Copyright The HUMOR Project, Inc 1994 -- All rights reserved
This first appeared in Laughing Matters Volume 10, Number 1

One of my closest comedic companions has been a chap named Ziggy. Over the years, I have loved and laughed at his universal yet unique observations of life. Ziggy gives hope and humor to over 100 million people who take him into their homes with the daily newspaper. Over 500 daily and Sunday papers worldwide carry the wit and wisdom, the laughter and insights of Ziggy.

His wit and wisdom have reached countless other lives through his appearances on greeting cards. In fact, Ziggy sells greeting cards at the rate of 40,000+ each day. His Emmy-Award-winning ABC Christmas special, Ziggy's Gift, also tickled and touched the lives of millions.

The genius behind Ziggy is 63-year-young artist/philosopher Tom Wilson. I have had the pleasure of meeting Tom on several occasions at the American Booksellers Association convention (his Ziggy books published through Andrews & McMeel have been jest-sellers over the years). More recently, I had the opportunity to rendezvous with Tom at his studio in Ohio.

Through this interview, I came to appreciate even more his creative and giving spirit. His heart and art are in the right place... and in the light place. His altered-ego Ziggy has helped so many people see the light (insight) and lightness (humor) in life.

So, pull up your easy chair, and take in the conversation with Tom Wilson as we celebrate Ziggy's near-25 years in syndication.

The cartoons accompanying the interview are reprinted with permission of Ziggy & Friends, Inc. (distributed by Universal Press Syndicate). All cartoons are copyright by Ziggy & Friends, Inc.

Joel Goodman: Ziggy is certainly a kindred spirit for our work through The HUMOR Project. In our 18 years in The HUMOR Project, our goal is similar-- to reach out and touch people with humor to not only make sense of life, but also to make light of life.

Tom Wilson: It's an exciting, positive business to be in. Ziggy is a very positive character. In particular, in greeting cards and gifts that people buy for someone else, it's a very nice thing to work with because it's giving and it's caring and he relates very well to that. Ziggy functions as the spokesperson for the sender or buyer.

I've always believed another thing, which is not unlike what you do through The HUMOR Project: humor is often used as a very clever way to express sincere sentiment when people are embarrassed to be gushy or mushy or super sentimental. But in most of the Ziggy cards, underneath the layer of humor, it's not just a joke-- there's a very meaningful, caring sentiment or statement. Whether it's a get-well card or a cheer-up, it's done with humor, but the caring sentiment is very clear.

It sure sounds like a very worthwhile project that you're doing, Joel. I like The HUMOR Project because it has a purpose other than just messing with humor and making jokes.

JG: It's wonderful that they don't have to be mutually exclusive: you can have humor along with empathy and with message. Humor can also help us to deal with conflict and can "help the medicine to go down" and get a message across. It intrigues me that what you're saying is that humor can also help us to express feelings which are positive but also hard to express.

TW: When people don't want to be that obvious or gushy or corny.

JG: Victor Borge has presented at our conference in the past-- we've been using one of his quotes since the beginning of The HUMOR Project: "A smile is the shortest distance between two people." Ziggy certainly personifies that!

Actually, the first time I consciously thought about this quotation was in 1977 when my father was facing a life-or-death surgery. It was during this time that my mother and I were shuttling from our hotel to the hospital on a regular basis. The driver of the hotel van was named Alvin, and Alvin was a magician. In the short four minutes it took us to go from the hotel to the hospital, he magically transformed up-tight, stressed-out people into people who were able to laugh and let go of some of the terrible tension. Alvin had a very upbeat, optimistic, Ziggy-like outlook on life.

TW: When I was first trying to develop Ziggy for syndication, one of the priorities I put on him was I wanted to create a character that people didn't just laugh at but could relate to or identify with. I wanted to establish a rapport between the reader and him, which is why often Ziggy is looking out of the page at you. That's something that no one else was doing and I just had enough creative ego to try to want to break some new ground in the comics. Because usually you're a third-party person reading something that has been going on in exchange between two characters. You're kind of the voyeur. That was part of my plan: to try to get the reader to become involved and relate to him. I also wanted the reader to like him and care about him.

Syndication is a very rough business. There are newspapers that will yank a comic out and then will sit back, wait, and see, and if nobody calls and complains or writes letters, then they figure nobody was reading it anyhow. It's a brutal and unfair kind of test. People have gotten accustomed to feeling like they are helpless to make a difference. It isn't true-- they can make a difference.

I've come in hindsight to believe that if you can make it for the first five years without getting dumped, then you're pretty-well locked in with a following. But it's also essential that people care enough to stand up and be heard if one of their favorites disappears.

JG: You really invented the first 3-D comic. It's not just two- dimensional: Ziggy breaks the third dimension by speaking directly to the reader.

TW: He's coming out at you, and he's looking at you, and he's talking to you in many cases. That was a calculated effort. Also, the emotional rapport was intentional. I put a greater priority on people getting to love him almost more than I did in the humor. But if you can do both, that's best. In a way, that's what you were talking about with your van driver. That was a very loving kind of thing to do, because here were these people who were down and he was entertaining.

JG: Maybe we could have a book: Humor from A to Z with Alvin and Ziggy.

TW: I like Alvin. He sounds like a terrific person.

JG: Speaking of terrific, can you give us a little biographical tour of Ziggy since 1969?

TW: We started out slowly with 15 newspapers. Now we're in over 500 including the major markets. Economically for me, I remember figuring it up that I was earning less than minimum wage in the beginning. The positive side of that though is that there are still only seven days per week... and if you're in 500 papers, you don't have to work any harder than you did when you were in 15.

Ziggy now communicates with literally millions of people. We have the blessed opportunity to do that on a daily basis. I've tried to keep in mind that the first priority is to entertain, but I try to do more than that with Ziggy.

JG: How did Ziggy find his way into syndication?

TW: I'm a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I started out to be an illustrator and my heroes were people like Norman Rockwell. I did a lot of cartooning just for fun, for my own enjoyment, and to amuse my friends. Ironically, everything flip flopped, and cartooning became my profession.

In 1971, I was very fortunate that Jim Andrews at Universal Press Syndicate saw some of my work and called me up. He asked if I had ever thought about syndication. I said, "What is this? A crank call!"

Originally I had done a daily strip in which Ziggy was an elevator operator and he moved up and down through those panels. He was pretty much the same character and the same personality, but I didn't get anywhere. I had more than my share of rejection letters from syndicates that I'd submitted to, because it's really tough to get started.

And then here's this guy calling me, asking me. I thought "This is not the way it's supposed to work." He said, "We're a very small and very young syndicate. We only have one other feature, which is a strip." I asked, "What is the strip you have?" to which he replied, "Well, it's a kid we signed up named Gary Trudeau." Ziggy became their second. Now they have everybody-- Lynn Johnston, Cathy Guisewite, Calvin and Hobbes. So we chugged along and papers kept adding Ziggy. I got above minimum wage eventually.

They're wonderful people-- they're like family at Universal Press. Their priorities are great-- they are prone to talent that has some point of view-- like Cathy representing the single working woman who wrestles with being liberated vs. having traditional tugs. Of course, as you know, Lynn Johnston is terrific. She's a great lady and a dear friend.

JG: Are you Ziggy?

TW: I guess so. I tend to think that I was more Ziggy when I was a kid growing up. I think growing up is a real Ziggy experience. I was self-conscious, my ears stuck out too much, I looked like my trousers were always too short like I was waiting for a flood. I just felt very clumsy and unsure but still not unoptimistic. I think I was Ziggy when I was a kid. I draw from a lot of those feelings and experiences for his personality. If you couldn't extract from your internal self, it would be very hard work to continue the seven-day-a-week thing. That helps me a lot, too, in that Ziggy has a very distinct personality. Sometimes I'll even draw him in a situation having no idea what I'm going to say... or what he's going to say or think. Then I'll figure out what he would say or think. So his personality helps a great deal to write and do the panels.

Even after 25 years, I still enjoy it. I've never gotten bored or tired of doing Ziggy. And I really care about him-- I like him. Sometimes I'll do something and I'll look at it and smile and think, "God, I like this guy!"

I mean it when I say I work for him, because the character's personality will dictate what I can and cannot do with it. The positive side is that he also helps write the material.

JG: So, the two of you are actually co-authoring the strip.

TW: There was an interesting point in time that I remember that was somewhat of a revelation to me. I was chugging along day after day doing the Ziggies. I was thinking that I was in charge. I did a Sunday page around Christmas time. I had Ziggy in bed with his animals who were sleeping and the window was there. You could see that it was snowing outside at night. The lettering came in through the window-- it was very small lettering in the beginning: "On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer..." and it got louder and bigger, "On Donner, on Blitzen." Ziggy and the animals are waking up and getting very excited. And then all of a sudden the lettering gets smaller and smaller and smaller. So Santa went right over his house.

I didn't think anything wrong with doing that-- it was a Ziggy experience. Boy, I got long letters from kids, from mothers saying that I'd ruined my child's Christmas. The tone of most of them was saying that "Ziggy's had enough trouble all year. The least you could have done, Mr. Wilson, was allow him to have a Merry Christmas." I felt really bad about it. I was very pleased that people cared that much, but the turning point came when I came to realize that I wasn't in charge any more. Ziggy did not belong to me. From that point on, he belonged to the readers. And I had a responsibility to them. I went from feeling quite guilty for what I had done to him to feeling quite good. I knew from that reaction and response that we had arrived.

JG: Your goal of achieving rapport was clearly realized!

TW: I never forgot that. Since then, I've always kept that in mind in what I do with him. I can't do just whatever I darn well please. I have to be conscious of the readers' relationship with him. The fact that they care that much pleases and gratifies me.

JG: I'm curious to know if you've gotten letters over the years from people telling you how Ziggy has touched their lives.

TW: Absolutely. A couple stories come to mind. I had a letter from this lady whose 8-year-old son had gone into a catatonic state. But he liked Ziggy and looked at Ziggy all the time. His mother contacted me to see if there was something that I might do personally for him. I took my latest book and drew Ziggy on a blank page in the front saying, "For my friend, Brian, With best wishes, Ziggy and Tom Wilson." I sent it to the mother, and she gave it to him in the hospital. He was so thrilled to see his name when Ziggy was talking straight out at him that he started showing different Ziggies from the book to everybody in the hospital. He began talking. He came out of it.

It was so extreme that she called me and told me. She said, "If it wouldn't be too much of an imposition, it would mean the world to him if he could come and meet you." I said I would love to and told her how happy I was that I could help. So he came in-- he was the nicest kid in the world. We sat and chatted for an hour. That kind of thing gives you a great feeling.

JG: Not only did you touch a life... you may have saved a life.

TW: Or at least brought him back into life. He had withdrawn from life. I hear from him every now and then.

I had another one which is really quite bizarre. I got a letter from a woman who was one of two daughters. She had sent me a photograph of a tombstone that had Ziggy engraved on it. The daughter was writing about her mother who had been ill for quite a long time. Her mother was bed-fast and eventually lost her eyesight. She loved Ziggy and always had made it a point to read Ziggy every day. She always asked her daughters, "What's Ziggy doing today?" They would describe the panel. The daughter wrote to me, "I hope you don't mind, but we asked a man who makes tombstones to copy a Ziggy and carve it out of the granite." That's strange... and very complimentary.

JG: There can be a funny line between mortality and immortality. Ziggy is immortal in a lot of ways.

TW: As far as mortality or immortality, somebody once asked me, "How long do you think Ziggy will live?" It really set me back because I hadn't really thought about that. I shrugged it off and said, "A lot longer than I will." I thought I fielded that question pretty well until the person asked, "How do you feel about that?" I hadn't considered that either before. I stopped and thought a bit and replied, "I feel great about that. It's kind of a little piece of immortality in a way. And I feel good that I may have created something that will last beyond me.

JG: Ziggy has already achieved some degree of immortality and omnipresence-- Ziggy is on family refrigerators in homes everywhere.

TW: Turning yellow with age.

JG: What is it about the Ziggies that end up immortalized on refrigerators? What works and doesn't work for Ziggy? What are the ingredients for success in Ziggy?

TW: For the most part, it's the identification that goes on between the reader and the character. Ziggy symbolizes some of our worst moments. He's not that negative, but he's dumped on a lot in life, and he does represent that "everything happens to me" syndrome.

I did a Ziggy, Joel, one time that I really had regrets about to the point where I called the syndicate to see if I could pull that one. Lee Salem said it was too late-- it had already gone out to the newspapers.

Ziggy was standing leaning on the window sill looking out. There were strong cast shadows in his room. He was looking out the window, talking to himself: "I guess the parade of life has passed me by. Funny thing... I never even heard the music." I got to thinking about that-- I didn't want to push anyone off the ledge. Ironically, I got more positive mail on that than anything else I had ever done. I got letters from people like the woman who wrote, "You know, I've always felt like that... but I thought I was the only one. When I saw it in the newspaper in print in Ziggy, I figured there must be a whole lot of people who feel like that... I felt less alone in this world when I saw that."

JG: What a wonderful way to touch people's lives-- to help them realize that they are not alone! Ziggy for a lot of people is a companion. And not only that, I know that you and Ziggy have been very supportive of certain charities and social causes-- leukemia, suicide prevention, homelessness, world hunger. You clearly have been very giving of yourself and Ziggy through the years. Can you talk about how Tom and Ziggy approach this?

TW: Ziggy does so well on causes because he does communicate in a very direct way. For example, in the leukemia coin board, which I've done for years, Ziggy has collected millions and millions of dollars in quarters. Ziggy can very naturally stand there while you're walking by or standing there at the cash register at the check-out counter, and he's looking right at you and saying something right to you about this cause. That is one of the reasons why he functions so well in charity causes. He can reach out and pull you in to be concerned. He can handle sentiment. I always try to do something that has a clever word connection, too.

Ultimately, Ziggy can deliver a very serious message. For World Food Day, he's always there speaking to you, the reader. On the anti-suicide effort, again that age group can relate to him, and he can talk to them. He's almost a peer in that way. He's not coming down on them from an authority position. He's more like "I'm one of you."

I do a program called Phone Friend that's become syndicated. There's an animated commercial, a song, and it's a program for latch-key kids who run into a problem or get scared when they are home alone. They call this number, there's a sticker with Ziggy on it that goes on the phone. They have staff psychologists and volunteers who talk them through it. It's really worked. Ironically, something they've never anticipated is that they're getting a lot of calls from the elderly.

JG: As you know, one of the things that The HUMOR Project has done over the years is to give grants. We've taken income from our annual conference and given it to over 200 human service agencies, hospitals, and schools to help them develop projects tapping the positive power of humor. One of the grants was to a geriatric facility which used the grant to set up a Humor Hotline. The residents in this geriatric facility would make a call each day to the homebound elderly with a joke for the day. It's another example of how humor can be used to reach out, touch, and tickle people to lighten their loads. Humor is a great way to make a human connection.

TW: I think that's probably why Ziggy works so well-- causing people to contribute, getting people to care, to want to help. Because he's basically a gentle sort of character, and he can reach out in a very direct way to people. He can handle sentiment and serious stuff. Ziggy is the front man bringing in the jobs... and I support him behind the scenes. I'm really proud that he's been so successful for charities.

JG: When you talked about your creative process drawing from the wellspring of your own experience growing up, even with that, I look in awe at seven days a week for 25 years... plus the greeting cards and all the other products.... How do you turn on your light bulb? What is your creative process?

TW: The first priority I focus on is "what is the objective here?" If it's a get well card or a coin board for leukemia, what is the objective and what are we trying to do? How can Ziggy bring this message home and hit the target? I start there, and then try to write words. The words, the communication is

JG: Where do the ideas come from?

TW: One source of ideas that is very productive for me is being in a public place, like a coffee shop or a donut shop around midnight and just overhearing conversations. There's nothing you can use per se, but I remember one time I was seated by a booth full of teenage kids who, within ten minutes, had covered every heavy subject in the world, including reincarnation. They didn't say anything funny, but I'm scribbling around on a napkin, "What would Zig think about reincarnation?" He would wonder-- how could he be sure he would not come back as himself?

A lot of the ideas come from real life. I remember one time my father was visiting at a time my 16-year-old son, Tom, was very conscious about combing his hair and his appearance. My father came out of the bathroom spitting and saying, "Oh, Lord, what kind of toothpaste is this?!" He had a tube of Bryl Cream that my son had in there-- he had mistakenly brushed his teeth with it! Or spray cans-- I've blasted myself by aiming them in the wrong direction.

JG: You talked about your dad. Was he an influence on you and your career? I know he was a miner-- did he look askance when you went to the Art Institute?

TW: As a matter of fact, he told my two brothers and me that if any of us wanted to work in the coal mines, our bags would be packed and waiting on the porch, because he wouldn't allow us to go that route. That was tough, because where we lived in West Virginia, that was about all there was to do. If you wanted to buy that first car and be able to take a girl to the drive-in movie, you got a job in the mines. My dad couldn't afford to send us to school or college... but he shut the door on the mines, and forced us out.

I was always interested in art and knew I wanted to go to art school. So I worked in the summer, saved my money for tuition, and managed to get through. My dad was a very positive influence in doing that.

JG: So you went mining for humor instead. I read that Laurel and Hardy were early models for you.

TW: They were my favorites. A lot of people will say, "What cartoonists did you admire most?" Where Laurel and Hardy impacted me-- the thing that I always loved when I saw them in the movies-- is that when Stan would do something really stupid, Oliver would turn and look out at you with that look of "Another fine mess he's gotten us into!" I just loved that acknowledgment of me in the audience-- I think that's why I have Ziggy looking out and acknowledging the presence of the reader. It gave me a feeling I was in there with them.

JG: Where did you first meet Ziggy... or where did Ziggy first meet you?

TW: There wasn't any one particular incident. He evolved out of my doodles and drawings. I've probably been drawing him most of my life. I did a lot of greeting card work in the 50's with neuter, ageless characters that you could identify with because they represented either the sender or receiver of the greeting card. I think that had a lot of influence on Ziggy looking and acting like he does.

JG: There's an article in Northern Ohio Live magazine in which you and I were both quoted. You first went to American Greetings in 1955. I was intrigued to discover that you became Vice President of IDEAS-- Inter-Divisional Exploration for Alternative Solutions. Your job was to develop products that were unprecedented and unpredicted-- that broke the mold.

TW: I put in my 36 years there. I was in charge of New Product Development, so I was doing all kinds of things. I enjoyed that a lot. Originally the corporation wanted me to put together an elite staff of creative people to develop new product. I said that I didn't think that was the way to go. I would rather not have that staff, because I would prefer to be able to switch-hit. Let me try it where I can pluck artists and writers out of the routine production line and then set up a little task force group and go at this thing, bring it to a point of presentation, and then let them go back to their work. I wanted to be able to move in all directions.

There are no bad ideas. Something that sounds totally bananas may be the very thing that kicks you into where you've never gone before. From creative people, you get 200%. They don't quit when they go home.

JG: I was intrigued with a number of the ideas I read about how creativity was nurtured at American Greetings: they changed the creative staff's assignments often; they sent members to art shows, movies, book conventions, museums; they gave the freedom to fantasize. From your own experience in a corporate/organizational setting, do you have kernels of wisdom about humor and creativity in the workplace?

TW: I think all of those things are very nice perks that help people to absorb things that might come out in some functional way. I was always much more objective than subliminal in my approach to creative product development. Try to exercise some kind of analysis-- e.g., what's not out there? What needs to be brought to reality that doesn't currently exist? My approach to creative effort involves looking toward the consumer or the reader first.

My whole greeting card experience has been very useful to me. With greeting cards, you don't just write a gag that is funny, you have to write something that 100,000+ people want to say to another human being. So, you've got two realities to deal with: (1)the person buying the card and (2)the person on the other end who is receiving it. You have to be very conscious and preoccupied with the relationships between people. Most everything I did creatively at American Greetings was based on this system.

JG: I have a Steve Allen Meeting of Minds type question for you. I had an image of the Mirror, Mom, the Psychologist, and the Parrot getting together. I wonder what their conversation would be like.

TW: That's fun! I like that, Joel! That's a whole new dimension I haven't considered. I'll have to play with that.

JG: Any future crystal ball thoughts on Ziggy and you?

TW: Ziggy will keep plodding along his path in life. I may get back to doing some more television animation. I've written a movie-length piece involving Ziggy and the environment. It's very Ziggy-like and has a good message: A word of caution in three segments: the water, the land, and the air. It's been a fun project.

JG: What the world needs now is Ziggy, sweet Ziggy. Thanks to you and Ziggy for adding so much humor to the ho-hozone! Ziggy is one of our greatest natural resources! Long live Ziggy!

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