Ziggy comic strip is created right here in Cincinnati. And it's coming to The Enquirer!
Goodbye Mutts, Hello Ziggy: Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell is taking a sabbatical to work on a special project. Ziggy will jump in and return to Cincinnati comics pages starting Monday, July 5. Check it out daily on the Fun page of The Enquirer.
Ziggy, the seemingly ageless title character of the newspaper comic strip, is a Cincinnatian – or at least the guy who draws him and puts words in his mouth is.
And this year, that strip turns 50.
Tom Wilson II has been working on “Ziggy” for more than 30 of those 50 years, first assisting his namesake father, who created the strip, later taking over the whole operation.
And the 64-year-old Wilson says he expects to keep the daily comic going for many more years.
He recently spoke about the anniversary on the phone from his suburban home.
Question: Your dad’s obituaries from 2011 said he died in Cincinnati. What’s your history related to Cincinnati?
Answer: Dad actually lived in Cleveland. That’s where I grew up. I’ve lived in Cincinnati since the early ‘90s, I guess. I would commute back and forth to the Cleveland office when I was first getting started years ago and worked there and then come back. Dad’s a Cleveland man, and I’m pretty much just an Ohio guy. He came down here when he became too ill, and he was at the Seasons for a while, and that’s where he died a few years back.
Q: Where do you live?
A: I’m in the South Lebanon area.
Q: And you attended Miami University?
A: Right. Miami U and Boston University. I started at Miami and transferred to Boston and got a Bachelor of Arts there, then went to New York and worked there for a while, and then came back to Ohio. Got married and eventually moved to Clifton.
Q: Was Miami not to your liking?
A: No, I loved Miami. It’s such a cool place. I actually entered to study graphic design and switched. I decided I liked fine art and painting better, and Boston was great for that. Graphics was still a big part of it, but I really enjoy painting and drawing a lot more.
Q: Was “Ziggy” a hit from the start?
A: I think he started in 18 newspapers. That’s not a bad start but it’s not great either. So for a few years, “Ziggy” was struggling to get his foothold. Gradually, he caught on more and more, and got more popular.
Q: At its height, how many papers carried “Ziggy?”
A: In the 800s, I think. It’s hard to tell internationally. In Cincinnati, we were in the Post for a long time. They were good, large papers in major cities, and that would have been in the ‘80s or so.
Q: Is Ziggy a Browns or a Bengals fan?
A: I’m not going to answer that one, because, like me, dad was never big into sports. He’d take me to a game in Cleveland. We’d see the Browns and watch the Indians games. When I’m in Cincinnati, I’m a Cincinnati fan. My son is big-time into sports. He lives here, too. He’s a big Cincinnati fan.
Q: Was there a seamless transition between your dad and you doing “Ziggy?”
A: It was seamless, because we worked together so much, through phone, fax, in person, ideas back and forth. It was years in the making. I tried to calculate this. I started doing all the drawing in ‘84 or ‘85, so I’ve actually been doing it 37 years or something like that.
Q: Who was the better “Ziggy” cartoonist between the two of you?
A: We have our own styles. I try to stay true to the way he wrote and the way he drew. There will naturally be my own influences in there, but “Ziggy” is his creation, and I’m basically following his lead on it and trying to keep the character true to the way he was originally conceived. Dad was just a wonderful artist and painter.
Q: You draw and write all of the content?
A: One hundred percent, working out of my home here.
Q: How many “Ziggy” cartoons have been published over the years?
A: You’re probably better at math than I am. We’re seven days a week, so multiply 365 by 50, and you got the number. (Editor's note: That equals 18,250.) It’s kind of mind-boggling when I think back on it.
Q: What’s the secret to its popularity?
A: I think it’s because he’s an everyman. Everybody has had a Ziggy experience of some sort. They used to call him America’s lovable loser when he first came out because things were always happening to him, and people could say, “oh yeah, I can relate to that.” But now I think he’s gained a certain element as an inspirational character, from the standpoint of, 50 years of this and he still keeps coming back every day to be with his fans in the paper. No matter what life throws at him, he gets up and comes at it again.
Q: Do you always work at home, or might people ever spot you out in Lebanon, at a coffee shop or on a park bench, perhaps, working on “Ziggy?”
A: No, I’m kind of a homebody. I work out of the house. I like the setup at the kitchen table here. I get out all my stuff and draw.
Q: What does the 50th anniversary mean to you?
A: It crept up. It means a lot to me from the standpoint of my father. I don’t know when dad started out if he paid much attention to how long it would keep going. I know he had a lot of faith in the character to have some longevity because he was very secure in his ideas and thoughts. I had a dream a while back. Dad popped into my dream. This was shortly after he passed away. He just said the word “jubilee” to me in the dream and just disappeared. And I thought, that’s a ways off yet. Now I kind of think maybe it is pretty important to him that his character keeps going on as long as he can. He seems to have the staying power. He’s been through just about everything we experienced in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, 2000s and the latest awful things we’ve had to deal with in the last couple years. It means a lot from the character standpoint most of all, I have to say. I want to see Ziggy keep going as long as he possibly can.
Goodbye Mutts, Hello Ziggy
Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell is taking a sabbatical to work on a special project. Ziggy will jump in and return to Cincinnati comics pages starting today. Check it out daily on the Fun page of The Enquirer.