Nevada Focus: Cartoonist succeeds by drawing himself

Tom Gardner

Thursday, Dec. 10, 1998 | 4:28 a.m.

SPARKS, Nev. -- Meet cartoonist Brian Crane.

No, meet cartoon characters Opal and Earl. They are Brian Crane's alter egos in his comic strip "Pickles." So are their daughter Sylvia, their grandson Nelson, their perplexed dog Roscoe and their standoffish cat Muffin.

"I think my readers feel like they know me even though we've never met," Crane says. "We've made a connection, somehow, through humor through my comic strip.

"If you're writing 365 strips a year, you can't help but have yourself come out in it. If you're not having gag writers supply you with ideas, you've just got to draw them out of yourself and your own experience. My strip is unique because I'm unique. My strip is just me."

That's because Crane is a one-man show. Like his mentor, "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz, every letter, every gag and every line in each day's product is his own.

"I think any strip that is written by one person is going to be as different as any other person is different. I couldn't do "Peanuts" and he couldn't do my strip. It's just a reflection of who I am," he said.

Each day's story revolves around Earl Pickles, who remains unconvinced that his retirement is all that great, and his wife Opal, who couldn't agree more.

Daughter Sylvia, whose post-divorce career can largely be described as downsized, shares their home along with her son. Add in the dog, the cat and Sylvia's fiancee Dan, and you have the basic mix for Crane's storytelling. Except for Dan and an occasional dropin, the cast has remained consistent for 8 1/2 years.

"When you create characters for a comic strip, it's a big commitment because if your strip is at all successful you could be writing about these characters for a long time. You don't just jump into it lightly," he said.

Change comes slowly as well.

"When you're doing a comic strip, there's always a kind of a balance and when you do something permanent it upsets that delicate balance. For example, a lot of my humor comes from Earl and Nelson and their interaction, so how will that be changes if Sylvia and Dan get married and they move out of the household?"

Earl, who is Crane's favorite character, provides some of the quirkier turns in his quest to avoid boredom. Growing oats in the yard seemed like a healthy alternative to mowing. Growing a beard was a handy alternative to shaving. It also drew a lot of response from readers, not to mention Opal.

"You know, you draw the same character for 8 1/2 years, you get tired of drawing the same one. I started drawing one with a beard just to draw him a little bit different."

Opal quit shaving her legs. Crane asked his readers for their opinions.

"I was just inundated with replies, thousands and thousands. People were very, very passionately either opposed or for. I didn't think people cared that much."

He trimmed the scraggly beard more neatly and even had Earl get a schnauzer look when he took Roscoe to a dog groomer.

The beard's future will be revealed on Christmas Day. Crane won't say what it is, but hints that a slim majority of his respondents still think it should go.

The decision to center a comic strip on older people was again uniquely Brian Crane.

"I was looking for characters that would appeal to me that I thought I could mine for ideas for a long time to come, just waiting for a gut-level connection. I sketched this older couple and that's when it happened."

Market research was unadorned.

"I didn't see anybody else doing it."

He drew some strips and sent them to three syndicates. Nibbles, but no bites.

"All they wanted to hear about was youth. I just think that as a category, as a group, old people have a lot of humor that goes untapped."

But Crane's humor remained untapped until his wife Diana nagged (her word, not his) him to try one more time. Finally, in April 1990, it clicked.

He held on to his day job as senior art director for a Reno advertising agency while spending his off hours in a cramped studio that used to be half of a garage.

"I look back on those days and I don't know how I did it. I survived. I wouldn't want to go back and do it again, though."

With "Pickles" now appearing in 120 papers daily and 114 on Sunday, Crane's days in the ad agency are over and he has just come out with his first book, "Pickles," featuring some of his favorite earlier strips. Schulz wrote the foreword.

Crane draws on his family - he has seven children - and on people watching for his ideas. Opal is loosely patterned after his wife's aunt, who also is named Opal, and Earl resembles his grandfather. Nelson is the image of one of Crane's two sons. Like Crane, Sylvia formerly worked in an ad agency.

Despite the array of characters, ideas still can be hard to come by.

"I've never come to the part where I've totally blocked and thought I'd never have another idea again. But some days are just harder," he said.

"Usually, the ideas come when you're doing something else, but in the back of your mind, you're just trolling. The worst way, I've found, is to stare at a blank piece of paper and say, 'Now, I'll get a funny idea.'

"I never went to a class to learn how to do it. I never interned with another comic strip. I just evolved a comic strip," he said. "I don't know how you do it. I just started doing it. I don't know if it's the right way or not."

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"Pickles." Longstreet. $7.95.