The last weekend of September The Lovely Anna and I went to New York in part to attend the opening of an art show of work by the Long Island chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, aka the “Berndt Toast Gang”. The show featured, among many terrific artists, the work of my long time friend Ed Steckley.

Ed is a very talented illustrator and cartoonist, as well as being one of the best live caricaturists I have ever seen… and that’s saying something as I have seen some thousands of them. He does a lot of storyboard work for commercials that you have probably seen on TV, as well as publication work including a piece in MAD some years back. For the show he did six beautifully painted watercolors of classic pin up girls but drawn in his distinctive half caricature/half realistic style. Ed was a manager for me for many years in my Six Flags parks in Missouri and in Massachusetts, and started drawing caricatures for me at Valleyfair in 1992. Ed has a recently revamped website well worth a visit.

Any time we get an excuse to visit NYC we take it… it’s a great place to go.

Here are some pictures from the show:

Me and Ed Steckley

Great crowd at the opening

Some great stuff by Ray Alma

More Ray Alma work

My favorite of Ed’s terrific watercolors

The Lovely Anna and the Goldbergs

The work of John Reiner and Bunny Hoest

Caricaturist Marty Macaluso and Don Ohrek

Close up of Don Orhek’s work

Me, Ray Alma and Ed

Heather and Ed Steckley

Work by legend Stan Goldberg

Another Stan Goldberg piece

Mort Drucker- Photo by Ruby Washington for the New York Times

The Lovely Anna and I are headed to New York City on Thursday in part to attend the opening of the Long Island chapter (otherwise known as the Berndt Toast Gang) of the National Cartoonists Society‘s art show “Laugh Lines” at the Art-trium Gallery on Melville Park Road in Melville. The show is going to feature original art by the members of the Long Islad chapter including Mort Drucker, Ray Alma, John Reiner, Adrian Sinnott and my good buddy Ed Steckley. There are lots of other artists but those are the ones I am sure will be included, so my apologies to those left out of my limited list.

Here’s a New York Times article about the show, and a blog post by cartoonist Mike Lynch on the exhibit.

Should be a great show. Ed is a talented illustrator who well deserves this honor. Congrats Ed and all the artists who’s work is hanging in the exhibit.

You have to love all the shows of original cartoon work going on around the country right now. Sergio and I both have shows going, there is the one in Aitkin I was just at last week. The Cartoon Art Museum in San Fransisco and the Museum of Cartoon Art in New York have constant exhibits, and of course the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa is permanent celebration of the incomparable Peanuts. The Ohio State Cartoon Library and Museum will be moving into a new facility with space for a lot more exhibits as well. No doubt there are many I don’t know about going on or planned right now.

It just goes to show that cartooning is well accepted by the general public as a well respected art form, and one people are interested in seeing in galleries.