Class Notes

gay person.” She has found a solution: “twowords—furry monsters.” A strip called “Do-ersand Be-ers,” for example, captures how verydifferent creatures —one a do-er and one not—can make beautiful music, or, as the last panelsums up, “do-be do-be do.” Price related thiscartoon back to an experience at CA, when ateacher “stopped mid-lesson and had us listento an aria. She was teaching us to be, ratherthan teaching us to be productive.”At CA and throughout her childhood,Price did not feel like an artist. The alumna saidshe was more of a jock in high school, andexplained that she first became a cartoonist inIreland, during a year off between junior andsenior year of college. Her visiting mother providedunintentional inspiration when she jokinglymistook a Dublin statue of a bespectacledJames Joyce for Elton John.After her parents left, Price drew a cartoonbased on the Elton John crack, then slipped itand two other cartoons, unsolicited, under thedoor of a local newspaper. Two weeks laterthey were in print, she was $75 richer, and herlife as a cartoonist had begun. “In some circles,I say it was James Joyce who made me a cartoonist,”she said. “In other circles, I say it wasElton John.”Occasionally, Price’s humor bends too farfor mainstream America. “You never want toget a call saying, ‘do you want to risk losingpapers over this strip?’” That happened whenshe ran a cartoon spoofing the “V-chip”—adevice that a few years back was touted as aneasy parental control embedded in TVs. In thestrip, one little kid said to another: “I guess wecan’t call it the boob tube anymore.” Offended,the Peoria, Illinois paper pulled Rhymes withOrange.CA audience members were considerablymore tolerant. Price amused and entertainedthem for fifty minutes, sharing her quirkyhumor, acute observations, and pragmaticoutlook. If, as she said, “humor is the night lightin anxiety’s dark corners,” then cartooning istherapy and a bad day is a welcome opportunity.As Price explained, “I can say, ‘Wait, thisisn’t just a dreadful moment, this is an idea fora cartoon.’”— Gail FriedmanHilary Price ’87 drawing characters nonstop as the crowd filtered into the assembly; right, the cartoonist visiting a photography classC O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 030