CALLAHAN
The DARK HUMOR website hopes to salute all the great names in the cartoon
world, which includes artists from Daumier to Grosz and from Addams to S.
Gross. Time, copyright, scanning, and the ennui of depression take their
toll. However, this is a start. JOHN CALLAHAN has become one of the best
of the new "sick" cartoonists. Below, a brief biography courtesy
of Pat Riley (!) and six sample cartoons. For more, visit his website: http://www.eyescream.com/callahan/
John Callahan's life is the kind that
makes people hard-bitten. His mother
abandoned him. He was adopted by an
Oregonian couple who thought they
were infertile, but subsequently had
several children of their own. Callahan
felt like an outsider in his own family,
so he developed a wicked sense of
humor as his defense.
Another defense he developed was
wiping out his bitter feelings with
alcohol. One night (July 22, 1972)
shortly after his twenty-first birthday,
after drinking an inordinate amount of
beer, he handed the keys to his
Volkswagen Bug to a drinking buddy.
They went speeding out onto a
freeway south of L.A.
The next thing Callahan knew, his VW
was wrapped around a billboard,
collapsed by a ninety-mile- an-hour
impact. The crash severed his spine.
He could scarcely use his hands. The
drinking buddy got out okay an was
never heard from again.
Months and years of alcoholism and
self-pity went by. One night he spent a
solid hour trying to open a bottle wit
his teeth. It slipped out of his grip, then
rolled across the floor, out of reach. He
stared at it awhile. Then he started
yelling at it. Then he stared cursing
God for the crippled state of his body.
He yelled until he was exhausted, then
he burst into tears and cried for an
hour.
Finally, an eerie but comforting
sensation came over him, as if a hand
were soothing him. When his
attendant got back, Callahan said,
"Hey, Alex, something really
profound happened to me here, I don't
think I'm gonna drink anymore."
Callahan's humor has a savage quality.
It offend some people, but lots of
others -- especially among the 43
million Americans who are classified
as handicapped -- find that something
liberating happens when you laugh
about your adversities. One of his
extended pieces is even called The
Lighter Side of Being Paralyzed for
Life. He'd rather turn painful
situations into jokes than be indulged
by a pitying, patronizing attitude.
NBA Coach Pat Riley, from his book The Winner Within
