Throw a cookie out the window in Fairfield County, you’re going to hit a cartoonist. Everybody knows at least one of these amiable souls. And when the rush of greeting cards pours in the chute every holiday season, you look for their cards first. They al- ways seem to make a production out of it.
You think a professional jokemeister/artist is going to run down to the drugstore and buy a box of cards? Of course not. Any self-respecting artist is going to devise a memorable card. And since cartoonists are a famously social bunch (the waiters at the Cobb’s Mill Inn would still like to discuss the minutes of their last meeting there), a gently competitive can-you-top-this feeling enlivens the cards they send to one another.
Mel Casson would know. As the man who creates the famous Red-Eye comic strip, he has been a part of this very desirable mailing list for a long time. He has dutifully collected the cards of his confreres over the years, too, and the agglomeration of this and other cartoons will be on display through January at the Westport Historical Society.