Cartoon for the May 1973 issue of National Lampoon, spoofing all the clichés of magazine cartooning.
Bill Woodman was an American gag cartoonist and a regular contributor to The New Yorker and other magazines.
Early life
Bill Woodman was born in 1939 in Bangor, Maine. He studied illustration at a local art school, but never finished the course. Among his main graphic influences were Charles Addams and Frederick Remington, and he also expressed admiration for Saul Steinberg and James Thurber. During the 1950s, Woodman joined the U.S. Navy, spending his military service on the SS Timmerman and in West Germany. Back in civilian life, he moved to New York City to try his hand at a career in gag cartooning. In a September 2016 interview with Michael Maslin, Woodman said that he drew cartoons "about anything that will sell" and humbly admitted he was "just trying to survive". Between 1967 and 1970, he worked for CBS Television, making Speedball lettering charts of the Nielsen ratings.
Comic strip by Bill Woodman.
Magazine cartoons
In 1962, Woodman sold his first cartoon to the Saturday Review. He worked a variety of day jobs until in 1975 The New Yorker began running his cartoons regularly. His first New Yorker cartoon appeared in print on 10 November of that year. Over the course of two and a half decades, he made 145 cartoons for them. His final drawing was published on 6 January 2003. Woodman's drawings also appeared in Audobon, Gourmet Magazine, The New York Times, National Lampoon and Hugh Hefner's Playboy.
Cartoon by Bill Woodman.
Books
Besides his work as a cartoonist, Bill Woodman wrote and illustrated a children's book, 'Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?' (Crowell, 1980), about a bear who is invited to a mysterious birthday party. Woodman additionally livened up the pages of other authors' books, such as 'The Spider and Other Stories' Carl Ewald & Eva Le Gallienne (Crowell, 1980) and 'Beverly and Marigold' by Val Coleman (Wyatt Book, 1996). In 1980, Dodd Mead released the first and only book compilation of Woodman's cartoons, titled 'Fish & Moose News: Cartoons By Bill Woodman'.
Final years and death
Woodman spent his final years in Maine, making paintings. Together with David Jacobson, John Klossner, Mike Lynch and Jeff Pert, he collaborated on the book 'Lobster Therapy and Moose Pick-Up Lines. Cartoons From Maine' (2018). He died in 2022, at age 82. His work was admired by fellow cartoonists Sam Gross, Henry Martin, Peter Steiner and Jack Ziegler.
Cartoon for The New Yorker, 15 January 1993.