Cartoonists to Help Homeless

Once again the homeless are finding shelter on the comics page.

Working with some of the top editorial and strip cartoonists in the country, Sen. David A. Roberti, coordinator of the Cartoonists’ Homeless Project, has helped persuade more than 100 artists to devote their panels to the subject on Tuesday.

“Our goal is to tug at America’s heartstrings through their funny bones,” Roberti said. “The homeless problem is only getting worse and we need the attention and action from our presidential contenders and the general public.”

“It may be a small gesture for each of us to devote one day’s strip to the problem, but together we constitute a very loud voice,” says Lynn Johnston, creator of the panel “For Better or for Worse.” “During the ‘80s, many comic strips have involved fewer fantasy situations and more of real life. We get to make points about issues that are very real and very important.”

Mike Peters, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and creator of the popular strip “Mother Goose and Grimm,” called homelessness “such an obvious problem.”

“What makes being a cartoonist worthwhile is that the job gives us a soapbox to stand on, provided we sweeten our message with a little humor,” he said. “We can bring a problem to the people and hope that if we keep it in front of their faces long enough, they’ll change it.”

In addition to drawing a political cartoon, Peters will put Grimm, his incorrigible dog, on the streets for a week. Garry Trudeau will devote a week of “Doonesbury” to the misadventures of Alice and Elwood, a homeless couple who live on the streets of Washington.

Other artists involved in the project include Jim Davis (“Garfield”), Bill Griffith (“Zippy the Pinhead”), Bil Keane (“The Family Circus”) and Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists Tony Auth, Doug Marlette and Paul Conrad.

Cartoonists began joining together to tackle social concerns in 1985 and ‘86, when they devoted their Thanksgiving Day panels to the problem of world hunger to raise money for USA for Africa. In 1987, a group of political cartoonists served Thankgiving dinner to several thousand homeless people at the East Front of the Capitol.

This year, the homeless cartoons are timed to appear just before election day. Roberti called it “an appropriate time for the voters to ask politicians for their specific solutions to the homeless crisis. It’s not so close to election day that the answers would be lost in the noise, but it’s close enough for the voters’ concerns to be addressed.”