Today, Earth Day 2025, is the 30th anniversary of the first appearance of Chester the Crab.
I never planned this!
In 1995, I had just gotten my dream job of drawing five political cartoons a week for an American newspaper. THAT was my career goal. I had absorbed political cartoons in collected editions at the public library as a kid, I cut out my favorites and put them in a scrapbook, I drew them for the high school newspaper. And now, just five years out of college, I had joined the political smart aleck fraternity!!!
The Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, had already encouraged my creativity for three years. My reporting assignments were fascinating (the archaeological search for Bacon’s Vault in Williamsburg!), my editors had just the right guiding touch, and the newsroom was full of smart, collaborative people. We were on the small end of the national chain of Chicago Tribune newspapers, but we punched well above our weight, as the old boxing saying goes. I was happy to add to that energy by contributing political cartoons on state and local issues.
And then something else happened. A door that I wasn’t looking for swung open.
The editors who were so supportive of my cartooning asked me to pitch in something fun for kids to the week-long coverage they planned for the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. I myself was a kid when the first years of Earth Day promoted environmental awareness in the 1970s; the annual event had a big impact on my own thinking about conservation and science. So now, as a new father, I gladly agreed to pitch in to the newspaper’s anniversary coverage in 1995.
An educational comic strip for kids needs a narrator, right? I drafted some ideas. I thought the turtle with the recycling triangle of arrows on his shell was pretty clever! I love turtles! But the editors urged me to think of a mascot that was more local, more unique. LOCAL was our bread and butter at the Daily Press. I am thankful they pushed me to think harder and reach higher.
Chesapeake Bay blue crabs had been an environmental symbol in eastern Virginia for several decades. Over-fishing and pesticide runoff from farms in Virginia and Maryland had caused the blue crab population to decline badly. But there was a sense of hope in 1995: serious environmental efforts were underway to revive this fascinating species. The timing for me was right. A Chesapeake Bay blue crab would make a great MC for a 25th anniversary celebration of Earth Day.
Chester got four episodes in that week’s paper to talk about environmental history and science. I had to work and make creative choices quickly (I was still drawing the daily political cartoons!), and I was working in sharp pain on the living room floor, drawing while on my belly (I had thrown my back out playing baseball with Daily Press friends!). Would Chester be crabby? No, making him grumpy would be too cliché; instead, I gave him my own cheerful and curious voice – that would make it easier to write him. Would Chester have the subtle and gorgeous coloring of a real blue crab? No, that would take too long to color, and I wouldn’t be able to imitate how beautiful blue crabs are anyway, so FLAT TEAL IT WAS! I love teal.
The Earth Day content came out. It all made a big splash. And we caught grownups reading and talking about Chester the Crab’s part of the coverage. It felt good to contribute something fun and unique.
But there were no plans to continue Chester as an educational comic. It was just an Earth Day 1995 assignment.
I ran through the open door. Why??? I already had my dream job! Sure, I devoured comic books. And I loved “Peanuts” like most of the kids in my generation did. But I had accepted in high school that I’d never draw Batman (skyscrapers are very, very boring to draw), and my attempt at selling a funny comic strip in the early 1990s – pizza delivery guy “Johnny Uh-Oh!” – didn’t go anywhere. Why would I keep drawing a comic strip starring Chester?
Because he’s pretty fun to hang out with. The character gave me a place to be my full self. He could be quirky and corny and curious. At first the follow-up episodes were haphazard. One was a full page of Chester giving parents advice on how to help their children behave and learn at a live theater performance! Another episode explained how a particular stock market thingy works! In 1997, I convinced the editors to give Chester a regular, weekly space, and for three years that was my life: drawing five political cartoons a week for the grownups and one Chester goof lesson for anyone who wanted to learn which came first, crunchy or creamy peanut butter.
The full switchover came in 1999, when the editors asked Chester to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Williamsburg, with him narrating a big tabloid section of history. That was too much fun for me, a history major. I gave up the political cartoons about new historical events so I could focus on drawing Chester episodes about historical politics. These Chester episodes ran five days a week during the school year and covered a quarter of a newspaper page! In 2003, the gracious Daily Press leaders agreed that I could reprint these episodes in book form, and Chester Comix LLC was born.
I’ve learned a lot of things from Chester in the past 30 years. I hope you have, too.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Author's Purpose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
