With today’s launch of “Freshly Squeezed,” cartoonist Ed Stein’s new foray into the funny pages, Denver Post readers can debate this question: Does comic-strip art imitate life, or is it the other way around?
For Stein, it is a bit of both.
“Part of this strip is based on reality, and part of it is straight from my imagination,” said Stein, 63, whose comic is a humorous look at a three-generation family living under the same roof.
Stein, who spent 31 years as The Rocky Mountain News’ editorial cartoonist before the paper folded in 2009, said the idea for “Freshly Squeezed” percolated for nearly 20 years.
“My mom had died, and one day my dad called me up and said he was moving to Denver,” Stein recalled. “I said, ‘Great, do it,’ then hung up the phone and said, ‘Oh my God.’ My dad never really wanted to live with us but he sort of attached his life to ours for a while before developing a life of his own.”
That gave Stein an idea.
“I thought the situation was fertile ground for a comic strip and started taking notes,” he said. “It was part reality and part imagination on how it would be if my parents had moved in with us.”
While the strip never took wing, Stein, who lives in the University Park neighborhood, did start a one-panel cartoon called “Denver Square.” It ran for 12 years.
But Stein never discarded his notes for the original comic strip. Post-Rocky, he revisited those workbooks, penned new material with a topical spin, and pitched “Freshly Squeezed” to United Media.
The syndicate signed him right away. “It’s been a lifelong dream,” Stein said. “Now I just have to do it.”
The strip addresses some timely topics, notably the economic squeeze. The cartoon is populated by married couple Liz and Sam, their preteen son, and Liz’s parents, who show up at their house one day in a moving van.
Stein isn’t the first editorial cartoonist to pen comic strips.
The late Jeff MacNelly, who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his editorial cartoons, created the hit comics “Shoe” and “Pluggers.” Doug Marlette, another Pulitzer winner, had “Kudzu.” Yet another Pulitzer honoree, Jim Borgman, illustrates the hit strip “Zits,” which runs in The Post.
“I’d wanted to be a cartoonist since I was a little kid, but you grow up and say it’s not practical,” said Stein, who has a degree in graphic arts from the University of Denver. “So this is very satisfying.”
William Porter: 303-954-1877 or wporter@denverpost.com
