Garry Trudeau’s Poster Things & Buttons & Bows

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise interview Garry Trudeau on his latest Zonker poster and button for the Saranac Winter Carnival.

Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau answered questions by email over the weekend about designing the poster and button for this year’s Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, about his stepmother Ursula Trudeau — an artist and model from Montreal who lived in Saranac Lake and died in December — about his slowed-down work schedule and what the future holds for Doonesbury.

About his design and his team:

…it’s a pretty broad theme, so at first I wasn’t sure how to proceed. I figured it would be very limiting, and visually misleading, to select a single, particular myth or legend, so I decided to do a mashup of easily recognized icons — the unicorn, the Lady in the Lake, the storybook castle, etc. — images I recalled from childhood.

…Our working process is always the same. I do a tight pencil drawing and send it to my inking assistant, Todd Pound, who lives near San Francisco. He “inks” it on computer and emails it to George Corsillo in New Haven (Connecticut), who fills in the color on Photoshop and adds the typography. We’ve worked this way together for almost 20 years. With the posters, George is always present for the press run, to make sure the printing meets his high standards.

About the poster versus the button from a 2016 ADN interview:

For the last several years, the poster has been our focus. I no longer think of the job as button art. We design the poster and then carve out a circular portion that will work on the button.

 

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