ARTIST DAVID HELTON
How a Buzzard Became a Rock Music Icon
By Mike Olszewski
Radio has always been a tough career to break into, a profession with too much competition, too few jobs and the always-constant pressure to increase ratings. Know what’s even tougher? Getting a job as a station’s art director.
A young artist for American Greetings named David Helton not only got in on the ground floor at WMMS-FM but also gave the radio station a face — a buzzard — that would come to symbolize a rock lifestyle for Northeast Ohio.
It started nearly 50 years ago when Helton drew a cartoon protesting the National Lampoon Radio Hour being shortened to 30 minutes. WMMS management liked his work and hired him as a freelance artist.
WMMS Music Director Denny Sanders and Program Director John Gorman worked with Helton to come up with a buzzard for a station ad. The first showed a competing station’s call letters strewn about a graveyard, a buzzard looking on.
“It never occurred to me that this radio station artwork had any longevity,” Helton says. “WMMS didn’t want to spend money, so I was doing the art for four concert tickets and three albums per piece of art. Meanwhile, I was starting to do three or four print ads a month.”
In 1975, Helton continued his regular job with American Greetings’ “Hi-Brow” card line, where famed cartoonist Robert Crumb once called home, taking WMMS assignments in his spare time.
By the time he left American Greetings in late 1976, Helton had created dozens of print ads for WMMS, two animated ads, more than 12-15 T-shirt designs and billboards. He turned in his two-week notice at American Greetings, confident there was plenty of work waiting for him but unaware of the impact his art was having on WMMS followers. He found himself invited to personal appearances throughout Northeast Ohio, drawing the WMMS Buzzard for crowds of fans.
The Buzzard soon became one of the most recognized trademarks, not only in Cleveland, but across the country. Buoyed by huge ratings and a promotional juggernaut, Helton’s illustration exploded, even appearing on an early episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” Everyone wanted to be linked to the Buzzard. It drew attention far beyond the reach of the WMMS radio audience, a hip, unconventional representative of a Cleveland-based phenomenon.
This Buzzard Flew the Coop
An old saying is that the only constant is change; radio is no different. After an impressive run, Helton knew he needed to move on.
“I had a dream in 1973 after graduating from Ringling School of Art of being a children’s book illustrator… expanding (from a cartoonist). I knew radio wasn’t going to last much longer and decided that a change of environment would be conducive for my new direction.”
Helton left Cleveland in 1990 and returned to his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee to concentrate on building a new livelihood and honing his art skills.
“I had fulfilled many creative challenges with all that WMMS and Cleveland had to offer but a change in scenery was necessary. Being closer to my family was important at the time, so I made the big leap and set up a freelance children’s illustration business in Chattanooga,” Helton says.
He continued designing logos and mascots for radio stations around the country before his illustration business took off.
An art director for Children’s Better Health Institute, which publishes children’s magazines, hired him for numerous commissions. When she took a job at Highlights for Children magazine, she continued hiring Helton for freelance artwork.
“Highlights is a highly regarded publication in the children’s lit world, so I got a lot of attention there. Not only that, along the way I learned that I could create and illustrate the many puzzle forms needed for these publications,” Helton says.
Helton became the go-to artist for the magazine’s popular feature “Hidden Pictures” where everyday objects are hidden within a drawing. He continues to illustrate those puzzles today, not only for Highlights but also for other publications.
Just last year, Helton was hired to do a series of children’s puzzles for McKee Baking, the maker of Little Debbie Snacks. He created and illustrated puzzles for Little Debbie Mini-Muffins featuring The Muffin Man. It was so well received that he did a series of illustrations showing kids celebrating their birthdays with ‘Birthdays Around The World’ on the back of Mini-Muffins Birthday Cake cartons.
“These kinds of projects are what I consider to be my most gratifying because I created the ideas from start to finish,” Helton says.
Buzzard Days
Yet Helton’s days with The Buzzard aren’t over.
“I still hear every week from fans who remember how much The Buzzard meant to them and their youth. A new generation has embraced their parents’ past and Cleveland’s great rock-and-roll history. And I get commissions from older fans who are mostly retirement age and they ask me to create The Buzzard on Air Force uniforms serving beer to their friends, or a Birthday Buzzard drawing personalized for a parent celebrating a 65th birthday, maybe a Buzzard logo for their volleyball team, or older fans who want their bar’s logo with a Buzzard drawing to hang up behind their bar.
“I even have DJs who passed through Cleveland going from gig to gig and didn’t work at WMMS, ask me to draw a Buzzard with them sitting at the microphone. So I never tire of hearing The Buzzard fans’ different stories and requests of how it affected their lives,” Helton says.
Lives and careers take many directions, and Helton says he’s grateful for his opportunities.
“I produced a large body of work that I hope made people laugh and remember the best part of their lives. Being a better artist has always been my goal in life and I still strive every day to do that, even in these later years.
“I was fortunate to work with some of the most talented and creative people in the world at WMMS and Cleveland, and that was the best part of my life. Sounds corny but if I learned anything, it’s to always follow your heart and dreams,” Helton says.
And The Buzzard?
In two years, he’ll celebrate his 50th anniversary, the legacy of both a bright moment in Cleveland radio history and for the person who first brought him to life.
David Helton can be reached at http://www.davidheltonillustration.com/
