An interview with Brooke McEldowney, creator of the comic strips "9 Chickweed Lane" and "Pibgorn"

Hard-hitting journalism in which I interview my dad.

My dad and me on my 30th birthday. I am on the shorter side, but also, he is 6 foot 7.

My father’s comic strip, 9 Chickweed Lane, first appeared in the newspapers when I was five years old. In those days, I assumed everyone’s dad or mom had a comic strip in the paper. It seemed only the natural order of things. Among my favorite possessions were two big hotel-laundry bags of vaguely wadded-up funny papers from the era — early-‘90s vintage pages featuring Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side — that I’d take out, un-wad, and enjoy whenever I pleased. Now, I could add Chickweed Lane to the prized wads.

Somewhere, there’s an article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, dated 1993 when Chickweed premiered. There’s a photo of me, age 5, with my family, holding my Pinocchio doll. Much has changed since; today, I’m in my mid-thirties, and I rarely hold my Pinocchio doll in front of the media. But Chickweed endures. It shows no signs of slowing, only transforming.

9 Chickweed Lane, in its original form, was a story about 3 generations of women — a daughter, a mother, and a grandmother — living in the same house. It was what you might call a “gag-a-day” comic strip. In later years, the cast of characters and scope of stories expanded, turning into long story arcs that sometimes spanned months, even a year or two. Several compendiums of the comic were released. The characters aged, hit milestones, had children, changed professions. The humor also evolved, as would naturally happen over 30-plus years.

My dad did not necessarily set out to become a professional cartoonist; in fact, he was trained at Juilliard as a classical violist (we all know the violist-to-cartoonist career pipeline, AM I RIGHT OR WHAT?). As one fan correctly surmised, he does his work to entertain himself first, and I think that’s why people are intrigued by it — intrigued, mystified, delighted, you name it. Simply put, he does his own thing, and the rest of us are just along for the ride.

I spoke to Facebook fans to learn what questions they had for my dad, who, wisely, does not have social media. Many were curious about — as one fan put it — Brooke’s “sick, strange and beautifully artistic imagination.” Read on to find out more:

Nicola: What was 9 Chickweed Lane when it started, and what is it now? How would you describe its evolution over the years?

Brooke: Approaching 32 years in syndication, 9 Chickweed Lane first stirred into consciousness as the story of a girl and her mother, the latter having just emerged from an ugly divorce. The mother's name was Juliette Burber, and her daughter was Edda, the protagonist. They both lived with Juliette's mother, Gran, whose somewhat corrosive personality made any effort at having fun a grim crime against humanity. I gave Edda a best friend, Amos; a school headmistress, Sister Caligula (a name she acquired from Edda); and a farmer and extraterrestrial wacko named Thorax - all that in addition to a small cast of nonce characters. That was it.

I had no plan to do anything but tell their story as soon as I could dream it up, day after day, under a contract with United Features Syndicate, in New York.

Skipping forward 32 years, the cast of central characters has grown in size, and they have aged. Edda and Amos became lovers and, eventually, wife and husband. Gran's story enlarged into a book involving World War II and her own, young love affair with a German army officer in a POW camp. Two employees of the Catholic church, one a priest, the other a nun, shed their vestments, married and began adding enormously to the population of New York City. Edda and Amos, likewise, bore two children, identical twin girls named Polly and Lolly; and Juliette, whether she liked it or not, became a grandmother.

All of which stands as proof that drawing a comic strip that may not evolve over time and space can become a task that, for me, is Boresville. I have allowed myself to leap back and forth through the history of 9 Chickweed Lane, revisiting Edda and Amos as children on a swing set, as well as leaping forward to visit Polly and Lolly, now comely young women embarking on their own loves, and wearing engagement rings. There are also a number of newer characters; and Thorax continues to be a 300-pound, extraterrestrial wacko.

I would describe Chickweed’s evolution over the years as unhindered.

Nicola: How about your second strip, Pibgorn?

Brooke: Pibgorn began her life as the central character in "A Fairy Merry Christmas," composed at the request of my syndicate as a holiday item, online. After that, I kept it going, with all the original characters: Pibgorn, an arboreal fairy, young at a mere 500 or so years; Geoff, a pianist and church organist/choir director; and Drusilla, a much older (than Pibgorn) and sexier (than Pibgorn) succubus devoted to satisfying her libido with almost anything that moves. The strip appears online only.

Nicola: Are you doing okay? A lot of people were concerned about your health (following medical issues some years ago), even after I allayed concerns in a social media group or two. They want to know you’re fine. I don’t think they all believed me. So: are you fine?

Brooke: I'm fine. I have been in the hospital from time to time, and I do have a few chronic health issues, but nothing that I can't recklessly ignore.

Nicola: I don’t think people know just how punishing your work schedule is, even if you’re doing “only” one of the two comic strips. Can you give us a glimpse into what your work week looks like? My impression has always been that you work an estimated 756 hours a week, with occasional breaks for fun leisure activities like breathing, but you tell me.

Brooke: You're wrong. I work 757 hours a week. However, it looks like a bespectacled, 72-year-old guy lying back on a bed with a cat in his lap, making notes and petting the cat. I also pet the dog. When I finally squeeze out seven strips to satisfy seven days of the week, I sit at my computer and sketch them, edit them, draw them in black and white, color them all, and send them in to my syndicate; then I begin working on the next week. "That must be fun," I have been told. Jeff MacNelly said, "Cartooning is white-hot hell."

Nicola: I’ve never known you spending your time otherwise. But do you have any idea how you’d be spending your time if you weren’t doing what you do?

Brooke: Probably I'd be performing on the viola.

Nicola: A reader asked: do you still play viola? If not, do you miss playing? Does cartooning satisfy some of the same needs, or different ones?

Brooke: I can still play the viola, but there are time constraints in cartooning. I do, from time to time, miss playing the viola professionally. However, there are a lot of violists around (at least about 15 per orchestra, if you happen to be playing in an orchestra and still know how to count). There is only one person cobbling 9 Chickweed Lane and Pibgorn. Out of the whole world, only one. I prefer the company.

Nicola: Many readers asked if the current Pibgorn story arc, which paused last August, will continue. Some are wondering: has Pib ended entirely (“flown off into the sunset,” as one reader put it)? My understanding is you are just too busy with Chickweed, or am I off-base?

Brooke: Sometimes the demands on one's time, from one strip, makes one delay the second strip. However, I have an end in mind for the the present Pibgorn story, and a plan to go on to a new one. I also want to cobble Pibgorn settings of Twelfth Night and The Tempest. Pibgorn would play Ariel; and I suppose Drusilla could be Miranda, although she never comes across as quite such an innocent. Possibly she could be Prospera. Yes, I think Prospera would do nicely.

Nicola: Yes, she should be Prospera. Meanwhile, many would like to know if and when more book collections of Chickweed or Pibgorn will appear.

That is the plan. When, I'm not sure yet.

Nicola: Because of your name, one fan recalls assuming you were a woman and lauding you for how clearly you put forth the female point of view. Does this happen a lot? What do you think is resonating with people here?

Brooke: I have no idea what conveys a female or feminine point of view, nor how anybody would know what that point would be. My characters are women, mostly, and their beliefs and convictions seem to be uttered with a woman's voice. I don't know how that can be avoided, nor that it should be avoided.

My male characters are, well, mostly supporting cast. I think they are, anyway. Except for Amos. And Thorax.

Since Chickweed began (what is it.....32 years ago) readers have felt that the voice of my characters, singularly and en masse, is a woman's voice. I don't know why that is. I agree, but I don't know why.

Nicola: Tangentially related, it’s no secret that the strip is known for being sexy and sexual. Have you faced censorship over this? What other kinds of reactions?

Brooke: I have rarely heard a peep of objection over a perception of erogeneity. Once, an editor at my syndicate told me that a drawing I produced of Edda wearing a leotard and stretched out on the floor, reading a book on the Royal Ballet, was too sexy - that her bottom was too, well, you know, too bottomy, even covered with a black leotard. He told me I had to change the drawing (which was his function as an editor), then he told me what to draw - bottomwise - and how to draw it (which was not his function). All I did was raise one of her calves so it obscured just a bit of her bottom. My syndicate breathed an enormous sigh of relief, and I resumed drawing people who had bottoms.

On one other occasion, I produced a drawing of Amos, just as he had fallen on Edda at the moment she completed a ballet performance. She was completely clad, as was he, but they were in a missionary position. His next line to Edda was, "Is this an inconvenient moment?" That was the gag line for that day. On the next day, still upon her, he asked her for her hand in marriage. And she accepted. One reader in Los Angeles was scandalized at the missionary position, insisting that children (all children) would likewise be scandalized.

One other letter came from a much older man who asked me, most politely, if insistently, to give Edda larger breasts. I did not oblige.

Nicola: On another note, a lot of people are curious about the reasoning behind the time lapses in Chickweed Lane. What inspired those? Are we likely to see more of Polly and Lolly as children, and Edda and Amos raising them? I get the sense this is something people would like to see — Edda and Amos as young parents, stories set prior to the “future” arc we’re currently in with Lolly and Polly grown up.

Brooke: In my will-o'-the-wisp way, I will return to Polly and Lolly as children when the the inspiration moves me. I don't plan anything ahead.

Nicola: Some people have asked if you could talk about the evolution of the character Seth, a gay dancer who unexpectedly ended up falling in love with and marrying a woman. I think there were some people who really identified with him as a gay character and wondered why this turn of events.

Brooke: Seth didn't stop being gay, for all that. He, however, fell in love with Fernanda Jons, quite to his surprise, and wished to marry her. This, possibly, threw him into the category of a man who did not previously realize that he might be bisexual.

Nicola: What was the inspiration(s) for the long story arc about Gran’s WWII activities? As one fan noted, that backstory gave readers so much sympathy for that character. (This story is published in book form as Edie Ernst: USO Singer/Allied Spy, available for purchase here.)

Brooke: I simply felt like telling Gran's story in World War II. I wanted to see her as a young woman, looking a great deal like her granddaughter, and being in love.

Nicola: On which note, 9 Chickweed Lane covers at least four generations of the same family and includes situations relating to growing up and falling in love. Have you drawn from your own family's experience? Or the lives of others you know? As one fan notes, “even all the craziness seems true to life.”

Brooke: I make it all up out of whole cloth. Not a bit of it reflects anybody I know.

Nicola: Do you ever have a sense of where things will go long-term in Chickweed or Pibgorn? Or, as you’ve indicated, does it tend to just seize you in the moment?

Brooke: I get my ideas and run with them. An editor I met and was compelled to lunch with (I would rather have been eating something chocolate in undisturbed privacy) asked me what I had planned for Chickweed over the next year. Then he sat back and waited for my considered response. I winced a little, and said, "I haven't the slightest idea."

Nicola: And finally, what was your funniest strip?

Brooke: My next one, I hope.