A note to pass along from Hogan's Alley on the passing of John Updike

We also wanted to take a moment to remember John Updike, who died on
January 27. While he will be remembered as one of the greatest
American authors, cartooning fans will also remember a lesser-known
part of his career: cartoonist. In Hogan’s Alley #3, we ran a
selection of his cartoons, along with an essay he wrote for the
magazine. We are happy to present the essay, along with his cartoons:

http://www.cagle.com/hogan/features/updike/updike/main.asp

A bit of background about the Updike feature, from HA editor Tom
Heintjes: I was talking in 1995 with caricaturist David Levine to
obtain his permission to run his drawing of author Flannery O’Connor
that accompanied our feature on O’Connor in HA #2. In the course of
that conversation, Levine discussed how numerous authors had an
interest in cartooning, and he mentioned that Updike had been a
published cartoonist while in college. I wrote to Updike in care of
the Society of Illustrators (Levine told me the Society forwarded mail
to him), and he graciously responded with the offer of an original
essay and a stack of originals. I was petrified to have this artwork,
so I scanned it and returned it as promptly as possible. Updike never
asked for a penny for his essay, and any fee we could offer him would
be laughably small, especially for someone of his accomplishment. So
we sent him two vintage Big Little Books featuring Disney characters,
which he wrote in his essay were early favorites of his. His thank you
note, sent very promptly, was genuine and heartfelt. We sent him every
copy of Hogan’s Alley after that, and we were proud to include him in
our list of contributing writers. Sadly, his inclusion in issue #16
will be the last one.

From the editos of Hogan's Alley magazine.