Pickles

We have family in town for my younger brother's wedding. Last night my father was telling stories and he brought up the comic writer Brian Crane. Brian grew up five doors down from my dad in San Leandro, California. They attended the same ward.

My dad said that when he was a boy he received a projector for Christmas. It had a slide, light and mirror. He said he would place items on the slide and project them onto a door and use a piece of paper to trace the objects. Evidently Crane would come over to the house and take place in this activity. My dad said one of the first places Crane began to learn to draw was at his house, with his projector, on his bedroom door.

Now a syndicated cartoonist, Crane won the award for Best Newspaper Comic Strip for Pickles at the National Cartoonists Society Awards ceremony, held on May 25, 2002.