Central Florida artist Kieran Castano is continuing the long tradition of drawing Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” comic strip, a daily panel that spotlights fun facts, out-of-box thinking and unusual individuals.
Castano, who grew up in Sanford and lives there now, started freelancing for Orlando-based Ripley Entertainment last year and took over on a full-time basis in November. The panel was started by Robert Ripley — the man who coined the term “believe it or not” — more than a century ago. It was an offshoot of his newspaper work and world travels.
Castano is the eighth artist to helm the comic, and his awareness of Ripley developed at an early age. As a child he learned to ride a bicycle near Ripley’s mansion in New York, he said.
“My parents were groundskeeper and maid to many wealthy people in Westchester County. So, we lived until I was 6 or 7 in multiple mansions in the groundskeeper quarters,” Castano said at Ripley Entertainment’s headquarters in south Orlando. While the grown-ups were working, Castano explored the houses.
“I remember when I was about 6, going to this huge library that this doctor had and looking for a book with pictures in it because everything else is boring,’ he said. He was drawn to one with a yellow spine and the Ripley logo.
“I remember sitting there in the library just going through it. … That was one of my first introductions to illustrations.”
Castano’s tools include pens, brushes, bottles of black ink and stipple paper with assists from Photoshop software, particularly with type.
“The style has evolved a little bit over the years. I think the intent of the cartoons has always been the same,” said John Corcoran, a director with Ripley Entertainment.
“We’re not doing edgy political cartoons where half the crowd is going to hate you or anything like that. We’re sort of trying to educate people in a fun way,” Corcoran said.
Among recent panel entries: “Ants can survive being microwaved!” as well as “Gamers have collectively spent more than six million years playing World of Warcraft” and “Astronaut Buzz Aldrin claimed $33.31 in travel expenses for his 1969 trip to the moon and back.”
Ripley editors and researchers provide facts for publication to Castano. He groups them into threes, preferring a themed panel to random facts.
“I just try to visualize which three would go together on a panel and go from there,” Castano said. He produces seven strips each week and works to be consistent with Robert Ripley’s style.
“All of the cartoonists that have done it have tried to keep the key characteristics of his cartoons, like the huge contrast in his portraiture. There’s a lot of black filling and it’s kind of messy, you know, really quick on the go because he was traveling,” he said.
“I still am doing work to have my own style, but I’m still studying Ripley’s work every time I’m here. I’m looking at the originals,” he said.
Castano doesn’t have a favorite panel among the ones he’s created, he said.
“But my favorite thing to do is — since these will be kept forever — I like to, when I have the opportunity, slip my beloved people in there,” he said. Readers also may spot his bird, dog and a cartoon version of Castano.
In his youth, he was into Mad magazine, underground comics, punk music, album covers, zines, “the whole subculture of things,” Castano said. In school, he was known for making humorous drawings about teachers and classroom events. Eventually, he became the cartoonist for his high school newspaper. But he long felt like an outsider, he said.
“Growing up in New York, I was the only brown poor kid in this really rich district. I only happened to be there because I was the maid’s kid,” he said. “Then growing up and realizing I don’t think this is the gender that I’m supposed to be, like, feeling an outsider in my body and then neurotypically feeling different. In so many ways. I was so unsure of myself and feeling weird in a negative way. … I guess art was the only thing I had to really explore myself.”
After high school, he got a job as a restaurant dishwasher, and then eventually became a cook. The 2016 election inspired him to concentrate on painting again, and he participated in art shows on weekends.
“Then I landed an art show at Mills Gallery. It was my first solo show, and I got the cover of Orlando Weekly,” Castano said. “The ball was rolling then. I wasn’t just doodling in my room. I was making strides in Orlando.”
One of his last solo shows featured portraits of transgender people in the style of pointillism, paintings created by small dots of color to form images.
“Out of all of these millions of dots and these millions of experiences, it forms a face. It forms you. Also, I chose it to be queer and trans people because we lack representation,” he said. “I’m bringing out the beauty in what would be an antagonized group of people, myself included. We’re actually really beautiful; we have a lot of depth.”
dbevil@orlandosentinel.com
