Phil Witte, Magazine Cartoonist and Cartoon Critic
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You may have read some Phil Witte cartoons…
Phil’s cartoons have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, San Francisco Chronicle, Reader’s Digest, Alta, The Chronicle of Higher Education, New Statesman, Private Eye, Prospect, and many other publications in the U.S. and U.K., as well as books, calendars, and greeting cards. He has also collaborated as a writer for other cartoonists, most notably Dan Piraro (“Bizarro”).
Not mentioned is a New Yorker idea he sold.
Also, with partner Rex Hesner, he co-writes a monthly column for CartoonStock.
Cartoon critics Phil Witte and Rex Hesner look behind the gags to debate what makes a cartoon tick.
(Rumor has it Phil and Rex will have a book out about cartooning.)
Anyway this is all a long roundabout way to get to a write-up about Phil in this past weekend’s East Bay Times (where that photo above originates).
After fine-tuning his art skills with some lessons, he huddled with the late San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank, who encouraged him to keep plugging away at it.
Before long Witte was getting published regularly in the Wall Street Journal’s “Pepper and Salt” feature, Reader’s Digest, Barron’s and locally in the Chronicle, the former East Bay Monthly and the Piedmont Post.
About that New Yorker idea noted above:
And while Witte was pleased to see his idea appear in The New Yorker drawn by another cartoonist, his goal is to see his very own drawings in the magazine some day.
“It’s the stamp of approval from a prestigious authority, like being admitted to Harvard,” says Witte. “At the same time, you may see a cartoon in The New Yorker and react the same way that you may react upon meeting a Harvard alumnus, by asking yourself, ‘How in the world did that person get in?’
Phil’s website has a some sample cartoons, and CartoonStock carries a few dozen.
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