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Studio Tour

By Jeremy Meltingtallow

photo 3Here’s where I draw Zits in my Colorado home. That’s a twisty vine above the door, and my wife’s marimba on the left.

photo 2I like the old table my portable drawing board sits on.photo 11 I’m not sure why I have so many open ink bottles. I try different brands and mix my own combinations. Then the bottles sort of pile up.photo 10

Recently I dug my old Enquirer drawing board out of the garage and brought it into the studio so I have the option of standing while I work. First I had a shaman exorcise any lingering bad karma from stressful idea-less days as an editorial cartoonist.photo 20photo 7photo 13

My three Ronald Searle originals are my pride and joy. He was the granddaddy of us all.

photo 6photo 9Richard Thompson and Jeff MacNelly, a couple of my pals. Drawings by my friends are all over my walls.
photo 5photo 12I always keep three great brushes in my starting rotation. When they’ve lost their spark they’re assigned to the bullpen for whiteout duty.

photo 15

 

Speaking of which, here’s my baseball shrine. Those are balls signed by the starting eight of the 1976 Big Red Machine plus manager Sparky Anderson. On top is a foul ball I caught in 1965 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati which my brother and I went on to have filled with autographs over the next several years. And at the bottom is a ball signed by my all-time idol Jim Maloney when I met him last year. Okay, where was I?

photo 17My dad was a sign painter, and this is the wooden box he sat on everyday as he worked. I keep it nearby to remember him, but I think it also keeps some good lettering juju in the studio.

photo 22Here’s the business end of town. My drawers were built just the right size for my originals. Blank boards on one side, inked ones on the other.

A prototype for Zits boxers that never got to the market.

photo 4In my days as the editorial cartoonist for the Cincinnati Enquirer my office was on the 19th floor of a downtown office building overlooking a humming spaghetti tangle of concrete highways and the Bengals football stadium. Now I see this from my studio chair.photo 8Thanks for dropping by.