For Carl Moore, a self-described "fallen liberal," his journey to becoming a cartoonist has taken a few strange turns.
Moore has worked as a fisherman in Alaska and Chile, hitchhiked his way across Europe and South America, and spent two years in the Peace Corps. He's also been a paper-shuffler with the U.S. Postal Service and Rockwell Co., and he was once a reporter and advertising representative for a Spanish-language newspaper in San Francisco.
Perhaps the strangest fact, however, is that the cartoonist was once a radical socialist majoring in English literature at the University of California at Berkeley in the early '60s. After watching some fellow socialists throw bricks at police during a 1968 demonstration, however, Moore began to rethink his political leanings.
Having had his fill of adventure during what he calls his "Jack London period," Moore attended the Otis-Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles and learned the skills necessary to draw the remarkable caricatures that appear in his strip, State of the Union.
Once he received his degree from design school in 1989, Moore became a freelance editorial cartoonist, publishing his work in newspapers such as the Long Beach Press-Telegram and the San Diego Union-Tribune. He also began drawing cartoons that appeared regularly in the National Review. Through political cartooning, Moore perfected the combination of political satire, caricatures and humor that are on display in State of the Union.
