Charles Rodrigues (September 29, 1926 – June 14, 2004) was an American cartoonist perhaps best known as a contributor to ''
National Lampoon''.
Rodrigues was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts; his father came from Madeira, Portugal and his mother was a local woman of Portuguese descent. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he read in ''Writer's Digest'' that a magazine entitled ''Country Gentleman'' was paying forty dollars for cartoons - then a large sum of money – and determined to become a cartoonist. With support from the
G.I. Bill
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...
, he went to New York City to attend the Cartoonist and Illustrators School (now the
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.
History
This school was started by ...
). He began peddling his cartoons around 1950, selling at first to low-grade girlie magazines, then to ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'', to which he would contribute continually for many years. From the 1950s onward he worked for many magazines of many different kinds, including ''
Esquire'', ''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
'', a Catholic publication called ''The Critic'',
Ray and Joe: The Story of a Dead Man and His Friend, and Other Classic Comics by Charles Rodrigues
', Bob Fingerman
Bob Fingerman (born August 25, 1964) is an American comic book writer/artist born in Queens, New York, who is best known for his comic series ''Minimum Wage'' (Fantagraphics Books).
Career
In 1984, while still a student at New York City’s Scho ...
and Gary Groth
Gary Groth (born September 18, 1954) is an American comic book editor, publisher and critic. He is editor-in-chief of ''The Comics Journal'', a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books, and founder of the Harvey Awards.
Early life
Groth is the son of ...
, eds., Fantagraphics Books, 2013, pp. 179–181 and
Paul Krassner
Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...
's ''
The Realist
''The Realist'' was a Humor magazine, magazine of "social-political-religious criticism and satire", intended as a hybrid of a grown-ups version of Mad (magazine), ''Mad'' and Lyle Stuart's anti-censorship monthly ''The Independent.'' Edited and ...
''.
[''Jumping Up and Down on the Roof, Throwing Bags of Water on People: Cartoons & Interviews from Six of America's Favorite Cartoonists'', Mark Jacobs, Doubleday Dolphin, 1980, pp. 77–99. (Jacobs took the title of his book from Rodrigues's remarks. The other five cartoonists interviewed were ]Sam Gross
Sam Gross (born August 7, 1933) is an American cartoonist, specializing in single-panel cartoons.
History
Born in Bronx, New York City, Gross was the son of Max and Sophie, who were Jewish immigrants to America. His mother was born in Iași, ...
, J. B. Handelsman
J.B. Handelsman (February 5, 1922 – June 20, 2007) was a New York-born cartoonist and illustrator whose work appeared for decades in ''The New Yorker'', ''Punch'', ''Playboy'', and other United States and British publications. His sister was A ...
, B. Kliban
Bernard "Hap" Kliban (January 1, 1935 – August 12, 1990) was an American cartoonist.
Early life and education
Born in Norwalk, Connecticut, Kliban studied at the Pratt Institute and Cooper Union but "flunked out". He spent time painting ...
, Brian Savage and Gahan Wilson
Gahan Allen Wilson (February 18, 1930 – November 21, 2019) was an American author, cartoonist and illustrator known for his cartoons depicting horror-fantasy situations.
Biography
Wilson was born in Evanston, Illinois, and was inspired by th ...
.)
He began contributing to the ''
National Lampoon'' as of its first issue in April 1970, and continued to do so until 1993. Although his politics differed sharply from those of the ''Lampoons staff, the magazine provided a wide outlet for his sense of humor. Art director
Michael Gross once said of him:
ok at Charles Rodrigues. Almost nobody is as tasteless as Rodrigues can be. The man would deliver stuff that we would just cringe at. His first piece was the atrocious – and hilarious – "Hire the Handicapped".... In later years, I found out that he's a conservative, fairly religious, Portuguese artist who really thought we were awful people. aughterHe hated our politics, but he was able to transcend that... so I could never figure out what his attitude was.[Fingerman and Groth, p. 4]
In a collection of interviews with various cartoonists, Mark Jacobs wrote:
He works at night, which is fitting, since some of his best cartoons deal with the dark side of the psyche. A classic black humorist, he rummages around in violence, insanity, perversion, bigotry and scatology, looking for what he needs to create the typical Rodrigues effect: wild laughter with a cringe of repulsion.
In the same book, Rodrigues told Jacobs:
People look upon cartoonists as a bunch of screwballs. They expect you to be on the roof, jumping up and down, throwing bags of water on people. This helps me to get away with murder in my conversation. I can say outrageous things to people. They expect it of me.
He was also a long-time contributor to ''
Stereo Review
''Sound & Vision'' is an American magazine, purchased by AVTech Media Ltd. (UK) in March 2018, covering home theater, audio, video and multimedia consumer products. Before 2000, it had been published for most of its history as ''Stereo Review''. ...
'', beginning with its first issue in 1958, and created three comic features for the
Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate
Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media S ...
: ''Eggs Benedict'', ''Casey the Cop'' and the daily panel ''Charlie''.
Charles Rodrigues died on June 14, 2004, at the age of 77. He was survived by his wife Lorraine and daughters Judith and Ann.
Two collections of Rodrigues's work were published during his lifetime:
''Spitting on the Sheriff and Other Diversions'' (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1966), which consists of cartoons from various men's magazines, and ''Total Harmonic Distortion'' (Perfectbound Press, 1988), which reprints his work from ''Stereo Review''. He also drew cartoons for ''
Defending the Undefendable'' (Fleet Press, 1976), a discourse by libertarian economist
Walter Block
Walter Edward Block (born August 21, 1941) is an American Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He currently holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola Universit ...
. In 2013,
Fantagraphics Books published ''Ray and Joe: The Story of a Dead Man and His Friend, and Other Classic Comics'', a collection of his pages from ''National Lampoon''.
In late 2015, Fantagraphics published a second collection, ''Gag on This: The Scrofulous Cartoons of Charles Rodrigues'', which collects gag cartoons from the ''Lampoon''.
''Gag on This: The Scrofulous Cartoons of Charles Rodrigues''
/ref>
Books
* ''Spitting On The Sheriff And Other Diversions: Delicious Black Humor By Charles Rodrigues'' (Fawcett pb, 1966)
* ''Total Harmonic Distortion: Cartoons From Stereo Review by Charles Rodrigues'' (Perfectbound Press tpb, 1988)
* ''Ray And Joe: The Story Of A Man And His Dead Friend And Other Classic Comics by Charles Rodrigues'' (Fantagraphics hc, 2013)
* ''Gag On This: The Scrofulous Cartoons Of Charles Rodrigues'' (Fantagraphics hc, 2015)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodrigues, Charles
1926 births
2004 deaths
National Lampoon people
American cartoonists
Playboy cartoonists