Some of the cartoons I have done over the years have drawn heat (a women's rights group once absconded with many bundles of New Times papers and held them hostage with the demand that I be fired). Here's another one: in the early eighties, I read in the Republic that the Yuma Chamber of Commerce was paying a professional ad agency thousands of dollars to come up with new slogans for Yuma and I thought, Hell, I'll do a whole bunch for free:
I whipped out a whole slew of slogans, but I think this is my favorite (above). Here's the entire article as it appeared in New Times:
After this appeared, one of the Yuma newspapers came out with a front page article lambasting me for my "lame attempt at humor," sighting someone from Phoenix, who was quoted as saying, "He's not funny. No one here is laughing." A Yuma talk radio program called me for an ambush interview late one night. Fortunately for me, Wonderful Russ was visiting and I just said, "I think you need to talk to my lawyer, Wonderful Russ," and I handed the phone to Russ. The radio guy would say things like, "This is an outrage! It's simply not true. It's irresponsible journalism!" And Russ would say things like, "Sir, do you want to go to court and lose your house? We can prove in a court of law that Yuma is the armpit of the United States."
This went on for a half hour. We laughed until we cried. I sorely wish I had a recording of that flustered radio jock trying to outwit the best ad-libber this country has ever produced.
"No, you heard me sir, we have photographs and the statistics to prove it."
—Wonderful Russ
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