Oxford cartoonist feasts on exaggeration
John Steckino committed to his craft and started John’s Cartoons N’ Comics.
OXFORD – John Steckino has tried traditional jobs, but they weren’t for him.
He decided it was time for him to do something he really enjoyed doing.
And that is make people laugh.
He has dabbled in drawing cartoons, characters and personalized birthday cards since 1990.
“I’ll take a situation that is not normally funny, exaggerate it and make people laugh,” Steckino said.
Three weeks ago he made a full-time commitment to his craft and started John’s Cartoons N’ Comics.
He will personalize birthday cards and create business logos. He will draw Maine-themed cartoons and create life-sized people props.
He works from his dining room table, for now. When the weather gets warmer he intends to redesign a nook in his basement for his work.
Last year he designed a brochure for a computer software firm in Lewiston and a calendar for a mobile home service business in Lisbon Falls. He has also created a logo and letterhead for a pizza business.
Steckino also has had cartoons published in Uncle Andy’s, an advertising periodical, for the past five years.
“I studied Don Martin’s characters in Mad Magazine when I was young,” said Steckino, who is now 57. “First I copied his characters and then could do my own, freelance. I really like drawing caricatures and people really like having their pictures drawn.”
He said when he worked for Pineland Center in 1991 he used to do sketches of co-workers and put them on their desks or walls when he was done.
Steckino was surprised one day when he arrived at work and his supervisor had put all his sketches on one wall.
“I did some volunteer work drawing for them and then got paid for a couple of projects,” Steckino said.
He said his wife, Paula, who is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in business, has been really supportive of his efforts and has helped him set up his new business. They have two sons, Chris, who is 19, and Ryan, 17.
He said they both are talented at art.
Steckino pointed at one of Chris’s drawings, framed and hanging on the dining room wall. “My wife puts his on the wall and where are mine?” he said with a laugh. “In the basement!”
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