University Daily Kansan, July 10, 1985
Page 7
Skill began early
Grad turned doodles into career for Mad
By Carol Stephenson Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
As a child, Paul Coker Jr., sat around drawing cartoons. In those days, the Lawrence boy never said he his doodling would turn into a career.
"I didn't consider myself talented," Coker, 12 Terrace Road, said Monday. "I only had a modest amount of skill in art."
But his career as a cartoonist led him from his home to New York, where he dipped his pen into the many facets of artistry, drawing for everything from magazines to television.
While growing up, Coker said, he had a typical grade school education in art. But his skill in art continued to grow, and he began drawing for school publications.
After graduating from the University of Kansas in 1951 with a degree in line arts in drawing and painting, she worked with visual training aids.
John Lechliter/KANSAN
After he left the Navy in 1853, Coker went to work for television station WHB in Kansas City, Mo. Originally, WHB had a television program called KMBCTV. Cocker worked doing whatever artistic work was needed.
For Coker, that was the beginning of a career with Mad that has lasted about 26 years and continues today.
New York is the place to go for a lucrative art career, says Paul Coker Jr. But Coker, 2120 Terrace Road, draws illustrations for Mad magazine and other publications from his Lawrence home.
“It's an exercise in drawing which I enjoy,” Coker said, “but it's not particularly creative.”
From television, Coker became one of the first artists hired for contemporary drawings for Hallmark Cards Corp. in Kansas City, Mo., in 1955. While working for Hallmark, she free lancing in New York in 1957.
In New York, Coker met an old Koul friend, Thiil Hahn. Hahn was one of the original writers for the TV comedy series *Saturday Night Live*, which written a script and along with it.
ustrations by Coker, he sold it to Mad magazine.
Coker writes a series of cartoons called "Horrifying Clices." He said National Lampoon magazine did a parody of Mad magazine and said Coker's cartoons weren't funny and were much too conservative.
"Mad magazine is very conservative in the sense of not using swear words, no nudity and an unadventurous editorial policy," he said.
Besides drawing for Mad, Coker has drawn illustrations for television specials such as "Frosty the Snowman," "Rudolph the Ref-soned Reindeer" and "Here Comes Peter Cottontail."
Through the years, Coker said, he has made valuable contacts in New York, so he no longer has to take his portfolio from door to door. Instead he sits back in his Lawrence home, where he returned 12 years ago to take care of his parents, and waits for the phone to ring.
"Those contacts are the reason I can live in an obscure place like Lawrence and still make a living," he said.
But Coker does lend his talent to Lawrence. About once a year he draws a series of cartoons for the Kansas Alumni magazine, a tabled published by the Kansas Alumni Association.
Dan Reeder, editor of Kansas Alumni, described Coker's drawings as instantly recognizable and amusing, and often hilarious.
"He is able to capture enormous emotion, action and intuitive communication in incredibly few lines." Reeder said.
Coker said a student shouldn't even consider living in a city the size of Lawrence and expect to make it
Protester found not guilty of trespass charge
Staff Reporter
By Shawn Aday
Warren R. Frerichs, 1329 Ohio St,
one of 56 anti-apartheid protesters
arrested in May at the University of
Kansas, was found not guilty on a
technicality Monday in Douglas
County District Court.
Testimony from a 1½-hour trial revealed that the assistant director of the KU Police Department, who signed the criminal complaint against Frerichs, had not identified the police officer at the time of the arrest.
Therefore, Associate District Judge Jean Shepherd rulied that the state's charge of misdemeanor criminal trespass had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Frerichs and Mark T. Parker, Lawrence, were the only two protesters who had to appear in district court of the remaining protesters, 36 will appear in Lawrence Municipal Court Thursday and Friday and the others already have pleaded no contest to misdemeanor criminal trespass charges.
Only Frerichs and Parker were scheduled for trial in district court because they refused to provide identification after their arrests.
Minutes after the verdict, Frerichs a 25-year-old former KU student, holding his arms in restraining him. He said, "I am not even believing it yet."
Frières and three other people on May 9 entered the office of Chancellor Gene A. Budig to protest investments of the Kansas University Endowment Association in companies doing business in South Africa That country practices a free-market economy apartheid. The protesters sat on the floor of the chancellor's office and refused to move.
Court testimony indicated that the first official to approach the four protesters the day of the arrest was Dylan Sullivan, a resident affairs. Amber identified
himself and asked them to leave. He later warned them that they were subject to arrest for criminal trespass.
But the arrests were made later under the direction of Capt Ralph Oliver, assistant director of the KU Police Department.
department's baseball cap, which had a badge on it.
He said he was not wearing a uniform that day and his only idem is the one he had for work.
Shepard said that the state's charges would have been proven if the prosecution had placed Amber's complaint along with Oliver's name.
The trial for Parker has been continued until Aug. 29. He was arrested May 9 at Youngberg Hall, which houses the Endowment Association.
Oliver warned the protesters three times that they would be arrested if they did not leave, but he testified that he did not identify himself.
The maximum sentence for misdeanor criminal trespass in district court is six months in jail or a $1,000 fine or both.
Tickets go on sale June 10 in the Murphy Hall Box Office All seats reserved Public: $8, $6, $4; special discounts for KU students and senior citizens
July 12, 13, 19 & 20, 1985 8:00 p.m.
July 14, 1985 2:30 p.m.
Crafton-Preyer Theatre/Murphy Hall
The University of Kansas Theatre Presents Kansas Summer Theatre '85 and the KU/Community Production of ANNIE
Book by Thomas Meehan/Music by Charles Strouse/Lyrics by Martin Charnin
Based on the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie"
Charles Toussaint/Tony Ness/John
For reservations, call 913/864-3982
The Murphy Hall Box Office is open from Noon to 5:00 p.m., Monday-Friday, from Noon to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday s of performance, and one hour before curtain for matinee performances
TELL THE TOWN-CALL THE KANSAN 864-4358
- Many other services available
Did you know that your student activity fee funds a law office for students? Most services are available at NO CHARGE!
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Comedian draws laughter from life
- Notarization of legal documents
By Gina Kellogg Staff Reporter
8:00 to 4:30 Mon. thru Friday
117 Burge (Satellite) Unit 864-5665
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Funded by student activity fee
When Bill Engvall heard how he was being described in Lawrence, he became a bit nervous. People said he knew the best who had ever come to town.
That's the kiss of death. he savs.
But when Englyl stood before the crowd the night of July 2 during the weekly Comedy Shop at Gammonts, 1601 W. 23rd St., he showed no sign of nervousness. And once the laughter started, it didn't end for 45 minutes, even after the comedian performed an encore.
"Gee, if I had known guys we were going to be such a great crowd, I would have saved some of my good stuff for now," he said after returning to the crowd's encouraging applause.
But Engvail didn't allow any aching sides to rest from the constant launder they already had endured. Standing on the corner of the stage with the spotlight on him, Engvail took off his wire-rimmed glasses, set them on a stool and looked at his audience in amazement.
"What are you guys up doing in summer school, anyway?" he asked. "Are you just hanging out here because you’re too afraid to go home because you know the report card's in the mailbox?"
Engwall's material ranged from his own college experiences — "I had my mother convinced that a 1.0 was the best you could do" — to "Friday the 13th" movies — "What are those people thinking? They must sit around and to themselves, 'Hey, what do you want to do this weekend?' I know, let's go camping where all our friends died! And let's not take any weapons and sleep in different cabins!"
Engvail, 27, originally from Dallas and now living in St. Louis, has appeared on "Good Morning America" and "Star Search." On the morning news program, Engvail was billed as one of the top three up-and-coming comedians in the country. But on the talent show, Engvail's performance failed to woo the "Star Search" talent judges.
"That was a bummer," Engvall said. "The people from the show and
the audience all thought I had won.
Even the guy who beat me came up to me later and told me he thought I was the winner."
But Engvall didn't let that loss defeat him. He said he planned to move to Los Angeles at the first of his career opportunities for even bigger career opportunities.
"I was horrible." he said. "I would put a bag over my head and pretend like I was Jim Jones."
Engwall began doing comedy while he was a physical education major at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. He appeared mainly before crowds at shows in the student union.
But Engvald's friends encouraged him to do more comedy based on things he knew about. Even today, he that's how he develops his jokes.
"If I try to sit down and write jokes, I come up with nothing," he said.
So, Engvall said, "I talk about things I know about. Like I don't talk about drugs because I don't do drugs
"I talk about family stuff, like little kids and college. And people can say, 'Yeah, that kind of thing happened to me.'"
— at least not a lot of them," he said jokingly. "And I don't talk about things like nuclear bombs.
Evidently, his technique works.
"The material was good because you could put yourself in his position," Joe Schulte, Lawrence junior, said after the show. "You knew where he was coming from."
Debbie Witlow, Wichita junior, also said she thought the students could relate to Engvall's humor. And they did. "Engvall's act that he's been working on,"
"He had nice language," she said.
Although some four-letter words crept in at times, Engwall said he had been trying to clean up his language.
"I have to work dirtier with a college crowd," he said. "They expect to hear some blue stuff. Sex, drugs and alcohol." But it's not a fun to work dirty. It's not a fun to work dirty.
"I want to be just as funny clean."
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