A classic Mike Smith Stockcartoon.
by NTW editor Ovalscream
Mike Smith is NASCAR fan to the bone. When heartland of the sport in the southeastern United States is in bed dreaming their sweet NASCAR dreams, the Las Vegas resident is still up watching whatever race action can be found on TV. Living out West, far from most of the races, a fan’s gotta catch the action where he can. Stock car racing is his thing, but to satisfy the itch he’s had since childhood, Mike will watch anything — even lawn mower races.
And whatever Mike doesn’t see with his eyes, his NASCAR-sotted brain fills in with a cartoon, capturing the inside story, the thought balloon that hovers over drivers, fans and the sport itself.
Mike’s Stockcartoons appear regularly in the Las Vegas Sun, where by day he serves as the newspaper’s editorial cartoonist. He has won several awards from the Nevada Press Association and placed second two years in a row for "Best Editorial Cartoons" at the National Headliner Awards. Stockcartoons are also syndicated by King Features and publish in newspapers across the country.
I caught up with Mike via telephone the other day.
How did you get into racing?
Since I was a kid I’ve been a car nut, and stock car racing has always been my favorite. But living out in Santa Clara (near San Francisco), you couldn’t catch much of it. Occasionally a race would appear on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Bobby Allison was my favorite driver growing up. Once racing got picked up nationally by ESPN, I could catch a lot more races.
All I did as a kid was draw cars … now I draw ‘em for a living!
Tell us about your road to becoming editorial cartoonist at the Las Vegas Sun.
I went to Loyola Marymount University in LA where I studied for a degree in humanities. I started drawing political cartoons as a junior. Once I saw how much trouble I got into over them, I thought, hey, this would be a blast!
I used to hound Paul Conrad, the four-time Pulizter-winning editorial cartoonist at the LA Times. I’d drive from my dorm into Los Angeles and show him my cartoons. He’d go over them with a brutal, fine-toothed comb. "If you want a job in editorial cartooning," he’d say, "you need to learn how to draw." But I never formally studied art.
As a senior, I blindly sent packages of my work around the country. The Las Vegas Sun was one paper that started picking up some of my cartoons. But no one was interested in hiring me to be their editorial cartoonist.
After I graduated, I worked at National Car Rental at Los Angeles Airport. I’d draw cartoons in the morning and pump gas at the airport at night. I did that for a year and then Hertz offered to put me into management training at the San Francisco Airport. I called the Sun and told them about my job offer, and the editor there said, "you tell them to stick it up their ass." And that’s how I came to work at the Sun in 1983.
When did you start drawing Stockcartoons?
When LMS came to Vegas (in 1997) I thought it would be cool to do some NASCAR cartoons. The Sun started running them on Vegas.com, a sister site that does mostly travel stuff. Reaction was good so they started running them in their own pages. It wasn’t long after that Stockcartoons made its way into syndication.
There are three collections of Stockcartoons now available. The first two — "Stockcartoons" and "Stockcartoons 2" — were done about five years ago but are still available on Amazon. “Nuts for Racing” is the most recent collection. (Editor’s note: There’s a link to purchase this book from Amazon on the home page).
Where do you get your inspiration for Stockcartoons?
I approach Stockcartoons the same way I do editorial cartoons — by keeping up with the reading. I watch all the races whenever I can. Most NASCAR coverage is available online, from place like NASCAR.com and, of course, NASCAR This Week. I stop by your site every day to read Monte’s stuff. He’s incredible.
Oddly though, whenever I see Monte at the races or in the media center, he always wants to talk politics–not racing. We have a good time going at it.
Tell us about your blog.
I started the Sun’s NASCAR blog "Bloggity, Bloggity, Bloggity" as a way to draw people to my Stockcartoons. But the blog has its own fans now and is one of the more popular locations on the Sun website. Now I’m not a reporter–I’m really just a fan–but blogging is a fun way to keep in touch with other fans.
Do you like living in Las Vegas?
I like the job, so I’ll stay. I came from Southern California; life is a lot less complicated here. I love the wide-open spaces of this part of the West. Yet Vegas is close enough to California, so it isn’t difficult to get over there when you want to.
The local economy here is in as bad a shape as anywhere in the U.S. We’ve got 13 percent unemployment and a housing market that’s deeply underwater. Gaming and construction are what have fed the local economy and both are suffering. People aren’t coming to Vegas like they were a few years ago. A lot of residents here lived large during the housing boom — that’s what Vegas is all about. They used all that money they got on home equity loans to buy boats and cars and big screen TVs and now all that money is gone. Lots of people are moving away, looking for work.
Still, Vegas is still the adult playground of America-at least, that’s the image of the Strip that our Mayor (Oscar Goodman) still wants to project. He’s the guy who took such offense at President Obama’s recent remarks about people who blow their college tuition money at Vegas. Goodman is real old-school, a former criminal lawyer. A character out of Vegas’s wilder past. He’s really something.
What do you see as the big issues in NASCAR this year?
I think the changes in the aero package going from wing to spoiler will be big. I hear they’re talking about using an even bigger restrictor plate at Talledega, which should make the racing even more fun.
I like it that NASCAR is taking a hands-off approach with drivers this year.
The fuel of NASCAR is sponsorship, and drivers are the public face of those corporations. So there’s always going to be pressure on them to act a certain way.
I think drivers and NASCAR both get a hard rap from fans, especially bloggers. People say they want more emotion, but when driver then shows some, he gets ripped. Same thing with NASCAR-they listen to fans and do all sorts of things to respond, but then they get critiziced for making the changes.
What’s it like to be a West Coast race enthusiast?
As you can imagine, the Bay Area where I grew up is not a hub of NASCAR interest. As a teenager, me and some buddies would go to small-town tracks near San Francisco to catch races. But there wasn’t much interest. You felt like you were really isolated. Interest still isn’t as great as it is the Southeast. I usually attend races Fonatana, Phoneix, LA and Las Vegas, sometimes Sonoma. Last year, I made it to Daytona for the Coke Zero 400.
Do you have a good Vegas story to tell?
I once had lunch with an infamous, alleged hoodlum who bragged that he’d killed a few people, but they had it coming to them.
Anything about your off-job life?
I’m an avid four-wheeler. I love driving my Jeep on the Jeep trails around southern Nevada.
What’s the state of editorial cartooning these days?
I think editorial cartooning will survive. There just won’t be as many of us. Which is what’s happening with every position in print journalism.
A recent editorial cartoon by Mike. In addition to appearing six times a week in the Sun, USA Today picks up one of Mike’s editorial cartoons up every Thursday
What about this weekend’s race at LMS?
I think the pressure is on Kurt Busch–who like his brother Kyle grew up in Vegas, but hasn’t won a race at LMS yet–to produce. Look for Kurt to make a hard run. But look out for those Earnhardt Ganassi cars of of McMurray and Harvick, they’re really hot. Personally I’m really looking forward to watching Brad Keselowksi race; he’s colorful and cocky both on and off the track. Great material for Stockcartoons!
I’ll be doing sketchbooks on both Saturday and Sunday of the two races, so look for them on my blog.
Thanks to Mike for consenting to this interview, for providing the extra art (including the self-portrait)—and for sharing his NASCAR ‘toons with us every week.
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