Illustrator Puts a Face on the Unborn

By Tim Drake

Editor's note. This first appeared in the National Catholic Register and is reprinted with the author's permission.

SCRANTON, Pa. - - Illustrator Gary Cangemi is not a cartoon, but he felt like one when he conceived his pro-life comic character Umbert the Unborn.

"The proverbial cartoon light bulb went off above my head," said Cangemi. Little did he expect the cartoon would draw the nationwide attention that it has. Cangemi hopes that the comic strip's success will translate into success for the pro-life movement.

Cangemi created the comic strip in the spring of 2001. He had been working as a freelance graphic artist for 20 years, but he was dissatisfied with his work.

"I hadn't really produced anything that I could look back and be proud of," said Cangemi.

Cangemi's mother had recently died from cancer and he was seeking a new direction for his career.

"I felt my mother urging me to pray for God's guidance," recalled Cangemi. "So I prayed, 'God, please give me a direction to go with my career.'"

While thumbing through an old scrap book, Cangemi stumbled across a 4-panel political editorial cartoon he had created 10 years earlier for his "Off the Board" feature in Scranton's newspaper, The Metro. In the cartoon, the baby overhears the voice of an abortionist describing the child as an "unviable, unwanted piece of protoplasm." At the end of the cartoon the baby cries out, "Speak for yourself!"

"As soon as I saw the baby's face, the light bulb went off," said Cangemi.

Cangemi proceeded to draw a dozen sample comic strips, and soon realized that he needed a name.

"I wanted a name that sounded heroic," explained Cangemi, "like Richard the Lionhearted, but I wanted it to be alliterative so I came up with ' _____ the Unborn.'"

At first, he was unable to come up with a "U" name, until he remembered the name of an author he had recently read - - Umberto Eco.

"Umberto sounded too ethnic," said Cangemi. "So I knocked off the 'O,' and Umbert was conceived."

Before sending the cartoon off to newspapers, Cangemi wanted the input of a

colleague. He approached Father Jim Paisley, priest at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Laflin, Pa.

"Gary expected that I would think it was a cute idea and move on from there," said Father Paisley, "but I was overwhelmed with the potential that the project had. The cartoon gives a name, face, and personality to the unborn baby within. I started laughing because I was thrilled by it."

Within a week, with Father Paisley's assistance, Cangemi obtained then-Scranton Bishop James Timlin's blessing. With that blessing, Cangemi sent the cartoon off to approximately 150 Catholic newspapers.

"The very first telephone call that I received was from executive editor Tom Hoopes at the National Catholic Register," said Cangemi. "He told me that he loved it and that he wanted to use it on their Culture of Life page."

The cartoon made its debut in the June 6-12, 2001, issue of the Register, and has been gaining increasing exposure ever since.

Breathing Life

Cangemi possesses a vivid imagination. He has illustrated Umbert as an astronaut and a deep-sea diver. He's got him using a computer connected to the Interwomb to send pre-email, playing sports, and even hosting his own game show - - Unborn Babies in Jeopardy. He's also drawn an embryonic version of Umbert.

"I want to show that Umbert is a person at all phases," said Cangemi. "There is no trimester in which Umbert becomes a person. He's a person from the moment of conception."

The cartoon has resonated well with a variety of audiences - - pro-life advocates, expectant mothers and fathers, and children. One seven-year-old boy from Kentucky wrote to ask when Umbert was going to be born.

"He's been in there long enough," wrote Kevin. "Don't you think it's time for him to be born?"

Cangemi wrote back saying that, like Charlie Brown, Umbert is a cartoon character who is frozen in time. He told him that if Umbert is born, the cartoon will end, and he made Kevin a promise.

"I promised him that the day that all unborn children have the legal right to be born, that will be Umbert's birthday," said Cangemi. "It's a promise that I hope I will live long enough to keep."

The cartoon is currently read by more than 400,000 readers nationwide. It has been picked up by approximately 20 publications, as well as many parish bulletins.

In December, Circle Media will publish Umbert the Unborn: A Womb with a View. The book features a collection of 120 full-color cartoons, as well as a series of page-by-page illustrations of Umbert developing from a single cell to a full-term baby, and an array of Umbert's educational facts of life.

Cangemi, who has three children of his own, hopes that the book can help educate children and change hearts and minds on the issue of abortion in a non-threatening way.

"If we can raise a whole generation of children respecting life - - for whom it would be inconceivable to want to kill Umbert - - the tide will turn," he said.

Cangemi has other plans for spreading Umbert's message. He is unveiling an Umbert web site, complete with an animated version of Umbert. In addition, he is launching a daily version of the cartoon for Catholic.net, and he also plans to offer the comic strip for syndication in the mainstream press.

He stresses the importance of using humor.

"Charles Schulz was the first cartoonist to introduce Christian themes into a mainstream artform," said Cangemi. "I see Umbert as a kind of prenatal Bob Hope entertaining the front-line troops of the pro-life cause and giving them a much-needed morale boost."

Tim Drake serves as staff writer for the National Catholic Register. He is the editor of the book, Saints of the Jubilee (1stBooks, 2002). He resides in St. Cloud, Minnesota.