A Pick from the Past — “Cartoonist Interview”
by Lory Lazarus, Plastron Papers, September 1988

     When this Michael Maslin cartoon first appeared in 1988, many of us found the bowl with plastic palm trees quite familiar. In the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s hatchling turtles, mostly Red-eared Sliders, were sold by the millions as novelty items by our local “five and dime” stores. They were sold with a plastic bowl that had a center island with palm trees, and with an obligatory package of dried flies, which the belea­gured turtles rarely if ever consumed. We were often told they were “miniature turtles that didn’t live very long.”
     The original 1988 article by NYTTS member Lory Lazarus is reprinted below.

Cartoonist Interview
by Lory Lazaarus

     Michael Maslin, artist and creator of this cartoon, is a cool guy. Through the genttle prodding of our editor, I was enticed to track down the elusive Mr. Maslin. He's cool. I also think he's a closet tur­tle person. After all, how many normal people dream about two Ga­lápagos tortoises in a zoo with the zookeeper handing them a phone to them saying, “It’s a call from the Galápagos”? Michael Masliin did. He even made it into a cartoon. “But no one thought it was funny,” he said. So what? Michael Masliin is one of us—a turtle freak if only in his subconscious.
     He started drawing around the age of four, mostly creating dra­gons, dogs, and people. “And I pretty much still do,” he said. Around this age he had his first pet turtles, twp baby red-ears from Woolworth’s. He said he kept them in a bowl with plastic palm trees. “Are you going to hang up on me?” he asked. I assured him I wouldn’t and that most of the NYTTS members probably kept their first turtles in the same kind of environment. When he was nine or ten he had two more baby turtles. “Their shells were diffeent. They weren’t the Woolworth's kind.” These he kept in a ten-gallon tank with a float for them to crawl up on. “They had fish as companions,” he added. I told him his turtles most likely tried to munch on those companions.
     Also during his wonder years he had a box turtle for a month or so. He found it walking in his back yard in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Eventually the turtle accompanied Michael on a family outing and was set free near a lake. Thus ended his real-life associeation with turtles. But the fantasy stuff was starting to bloom in his part-time reptilian brain.
     Michael graduated with a degree in printing from the University of Connecticut in 1976 and soon thereafter began selling his cartoons to the New Yorker. “And I’ve been there ever since.” He currently lives in a happy, creative home (without plastic palm trees} with his wife, Liza Donnelly, who is a writer and artist of children’s books. Simon & Schuster. Inc. has published collections of Michael’s cartoons in two books entitled The More The Merrier and The Gang’s All Here. A third book, The Crowd Goes Wild, is due to be in stores around Chritmas.
     The idea for this cartoon? He said it just “came to him.” He did indeed try to make a statement with his drawing using a simple reversal of situation. He said he wanted to show “how would we like it” (if we were in their place)? I don’t think he knew just how well his simple reversal worked until we, the turtle people, contacted him. He was flattered, gracious, and most excited to be receiving his official NYTTS T-shirt. But then, this is fitting for a man who dreams about Galápagos tortoises. Michael Maslin is a cool guy.