Gilbert Perreault

2011-09-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

SUMMER CARICATURES 2010

2010-08-19T10:18:00.001-07:00

Other June Caricature Jazz

2009-07-07T12:09:00.001-07:00

Mid June

2009-06-17T06:32:00.001-07:00

MAY 09

2009-05-26T07:35:00.001-07:00

Sketches from last Summer '08

2009-05-26T06:59:00.001-07:00

Gilbert Perreault

2008-11-11T21:15:00.000-08:00

Get your Barack the Vote T- Shirt

2008-10-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.adbtees.com/adb-barack.html

BUFFALO NEWS article

2008-08-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

Cartoon connection: Darien Lake's caricature stand is a launching pad for artists

By Samantha Marziarz Christmann NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
Updated: 08/20/08 10:19 AM

Olivia Spitzer, 13, of Lockport, gets the Cartoon City treatment from Adam English,

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Adam English, center, and his Darien Lake caricaturists, from left: Bill Gallagher, Kaylee Choate, Jeremy Stock, Casey Falco and Mike Burkett.">

From a distance, Adam English’s Cartoon City Caricatures at Darien Lake Theme Park Resort looks like your typical carnival caricature stand. Several lively guys walk around hustling for customers, with an almost vaudevillian schtick.

“Want your picture drawn? We’re having a special on goofy-looking people today.”

But if you look closer, you’ll see what it really is— a slew of talented adults making a living as professional artists.

“Most caricature artists are high school kids who stick around for a couple of summers and then go out and get real jobs,” said Adam English, the stand’s founder and namesake.

But here, in the shadow of the giant Ferris wheel, among the taco cart and “Test Your Strength” game, artists keep coming back.

Upon every return they hone their skills of cartoon portraiture. Taking their patrons’ most distinctive features and exaggerating them on the page, they are constantly perfecting the art of comic likeness.

And because Darien Lake doesn’t lose its best artists each year to the corporate world, it finds itself in a win-win situation. The park gets to keep dedicated folks whose talent grows every year, and the artists themselves never have to don a tie or sit behind a desk.

While most caricaturists leave their markers behind and wind up selling insurance or crunching numbers at an accounting firm, Cartoon City alumni have gone on to great things. Many have worked for such comic book giants as Marvel and DC. Others have done work for Rolling Stone and Playboy, as well as the holy grail of them all — Mad Magazine.

In fact, the artists’ ability to display their talents among captive crowds each day at the park has allowed them access to an unlimited network of people. They’ve found that to be a lucrative springboard in pursuing outside creative and commercial interests. Many do freelance artistry, performance and design.

“After I graduated from college, my English degree didn’t exactly make me employable,” English said. “But I found my art skills made me eminently employable.”

English attributes the artists’ outside success to the theme park’s policy of being flexible and nurturing employers during its season, and supportive of its employees’ outside pursuits when the park is closed.

English started the caricature department at Darien Lake Theme Park Resort in 1987 with an easel and a handful of markers. One member of that group was Adam Zyglis, now the full-time editorial cartoonist at The Buffalo News.

During its lifetime, the department at the theme park has gone through well over 100 artists. But under his control, Cartoon City has morphed into a full-scale attraction in itself with a stable of 13 impossibly talented staff.

“It’s an all-star dream team,” English said.

First-stringers include Billy Gallagher, who is legally blind, but pulls subjects close to get a good look.

One of the resort’s best, Gallagher has traveled the country working warm-weather theme parks during the off-season and rakes in $150 an hour for private parties and corporate events.

Five-year veteran Jeremy Stock has done comic book work as well, and plays bass for popular local band the Thermidores on the side.

Another standout, Rob Dumuhosky, contributes to comic books, designs T-shirts and does graphic work for advertising companies.

If you’ve been to the club Bayou on Chippewa Street, you’ve seen his work — an enormous Mardi Gras mural on which he collaborated with English.

Recently, the nine-year employee paid for extensive dental work by caricaturing his dentist’s entire staff.

Though art snobs might bristle at the thought of calling caricaturists artists, those at Cartoon City scoff at the idea.

“We’re doing something most of these other so-called serious artists have never done, and that’s make a living off our art,” English said.

Four-year employee Casey Falco said she encountered some of that elitism while she was in college at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts.

But as a part-time employee of Pizza Hut, she knows the working life of a college student could be much worse.

Glancing around at the talent that surrounds her, she’s confident the future is bright.

“It sure beats the pizzeria,” she said.

schristmann@buffnews.com

2008 Sketckes

2008-07-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

BillyGallagher.com

Gilbert Perreault

SUMMER CARICATURES 2010

Other June Caricature Jazz

Mid June

MAY 09

Sketches from last Summer '08

Gilbert Perreault

Get your Barack the Vote T- Shirt

BUFFALO NEWS article

Cartoon connection: Darien Lake's caricature stand is a launching pad for artists

By Samantha Marziarz Christmann NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER Updated: 08/20/08 10:19 AM

More Photos

2008 Sketckes

By Samantha Marziarz Christmann NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
Updated: 08/20/08 10:19 AM