Chatting with Sam Henderson

by Edward Carey

September 2008

Sam Henderson has been working on the comic strips “Magic Whistle” and
“Scene But Not Heard” since 1993. “The Magic Whistle” started off as a self-
published strip, collected into books by Henderson, and now published by Alternative
Comics. “Scene But Not Heard” is Nickelodeon Magazine’s longest-running comic
strip, a wordless strip about two characters that are not
easily described.

“I never had names for the characters, and I'm not even
sure of the species of the animal character. When I
discuss the strips with my editors, we usually refer to
them as ‘man and bear,’” said Henderson.

Like so many cartoonists, Henderson started out doing

self-published mini-comics, but was creating them at the
age of twelve in his hometown of Woodstock, NY. He
published a book called “Captain Spaz” with friend
Bobby Weiss up until he left for New York City to go to
the School of Visual Arts. They published a few issues
after he left, but then lost touch.
Man and Bear from “Scene But
During high school, they distributed comics through a Not Heard”
kind-of “phantom network” which included “Small Press
Comics Explosion,” a nationwide magazine distributed through comic shops that
specialized in showcasing and exposing small press comic books and fanzines.

“They had other people in high school doing zines, so we’d trade with some of them.
They were mostly superhero parodies, but I think everybody outgrew that
eventually,” said Henderson.

He liked superheroes, but was more influenced by “Mad” magazine and underground
comics like Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton.

“There was a store nearby where the person would sell underground comics to
minors,” said Henderson.

Henderson also had an affinity for Tex Avery cartoons and “Peanuts.” As an
elementary school student, he borrowed so many “Peanuts” books from the library
that they initiated a rule that you could only take out 3 books at a time.
 He created a character in college called Monroe
Simmons, what he liked to call “a hypothetical
autobiography.” “I guess Monroe Simmons is/was
similar in the same way Charlie Brown was like
Charles Schulz. I had him working at ‘an office’
without ever saying what he actually did. In some of
the earlier strips he was an aspiring cartoonist but I
eventually lost that. There never was a girl at the
office to have a crush on like in some of the strips,”
said Henderson.

The office Henderson worked at in real life was at

Latest issue of “Magic Whistle”
The Daily Freeman in Kingston, NY, where he
worked in the composing room back in 1989 between
semesters at the School of Visual Arts. He used x-acto
blades and border tape to cut and paste pages and ads,
putting together the layout of the paper, and shooting
stats of pictures, all of which is now done on
computers with programs like Quark and Photoshop.

“I learned more that summer than I did all four years at art school, even though it’s
now obsolete. What I learned about was what went into production of a publication. I
don't think the composing room even existed a few years after I left,” said Henderson.

He began doing “Magic Whistle” as a mini-comic in 1993 and Alternative Comics

took over publication of the books in ’98, deciding “that it would be a regular comic
sold in stores, a real quote-unquote comic with color covers and slicker paper.”
Alternative Comics was founded by Jeff Mason, a criminal defense attorney in
Gainesville, Florida.

Even after 15 years, Henderson never tires of the strip because he’s given the freedom
to work at his own pace and come up with new ideas.

“If I do try something else, that’s just the next issue of ‘Magic Whistle.’ It’s just
whatever I feel like doing and once I have enough for an issue, a new issue comes out
about every year or so. Jeff Mason is pretty generous in that department, but the only
thing is, I do all the production work myself. It’s a pretty good trade-off, because he
publishes a lot of the work kind of sight unseen. He also has a lot of enthusiasm for
comics and publishes a lot of stuff that otherwise doesn’t get seen. He’s published
people like James Kochalka and Dean Haspiel, who have gone on to bigger and better
things,” said Henderson.
He plans to go back to 32-page issues so that he’s “not
forgotten about.”
“Initially, I thought they'd give me more credibility in the
book world, but they've actually kept me out of the public
eye since they come out less often. So, when I do a bad
issue (like when you finally get someone to watch a TV
show and they end up seeing the worst one, reaffirming
the negative impression they've always had) another one
will come along,” said Henderson.

In 2000, Henderson found work in animation, writing

scripts and doing storyboards for “Spongebob
Squarepants.”

“I went to college with a guy who was the creative

director for ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ and he had been
following my work since then, even though we had been
out of touch. He was a big fan of “Magic Whistle,” so he First issue of “Magic Whistle”
hired me to work on [“Spongebob”] for a few months.
The final animation was done in Korea and it required
sending finished drawings for the Korean animators to work from,” said Henderson.

When asked how doing storyboards differed from drawing comics, Henderson said it
was hard to imitate someone else’s style.

“Doing something like a licensed property forces you to imitate somebody else’s
style, which is kind of harder for me. I equate it with, I suppose Robert Crumb had a
ghost writer and the strips had to look exactly like he had done them. I believe you
can do stick figures and as long as everything is placed right and recognizable that’s
fine, but a lot of people in animation disagree,” said Henderson.

Henderson has also drawn Hanna Barbera characters for DC, like Yogi Bear and The
Jetsons, after the Hanna Barbera library was acquired by the Cartoon Network.

“Cartoons from the past 40 years or so, I haven’t been into. I used to rush home every
day, up until high school, to watch Warner Bros. cartoons,” said Henderson.

He almost got a job with Adult Swim and even wrote a spec script for “Sealab 2021.”
“Apparently, I didn’t work there. Maybe I don’t get stoned as much as then. Also,
they tried to keep as low budget as possible. I met some of the people who worked on
the shows there. They have crews of about four or five people. Usually, with shows
it’s a crew of about 50 people,” said Henderson.

As Henderson said, a crew usually “consists of writers, storyboard artists, traffic

coordinators, the creators, and their assistants. The animation is done in Korea or
other countries where the standard of living is such that $5-10/hr is middle-class.”
 He likes some of the Adult Swim cartoons, but “gratuitous violence in and of itself as
a joke has never done much for me. I like some of their stuff, like redubbing some of
their old cartoons. They should have done fewer episodes than they actually did.”

When he’s not working on “Magic Whistle” or “Scene But Not Heard,” he does
freelance work as well, though many of the venues where he obtained work are not
around
From “Sceneanymore.
But Not Heard”

“Sometimes it's hard to make ends meet so I have to have a temp job to make ends
meet. I just finished illustrating a book of poems based on SAT words for a subsidiary
of Highlights and will have a 'Scene But Not Heard' collection, both of which are
coming out next year,” said Henderson.

from “Scene But Not Heard”