A Rapier Wit and an Even Sharper Pen

Herb was one of the first to revolutionize the editorial cartooning field. He took many of the words out of his cartoons, in fact most of them, and put them in a line underneath. I thought his work was so impressive and powerful that I decided that’s the way to go. Just to go for the jugular.

When we’d have dinner, we’d just talk about Washington; he knew Washington inside and out. I think his drawing of Nixon climbing out of the sewer, with a band coming up the street, was hilarious. And also the one of a guy climbing a ladder up Liberty’s arm, which is holding the flame--he’s got a bucket of water and it says ‘hysteria’ on it--now that was a cartoon.

There just aren’t that many cartoonists doing that kind of work anymore. I just wish the rest of the cartoonists would study his work and learn what they’re doing wrong.

Both he and I read. We read everything. We were drawing about the same things. We had an absolute ball on Watergate; I kind of miss that. The country doesn’t, but I do.

He got robbed on the Watergate Pulitzer. He was named, along with the Washington Post, but he should have won a Pulitzer for himself. I was on the jury, and his stuff was just fantastic. They had a vote, and then they said, ‘Nobody gets one,’ so what are you going to do? I couldn’t fight them. I called and told them how angry I was.

I went back to Washington for a couple of the Gridiron dinners--you’ve got to wear tails to go to them. And there he was, standing there in a tuxedo, and he had his tennis shoes on. And I said, “Jesus Christ, Herb, what are you doing?” and he said, “Well, they’re more comfortable than the rest of my shoes.” I said, “That’s good enough for me.”

God, we had fun.

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Conrad’s cartoon tribute to Herblock appears today on the Commentary page in the California Section.