Charlie McGill, after 70 years of sports cartooning for The (Bergen County) Record, has decided to retire from the newspaper at age 90.
Charlie McGill, the longtime cartoonist for NorthJersey.com and The Record, who is best known for his pen-and-ink drawings of nearly 4,000 high school Athletes of the Week.
His first was published on Oct. 20, 1954.
His last appeared this summer.
Yep, that’s nearly 70 years.
Some people work 20 or 25 years at a particular job and then call it a career, slipping into the ether of retirement or finding another line of work. McGill, who turns 91 on Christmas Day, has lapped the field and then some.
Mike Kelly for NorthJersey.com profiles Charlie’s 70 years of cartooning, including a 40 image gallery.
At The Record’s former headquarters on River Street in Hackensack, his tilted drawing board — about the size of a kitchen table — occupied a corner of what was known as the “art department” in the acre-sized newsroom on the fourth floor. Behind him, light cascaded through a window, illuminating his drawings.
“I would start around 8 in the morning,” he told me one day recently when I visited him at his split-level home in Closter, New Jersey, where he drew his portraits for the last 15 years. “I could usually finish by 2:30 in the afternoon.”
[In 1954] McGill phoned the legendary sports editor and columnist for four decades at The Record, Al Del Greco. McGill noticed that The Record featured a high school “player of the week” but only with a black-and-white photo.
McGill told Del Greco that he would create a cartoon portrait of each player.
Del Greco liked McGill’s portfolio and his idea to draw cartoons of athletes. But with a tight budget, Del Greco only had an opening for a newsroom “office boy.”
McGill took the “office boy” job — but with the additional suggestion from Del Greco that “you can draw anything you want as long as the athlete lives in New Jersey.”
The Record also presents a photo gallery of Charlie from the 1950s to the 2020s.
Charlie drew more than sports, being The Record’s portrait artist of public and political personalities such as New Jersey Senator Joe Biden, New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, and even himself.
Below: 20 years ago The Record celebrated Charlie McGill’s 50yth anniversary with the newspaper.
After ending his interview with Mike Kelly …
He headed upstairs to his other drawing board on the porch.
He gazed for a moment at the board and the pencils.
“I’m never stopping,” he says. “I’ll always draw.”
We wish Charlie only the bluest of skies.
Post Script: The Record has not given up on sports cartoonists with Charlie’s retirement:
This week, McGill will pass his pencil to another artist, Bob Rebach [emphasis and link added], who will take up the task of drawing portraits of northern New Jersey’s best high school athletes.
Sir,
I never had the extreme pleasure or honor of so many others to be part of your artist drawing. However, you are spectacular, gifted and a good person. Many of my friends and opponents have been drawn by you.
Good luck and enjoy. I will say a prayer for you.
Respectfully,
Steve Dembowski