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A looong time ago, a fellow named Johnny Clitf of Johnny and the Makebelieves gave me a call (back in the days when people actually called each other on the phone instead of texting) and asked if I’d be interested in creating the cover for his band’s upcoming CD, Good Times Rock-n-Roll Club. I said sure. What made this assignment different from most of the work I’d been getting was that John had a VERY specific image in mind: a man throwing a tiger out a window. He described it as something like a waking vision he’d had. My job was to take that strange, vivid image and somehow bring it to life. So I gave it my best shot. Years later, Johnny reissued the album as a vinyl pressing, giving the tiger—and the guy throwing it out the window—a second life.
 This cartoon is a bit of an inside joke. Since the digital revolution, comic artists have steadily shifted toward creating their work on computers and tablets. The change makes sense for many reasons: digital tools can speed up the creative process, and programs like Photoshop make it easy to revise or correct mistakes. Still, a small and ever-shrinking group of cartoonists continues to work the old-fashioned way, using brushes, ink, paper, and other traditional tools of the trade. We're a dying breed—perhaps even on the verge of extinction.
 What I enjoy most when I receive a private commission is latitude. By that I mean the commissioner gives me a pretty free hand in determining the elements used in the art being commissioned. In this example, long-time collector Benno Rothchild suggested I create a piece featuring a character who first appeared in comics in 1939: The Spirit. A great character who still has an ardent following, the series was renowned for, among many other things, the clever opening splash page of each story, which often incorporated the lettering into its design. I'm a lover of movie posters from the 1930s and '40s—especially the serials that played in theaters during those years—so I decided to make The Spirit a star of the silver screen.
  The Farmacy is a family owned, independent, and full-service natural foods grocery store in Athens, Ohio.
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BLOGaboutPlunkett-fan Jim Harris interviewing Sandy about past and present projects. Archives
July 2026
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