Newhall Signal Cartoonist Dies of Heart Attack

Randy Wicks, the irreverent and pun-loving cartoonist of the Newhall Signal and one of the most recognized names in the Santa Clarita Valley, died Saturday morning of a heart attack at the age of 41.

Wicks, who poked fun at local, national and international issues for 16 years as the Signal’s cartoonist, had complained of numbness in his arms in recent weeks and, while at a friend’s house around 8 a.m. Saturday, said he wanted to see a doctor.

He complained of pain and slipped into unconsciousness. Paramedics arrived only a few minutes after receiving a 911 call but were unable to revive him.

“It’s hard to express the great sense of loss and emptiness that we feel,” Signal General Manager Will Fleet said in a statement. “Randy has been, in many ways, the heart and soul of the Signal.”

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Wicks, who was single, began working for the Signal in the ad department in 1979 after graduating from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. A farm boy from Belmond, Iowa, he had once been the cartoonist for the Iowa State Daily, and nagged the Signal’s editors to let him draw cartoons.

In time Wicks developed a style that was on target, but not vicious, and he enjoyed noting the foibles of everyone from Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Santa Clarita Valley developers. “He was the sort of person who saw when the emperor had no clothes,” said columnist John Boston.

Just in recent weeks his cartoons touched on subjects ranging from driver etiquette (bemoaning the improper use of turn signals) to the up-and-down stock market (where a kangaroo joined the usual Wall Street icons of bear and bull) to the successful marketing of Disney films (he christened the studio’s latest release “The Hunchbucks of Notre Dame”).

“He had a very childlike quality and clarity to his drawing,” Boston said. “It was almost as if he saw the world through the eyes of a very bright child. He was just a dear, dear, sweet person.”

Current and past colleagues who gathered at the Signal’s offices Saturday recalled his humor, photographic memory--”Now I’m going to have to get a dictionary,” said city editor David Foy--and his unofficial role as the paper’s ambassador and tour guide.

They also recalled his fondness for puns, which often showed up in his cartoons. One panel showed three images--a rodent, an insect and Saddam Hussein. The label: “A rat, a roach, Iraq.”

“He was in at 6 every morning,” recalled Joe Franco, former Signal editor and now deputy sports editor of the Times Valley Edition. “He was a news junkie. He loved his work.”

When the Signal published a book of his drawings to celebrate his 15th anniversary with the paper, managing editor Tim Whyte wrote in the introduction: “His cartoons are sometimes good for a belly laugh, or a smirk or even a cringe and sigh of relief that it’s not you who is the target of the day. Other days, Wicks will make a poignant statement that brings a tear to your eye.”

Wicks won numerous awards, including first-place honors from the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. in 1981, 1983 and 1984.

His body will be returned to Iowa for burial. Plans for a local memorial service are pending.