Library of Congress Taps Dave Chow for Project on Editorial Cartooning

The Library of Congress has launched a research project examining editorial cartooning techniques and who better to participate than CCS’s own Dave Chow, illustrator, alumnus and instructor. “They contacted Lou Brooks about old-school materials and he reached out to me,” said Chow. Brooks is the founder and curator of the online Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies. The Library is currently seeking materials used by cartoonists who working pre-digitally, and Chow, an avid collector, offered samples of Duo-Shade and a few vials of the chemical known to help cartoonists create additional levels of gray shade effects on the vintage paper.

Duo-Shade, by Grafix, fell out of use in the early 1990s. Chow will also contribute his own original Duo-Shade drawings.

“When I started out, I wanted to be a cartoonist,” explained Chow, “so I started collecting a lot of these vintage cartooning materials in the early ‘90s. As far as I know, I’m the only person who still has some of these materials.” Despite veritable extinction — the same effects can now be created in Photoshop — Chow has used the gray shade technique in class and for select clients.