The 2020 Reuben Awards were delayed until September last year,
and now the winners are finally getting their awards in the mail.
Above: Hy Eisman and his Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award
With the mail comes another round of recognition, in this case Dave Blazek.
In 2019, Blazek, an Erie native, won the [Divisional] Reuben Award [for Newspaper Panels]. In September, he won it again.
Penn State interviews the award-winning creator of Loose Parts.
How do you know a joke will work?
Blazek: … I used to time it so a cartoon I wasn’t sure about would appear on a Saturday. That tends to be the smallest newspaper, and people are busy doing other things, so they’re less likely to notice if you blow it. But some of my biggest responses have come from those, so you never know.
© Dave Blazek
What happens to the comics as newspapers continue to shrink and readers move on to other platforms?
Blazek: … I don’t know what happens when the newspapers are gone. I have to believe that comics will survive, though. Have you ever opened a magazine or book and said, ‘I’m going to read everything else, and then I’ll read the cartoon last?’ No. You go there first. We’ve been reading that way since the caveman days.
To learn more about Dave Blazek and “Loose Parts,” visit www.loosepartscomic.com.
[Penn State] asked Blazek, who attended Penn State Behrend before graduating from Penn State’s University Park campus in 1979, about the origin of “Loose Parts,” the creative process that sustains it and what the decline of newspapers might mean for the future of comics.
