Cartoonist envisions wacky car world
Steven M. Johnson is a cartoonist with a fondness for the absurd. With astute detail, humor and poignancy, he’s a purveyor of futuristic product ideas often automotive related. It’s all silly, except for when it’s not.
Raised in Berkeley and Palo Alto where his father was Editor-in-chief of Sunset Books, Johnson, 81, has been an inventor and illustrator for nearly 60 years. The UC Berkeley graduate and former city planner with a keen knack for precision has a new two-book commission for a publisher in China. Johnson’s 11th and 12th of volumes are tentatively scheduled for publication later this year.
Although he’s addressed many subjects throughout his long career, Johnson’s favorite topics include the automobile and transportation industries. It was how he began his career at age 36 while employed as the editorial cartoonist for the Sierra Club Bulletin. It’s now Sierra Magazine.
“The first assignment that triggered the ‘inner inventor’ in me was in 1974 when I was asked to envision future RVS,” said Johnson who now lives in Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento. “The editor wanted 16 cartoons and I created 109. I could not stop!”
Reception to the article launched a career Johnson never imagined. The RV article and artwork were distributed nationally by the Associated
Press, with Johnson receiving recognition rarely offered to cartoonists.
“I had spent the weekend drawing ideas,” said Jonson. “I thought, ‘wow, this is like a latent desire, ability, whatever.’ I’d never been an inventor of anything before, so I got into doing whimsical, peculiar, not-thought-of objects.”
A long-time general assignment cartoonist at the Sacramento Bee, Johnson left the newspaper 1995 for a research and development position with Honda in Southern California. His official title was “futurist,” a job description Johnson’s embellished with self-determined job titles like “whimsicalist” and “possibilitist.”
Colleagues at The Bee already know what Honda was about to discover. Feature reporters were fortunate when Johnson was assigned to illustrate their stories.
We didn’t work together often, but more than 35 years ago I wrote an article about taking “gambler’s buses” for the newspaper’ a long-ago defunct section called Out & About. It was a glimpse into the popular transportation method of many pensioners who enjoyed making the trip from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe.
Johnson’s illustration showed the bus, newly equipped with arms and legs, sitting a poker table playing card with other patrons. It was one of my brief moments into the cartoonist’s world.
On another occasion, during the major long-distance running frenzy in the 1980s, Johnson illustrated an article I contributed the same outdoors section on newfangled running gear.
The cartoon detailed a runner burdened with all kinds of contraptions, some of which were included in the article. Johnson added other ideas for embellishment, hilarious doses of worthy, light-hearted sarcasm about the ludicrous products.
Several of Johnson’s bizarre ideas have proven prophetic. In 1975, he fashioned the idea of pre-torn clothing. He described a product similar to Google Glasses in 1992. Several ideas in the theme of Public Therapy Buses have been made. His auto panels include Road Office, Honest Commute and Tunnel Bus. Much of his cartoon career is archived on Johnson’s website, www.patentdepending.com.
Nearly a decade ago, became involved in the Maker Faire, the global gatherings of inventors and artists that begin in San Mateo in 2008. Johnson had a booth at the faire in Xian China in 2017 and in Shenzhen two years ago.
The experienced led to his contract in the world’s largest automotive market. Johnson’s books will again showcase the cartoonist’s fascination with automobiles, all wonderfully absurd and sometimes realities in waiting.