Gay cartoonist Logan ‘Snoopy’ Chrysler’s works on display at Gallery Boom

Logan Chrysler’s art reflects his mixed heritage, cultures, and background. He identifies as a Métis – a descendant of Canadian First Nations people (Nez Perce, Samson Cree) and Africans; he’s out as a Gay artist and will tell anyone who asks that he’s a survivor of two traumatic brain injuries.

Most of his pen-and-ink drawings feature single men or male couples in cars or on motorcycles. Many are filled in with color, some are black-ink only.

He’s a commanding presence at more than six-feet in height, yet the cartoon that might make him a household name is of a short, Gay Scotsman, Charlie Sullivan. The character is “Gay, five-foot-five, bald with three little hairs going across his head, a beard and European style horn-rimmed glasses. His age is around 52,” Chrysler told The JOLT yesterday.  

“Charlie Sullivan” first appeared in 1997 in San Diego’s The Espresso, the coffee house newspaper there. Later “Sullivan” ran twice in Canada’s Maclean's magazine, in a Norwegian cartoon magazine, and three times in Tintin magazine in Belgium. The character is coming back to life now, in ads for a yet-to-be-named industrial company and in the Seattle Gay News, Chrysler said.  

The name

Many people ask Chrysler if he’s part of the famous Chrysler family, that of Walter Chrysler, Sr., founder of the automobile company. He replies that Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Walter’s daughter, was his aunt. Garbisch and her husband, Edgar, were well-known art collectors.

Despite his pedigree, his automobile art doesn’t focus on the Mopar family of autos. There’s a mix of Fords and European cars, too. One self-portrait shows a Snoopy-like image in what he called his uncle’s Shelby Cobra 427. 

The other name

At the 1990 New York Auto Show a friend gave him a promotional Chrysler t-shirt featuring the Charles Schultz character, Snoopy, driving a Plymouth Duster. After wearing that shirt, friends began calling him “Snoopy.”

Chrysler said that he was born at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City in 1958. His family included 11 brothers and sisters (he’s the “seventh son.”) They moved when he was a young child to the Powell River, on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. They moved around Canada, he explained. By the time they were living in Toronto where, at the age of 10, he secured an internship at a local advertising agency. His job: drawing.

Related to his work as a cartoonist, Chrysler is a student at The Evergreen State College, working on a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

You can meet Snoopy Chrysler this Sunday at a reception at Gallery Boom, 3959 Martin Way East, from Noon to 4 p.m.