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Howie Schneider, the cartoonist and children’s book illustrator, died yesterday from complications following heart surgery. He was 77.

Schneider is best remembered for creating Eek & Meek, which began in 1965 as a gag strip about two talking mice with opposing personalities. Eek was an idle lush and Meek was, well, meek.

Midway through its 35-year run, the characters morphed from animal to human. This strip, from 1971, is before the transition occurred:

During its heyday, Eek & Meek was distributed to as many as 500 newspapers by Newspaper Enterprise Association. It still had over 400 clients in 2000, when Schneider chose to retire the comic.

“You get in the habit of looking at the world
through these little droplets of humor.”

Four years ago, he began The Sunshine Club: Life In Generation Rx. As the title suggests, Schneider found laughter in aging and retirement. The comic starred Uncle Bunty, a curmudgeonly senior citizen cat, who was a minor character in the previous strip.

In 2004, Schneider spoke to David Astor of Editor & Publisher about why he returned to the medium: “You get in the habit of looking at the world through these little droplets of humor,” he said. “If you don’t have characters’ mouths to put observations in, you feel frustrated. It’s like taking away a ventriloquist’s dummy.”

Schneider is survived by his wife, two sons, and a granddaughter.

Honey, He’s Drawing Mice Again
I was hugely influenced by Eek & Meek as a child. In retrospect, I can’t rationally explain the attraction.

Certainly Schneider possessed a pleasing graphic style, but I think it was his irreverent humor that really impressed me. Kind of like an hour of Laugh-In condensed into three panels.

For a few years straight, I drew nothing but little, Schneider-esque mice. They were lanky and floppy-footed rodents like his, but perhaps not as world-weary. (Cynicism was not yet in fashion for nine-year-olds.)

Only a few Eek & Meek collections ever were published, but I encourage you to seek them out. In addition, his children’s books (many in collaboration with his wife, Susan Seligson) are delightful. Enjoy for yourself the timelessness of Howie Schneider’s creativity.

As an artistically-inclined kid, I was entralled by absolutely ANY product that had a cartoon character associated with it. It didn’t matter what type of merchandise the ‘toon was pitching.

Of course, I indulged in grocery store manipulations, usually inspired by Saturday morning commercials. I’m not the first child to force my mother to buy Quisp cereal, while slathering like a zombie.

In fact, I still maintain a very soft spot for the Sinclair logo (though technically not a cartoon). The Hamms bear, however, was a thornier issue. In my personal arithmetic, a cuddly spokes-animal equaled kid-friendly product. Even if it was beer.

Krazy Kat, Zen Master
The point in detailing my early comics obsession is that it led me, ultimately, to George Herriman’s Krazy Kat by the tender age of twelve.

Peanuts was my first and “bestest” childhood crush, but Krazy Kat… This was unbridled teenage love, raw and unattainable. As unknowable as that Kat’s ever-shifting gender. As enlightening as a Zen koan.

Herriman began with a perfect love–hate triangle (mouse, cat, dog), then stirred in the rhythms of jazz and vernacular patois, and served it all upon a disorienting canvas inspired by surrealism. Genius.

“I ain’t a Kat… And I ain’t Krazy”
—Krazy Kat

For me, the above denial is a perfect expression of no-mind (the Buddhist concept in which awareness of the moment supersedes the artifice of thought). Krazy Kat intuitively knows that his/her true essence cannot be named or limited by rational thought.

On the Trail to Kamakura
Which leads me to back to Kamakura, an ancient holy city in Japan. I haven’t been there yet, but a dear friend of mine visited there six years ago. She brought back a beautiful meditation bell as a gift. And her story.

For years she had dreamed of the Buddha, sitting in thought among the trees. As she crested the hike up the mountain at Kamakura, she encountered the exact Buddha [pictured at the top of this post] from her visions. In that moment, transcendence occurred between the present and eternal, the sensible world and some greater mystery.

Within the koan and Krazy Kat and Kamakura, inspiration awaits. The experience of living in an awakened state (and how that relates to the creation of my comic, Rinky Dink) is what I will try to describe in this blog. Thank you for joining me on the journey.