Hey man, I lived during the 60's ... this'll be a piece of cake!

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Al has been drawing since early grade school ... self-taught via the typical route of copying from Superman & Archie Comics and, of course, Mad Magazine. He also loved drawing maps of the United States, cars and dinosaurs. It should be noted that although Al drew a mean Mastodon, pound-for-pound, no one at Gale School in Chicago could draw dinosaurs better than Andrew Lucas, a classmate of Al's.

Perhaps peaking his ability during 6th grade, Al's talent remained mediocre throughout high school and college. Finally, in 1979 he took the Famous Artists course. No, he didn't draw Binky the Clown and send it in for evaluation. Instead, he studied the Famous Artists text books that his Father used (Peter Rozanski graduated the course in 1964) and completed most of the basic art lessons from the first text.

During his career as Packaging Engineer at Cutler-Hammer in Milwaukee from 1978 to 2000, Al was the "go to" guy when someone needed a flyer for an after-work party or event. His favorite task, however, was making small hand-drawn "Wallmark" birthday cards for co-workers. Also, in 1980 he published a small booklet of gag cartoons called Can't You Guys Take A Joke.

Finally, in 1991 he made his first professional endeavor when he illustrated the company's Forklift Truck Safety Manual, and produced product drawings for the company catalogs. His on-the-job training included website design, writing corporate identity standards, and producing the production artwork using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and PageMaker. Although the forklift manual was satisfying in the sense that his drawing ability had eventually come around, Al was equally frustrated that he had taken so long to finally get serious about his drawing.

In late 1993, Al joined an internet club called Toon Talk, whose members discussed the methods and challenges of cartooning. Some of the regulars decided to form a "consortium" and called themselves Cartoonists at Large(a special shout-out to Jasper, Bugdozr , Netminder & Dr Draw. Among others, one project was an internet production of "The Night Before Christmas" whereupon each artist illustrated one verse from the poem. s

Given the clout that many of the members carried within Cartoonists at Large (not to mention the success of Gary Larson and Scott Adams) in 1994 Al decided to make a quick million by syndicating a comic strip to the newspapers. Although he failed in two attempts ... Moon Crazy and House ... he treasures the experience and will continue to use what he learned to develop future projects.

 

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