‘Jump Start’ Creator Is Beating the Odds

Every day, hundreds of thousands of American newspaper readers turn eagerly to find out what’s happening to policeman Joe Cobb and his wife, Marcy, a nurse--the featured characters in the comic strip “Jump Start.”

Unlike most comic-strip heroes, the Cobbs are African Americans. So is Robb Armstrong, 28, creator of “Jump Start” and one of only four African-American syndicated cartoonists in the country.

“There is nothing so gratifying as doing something creative with your life--doing something completely original, something that never existed before--and being responsible for it,” Armstrong said in an interview in his studio, located in his mother-in-law’s modest home in the Philadelphia suburb of North Hills.

Having his comic strip syndicated in many of the largest newspapers in the nation, including The Times, “is mind-boggling,” he added. “It’s the dream of my life--something I wanted to do ever since I was a little kid.”

The Times has been running “Jump Start” since it debuted on Oct. 2, 1989, in 40 newspapers. Now, 16 months later, the strip is carried in 80 papers. Small publications pay as little as $8 a week and large ones as much as $100 a week for “Jump Start,” with Universal Features Syndicate, which distributes the strip, and Armstrong dividing the money.

“The odds of becoming a syndicated comic-strip cartoonist are like the odds in a lottery,” Armstrong explained. “Every year, the six large syndicates that distribute comic strips in America receive as many as 10,000 proposed panels and strips. Five to 10 are purchased.” (In total, about 300 cartoonists are syndicated.)

The other syndicated strips by African Americans are “Wee Pals” by Morrie Turner, “Curtis” by Ray Billingsley and “Herb and Jamaal” by Stephen Bentley. Billingsley’s strip is the most widely distributed, running in about 200 newspapers.

Unlike many white cartoonists, Armstrong said, he and “the other black comic-strip cartoonists walk on eggs. In one popular strip, for example, a white cartoon character daily staggers in and out of a saloon. He’s abusive to his wife. I could never do anything like that.”

He added, “Joe and Marcy Cobb represent the behavior of black people. I avoid any negative stereotypes. The characters are black, but they have universal appeal. Human behavior is human behavior. I key in on humorous things people do day to day that people recognize and laugh at--mundane things funny to everybody.”

Armstrong, the youngest of five children, grew up in a poor section of West Philadelphia. His parents divorced when he was young.

“My mother (who died nine years ago) worked hard doing her best to assure her children had a decent life,” he said. “She was a seamstress with her own business out of the basement of our house.”

He started drawing cartoons when he was only 5. “I was totally enamored of comic strips,” he recalled. “They taught me to read. I was anxious to learn what those characters were saying. I have a debt to Charles Schulz--’Peanuts’ got me going. My first drawings were of Charlie Brown and Snoopy.”

By the time he enrolled at Syracuse University, Armstrong was a veteran cartoonist, and the campus paper, the Daily Orange, ran his comic strip “Hector” for four years. It featured Hector, an overweight militant college student; his friend Meatball, and Julius, “a dog with human ears.”

While an advertising major at Syracuse, he also met Sherry West, a fashion designer whom he married five years ago.

For four years after he graduated from college in 1985, Armstrong submitted proposed strips to syndicates. At first, he sent along the best of “Hector,” “but the syndicates wanted something with broader appeal than a college student,” he explained.

He introduced Hector’s father into the strip and gave him a job as a police officer. Later, he made the father the central character. About two years ago, Sarah Gillespie, a comic-strip editor at United Features Syndicate, saw possibilities in Armstrong’s creation. Gillespie, who is still Armstrong’s editor, met with the young cartoonist and suggested he make the policeman his age and married so the strip would be personally relevant.

Much of the action focuses on Joe Cobb and his partner while they are on patrol. But no, Armstrong doesn’t ride around in police cars for inspiration.

“In the beginning, a friend who is a retired Philadelphia policeman told me what it’s like to be a cop on a beat. But the majority of my research is from watching police shows on television and from books I have, mainly a policeman’s handbook,” he said.

Armstrong draws “Jump Start” in his studio at night after he returns home from a 9-to-5 job as an art director for the Weightman Group, the largest art agency in Philadelphia, with 250 employees.

At the art agency Armstrong comes up with ideas for TV commercials, including Alpo dog food and Scott bathroom tissue.

“To be around all the hustle and bustle and experiencing life out there is important for ‘Jump Start,’ ” he said. “It keeps me in tune with what’s going on outside my studio.”