreamworks that resulted in a quick Saturday morning cartoon called Night of the Living Fred, but I am not furthering any animation at this time.

ANB:  Any plans on returning to animation or making "A Very Grimmy Christmas?" :-D

Mike:  I would love to resurrect Mother Goose & Grimm as an animation in the future but there is not a big interest in it right now. Maybe soon...


ANB:  Is it difficult doing editorial cartoons along with Mother Goose and Grimm?

Mike:  Sure it fills up my days but it also keeps me interested. When I am asked which is my favorite, I always say “The one I’m not currently working on.”

ANB:  Since your days are filled up, when do you have time to keep up with current events? Which form of media do you use (TV, radio, newspaper)?

Mike:  I always work with the television on. MSNBC, CNN all day long so this way I am saturated with events as they happen. I remember a few years ago during the OJ trial I was sitting at my desk one afternoon just drawing and Judge Ito came in to start the days proceedings and he said, “First we need to clear up this Mike Peters thing." Apparently one of my MG&G cartoons had gotten through the censors. It was about how Willy the killer whale became Free Willy with the help of Johnny Cochran. Judge Ito was worried it might sway jurors. Everything was cleared up but during that time the OJ trial was a part of society so it was natural for it to invade my humor. Some days are Banner Days and that was one of mine.

ANB:  Was Mother Goose and Grimm your first comic strip?

Mike:  First syndicated strip. I have been doing the editorial since the late 60s but have been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil.

ANB:  When you first started drawing comic strips, how long did it take you to become syndicated?

Mike:  I was able to get a job at the Chicago Tribune through the help of Bill Mauldin and this really began my syndicated editorial cartooning career. Then my syndicate in the early 80s (Tribune Media Services) asked me if I would like to come up with a comic strip. I said sure and began drawing ideas for several months worth of strips. My first real idea was Mother Goose & Grimm and it worked!

ANB:  So why use the Mother Goose character?

Mike:  OK. After I had been doing the editorial cartoon for a few years, I began to do speeches and TV appearances for exposure and a bit of extra money. I did about 2 a month and regularly appeared on the Today Show. It was fun and I can't deny, a bit of an ego boost. But after about three years, I realized that people were recognizing me more as a speaker than a cartoonist. There was one speech that I gave and afterwards they projected a batch of my editorial cartoons on the screen while the attendees enjoyed wine and cheese. This one woman came up to me and began baring her soul and showering me with adorations. At this same time there was a kid that was standing just behind her who was looking at the cartoons and laughing. Embarrassingly, all I cared about while this woman talked was which cartoon was making him laugh.

It was then that I realized that I wanted to draw a funny cartoon strip and inject it with the slapstick type of humor that I enjoy in my everyday life. My ego was on the wall with the cartoons. Well TMS and also United Features had asked if I would draw a cartoon strip. So I took 30-35 of my favorite editorials and arranged them on the floor to see what I loved to draw. I loved drawing fantasy, animals, and Disney characters. I always knew I wanted to draw a dog (I started drawing my own beagle, Tony, when I was young) so I figured I would put him into a fantasy atmosphere. At the beginning I began drawing Mother Goose, Grimm, Bear Bryant, Ham and a group of other characters. I told the idea to United Features and they said great. So I packed up and went to their offices to have a meeting and I told them that in order for me to start a strip I needed to do about 3 months worth of cartoons and I asked if they could compensate me for that time. They said absolutely not and they would like to own it. Well I went back and called Bob Reed at TMS and pitched him the same offer and he said they would be glad to take the idea AND compensate me. So I signed a deal with TMS.

Now just as they began to send out agents to sell the strip to papers, Gary Larson was beginning to get a few papers and I remember being blown away by the strip. So I began to take the fantasy characters that I loved to draw and started drawing my generics. Snow White, Peter Pan, Pinocchio were all gold mines of ideas. I drew up about 30 of these cartoons and I was in love! So I called Bob Reed and said I didn't want to draw the goose and the dog I wanted to draw these new ideas and he said no that I could not because the pendulum was already in motion. Well I was really bummed and so Bob offered to take a batch of people at TMS and have them basically be a test group that he could show both sets of cartoons to. Later that night I was talking to Doug Marlette on the phone and whining to him about it. He told me that when you give a decision to someone else then someone else will make that decision. "What do you want to do?" he asked. I said both. "Well, why not do both?" It was an idea that had never been done before and I took that to Bob Reed and he said yes. I actually draw 2 cartoon strips and this way I can keep my interest up and not get tired of just drawing one idea.

ANB:  How much of you in Grimm?

Mike:  A funny story happened when the strip was still fairly new. I love Corn Chips. No, I REALLY love them, but they are terrible for me. Cholesterol, etc.. Well I would buy a bag and have one handful and then throw them out to show restraint. Well one day my wife walked into the kitchen and there I was bent over the garbage licking the Corn Chips off the bottom of the trash can. She looked at me and said, "You're the dog!" So there it is.

ANB:  Which cartoonists have inspired you?

Mike:  Bill Mauldin would have to top my list. He could make great statements just with his brush work. He influenced me to become an editorial cartoonist. Also, Walt Disney, who I did a speech about in the 5th grade ,and Walt Kelly who drew Pogo. His line work highly influenced my style.

ANB:  So when you got a job at the Chicago Tribune with the help of Bill Mauldin, I guess you knew him?

Mike:  I always wanted to be an animator, I loved drawing storyboards and it was a lifetime dream of mine... until I met Bill Mauldin and saw him being able to create different characters everyday. And I thought since I was not a very good student that as an editorial cartoonist, I would be forced to learn about world events. I would not have gotten this if I pursued animation.

It all started because of my mother, Charlotte Peters. She had a variety television show in St. Louis and so was able to run with all the famous people. When I was 13 I met Bill. He had said that my mother was such a "loud broad" that he had to meet her son. He was at the peak of his career and I used to go and just stand behind him and watch him draw. I never showed him any of my cartoons at the time. So I kept drawing all through high school. Then, again with the help of my mother, I had the chance to meet the great D. R. Fitzpatrick who was the main reason Pulitzer decided to create a category for Editorial Cartooning. D.R. was playing poker at a friends house and my mother was involved. Obviously she knew that I wanted to be a cartoonist and she had me bring my current portfolio for D. R. to look at. Well all of my drawings were posters for school football teams, local businesses and radio stations and when D. R. saw my work he said, "Nah, don't be an editorial cartoonist, you should get into advertising." Well needless to say I was crushed. But I continued to draw all through college. Towards the end of my senior year at Wash U, the St. Louis Post Dispatch was looking for a cartoonist. I went in on Friday and presented my portfolio, which at the time looked like a 40 year olds because all I did was draw, and they hired me on the spot. Unfortunately, on Monday I got a call saying that they could not hire me because my mother was St. Louis celebrity. So I went to the Chicago Sun Times to see Bill Mauldin. I walked in and and asked if he remembered me and then showed him the same portfolio. He called his editor at once and I went in and we hit it off immediately because he, like me, was a Sigma Chi. I got a job there the next week.

ANB:  What are some of your favorite comic strips?

Mike:  I have always been a fan of Larson’s The Far Side and Breathed’s Bloom County, Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes, but these days I really enjoy Conley’s Get Fuzzy.

ANB:  Have you ever met any of these cartoonist? Exchanged original strips?

Mike:  I have met them and on occasion, yes we trade cartoons. One day I'll get a call and it will be Chris Browne and he'll say he loved such-and-such a cartoon and I'll fawn all over him about a gag I saw recently of his and we end up trading. The same goes with Mike Lukovich. Mike depresses me. I always look at his political cartoons and get so bummed that I did not think of a certain idea. So I go into my hole and try to dig even deeper and try to top him. A few days will go by and I'll call him and admit that he had had me bummed out for a few days because of this great cartoon and he will say that he was bummed because of a cartoon that I did. I like getting depressed when I look at the paper because it elevates me to another level. And obviously it works both ways!

ANB:  What do you think of the web as a medium for comic strips?

Mike:  I was really excited when I first learned about the internet so I had the Grimmy webpage designed and online at the end of 1995. I knew it would be a useful tool to reach people who did not have my cartoons in their local paper.

ANB:  Have you ever read any web comic strips (ie: Sluggy Freelance)?

Mike:  I look up editorial cartoons that my friends and peers (Mike Lukovich especially) are doing just to keep abreast of what is going on, but other than that I really do not have time.

ANB:  Many cartoonists have commented on how comic strips are getting less space. Any comments?

Mike:  This has been going on for 20 years, so I remedy that by drawing thick lines and bold lettering oftentimes exaggerating the contrast.

ANB:  Do you think that newspapers will eventually go the way of the dinosaur?

Mike:  No. When we just had radio and TV came into the picture, everyone said that that is the end of radio. When video stores began to open everyone said that that was the end of theaters. And so on and so on. Obviously, they are going to have to evolve over time and they might not be as many but you just can't lay in bed on a Sunday afternoon and spread a computer over yourself like you can with the New York Times. It is tactile. Plus, you can scan an entire page of several stories in a matter of seconds and then move on to a new section which you cannot yet do on the internet.

ANB:  Last year saw several small “Grimmy” books released. Are there any new large books in the works?

Mike:  We are working on getting a new contract going but at this time, no new ones are a definite.

ANB:  From time to time, “Mother Goose and Grimm” will have a one-panel strip which does not contain any of the regular characters and look like a different strip altogether. Is there a special reason for doing this?

Mike:  I call these the “Generics.” I have been doing these ideas since the strip began in 1984 and they are a way to get funny ideas out of my sketchbook and into print. I have such a great time coming up with these. I know a cartoon is funny if it makes me laugh. And these usually do.

ANB:  Have you ever had an editor veto one of your comic strips?

Mike:  Absolutely. I have a section on my website called Controversy Corner that highlights some of these strips. Not all of them were turned down, but when you deal with sensitive subjects like Women’s Rights and the NRA, toes are bound to be stepped on.

ANB:  The Mother Goose character is obviously based off of the character of the same name in the public domain. So in a sense, Mother Goose and Grimm is built off of someone else's work. Current copyright laws continued to be changed so that things aren't going into the public domain. What are your thoughts on this?

Mike:  Mother Goose is really part of the vernacular. My strip is based on a classic idea like Snow White. Disney can copyright their version of Snow White like I can copyright my version of Mother Goose, however, neither of us hold the copyright on the actual Snow White/ Mother Goose idea. This is a blessing and a curse because people enter into the MG&G world already with a preconceived notion of what I am creating but any other person could use the term Mother Goose in a much different way.

ANB:  Anything you'd like to say to those wanting to break into syndicated cartooning?

Mike:  What I like to advise people is to find out what it is that makes them happy. What do you love to do? If you truly love what you do and you apply it toward making a living doing it, people will throw money at you to do it. But you will always have to work hard at it. I have to draw every single day of my life. I have to draw about 20 ideas just to have 2 or 3 sprout out of that. My advice would be to take aside a certain amount of time each and every day and make yourself draw or whatever. Especially when you don't feel like it. That way you will be able to perfect your talent and it will always come easily to you.

The first step in getting syndicated would be to go to your local library and ask for the "EDITORS 7 PUBLISHERS YEARBOOK" for the current year. When you get this book, find the names of the top syndicates and their presidents. After you find these, write down their names and addresses (you should have around 8-10). Keep this list and update it every year. Next thing you want to do is create at least 40 cartoons. Get a grid from one of the strips in the newspapers, enlarge it to whatever size you wish and draw inside this grid. Now take the best 20 of your ideas and make them into finished pieces. To do this, you would want to duplicate them with ink because if you were in a professional cartooning job, that is what you would be using. Now you can reduce the size of the finished cartoons to fit onto a regular comics page. By comparing yours to the others already in print, it gives you a good idea of the readability and overall clarity to your cartoon.

The next step would be to write each of the 8-10 syndicate presidents a personalized letter. In this letter, explain who you think would be reading your work, or in other words, what group do you think you would be targeting. After you complete these, send all of your syndication packages enclosing the personalized letter in the appropriate envelope.

Now as soon as you send out these packages, start to create a brand new strip with all new characters. Don't get married to one idea because if your idea gets turned down then you will give up. And always remember, if you receive a rejection from any of them, keep in mind that you are working on something better. You will be working on something new and more exciting and the rejection letter will not have any impact. With this in mind...EVENTUALLY YOU WILL BE SYNDICATED!

ANB:  Thanks Mike! 

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