Day: July 21, 2006

I was certainly surprised when National Lampoon bought this one. I shouldn't have been, since it was right up their irreverent alley, so to speak.

Nevertheless, when I drew it, I was concerned about the controversial subject matter and decided to sign it only with ST. instead of my full name. Call me paranoiac, but I felt that if I used my obviously Jewish full name, it would bring out every religious crank and crackpot in the world. I had good reason to think this — heck, I even got hate mail as a result of a harmless Santa cartoon that appeared in the Wall Street Journal! What I didn't realize at the time was that the famous New Yorker cartoonist and artist Saul Steinberg, who died a few years ago, also sometimes shortened his signature to ST., and it looked exactly like mine. So technically (but not practically, since our styles were so different) it was possible for someone to mistakenly think that it was a Steinberg. I hope I didn't cause him any hate mail problems.

And now I'd like to put in a little sidebar to all those "haters": Lighten up! This is strictly about humor! We have no hidden agendas! And yes, I have drawn cartoons making fun of Moses! In some small way, I think I understand what those Danish cartoonists are currently going through.