McCoy Has Many 'Toons on His Plate

By: Dave Astor When Glenn McCoy won two awards in late May, it added to his reputation for tackling various kinds of cartooning with great skill.

McCoy received National Cartoonists Society prizes for best comic strip ("The Duplex") and best greeting cards. Since the mid-1990s, by his count, McCoy has won seven NCS awards in four separate categories - also including editorial cartooning and magazine work.

But even that doesn't quite tell the full story of how much McCoy has on his plate. Since early May , Glenn and his brother Gary have been co-creating "The Flying McCoys" comic panel for Universal Press Syndicate - which also distributes "The Duplex" and Glenn's Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat editorial cartoons. In addition, Glenn is illustrating a children's book and working on a pilot for a computer-animated TV show (Wedgies) that might appear on the Disney Channel.

"I guess I just draw quickly," said McCoy, 39, who's also busy being the father of two young children.

"The Flying McCoys" took off quickly, with more than 90 newspapers after a month of syndication. One client is the London Daily Mail, which asked McCoy if he could do some panels specifically for that paper.

How does McCoy get into British-humor mode? "I drink a lot of tea," he quipped. "But it's iced tea, so I don't know how much that helps me." The cartoonist also tries to get ideas by looking at British Web sites. "I'm reading way too much about David Beckham," said McCoy, referring to the British soccer star.

McCoy was initially going to do the new comic-panel feature himself. "But I got the idea to bring Gary on board," McCoy said of his older brother, who's also had a wide-ranging cartooning career. "It adds variety, because we have two different senses of humor."

Glenn and Gary work separately on "The Flying McCoys" -- alternating panels every other day. But they do consult with each other. "I'll go to his house to run a punch line by him," said Glenn, who lives close to Gary in Belleville, a southwestern Illinois town that's not too far from St. Louis.

"The Flying McCoys" is already approaching the just-over-100-newspaper list of "The Duplex," which launched in 1993. But the latter comic has a strong following of fans who enjoy keeping tabs on the "ultra-masculine" household of Eno and his dog Fang. Separated by a "four-inch slab of drywall" in the strip's duplex is the "ultra-feminine" household of Gina and her poodle Mitzi.

Then there are the five editorial cartoons McCoy draws each week for the News-Democrat - with one or two on local topics and the rest for syndication.

McCoy is part of a relatively small group of conservative editorial cartoonists, which he said makes it easier to come up with ideas different than those of his peers. But there's a disadvantage to sharing some of the political views of those in power. "Editorial cartoonists as a rule are bomb-throwers or egg-throwers," said McCoy. "When you have your team in there, it's just not as much fun for a cartoonist. I cut my teeth on the Clinton administration."

Whatever the subject, the creator uses a very "cartoony" style. "I try to have as much fun with the drawing as possible," said McCoy, who majored in fine art and graphic design at Southern Illinois University. "That's something that transfers to readers."