CARONING A

 

BURLINGTON THERAPIST

LEAH WITTENBERG’:-3

‘FREE TIME’ ACTIVITY

DRAWS ON HER

POLITICAL coNscIENcE.
BY EUAN BEAR

‘ ‘ started cartooning in
1980, in

CommonWoman. At first
it was just stick figures with cap-
tions,” says Leah Wittenburg.
“CommonWoman supported
almost anything we tried to do.”

Wittenberg, a long-time
resident of Vermont, is originally
from Queens, New York, as any-
one who hears her distinctive
accent might guess. She came to
Vennont in 1973 and built a
house in Montgomery. The house
burned down, and Wittenburg
moved to Burlington in 1975 and
came out as a lesbian. She‘s had
a number of careers, including
commercial sewing piecework
(wool jackets and canvas boat
covers), custom—made westem-
style shirts, manager of shipping
at Seventh Generation, and mas-
sage therapy. For the past several
years she’s been a therapist in
practice in Burlington. And a
political cartoonist.

“The first time I though
of myself as a cartoonist was
when I did a cover for
Common Woman — it was an anti-
war cover that I did with Carol
Altobelli. I did a lot of cartooning
during Reagan’s reign. ’

_ “Up until recently,” '
Wittenberg continues, “I haven’t
even considered myself as able to
draw. It’s something I really have
to work at. Some cartoonists can
take one feature of a person and
exaggerate it and it works.
Generally, I’m pretty happy if I
get a likeness.”

Recent cartoons have
focused more on national issues,

' but,‘Wittenberg has done panels

on environmental and local
issues. “Two years ago I was
drawing about civil union and
anti-[then-ultra conservative
gubernatorial candidate Nancy]
Sheltra. It’s kind of whatever is
in the forefront of news and
issues. National issues, are where
my attention is right now. I’ve
done lots and lots of lesbian-
related cartoons. In the early
1980s, I was doing them on the
development of the [Burlington]
Waterfront, with the Alden
Corporation.”

Publishing in print
media is the venue of choice, but
not being published has not
stopped her from getting her
message out. “For awhile I was
drawing three-part cartoons and
cut them into strips that I put
under people’s wiper blades.
What’s important is getting the
message out there.”

Wittenberg adds,
“Cartooning is one of the few
ways I’m being political right
now and making commentary.”

Wittenberg has been
paid by other publications for her
cartoons, but admits that it is

 

hard to break in to the ranks of

regularly paid cartoonists. “I have
rejection letters from all over. I

just got a rejection letter from

Funny Times that basically said,

‘We thought you were fimny but

not funny enough.’ The New

Yorker sends what I think must

be the shortest rejections ever on

a three-by-four-inch piece of

paper that they must get six or

eight copies per sheet. My car-

toons have been rejected by Utne

Reader and The Nation.”

But, Wittenberg adds,

“There’s also a lot of places I’ve

had cartoons printed in, besides

Out in the Mountains. I just sold

a cartoon to In the Family, which 9
is a lesbian/gay therapy magazine
— not especially clinical. I got
third place in a Free Press car-
tooning contest a couple of years
ago. I’ve been published in
Sojourner,” a women’s journal
published out of Boston. She also
had a show that hung at the Daily I
Bread Bakery and Cafe ‘in ,

Richmond. _ - A
“There have been long

stretches when I haven’t done

any cartoons. The first bunch of

years I was a parent, I did noth- ,
ing with car_toons._I didn’t have i
the energy.” She quickly‘ adds, I
“Though Rosa’s really into it. I’m 
teaching a cartooning class at The .
Schoolhouse,” where daughter ,
Rosa goes to school. Responding
to a suggestion about teaching a
class through the R.U.l.2? lgb-
tiqa community center in
Burlington, Wittenberg says,
“Well, that’s a whole other thing

— with Alison [Bechdel] in the
community, I’m a very poor sec-
ond. Plus there’s the issue of
time.”

Probably every creative
person fields the question about
where they get their ideas. Leah’s
answer is one I’ve never heard
before: “I pray for cartoons, and
they come to me in flashes of
inspiration. I can sit down and
‘force’ a cartoon, but -I’m not
usually very happy with it.
Sometimesa little lightbulb goes
offwhen I’m driving. Ifl am
thinking about something I’d like
to do a cartoon about, before bed
I pray for a cartoon idea.
Sometimes they just come whole.

My same-sex marriage cartoon

came that way.”

And then, Wittenberg
says, it pretty much takes over
her free time. “It also takes over
the dining room table. I don’t
have room in my house for a
drawing space, and my desk is in
my bedroom, so I set up my light
box on the dining room table.’’
She uses the light box to create
the finished cartoon, tracing over
the rough sketch using good pens
—"‘because I don’t do it on the
computer, though I do use letter-