Bizarre Realty (cont.)
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DP: (laughs) Yeah, I’m learning to read. I do read. After I quit college, an opportunity to travel to Europe came up. I went the following year and traveled for 4 months. I saw there is this big wide world out there. It made me realize that if I was going to make any mark at all, I would have to be much more than an egotistical kid from Tulsa, OK. I started reading anything that interested me.

That, plus my traveling, has given me a decent ability to come across as something more than an idiot in small groups.

And yes, I drive a Vespa. I am the original owner of a 1981 Vespa. I ride it daily around New York and Brooklyn. In fact, I am wearing a Vespa tee shirt right now that I bought on eBay last week. I’m on eBay just about every day to see what’s new with Vespa shirts, new taillights, stuff like that. We get together on our Vespas in East Village, a big group of us.

A_P: So, when did you become a cartoonist?

DP: I was working as a designer with an ad agency with Neiman Marcus, which was really a great job for a kid with no college degree. It was really good money, especially compared to the crappy minimum wage jobs I qualified for. But I got bored fast. The work wasn’t challenging, wasn’t creative. Even if you’re finished (with work) by 11, you can’t go home then. I started applying ideas in humor to drawings while I was at that job. My coworkers loved them and collected Xeroxed copies. So, I guess you could say the impetus for the cartooning was to escape advertising.  That, and to editorialize about our superiors.

A_P: How did you go about getting your cartoons published?

DP: They pretty much went straight into syndication when they were first published. I checked out books from the library about syndicating cartoons. It’s really very simple. You send it in, and they send a letter saying why they don’t want it.

A_P: I can’t imagine there were too many rejections. Were there?

DP: Yes, of course. Everybody has been through that. I just kept sending off cartoons. Finally, Chronicle Features contacted me. At the time, they represented Gary Larson, who does The Far Side. They wanted my work, but most newspapers at that time weren’t dealing in magazine-style cartoons, and they weren’t sure they could efficiently sell another oddball cartoonist. They kept in touch and developed me over a year and a half. Then Larson left for another syndicate, which made room for another oddball. My first cartoon ever published was a syndicated cartoon.

A_P: What was the response?

DP: It was slow selling at first. Most editors are older white men. They didn’t like the humor. Most of them didn’t buy Larson’s humor and even after they did, they sure as hell didn’t think they needed another in that same vein. When they saw Far Side catching on, only then did they become more receptive to my work.

A_P: Did the cartooning get you out of the advertising job?

DP: I became a commercial illustrator. All this took place in Dallas. I was in a band. We were a punk new wave band, more punk, I guess.

A_P: Did you sing?

DP: Yes, I was a singer. There was a growing club scene there at the time. We played this club where you could play original music, didn’t have to be covers. We figured we would move on from there to New York or LA, making big bucks and achieving great fame. Instead of that, we got married, had kids and dropped out of the band scene. I put myself into two jobs. Worked illustration all day, did cartoons at night.

A_P: What is the Bizarro Bologna Show?

DP: It’s a one-man show, just a strange variety conglomeration. I do songs and poetry, use puppets. I incorporated multi-media, projection of my cartoons. That show is a lot about my life as a cartoonist.

A_P: Are you still touring with the show?

DP: I did several shows but I haven’t in the last year or so. Recently, I performed with a left-wing group that does stand up comedy. We did a pretty extensive city tour. The Web site is www.comicsagainstevil.com

A_P: Had you done stand-up before?

DP: In the Bologna Show, just by virtue of being on stage by myself for an hour and a half.

A_P: What was Comics Against Evil all about?

DP: Some really great stand-up comics and I make fun of Bush politics. I wrote a book, The Three Little Pigs Buy the White House (St. Martin’s, 2004). It sold really well, and it is continuing to sell now that Bush has won. I would gladly give up those royalties if he had lost. The political themes kept edging into my work, more and more. Editors and readers were complaining on the political commentary.  So, I pursued that with the show and the book. They shed light on the truth of politics in Washington D.C.

A_P: You are a vegan and vocal animal rights supporter. Ever get any negative feedback on that?

DP: I never got any complaints about veganism. I’m pretty well known in the animal rights community. Animal rights groups are always looking for celebrity endorsement, so I pass for a celebrity when a movie star isn't available. I'm probably the only one who uses humor to get the message across. Animal abuse isn't a terribly funny topic. I do a lot of speaking events, festivals. I get a lot of positive mail from those fans. The complaint mail that I get is usually from the NRA or political in nature.

A_P: What’s cartooning like for you? Is it tough?

DP:  When you have to draw a cartoon a day for life, that’s not hard. Most cartoonists feel a chimp could draw a cartoon a day.  But thinking of a joke a day? That is tough. I always say to people, “Try thinking of a joke in 20 words or less and try to make it original, never been done before. And you have to come up with a picture to go with it. Now, do that every day for twenty-plus years.”

A_P: So it’s coming up with the concepts, the joke, that is difficult?

DP: Most definitely. Some guys buy their jokes. Not everybody writes all their own stuff. I only use about 5 ideas like that per year, and those are from friends who say, “Hey, I’ve got one for you.” I feel like those are something I would have written anyway…had I thought of them.  I always include the person’s name under my name in the cartoon to give credit.

A_P: You also include these surreptitious symbols in your cartoons. What’s that about?

DP: When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Highlights magazine. It always had a list of things to find in a picture... You know, like a hairbrush, a shoe, a Molotov cocktail. One day, I was bored and decided to add something to that day’s cartoon. I put a bird on a table in the background with a hat. I thought it would be fun to see if anybody noticed. A while later, a week or so, I put the same bird in again. The third time I put him upside down. I got an email asking: “Is it just me, or is there an upside-down bird in your cartoon? It’s driving me crazy.”

Then I started adding other things. I’d get emails saying “I see you’ve added a bird and a piece of pie.” People wanted to know what they meant. Then there was a kid at a book signing who said “I know what it means, man. Flipping the bird.”  I just winked and said, “Yeah, riiiiiiight.” The whole thing came totally out of boredom. I started adding more symbols and came up with a philosophy for them, which is on the Web site.

A_P: Do you have a favorite cartoon of yours?

DP: I do. Actually, overall, I am very proud of my body of work, but some of the older stuff makes me cringe. My favorite joke, though, is a cartoon with a couple of characters on the street. I happened to write it right after 9/11, but I waited a year to put it out.