Many articles have been written about me and my show. Sometimes one really stands out and captures my attention the same way I try to capture an audiences. The following article from Jennifer Kissel is one such case. Published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in July of 2000 it is a well written story. She has told my life and I am delighted to have got to sit in the audience and be charmed and amused by her well told tale! Thank you Jennifer for this wonderful article. Published here as it was written and complete.

 He Found a Niche 'Tween The Scribbled Lines

by Jennifer Kissel

Once upon a toon -- that's how all good stories begin, according to Joe Wos, storytelling cartoonist -- Joe Wos's kindergarten teacher instructed his charges to draw pictures of where they'd work when they grew up.  Like many four-year-olds, Wos wanted to emulate his dad, a steel mill worker who labored under the then-smoggy skies of Braddock.  So while most of his classmates produced colorful drawings of fire trucks and skyscrapers, Wos grabbed a black crayon and scribbled. 

"The teacher was furious! He wanted me to change it," the 29-year-old Wos recalls. But the elder Wos was pleased.  "Dad said, 'This is the best drawing of the mill I've ever seen.  How can you live in Braddock and not know that's the mill?'" 

The younger Wos didn't become a steel mill worker.  Even at age four, he says he knew his future as a cartoonist was clearly visible in the scribbled lines.  "I never thought for a second I'd be anything else," Wos says.  

"It's been a long struggle, even finding what my niche was," admits Wos, who recently moved from Penn Hills to West Mifflin.   But his knack for telling tales fit so perfectly with cartooning that Wos developed as a storytelling cartoonist.  

Once Upon a Toon, Wos's interactive program in which audience members use their imaginations to help weave the tales, delights story lovers from Pennsylvania to Florida, in venues ranging from preschools to family festivals to senior centers.   

In Wos's world, dragons blow bubbles, and dew isn't caused by moisture in the air but by the teardrops of hideous creatures called squonks.  During programs, kids yell out suggestions on what characters should look like, and provide sound effects. 

"I never know what's going to spawn an idea for a story," he says.  "Like, a kid will come up to me and say, 'My Grandma has a goat and it ate her underwear.'"  

In 1991, still finding his niche at age 21, Wos began appearing at The Pittsburgh Children's Museum on a volunteer basis to keep up his skills.  The kids asked questions, Wos spun tales to match his silly sketches, and Once Upon a Toon was born. His wife, Marje, who edits much of his work, named the program. 

Wos presents regular cartooning workshops at the Children's Museum, and does another show there called The Science of Toons!, according to performing arts coordinator Tracy Smakosz. "He compares and contrasts scientific principals through cartoons, things like how the laws of gravity are different in the cartoon world versus the real world," Smakosz says. (Think of Wile E. Coyote falling off of a cliff.) The Children's Museum handles all of Wos's school assembly bookings. 

Wos also creates giant storytelling mazes, some of which Ripley's Believe It or Not! displays as the World's Most Difficult Mazes in its permanent museum collection. Illustrations throughout the mazes tell stories.  

Wos doesn't do much freelance artwork these days, although some opportunities are too rich to pass up. "I did a logo for a goat cheese farmer in Slovenia," he says.  He designed a cartoon goat for the farmer, who had contacted Wos through his web site. "He paid me with a tour book of Slovenia – not written in English – and some photographs of his goat." 

Usually though, Wos's real bread and butter comes from his stories and 'toons.  Wos estimates that he's one of the youngest professional full-time storytellers in the country.  "Most people think I'm older," he says.  "People tend to associate storytelling with wisdom."   

But Wos has proven you don't need a grandfatherly, "come-sit-on-my-knee" image to be a successful storyteller. He pulls his audience in with easy one-liners, a high-energy presentation and of course, his exaggerated drawings. With orange suede shoes, a jaunty black hat, purple shirt and Crayola crayon necktie, Wos's very appearance beckons kids and adults to gather for a story. 

Brenda Ceurvorst and her four children, ages 5 to 11, all of Pine, recently saw Wos perform at Northland Library's summer reading kickoff program in McCandless.  "I love how he pulls the whole audience in.  He makes them create the story," says Ceurvorst, watching as Wos's thick black marker glides across the easel in broad, swift strokes and a bubble-blowing dragon appears.  "I wish I could do that," she whispers, smiling and shaking her head. During a guessing game, Wos draws some characters in less than 20 seconds, "making me the Fastest Draw in the East!" he quips.

With no formal art training, Wos developed his own simple but unique style, a hybrid that he says was influenced by favorites like Dr. Suess, Charles Schultz, Walt Kelly and Thomas Nast.  

"The best stories are those that everyone can identify with," says Wos.  Many of his tales, like The Smartest Dragon and The Flower Fairy, are original, and they all carry positive messages, like treating others kindly. Other stories are fairy tales or folk tales with a twist.  "I never tell a story like anyone else," says Wos. "I twist it, I mangle it, and make it my own." 

Cuervorst's daughter, Sarah, 9, has seen Wos perform twice in four years.  She says her favorite story is The Flower Fairy, "because it shows that you don't have to be perfect on the outside to be perfect and nice inside."  

Because his shows are family-oriented, Wos weaves different levels of humor through the tales.  "The silly voices are for the kids, but the story is for everyone," he says.  Kids laugh at a cartoon dandelion's goofy grimace, but adults laugh because the Flower Fairy grants the dandelion the power to regenerate itself for eternity.  

Wos's professional cartooning career began at age 14 as a caricature artist at festivals and family reunions. He even drew caricatures at his Woodland Hills senior prom, bypassing a date for the chance to poke good-humored fun at his classmates.  

Despite his being blackballed from his school newspaper for drawing a cartoon poking fun at the district, Wos's cartoons were well accepted, even by teachers, and he circulated an underground comic. One day, he was called to principal's office. 

"'Joe,' the principal said to me, 'This is extremely funny,'" recalls Wos.  "I couldn't believe it – it made fun of him!"   

"The principal said, 'If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?'" says Wos.  "And I said, 'I agree.  If you can't laugh at the principal, who can you laugh at?'" 

Lucky for cartoon and story lovers, Wos's parents and most teachers encouraged his talents.  "My parents got a roll of computer paper, taped it to the wall and let me go at it," he says.  And that principal who could laugh at himself invited Joe to draw caricatures of 30 teachers for the yearbook. 

That kindergarten teacher who tried to squelch Wos's budding talent happened to collect cartoonist's autographs but four-year-old Wos, miffed by his first critic's snub, said to himself, "When he asks, I'm not going to give him my autograph." Twenty-five years later, the teacher still hasn't asked. 

Wos obliges plenty of autograph requests at each of his 100 or more annual appearances. An average story produces about 18 drawings, and Wos distributes all the drawings to the children in the audience after every show.  "If they're not autographed," he says, "the kids let me know about it." 

 "I was told by other storytellers in the area 'You're not going to make it in Pittsburgh,'" says Wos.  "But Pittsburgh has been so good to me."  He says the Carnegie Library system has booked him at eight libraries this summer, he makes regular appearances at area Borders Books & Music in addition to the Children's Museum, and is invited to annual events citywide. 

"I recently did a show at the Mars Home for Youth," Wos says.  "Some people said, 'Don't do it – it will be a tough audience,'" Wos says. "But it never is.  Everybody loves a story."