Ralph Haselmann Jr.
Ralph, Jr. was a very prolific poet, writer, editor and cartoonist. In 2001, he had a serious auto accident in which he suffered a torn aorta. The surgery to repair the aorta left him a quadriplegic. After a 3 month coma and an arduous recovery, Ralph regained the use of his arms and upper torso. His mind remained sharp and as brilliant as ever.
Like the contents of the 2 poetry books he published, the cartoons in this book were all created before his accident. They reflect his quirky view of life, the irony in situations and lets us see what he thought was funny.
Most quadriplegics suffer from respiratory and circulatory problems, which eventually do them in. Ralph passed away February 2, 2006, 4 1/2 years after his accident.
We are pleased to publish this book in memory of our beloved son, Ralph, Jr. We thank the many friends and relatives who contributed to the publishing fund.
Ralph, Jr. was a very prolific poet, writer, editor and cartoonist. In 2001, he had a serious auto accident in which he suffered a torn aorta. The surgery to repair the aorta left him a quadriplegic. After a 3 month coma and an arduous recovery, Ralph regained the use of his arms and upper torso. His mind remained sharp and as brilliant as ever.
Like the contents of the 2 poetry books he published, the cartoons in this book were all created before his accident. They reflect his quirky view of life, the irony in situations and lets us see what he thought was funny.
Most quadriplegics suffer from respiratory and circulatory problems, which eventually do them in. Ralph passed away February 2, 2006, 4 1/2 years after his accident.
We are pleased to publish this book in memory of our beloved son, Ralph, Jr. We thank the many friends and relatives who contributed to the publishing fund.
My new cartoon book’s here! My new cartoon book’s here! I’m a somebody! (to paraphrase Steve Martin in his first movie The Jerk). This huge tome you are now holding in your chubby little hands contains every almost single cartoon I drew since 1978, when I was in sixth grade. I managed to save a few from grade school, didn’t draw any cartoons in high school, and then started drawing cartoons again in college. I went to Mason Gross School Of The Arts at Rutgers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. I had always wanted to draw cartoons as a career (yeah, right!), but never really took a serious stab at it until 1993, 3 years after I graduated. I was on the 5 % year plan (“7 years of college down the drain” — John Belushi in Animal House). I didn’t pursue a career in Graphic Design because it paid peanuts, but painting houses was a great gig and was very lucrative. I started out making $7.50 an hour in high school and graduated to $35 an hour in 2001. I could make my own hours, didn’t have to answer to anyone, and sat by the pool working on my tan, listening to music and writing poems and drawing cartoons. I have 15 years of pretty cool art and damn fine poetry to show for it, but no money saved (but that’s beside the point!).
I apologize for the sloppiness and somewhat uneven quality of some of this work. What can I say, I’m an emotional cripple! I guess I didn’t practice enough. I wanted to draw a cartoon book badly, and I did end up drawing a carton book badly (to paraphrase an old joke)! Some of the cartoons are more fully realized, such as the Jesus Christ Wore Khakis cartoon, the Woodstock ‘94 cartoon, the Frank Sinatra Duets parody, and others.
Another controversial point I wanted to address is that I borrowed jokes for about 5% of
my cartoons, and gave credit where credit is due. For The Daily Bla newspaper parody
I drew in 1978, I borrowed jokes from George Carlin, Mad magazine, and Saturday
Night Live’s Weekend Update. For later cartoons, I borrowed punchlines from George
Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield, and Woody Allen; again, I gave credit where credit is due.
I hope they and you don’t mind. I figured why not share a good joke?!
I have too many favorite cartoons of mine to single out, but I especially like Moses Parting A Redhead and was going to use that for the title of my second cartoon book. it would have raised some eyebrows, but you can’t depict nudity on a book jacket, even if it is a cartoon. Anyway, I wanted to have a book title that was a primer on cartooning, hence I chose So You Want To Be A Cartoonist?! for this book title. I also like the cartoon where the guy and girl are dining at an Italian restaurant and the guy says “Man, I could eat spaghetti till it comes out my ears!”, and there are strands of spaghetti coming out of his ears!
