By STEPHEN GURR
Published in The Athens Banner-Herald, Friday, March 21, 2003
| These are great times to be Mack Williams.
As editorial cartoonist for The Red & Black, the University of Georgia's
independently-owned, student-run newspaper, Williams has plenty to lampoon
lately amid the ongoing controversy surrounding UGA's athletics program. ''Although, I hate that all this happened, because I'm a huge Bulldog fan,'' the lanky, bushy-haired 21-year-old insists. ''But yeah, it's good for me.'' Mack Williams, editorial cartoonist for The Red & Black, draws a cartoon for the next day's paper of UGA president Michael Adams and Athletic Director Vince Dooley living it up in New Orleans. Williams recently had his 500th cartoon published in The Red & Black. Jeff Blake/Staff Whether it's portraying Athletic Director Vince Dooley throwing Mardi Gras beads to UGA President Michael Adams on Bourbon Street, or a new line of ''bobble-head'' toys featuring the central characters in the Jim Harrick-Tony Cole saga, Williams has had a rich font of satirical ideas to draw on in recent weeks. Williams, a fourth-generation newspaper man whose father owns a chain of small papers in southeast Georgia, first started drawing editorial cartoons for The Red & Black in fall 1999. He graduated from an infrequent contributor to penning more than 500 editorial cartoons in the ensuing years, his style becoming more polished and refined with daily practice. ''I think that shows more than anything else that Mack comes to play everyday,'' his editorial advisor, Chris Starrs, said of the 500-toon mark. ''It's a real testament to the quality in a great quantity.'' Williams was feeling pretty good about the milestone until he read the late editorial cartooning legend Herbert L. ''Herblock'' Block drew 14,000 cartoons in 73 years. ''If that doesn't put you in your place, what will?'' Williams said. Williams, a senior in art and digital media, was afforded a chance to meet one of his biggest artistic inspirations a few years back, when his father arranged a meeting with former Red & Black cartoonist Jack Davis. Davis, whose anthropomorphic Bulldog drawings are instantly recognizable to Georgia fans, has built an illustrious career as a cartoonist for EC comics, MAD magazine and innumerable freelance jobs. ''He actually took one of my cartoons and re-drew it for me,'' Williams said. ''He said, 'you can't give up, you've got to practice. You don't get any better by sitting around and thinking about it.' '' Williams has had plenty of practice since that spring 2001 meeting, and made a few high-profile fans along the way. Both Adams and former Athens-Clarke Mayor Doc Eldridge have requested copies of his work. A personal letter from the UGA president - a frequent target of his parodies - is proudly taped to his cubicle wall at The Red & Black office, near a photograph of '80s-era TV stars David Hasselhoff and Gary Coleman (''greatest picture ever,'' Williams opines.) Williams himself is a quick-witted guy who keeps funny company, many of whom he uses to bounce ideas off. ''I keep my ears open,'' he says. ''Sometimes people will make jokes and I'll think of what they're saying and try to develop it as an idea for a cartoon.'' In the early days, Williams relied more on a cast of recurring characters, campus doofuses Freddy Freshman, Mullet Mike, and Professor Phelps. Their ''Animal House''-type shenanigans kept Williams cranking out the toons when he was thin on fresh ideas. And while he still has a special place in his heart for his characters, penning their adventures ''isn't as rewarding as (a cartoon) that makes a really good political statement,'' he said. Williams feels he's made strides as a writer and artist since the first few efforts, though he's by no means completely satisfied. ''I'm always very hard on myself,'' Williams said. ''I was looking at a book of 'Pogo' cartoons by Walt Kelly (another big influence) the other day, saying 'I'll never be as good as Walt Kelly.' " Starrs, Williams' editorial advisor, has worked with some pretty good cartoonists in his days in the newspaper biz, and ranks Williams right up there with them, particularly at his age and level of experience. ''I think he's destined to be somebody who's really going to make a mark in editorial cartooning,'' Starrs said. Realizing he won't immediately make the jump to a big-time metro paper upon graduation, Williams has modest, realistic goals. He hopes to get a job in the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network's animation department, where he worked as an intern, and pitch free-lance toons on the side to build up experience. ''Whatever I'm doing, I won't be too far from it,'' Williams said. ''Drawing is what I love. At times in college, I thought I loved a lot of things - computer science, paleontology - but it always came back to drawing.'' |
By STEVE SANDERS
Published in The Red & Black, April 17, 2003
| Stephen Burroughs settled under a fly ball Tuesday night at
Foley Field, poised to make the same kind of catch he had made dozens
of times in his tenure as Georgia State's right fielder. Then he inexplicably dropped it, and his nightmare began. "That was the worst error I've ever seen," a voice screamed at him from behind the fence only a few yards away. "You suck!" "That had to be the play of the decade," another echoed even louder. Call it blood in the water for John Nijhawan and Mack Williams -- the hecklers of Kudzu Hill. They stand at Foley Field every game, verbally punishing the visiting right fielder for nine innings. Armed with megaphones and an inch-thick stack of paper from the opposing team's media guide, Nijhawan and Williams taunt and embarrass with a passion that should be appreciated by amateurs. "Oh, we're professionals, and we do our homework," said Nijhawan, who graduated from the University in May. Several students who blanketed Kudzu Hill on Tuesday said the heckling provides entertainment at games that had previously been missing. "They're the only reason we come to the games," said senior Chris Moore, sipping Milwaukee's Best Light from a small pitcher. "Most people aren't really going to remember the game that much, just the megaphone." Nijhawan and Williams, a senior from Blackshear who voices most of his opinions through the cartoons in The Red & Black, have been teaming up since the Kentucky game late last season. The two do extensive research before every game in compiling any kind of information they can get (often personal), which adds to the victim's distraction. "Those were some quality heckles," said Burroughs, who seemed particularly affected Tuesday. "I really felt the fire when I dropped that ball. One time I forgot the count because I was listening to them, but I think it's entertaining." Panther head coach Mike Hurst didn't quite agree. "It's great that the kids can sit out there and enjoy the game," Hurst said. "But that guy with the megaphone is the most unsportsmanlike thing I've ever seen in college sports." Georgia head coach David Perno said heckling is part of the game. "I'm tired of opposing teams and coaches complaining about it," Perno said. "I think they do a great job, as long as they keep it clean." Williams and Nijhawan return to Kudzu Hill this weekend, as Florida comes to town for a three-game series beginning tomorrow night at 7. |
By Mary Katharine Ham
UGAToday.com Staff Writer
Monday, October 30, 2000
| Mack Williams faces the challenge of being funny
for 30,000 people, everyday, 5 days a week, for 15 weeks a semester. And
you thought midterms were a lot of pressure.
Williams, a sophomore and Art/Digital Media major from Blackshear, Georgia, is the editorial cartoonist for the Red & Black. He produces about 70 cartoons a semester as the sole cartoonist for the student newspaper. "It's really hard to be funny everyday," Williams said, who got his start drawing illustrations for small local papers in southeast Georgia. Williams' father owns Southfire Newspapers, a group of small newspapers in southeast Georgia. "I used to draw little illustrations for news stories he had. Not really much opinion stuff, but a lot of drawings for high school sports with high school mascots fighting," Williams said. "When I got to UGA, I saw that the Red & Black had students doing editorial cartoons and I said, 'I can do that.'" At that time, Williams was one of many unpaid contributors whose cartoons the Red & Black published. "Last year I didn't get paid. Nobody who did cartoons got paid," Williams said. "Then, the editors decided they wanted a consistent cartoonist, but they told me I'd have to do one everyday." Producing a new cartoon everyday is challenging, Williams said, but it gets easier with practice. "Most of my ideas I get from reading the newspaper. The more often you do it, the easier it comes. Now, whenever I read a news story, I automatically think, 'What's funny about this?'" The creation of one of Williams' cartoons takes place in several steps. Once he comes up with an idea for a cartoon, he first draws it as a small, thumbnail sketch, usually in one of his school notebooks. "My notebook for class is covered with doodles," he said. He then shows the first sketch to his friends to get feedback on the joke. "I know my friends will tell me if it's not funny." Depending on the kind of feedback he gets on the first sketch, the cartoon may go through several more drafts before Williams does a full-size pencil sketch and then goes over it in pen. The cartoon is then ready for publication in the Red & Black. While Williams gets a lot of positive response from Red & Black readers, several of his cartoons have caused controversy. His most recent controversial cartoon ran on September 11 and featured Bulldog quarterback Quincy Carter passing a saltshaker to another student in the Bulldog Cafe and being intercepted. The cartoon was a reference to Carter's 5-interception performance against the University of South Carolina football team during the previous weekend. After the cartoon ran, Williams received a large amount of mail accusing him of being an unfaithful Georgia fan. "I'm as far from a fair weather Georgia fan as you can get," Williams said. "But it's my job to make fun of people." Williams was also accused of being anti-Greek when he drew a cartoon which appeared on March 28, 2000 and depicted "Greek Week By Day" and "Greek Week By Night," Williams said. Some students have a problem with Williams's recurring clueless freshman caricature, Freddy Freshman. "I think some of the Freddy Freshman cartoons are funny," freshman Amy Waldman said of the recurring freshman caricature. "But I don't think we're that naive. We're not that dumb." Whether negative or positive, Williams' cartoons have made an impression on the University community. "There's truth behind all his extremes," said senior Tara Rosenheck. "I like that he incorporates sensitive campus issues and makes them funny." Williams has even created a website, which displays all of the cartoons he has ever drawn for the Red & Black and a collection of cartoons which were not published for various reasons. "I probably spend as much time everyday working on the website as I do on the cartoons for the paper," Williams said. "It's hard work keeping it updated." At its high point, the website was getting between 70 and 100 visitors a day, Williams said. The website provides Williams with another way to get feedback on his cartoons. "There's a form on the site that you can e-mail to me, and about 95 percent of the response I get from that is positive," Williams said. "I think they're funny," said sophomore, Adriana Dewulf, of Williams' cartoons. "They bring to light a lot of the little jokes around the University." "They make me chuckle," senior Angie Dewitt said. "It makes me feel good to know that people notice and appreciate the amount of effort I put into what I'm doing," Williams said. "But I love getting negative response too." Being an editorial cartoonist is about creating a response to your work, said Williams. "Whether (readers) like it or don't like it, if it gets them thinking, that's what matters."
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