Meet Jenny Campbell

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jenny Campbell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jenny, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
My work ethic absolutely came from my parents. Our folks both followed their dreams and alternately struggled and succeeded, but they never considered doing anything else because they were doing what they loved. And a kid notices that. When they were struggling, they worked harder, A kid notices that, too. My mom was an artist and a writer, and while she made her living writing, the artwork was always her passion, and she pursued it as another love. My father was a writer, a journalist, and he was so good and so talented. I watched both my folks work hard at their crafts and play hard with us and with their friends. We grew up knowing that following your dreams and doing what you love and working hard at it was SO worth it. So I started out as a writer, a journalist like my dad. But I always drew on the side. When it was apparent that I tended to be more cartoonist than fine artist like my mom, both parents hopped on that bandwagon and encouraged me. My dad had helped put himself through college in the 40s writing gags for several cartoonists, including Hank Ketchum who went on to draw “Dennis the Menace”, and Johnny Hart, who found fame with “B.C.” and the “Wizard of Id”. When I switched careers from gainfully employed newspaper reporter to struggling freelance cartoonist, I think it was probably hard for them to watch me struggle, but all they showed me was their pride that I was following my dream and working hard at it.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve been a freelance cartoonist for more than 35 years, and while I started scrabbling for work wherever I could find it, I eventually found a niche in children’s illustration, and worked for years illustrating children’s textbooks and contributing to magazines like Highlights for Children and Weekly Reader. In 2000, life took a turn and within a year of each other, my first picture book was published, “Lazy Daisy”; and I launched a daily and Sunday cartoon strip about seniors, distributed by Creators Syndicate in LA (“Flo & Friends”). My cartoon strip partner at the time, John Gibel, and I worked on the strip together until 2005, when John died suddenly and I inherited the strip. I’ve been writing it and drawing it myself ever since. These days, I have more than 25 children’s books to my credit, and my strip continues to run in about 35 papers across the country. I’d love to have more papers, but such is the lot of a cartoonist who gets syndicated just as newspapers are dying or down-sizing. Still, I have more than 35,000 daily followers online and I get awesome fan mail.
Another passion of mine is animal welfare, and about 22 years ago, I started doing pro bono cartoons for our local humane society, Rescue Village. In addition to newsletters, fund-raising appeals, T-shirt designs, event invitations, and several murals, my work there introduced me to groups nationwide. And I’ve provided artwork to both the ASPCA and Humane Society of the United States. In addition, my cartoon animals grace two different specialty license plates in the state of Ohio, plus several transport vans for groups around the country. Back at Rescue Village, two years ago, a new executive director came in and found two huge binders full of original artwork in the storeroom. He said, “What is THIS? This needs to be a book!” So he found a donor and just a few months ago, Rescue Village published “The Cartoons of Rescue Village/20 Years of Love and Lifesaving Through the Eyes of Cartoonist Jenny Campbell”. The book is a beautiful hardcover coffee table book and every dime of its proceeds go back to the shelter, so it’s allowing me to give a gift to my favorite charity that I would never be able to give on my own. I’m so proud of it.
So, that’s what I do… and in addition to all of the above, the most fun I have is drawing ridiculous cartoons of cats and dogs and pigs and hundreds of other animals, selling my designs on T-shirts and cards and small prints, and posting them on social media. I just closed down my online shop and am exploring new options right now, focusing on updating my website to sell straight from that site. I call this part of what I do my “retirement plan”, because I plan to be drawing as long as I can still hold a pen.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Luckily for me, I was born with a talent for drawing (and writing), and I had the desire to do both from an early age. And coming from a family where it was encouraged to do what you love, having that skill to draw always gnawed at me, even when I was pursuing journalism as a career early on. And when, at 32, I decided to quit my job and become a freelance cartoonist (without having any idea what that would mean), I told everyone I wanted to give it a shot while I was old enough to have some experience under my belt, but still young enough to naively think I could do it. And, for me, it worked out! In those early years, I supplemented my income from time to time working in a video store, running the Xerox room at a small college and writing occasional freelance travel articles. I think the things that were most impactful in my early journey (and beyond), besides my own will to succeed, was to surround myself with a strong support system. People who believed in me even when I didn’t. I had so many friends and family SO behind me, that whenever I’d lose faith and say, “I think it’s time for me to go get a real job”, ten people answered with “You HAVE a real job!” So my best advice for folks who are on their own scary journey is: surround yourself with family and friends who back what you’re doing and believe in you; avoid the doubters and the pessimists. That’s the best gift you can give yourself.
Also, join a group!!! When I started volunteering at the animal shelter, they SO loved what I was doing for them that it became my office away from the office. Every time I walked in that door, I was walking into a hug, and I still am! I also joined my first professional organization: the National Cartoonists Society, and every time I went to a meeting or a convention, I found a sea of folks in the same boat I was in. There were the stars: syndicated cartoonists with 1000 newspapers who were living the life of Riley. But for every one of those, there were 100 more scratching their way to a living like I was, and they were a HUGE source of information and comfort for me.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
The question about a book having an impact on me strikes a chord, but not because there’s any one book that influenced me. Rather, I found inspiration in quotes, words of wisdom… basically any snippet that came to me at a fortuitous time, to pick me up and keep me going. Even today, I have scrawled scraps of paper stuck to my bulletin board, tucked under my mousepad, taped to my window…
“Leap, and the net will appear” (“The Artist’s Way”, Julie Cameron);
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do” and “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” and “Do one thing every day that scares you”: all from Eleanor Roosevelt;
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you have, the more you use.” Maya Angelou;

I was reading once about someone I admire (although I can’t remember who now), who said there was a jug on her desk, and whenever something GOOD happened, or someone said something really positive, or something made her feel like she was on the right track, she jotted it down on a scrap of paper and tossed it into the jar. And when she was suffering bouts of insecurity, she sat on the floor and read them.

I now have a jar like that on my drawing table. It’s full.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
All photos (including my mugshot) were taken by Amy Sancetta

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