LUCIDMEDIA

Doug Sneyd: Hefner’s Man in Comics

Written by Andrew Skinner Tuesday, 25 August 2009 10:09

I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s a Canadian Playboy cartoonist and one doing gags going back to the early sixties. Doug Sneyd will stand out at this year’s National Fan Expo so if you get a chance he’ll be there to sign autographs, meet people and sell original prints and books of his iconic “bathroom humor.” A lot of this stuff, if you give it a chance, is the funniest medium out there, portraying emotions that are quite frankly missing from a lot of other contemporary cartoons. And of course his luscious ladies are the hottest! Many people have always said that they read Playboy for the “articles,” so I thank Doug Sneyd because I have always been able to say, “I read Playboy for the cartoons.”
Born and raised in Guelph, Ontario, Sneyd seems to have had almost the perfect education to develop into a good artist. He started out winning a contest drawing birds in high school, went on from there to draw murals on the walls of bars and taverns throughout Ontario, and ended up in Montreal as a portrait artist at a large studio. He got a lot of help from other artists developing his skill, but he says “I wasn’t into cartooning I was into illustrating in those days.” Cartoons just weren’t his thing.

He spent time working for a popular publication out of Montreal called Weekend Magazine, where he could do three or four pages at a time featuring all kinds of scenes: a day in the life of Mennonites, a fraternity party, a day at the beach, and so on. He also worked doing numerous different kinds of illustrations for Eaton’s, and at the Toronto Star doing five panels a week for the “On The World News” pages. After his associate Oscar Cahen was killed in a car accident he got a look at his originals to continue Cahen’s textbook illustrations. Cahen, who also worked for Maclean’s, had a style that was far more modern or abstract for an illustrator in those days. This had an influence on Sneyd and his more Rockwellian style fell away.

In 1963 he made a trip to Chicago for reasons that he does not quite remember but he brought along tear sheets and made a side trip to the Playboy building to meet the art director. “He said that my style would be better served as a cartoonist. I told him I didn’t think that I was a cartoonist and could do this sort of thing, and he told me what they paid, and after telling them it wasn’t my cup of tea, I said I guess it is my cup of tea.” From then on they sent him ideas for work.

It wasn’t long after that when Mr. Hefner wanted him in every issue of Playboy and he’s been under contract ever since. Imagine that, a gag cartoonist for Playboy since 1964! As well as using material of his own, he currently uses material from five different writers. And when there’s a cartoon meeting he sends in 30 or 40 roughs. Playboy still has cartoon meetings and Hefner approves all the cartoons himself.

When asked about the beautiful women he draws, he says “My best cartoons generally just come out of my head, the actual drawing,” he explains. “But now and then I will maybe see a pose that I like in a magazine that will work in a cartoon, or might be similar to what I want to achieve, and I may use a part of that pose. But generally I think the best stuff just comes from the creative process in my head.” When I mentioned that his work continues to be retro, he says “I try not to make them look tarty, but like the kind of a gal that you might imagine in these various situations.”

He likes to keep his work looking rough and spontaneous, which he achieves in about two to five minutes. After getting a rough of just how he wants a cartoon to look he projects the final sketch with a lamp on to 100 per cent cotton illustration board. The finished piece is created using special dyes where there is little room for error.

He has a book of his favorite rejects from Playboy called Unpublished Sneyd, which will also be available at Fan Expo. For those who are already fans of his work there is another book called Preliminaries, where you can see the sequence of the creation of a cartoon. His original cartoons, suitable for framing, typically start at around $10,000.

He is a big fan of all the other Playboy cartoonists many of whom have died in recent years. One Playboy cartoonist still lives and works up in Orillia, drawing his “lovely ladies” after 40 years. You may not be fond of the publication, but the talent and longevity of artists like Doug Sneyd cannot be denied. The National Fan Expo takes place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this weekend.