by chris horn

Former editorial cartoonist Kate Salley Palmer, '68, channels her considerable talent to create witty prose and lively illustrations for childern's books

Some 20 years after her stint as a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist, Kate Salley Palmer still has political fire in her veins.

“I still do a lot of sketching,” she says, a caricature of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez lying on the coffee table by her chair, “and a lot of yelling at the TV set when there's a Congressional hearing.”

But what used to be a harried full-time job is now merely a pleasant past time. Palmer has moved on to an even more satisfying career as an author, illustrator, and, with her husband, Jim, a publisher of children's books.

How the 1968 Carolina graduate got into the cartooning business in the first place is worthy of a book—and she's already written it: Growing Up Cartoonist in the Baby Boom South. But there's still plenty to say about this pencil-wielding artist who has always marched to a different beat.

“I drifted off onto a strange path,” Palmer said, sitting in the tiny studio of her home in Central, S.C. “It was not the beaten path.”

Palmer remembers being told she'd never make it in college despite her high academic potential. “I had attention-deficit disorder, but no one knew about such things back then. When I came to college, I majored in elementary education just so I wouldn't have to take math.”

She started at Winthrop, but got fed up with all of the rules. “I was on restriction 14 times for things like burping too loudly. So I transferred to Carolina the next year.”

Turns out she had more bottled up inside than loud burps. Her creativity found an outlet in a comic strip that she named “Terrible Tom and the Boys,” featuring super-hero caricatures of then-University President Tom Jones and other administrators. It was light-hearted stuff and “not very original,” Palmer said, but Terrible Tom became a regular feature in The Gamecock student newspaper.

After graduation, she married Jim Palmer, an extension service agronomist, and worked as a graphic artist at Clemson University. After a year of teaching school in Seneca, she began sketching political cartoons for the small Seneca Journal-Messenger newspaper.

“I realized that I loved political cartooning,” she said. “and I had a pretty fat portfolio by then, but I was whining about not being a ‘real’ political cartoonist.” A trip to the Greenville News' editorial offices quickly hit pay dirt. “They offered me $5 per sketch, and I flooded them with cartoons.” By 1978 she was working fulltime for the paper and was accepted into the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists; she was one of only two women who showed up at the association's annual convention.

In 1980 her cartoons were nationally syndicated in 200 papers, including the San Francisco Examiner, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The success of syndication lasted six years, peaking in 1985 when management changes brought an end to the contract.

“I tried to syndicate myself to papers in South Carolina and around the country after that—and had 22 papers signed up—but that was a big mistake. You need a business mind to do something like that.”

With her career as an editorial cartoonist effectively over, Palmer fell into a funk. To help cheer her up, Palmer's friends took her to a children's bookstore, which, at first, seemed precisely like the wrong way to make her feel better.

“I had never liked children's books at all and didn't know why they dragged me there,” she said. “But after we'd been there a while I saw this one book that looked as though the cover had been done by a political cartoonist. It was like, gee, I could do that.”

Thus was born the second act of Palmer's artistic career. After a few struggles and making the right contacts, she illustrated a counting book—How Many Feet in the Bed?—and wrote and illustrated A Gracious Plenty, both published by Simon & Shuster. Several other books followed until the Palmers were inspired by a talk at a writers' conference on self publishing.

They formed their own publishing house, Warbranch Press (so named for the street on which they reside), and she wrote and illustrated The Pink House, inspired by childhood trips to Edisto Island on the South Carolina coast. The book was a phenomenal success, selling more than 15,000 copies.

“Editorial cartoonists use an economy of words, which makes them ideally suited for children's writing,” Palmer said. “I really enjoy writing for young people—writing in a simpler manner.”

Palmer tapped into the school market with Palmetto: Symbol of Courage, a non-fiction book about South Carolina's state tree and its significance in the 1776 battle for Sullivan's Island. The book was snapped up by elementary schools across the state because state history is mandated in third and eighth grades. “That book made our press,” Palmer aid, “and I told my husband, ‘Third-grade teachers are our friends!’ ”

And it turns out the third graders are pretty nice, too. Palmer visits lots of schools every year, reading to students and getting their ideas for future book projects.

“Kids think you're a rock star because you've written books,” she said. “They're so enthusiastic and so wonderful. My favorite part of being a children's book writer, I tell them, is coming to see them.”

Palmer collaborated with her son James H. Palmer Jr. on Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox, in which she wrote the text and he created the illustrations. Schools have warmly received the book, and she is planning two more for young readers: a book about African-American Revolutionary War heroes and another about agricultural products produced in different regions of South Carolina. Looking even farther down the road, Palmer has ideas for a novel or two for older readers.

From editorial cartooning to children's book illustration and writing, Palmer has adroitly maneuvered from one artistic venue to another. And with pencil in hand, there's no telling what course she might steer from here.