[Mike] Smith’s cartoon for the Sun on the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial was syndicated in the Los Angeles Times, and caught the eye of one of the people in the drawing — Judge Lance Ito. His office reached out saying Ito wanted a copy.
Smith mentioned the phone call to executive editor Mike O’Callaghan, who jokingly replied, “I’ll be impressed when the pope calls asking for one of your cartoons,” Smith recalled.
A few days later, as fate would have it, the Vatican called.
Over 13,000 cartoons, covering Mike Smith‘s 35 years at The Las Vegas Sun,
has been donated to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
Smith and Sun publisher Brian Greenspun donated the entirety of Smith’s work — more than 13,000 drawings — last week to the university, where it will be archived and preserved by the collection’s curators and eventually available for public consumption.
“Sitting in the basement (at the Sun), they served no purpose,” Smith said. “When you do a drawing every day, there’s a personal connection. It’s your artistic endeavor, so you are close to it. UNLV is the perfect place for it to live.”
The Las Vegas Sun has the story.
© Las Vegas Sun/Mike Smith
