Glenn McCoy the early years:
Right out of the gates of [Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville], Glenn was brought on as the Art Director at the Belleville News-Democrat.
“I always secretly wanted to be a cartoonist, and when I saw the opportunity to start doing cartoons for the News-Democrat, that was sort of my entry point,” he said.
“But from that point on, the desire to have more of my cartoons published grew,” he said. “So, I started sending my work out to magazines and syndicates; and, my career sort of grew out of that,” he said.
Glenn expanded into the funny pages:
Glenn’s popular comic strip, ‘The Duplex,’ published in 1993, by Andrews McMeel Universal (parent company to Universal Press Syndicate and UClick), has also become a local and national pillar of the comics section in many print newspapers coast to coast. It’s even been printed in newspapers in Sweden and is still running today online. While ‘The Duplex’ started with Glenn, he now works on it in tandem with his brother, Gary.
And in concert, the imaginations of youthful boys grew to later create the nationally recognized single-panel 13-year strong comic strip, ‘The Flying McCoys,’ which launched in 2005. It has been featured by 150 sources including Chicago Sun Times, New York Daily News and Washington Post.
“We work really well together. Our style and humor jive well,” Glenn said. “So it’s always fun to work with him and when we’re working together on something like ‘The Duplex,’ or ‘The Flying McCoys,’ I feel like I’m eight and he’s 11 again because there’s really been that connection throughout our lives and that’s the way it’s always been. We’re really close.”
You may remember that last year Glenn McCoy was fired from his Bellevue News-Democrat staff position and mostly handed off the comic strips to his brother Gary.
Poor Glenn, I wonder whatever happened to him?
At the time he said he was going to give that animation thing more of a go.
Glenn wears many hats behind the scenes of the production of several feature animation studios including: DreamWorks SKG, Film Roman, 20th Century Fox, Illumination Universal Pictures, Walt Disney TV and Feature Animation.
He not only draws the minions and other characters from other films like “The Lorax,” “The Secret Life of Pets,” “The Grinch,” “Ice Age III” and “Sing,” he also contributes on some various scene plots and, is a director at times too.
Weaving in his own humor and style affords Glenn the ability to “have fun” doing “what he loves.”
Seems Glenn is enjoying life, family and work as much as he ever has.
It’s a happy, feel-good story that had me smiling and thinking, “Good for Glenn.”
Gesso Magazine talks to Glenn about his current life in art, illustration, animation, and comics (still).
above illustration cribbed from Glenn’s website