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It seems unlikely that any major college sports program would have an official cartoonist. But when it comes to Syracuse University, you could make a case that veteran Central New York artist Joe Glisson is as close as one can come to such a designation. His sports-themed drawings, most of which debuted on the pages of the Syracuse New Times, are currently displayed on Dick MacPherson’s family room wall and in Jim Boeheim’s bathroom, while books of his cartoons are favorites of Doug Marrone.
With the release of his second anthology of sports-themed works, No Place Like Dome (Joe Glisson Productions; 168 pages; $11.95/softcover), Glisson has polished his status with cartoons memorializing Orange basketball, football and lacrosse. The community’s passion for SU sports has made his quirky take on the ups and downs of Syracuse athletics, 29 years of black-and-white sketches, as popular as Orange jerseys and Dome Dogs.
To help market this project, Glisson has initiated a partnership with a student organization that promotes opportunities for women in sports and events careers. “When Joe decided to do this latest book, he reached out to the department of Sport Management to help him market it,” explained Kate Veley, adviser to the Women is Sports and Events (WISE) student organization at SU. “How he did that {on his last book} in 1996 is very different than how you can approach that in this social-network, computer-driven age. We took that opportunity to the WISE student organization since this is very much along the lines of some of the careers they are pursuing.
“As a group they decided to help him through social media, by supporting him at events where he’ll be doing signings, helping to set up distribution points and managing his website,” she continued. “On all those things, those students are working to help him manage and sell that book. Because a percentage of the proceeds are coming back to WISE, they’ve obviously got a pretty keen interest in helping to assure that he sells books.”
The popularity of his previous sports collection, Dome Sweet Dome, released 16 years ago, made a follow-up as certain as a Carmelo Anthony layup. ”Even back then I promised myself there would be a sequel,” Glisson recalled. “It appeared that everyone really liked it and wanted it. And I was drawing the cartoons anyway.”
In between, Glisson published a book of political cartoons documenting his conservative perspective, although he knew that it wouldn’t achieve the commercial success of his sports tomes. “That was done for me,” he confessed. “A political cartoon is of the moment, that week or even that day. With sports in general and SU specifically, people absolutely remember. They’ll tell you, ‘Oh, I was at that game.’ There’s a cartoon in there of Donovan McNabb throwing up: ‘Oh, I remember where I was then.’ It’s crazy but people really remember and store the information. The word fan comes from fanatic and that’s pretty appropriate.”
A Syracuse native, rooting for the home team in his weekly cartoons comes naturally to Glisson. “I’ve always been a Syracuse fan from the Chiefs to the SU teams to the old hockey teams,” he said. “In this town, obviously, with doing an SU cartoon, I am not going to do a cartoon between UConn and Syracuse basketball and make Syracuse the butt of the joke and make UConn look good. It’s not happening. I’m a fan like everybody else.”
As Glisson kept pace with games on the Hill and paid tribute to milestone achievements and events, the sometimes-loved, sometimes-loathed mascot Otto the Orange has appeared frequently. That’s fine with the artist, who once served on a committee put together by former SU chancellor Kenneth Shaw to consider replacing the fruit puppet. “I love Otto because he is so fun to draw,” Glisson confessed. “I can draw Otto blindfolded. So whenever I have to do a cartoon about SU sports, the minute you put Otto in there it’s instantly recognizable as SU sports.”
The success of his earlier sports book and the popularity of his weekly panels in The New Times give Glisson reason for optimism with his newest, especially with the WISE students in his corner. “They’ve been wonderful,” he raved. “I’m so impressed with those students that are helping with this book. These ladies are top-drawer and I’m thrilled to have them represent me and this book.”
While Syracuse athletics are on the verge of a new chapter in joining the Atlantic Coast Conference, the author said No Place Like Dome—available
at joeglisson.com—will be his final edition. “I’ll go on record as
saying this is my last book” he asserted. “I don’t know if the world is
crying out for another Joe Glisson book.” From here on out, fans will
have to keep up with SU news, Glisson-style, in the pages of The New Times.
Pen pal: Cartoonist Joe Glisson strikes a karaoke-esque pose during a recent booksigning wingding for his new collection No Place Like Dome.
