Automotive cartooning gets overlooked a lot. There is a good chunk out there that deserves the neglect but not all. It's like underground comix; you have to weed through a bunch of junk to find the good stuff. Some of that good stuff could be found in a little magazine that managed to stay alive for around 30 years.
Not too many are aware of CARtoons except for the motorheads. It self-proclaimed itself as The Magazine of Automotive Humor. My brother, a gearhead, had a few copies that as a kid I smuggled out of his bedroom. I didn't share my brother's automotive interests but I enjoyed the funny books and CARtoons was that. The humor was often pretty corny but the pure energy some of the artists put down on paper held the greatest appeal for me.
One of the best cartoonists was Shawn Kerri. I loved how her (yes, HER!) characters flowed in their movements. Just look at the ENERGY in the drawings below. It really looks like she was having fun. This was a revelation of sorts for me in the mid-1980s. After Harvey Comics folded the newsstands offered only the superhero and Archie comics. The superheroes were a chore to look at (i.e. depressing and glum) and Archie was just bland. The exception were the Archie digests which had the occassional Bob Montana reprints that I liked. Anyhow, when I saw Shawn's cartoons in this car humor magazine it made me think you can put something of yourself into your work. What I think Shawn put into her work wasn't so much an interest in cars but just a wild spirit that couldn't be tamed. I read later that she really did have a wild side that she expressed with the punk rock crowd and bands. The downside is she let that lifestyle take her life when she was only in her 30s.
Her style kinda reminds me of another cartoonist, Howard Nostrand. What do you think?
