Cartoonist drawn home

BY STEVE BEGNOCHE

For 60 years, editorial cartoonist Phil Jackson commented on life through drawings.

Why change in death?

Jackson, 96, died Friday in Florida, where he retired to with his second wife, Frieda. Before he moved south, the former Ludington Daily News cartoonist left the accompanying cartoon at Cornerstone Baptist Church, where he long had been an active member. He left instructions that it was for publication in the Daily News when he died.

Gone home, indeed.

The tall, lanky cartoonist learned cartooning at the Chicago Art Institute. He is being remembered for his craft, enjoying life and loving his church, his Lord and his family.

A celebration of life is planned for Jackson at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18 at Cornerstone Baptist Church. The Rev. Mary Jackson Prior, one of his daughters, will officiate. Jackson began his editorial cartooning and illustrating career at about 1950 at the Newport News in Newport, Virginia. It led him to the Orlando Sentinel, where for several years he did front-page cartoons in full color. Later, he would go on to the Toledo Blade, where he cartooned and illustrated for 20 years before changing careers and buying a Western Auto Parts franchise in Ludington.

SEE CARTOONIST, A5

Phil Jackson talked about his career as a cartoonist at his home in Ludington in 2010. For Phil’s final cartoon see page A5.

JEFF KIESSEL | DAILY NEWS FILE

FROM PAGE A1

He and his wife of 50 years, Gevah, who preceded him in death in 1997, then hitched an Airstream trailer to a Cadillac and toured the country for several years as Jackson did cartooning and illustrating workshops at schools across the eastern portion of the nation.

Once back in Ludington, and somewhat retired, Jackson took on part-time work at Ludington State Park and started talking with then-Ludington Daily News publisher David Jackson about cartooning for the Daily News.

A deal was struck for three to five cartoons a week, and until June 12, 2010 Jackson turned his drawing pad, drawing pencil, pen and mind to cartoons often of local issues. He forayed frequently into state and national ones, too.

“For a small paper we were lucky to have someone of Phil’s talent,” David Jackson said Tuesday.

Though David and Phil shared the Jackson surname, they were not related. Phil kiddingly called the younger David “dad,” and David would reply in kind calling Phil “son.”

David would sometimes hear complaints about Phil’s cartoons. Many generated letters to the paper’s Readers Forum.

“He was provocative,” David said.

It's difficult for a car toon to present both sides of an issue, David said.

“He had some great ones. Most were just thought provoking, whether you agree with one or not,” David said.

“I did some I thought were going to close down the paper,” Jackson said in 2010 for a Daily News story about his retirement. “When you do something they don’t like, that’s when the roof falls down.”

One that David said went too far led to an apology from the paper. He said Phil, who generally had a smile on his face and a spring in his step as he arrived in the newsroom, felt bad about that.

Sometimes Phil would get calls from readers who didn’t understand the point of a cartoon, most of which were created in about an hour.

“I tell them, ‘I just draw them, I don’t explain them,’” he said.

David said Phil did his cartoons independently of the positions of the Ludington Daily News editorial board, and the cartoons often reflected different opinions than the paper’s editorials did.

In the latter years of his time cartooning for the Daily News, Phil would sometimes stop by the newsroom to talk with the editors and others seeking cartoon ideas. When the finished cartoon arrived, it would have a definite Phil Jackson spin.

Christianity played a central role in Phil Jackson’s life, said Kristi Jackson Lambert, Phil’s eldest daughter who lives in Ludington and works as a registered nurse.

“We were church- and Christ-centered at home,” Lambert said.

There were always a lot of people visiting and extra kids over for dinner, she said of life at home with her parents and her brother Tracy Jackson, who’s now living in the Tampa Bay, Florida area; Nancy Jackson Lundwall, now living in Wayland; and Mary Jackson Prior, now a Methodist minister in northeast Ohio.

“If the church was open, he was there,” Bob Bradshaw, long-time treasurer and now assistant treasurer at Cornerstone, said about Jackson. “He was always very supportive. He was ready and willing to serve wherever they needed him.”

Lambert said her father also was very proud of his service in the Merchant Marine and truly enjoyed working.

While her mother sometimes fielded calls about cartoons Phil did, Lambert said she never did.

In 1998, then-widower Phil married Frieda, who survives and plans to move to Lapeer to live with a daughter. Phil and Frieda enjoyed an active life here and when they retired to Florida, Lambert said.

Phil did more than newspaper cartoons, too. He produced two books of cartoons for use in church bulletins, was a frequent contributor to Grandparents Magazine, drew cards for American Greetings, and produced various art projects, including prints of Ludington area lighthouses.

“He had an incredibly active mind,” Lambert said.

"He was the first car toonist we had, and obviously he did a good job,” Paul S. Peterson, who was LDN managing editor when Phil began cartooning here, said.

Dr. William Anderson, former president of West Shore Community College and former Michigan Department of History, Arts and Libraries director, requested every cartoon Phil made of him through the years.

“What he gave me was original art work,” Anderson said for the 2010 Daily News article. “As a historian and as someone who maintains a personal archive, I really value having the original artwork.”

Anderson presented former Gov. Jennifer Granholm with a framed cartoon Phil made referring to her. Former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra had a framed Phil Jackson cartoon on his wall behind his Washington, D.C., office desk.

Phil’s farewell cartoon was kept on file at Corner stone by church secretary Donna Harper. She and Jim Carlson, who retired as Cornerstone’s pastor in 2011, were the only ones who knew about it.

“Phil came in and handed Pastor Jim the drawing with the directions of taking this to David Jackson at the Ludington Daily News at the time of his passing,” Harper said.

Carlson gave her the cartoon for safekeeping.

"I've had it in my files since then, waiting for the day he passed and went home to deliver it,” Harper said. “When I heard Sunday he passed away, I thought, I had to find it my files." She found the cartoon and delivered it to Lambert, who said she had not known about it.

“He was just a very smart, talented witty man,” Harper said Wednesday of Jackson, whom she helped with some of his projects. “Actually 21 years ago today, my dad died. Many of Phil’s mannerisms were like my dad’s. It was awesome to see Phil because he reminded me of my dad.

“He was always a joy to work with, and a stinker, too,” she said with fondness. “Then he would smile and he would be OK with it.

“I’m just so thankful they didn’t lose it,” Lambert said of the farewell cartoon.

Phil, who was legally blind for the final few years of life, would be too. He’d like getting in the last word via his drawing even as he has gone home.