A man for all seasons

“I have more faith in this country than any of those God damned right wingers.” – Paul Conrad

At the time the My Lai massacre was being played across the front pages of the press and being dissected, analyzed and frequently rationalized on the inside pages, the Los Angeles Times’ editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad presented his own expansive commentary on the subject.
His three column, six-inch deep cartoon showed a bomber, bomb bays open and operating, with barely distinguishable crew, flying straight at the reader.
The target they were bombing was obscured by smoke.
The caption, pilot speaking to co-pilot, read, “…Disgusting!…killing women and children point-blank with M-16 rifles!”
There were no bleeding limbs of children flying up from the bombs. But the equating of foot soldiers firing on “women and children point-blank” to Air Force Academy graduates bombing unseen targets was unmistakable.
The cartoon spoke as forcefully and logically against the remote and complex war as the lengthiest polemic. But most importantly, in terms of impact, it spoke in language comprehensible to the man too busy with his own survival to wade through scholarly polemics against the war, or even to read the Times’ editorials.
Both in terms of his subject matter and his audience, Conrad’s concern is with the common man.
He points to his cartoon about the military overthrow of Chile’s Marxist president, Allende, as an example.
“There were reams written about the overthrow. I read for a day and a half on it. But it was all surface crap. Nobody was telling about the poor sons of bitches caught up time after time in these coups.
“The workers in all affairs of South America are the last ones thought of. The coups…Christ! Coup…coup. Forget it. The juntas continue. The deposed are buried or what-not. But no one thinks about the poor son of a bitch in the middle who can’t feed his family. These are the people I bleed for.”
Conrad’s cartoon showed a thin, gnarled figure — Chile — nailed to a cross.
Conrad works in the tradition of the 19th century artists Goya and Daumier, whose goal was to capture the visual essence, rather than a visual imitation. A chief characteristic of this style is economy of statement. An example is Conrad’s portrayal of Nixon as King Richard.
Conrad says he wanted a ghostlike effect. So, he drew it on scratchboard. The result was a figure seeming to rise, ghost-like out of the black.
“People ask me how to be a cartoonist. Well, it’s all work, every bit of it. And very stern discipline. I have to put myself on a 9 to 5 basis. I turn on when I walk in, and turn off when I walk out. No man could stand the pressure of turning out six original political viewpoints a week for as long as I have, without losing his mind if he thought about it all the time.
“I read, read, read, until I have a concept. I threw out 15 ideas for the cartoon of Chile before I came up with the best and simplest way to say it. The drawing took five minutes.
“Drawing is only five percent of it.
“I’m sorry I can’t be more specific on how to be a cartoonist. But the best I can do is tell a kid what of his stuff is good and what is rotten, then hope he can take it from there.
“I did that with Bill Shure two years ago when Bill was at Long Beach State. A month ago he showed me his stuff again. And I can tell you you’ll be hearing from him.”
Conrad began is own career on the Daily Iowan at the University of Iowa, where he majored in art. Upon graduation he moved to the Denver Post. He worked there until 1964 when he joined the Times.
“At the Post I worked under old, solid, newspapermen like Larry Martin and Ding Darling (who, incidentally, suggested I give up cartooning.) That’s the only way to learn newspaper work, be it cartooning or reporting,” he states.

The common man
Conrad prefers his readers not concern themselves with his personal life.
“My format is three-column, six-inch deep space on the editorial page every morning. All I want is to have projected a personality of someone who cares. And I think I have.”
Nevertheless, he is a very approachable celebrity. He contributes, time and work to community events including the upcoming Art for Funds Sake (10/18/73 at Marineland). He worked on the successful effort to incorporate PV’s fourth city where he lives and is active in the Catholic Press Club.
At a recent South Bay American Civil Liberties Union fund raiser where Conrad was the drawing card, he was besieged by adult admirers.
“I’d like your autograph, but I haven’t a pen,” a guest told Conrad.
Well, I just happen to have one,” he responded cheerfully, reaching into his brown corduroy jacket.
“I just don’t know how you get the Times to print you. Your cartoon is the first thing I look for every morning,” another guest offered.
“It’s the first thing I look for too, and I’m always amazed to find it. The Times is just marvelous to put up with me,” He said.
“I hate to sound trite, but I think your work is just brilliant,” said an attorney, unabashedly.
“If I didn’t do it, someone else would,” Conrad responded, like a Midwestern college professor being congratulated on his first published book.
A woman presented Conrad with a cartoon to autograph and realized, too late, it was a Herblock cartoon.
“Is that a Herblock cartoon? Is it? Let me sign it. I can do “Herblock” better than Herblock anyway.” Conrad grabbed the cartoon and signed it ‘Herblock’.
Conrad’s patience with critics is commendable, but not saintly .When a “Louise” attacked his opposition to abortion he listened to her argument, and offered repeatedly to respect her right to an opinion, providing she respected his.
Well past the average person’s pest-tolerance-threshold, Conrad broke down. Even then it was a controlled breakdown.
“Listen, Louise, I’m sorry, but I’m going to get rude. I meet women like you at every party I go to. And frankly, I’m bored. I don’t know what you do, but I bet you don’t have to defend yourself every place you go. Please leave me alone.”
Later in the evening, Conrad, betraying no sign of discomfort, embraced the wounded woman and assured her they were friends.
Later still, after the bar had closed and most of the guests had gone home, Conrad agreed to sit for an interview with Easy Reader.

ER: Optimistically, what effect do you hope your cartoons have upon readers?
PC Hopefully, I can help form some sort of creative atmosphere out of this mess we’re in now. And we’re in a fine mess. I hope through my cartoons people will start to think what in hell their feelings are, what democracy really is, and relate it to all this nonsense going on.
The president has a hell of a campaign underway that would have everyone forget Watergate. But it isn’t going to go away because I, for one, as a journalist, am not going to let it.
ER: I used to think the value of work such as your was its ability to sway readers who disagreed. But now I’m inclined to think the people most affected by your cartoons are those who agree with your sentiments, and benefit from the encouragement of knowing they are not alone.
PC: I don’t worry about those. It’s the people who disagree I’m aiming for, so that maybe they’ll rethink their position and come my way a little bit. I couldn’t change my wife from being a Republican for 19 years. Richard Nixon did it in three months. I figure anything is possible.
ER: Many journalists, after putting in as many years as you have, trying to inform readers, despair of the public ever responding rationally. Will you wind up feeling this way?
PC: Never. I have more faith in this country than any of those god-dammed right wingers who write incessantly.
ER: What do you base your hope on?
PC: All I can tell you is I got involved locally. We incorporated (Rolling hills Estates.) My wife, Kay, was campaign manager and I was co-chairman for two girls who were elected to the council. We stopped Great Lakes property dead in its tracks. So you can accomplish something politically.
ER: Lincoln Steffens said businessmen always told him it was greedy politicians who corrupted them. And the politicians said it was the greedy businessmen who corrupted them. Steffens concluded it must be the system itself that was the corruptor.
PC: I can’t say throw the whole thing out. We have to have a re-thinking of the campaign contribution laws. As a result of the senate hearings, we will get out of Congress laws governing the conduct of campaigns. Whether this will be enough, whether it’s too late, I don’t know.
ER: What use are good laws if men like Mitchell and Nixon are entrusted with enforcing the law?
PC: Don’t forget there have also been men like Ramsey Clark, one of the great Attorneys General, and his father, one of the great jurists on the US Supreme Court.
ER: Does the hope lie with individuals or the system?
PC: I think they’re one and the same. The system is the people. You see, the people have let this thing get out of hand. Christ, when it costs I don’t know how many millions to elect a US senator, it’s insanity. But it can be corrected. And it will be.
Look, I don’t have all the answers for all the problems plaguing this country. But I’m not about to kiss it off. Not about to.
ER: “At the end of the presidential campaign, you drew a cartoon of McGovern saying to the reader, “Come a little bit closer…” did that reflect your cynicism and feeling of hopelessness?
PC At that point, yes. I voted for all three Kennedys. I saw this affair at the Ambassador. I couldn’t even function for the next two weeks. I don’t have a candidate. I’m not sure McGovern was. I think the way he handled the Eagleton affair was unpardonable and I really ran out of gas at that point with McGovern. I’m sorry it did.
Christ, let the people elect whoever they wish.
ER: What would you identify as your most frequent theme?
PC: The common man.
ER: How do you choose your subject matter?
PC: Just what strikes me as worth while. If I don’t think something’s important, I honestly can’t do anything with it. If I do think something’s important, I’ll bust my ass. I draw for me. I can’t draw for my readers or editors. If anyone else wants to read me, fine. But anyone tell me I have to produce and I’ll tell them up yours.
If I know I have to produce because the county, the state, the nation — hell, the world — wants an opinion, I’ll do it and gladly. I’ll work my ass off. But on my terms.
ER: Do you have difficulty getting your cartoons approved by the Times.
PC: You wouldn’t believe what I have to go through sometimes. I had a cartoon showing Nixon with a caption that said, “Would you buy a used Carswell from this man?” It was hilarious, but the Times thought it was sick or something.
But really, the Times has been very good to me. It’s remarkable newspaper. It used to be a mouth organ for the Republicans. But when the New York Times came out with a West Coast edition, Otis (Chandler) started hiring. The New York Times fell flat on its face, and Otis turned the L.A. Times around. Someday, we’ll put it all together.
ER: What does it still need?
PC: It needs soul more than anything else. I don’t think we quite know where we’re at.
It’s an indefinable thing. But the New York Times has it. The Washington Post is close. In fact, the Times and the Post are just about at the same place.
ER: What explains the fact that the L.A. Times is becoming increasingly liberal?
PC If a paper is reflecting what it thinks, and reporting what is wrong today, then they’re bound to come up on the liberal side. That’s why I don’t buy the liberal-conservative bit. ER