Autist as a young man

About 25 years ago I was hitting my stride as managing editor of a microscopic small-town weekly newspaper called The County Star, Tolono, Ill. (It's the town that might have been made famous by this movie if anyone other than this guy cared about it.)

By "hitting my stride" I mean I had discovered that the owner's only interest in the paper was selling it at a profit to some sucker, and that I could get away with publishing about anything that did not include the word "fuck." And so I did. One of my finest innovations was to enlist the editorial cartooning services of a college friend, a fellow named George who by many measures seemed to have a very tenuous grip on consensual reality. I could not understand what his problem was, but he was extremely withdrawn and from the time I met him in 1977 it was evident that he could barely function independently. For some reason I could communicate with him and relate to him, though, and soon I discovered he was a gifted verbal comic improviser (without him even really knowing that). On a hunch, I tried and succeeded getting him interested in drawing cartoons circa 1978, and was surprised how much he enjoyed it. It turned out that he had a knack for very economical caricature and a mastery of classic comic-strip timing. I envied him, myself being a guy who had long wanted to be a cartoonist but who had no real sense of humor.

Fast forward to 1982. I was surprised one day when George showed up in Champaign to study for an MLS at the University of Illinois. He regularly drew for me and seemed gratified by the kick I got out of his work. I saved it all. Much of it revolved around inside jokes that only I and a few college pals would get (hilarious nonetheless). Some of his stuff was of wider interest, such as when he would portray himself through what he accurately imagined to be my perceptions of him. In spring of 1983 I asked George to do some editorial comics, fortuitously at the same time that U.S. Rep Dan Crane was busted in a congressional page sex scandal. With hilarious results. At this point I do not have any scans of that work, but below is a sample of his personal work from the same year. (Click the image to see a larger, readable version.) The visible figure is me --- quite a good likeness of me from that era, complete with editor ciggie. But the star of the strip is George, offstage and not uttering a peep to the reader, with perfect timing.

In my eyes, George's visual style presaged a primitive, faux-outsider approach adopted by cartoonists like Lynda Barry, Heather MacAdams, and Derf. But George was no faux: he was a stone cold outsider. My hypothesis is that he was isolated by some variety of autism: tuned to a frequency of reality that most of us aren't aware of. With a good connection and, perhaps, a custodian, I feel he could have been a force in the alternative comics world.

By June 1983 George had earned his MLS and was manipulated into marrying a bad seed from overseas for Green Card purposes. By July they were on their way to Southern California, he to start employment as a librarian's assistant at a pittance. By August, The County Star had been sold to a wooden-faced redneck couple with beady eyes and thin, sinister lips. In September George returned to take care of some business I've forgotten, and was actually in the house the night Blondy was invented. By October, the rednecks fired me (even without the provocation of my providing asylum for an autistic political cartoonist). In November George called from California to say he had caused a fatal auto accident. By December I accepted a position in healthcare marketing communications and began one of my own occasional detours around consensual reality.

Update: a bit of of the text above was edited to improve historic and poetic accuracy.