My Five Celebrity Pencil Cartoons (Annotated)

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Back when I was drawing cartoons only in pencil, I had this idea that pop culture is so celebrity driven that maybe I could increase my chances of making a sale by incorporating celebrity names into my cartoons. So I did this set of the same kind of silly images I’ve always liked, but I added the random name of whatever celebrity I happened to be thinking of at the moment. And I tried to tie it all together by pretending the images were drawn from photographs by the ever-popular celebrity, Drew Barrymore.

I didn’t like the idea enough ever to do it again, but these still make me smile. I especially like Neve Campbell’s purse and Julia Roberts’ fish skeleton earring.

However, in the couple of years since I drew these cartoons some of the celebrities have stopped being celebrities. (Indeed, about two weeks ago a friend of mine asked me, ‘Who’s Drew Barrymore?’) Here are some notes on the names and contents of these cartoons:

Neve Campbell—Of course Neve stared in the “Scream” trilogy of movies and also the great film, ‘Wild Things.’ She’s made other films, but the last time I saw her mentioned in pop culture it was some columnist making fun of her for being a has-been at such a young age. [sigh]

Tori Amos—Tori is a very pretty singer/piano player. I have no memory what her voice sounds like or if she writes good songs because whenever I see one of her videos I get hypnotized by her beautiful face. She sits kind of side-saddle when she plays piano and she sometimes wears intriguing clothes. Mostly I just remember her hauntingly pretty face. She hasn’t had a hit—or a video—in a very long while.

Jordana Brewster—Jordana stared in the reasonably good monster movie, ‘The Faculty.’ For a while I thought she was the most beautiful young actress in the Hollywood. But she has since dropped off the face of the planet and I have no idea what she is doing now.

Jennifer Connelly—Film buffs know Jennifer as the beautiful singer from the great science fiction film, ‘Dark City.’ She’s done a lot of other films and has gotten a lot of critical acclaim lately for her ‘real’ acting, but she’s still not as famous as she should be. In college, Jennifer studied physics, so I thought it would be fun to link her to Wolfram’s book.

Julia Roberts—I’m not a big fan of Julia Roberts. The only reason I used her name was for the purpose of cognitive dissonance—that is, because she’s the last person I’d expect to see wearing something interesting like an earring made from a real fish skeleton.