Artistic Legacy: The Hart-Mastroianni Family's Collaboration in Comics

Taking the helm of a comic strip dynasty was never at the forefront of Mason Mastroianni’s plans for his future. Growing up in the Binghamton area, drawing and art were naturally his inheritance, with cartoonist Johnny Hart for a grandfather.

Hart was an Endicott native who had built a home and spacious studios in Nineveh, at the northeastern end of Broome County. He had become famous for his two iconic comic strips carried daily in newspapers: B.C.—a look at the modern world through prehistoric sensibilities; and Wizard of Id, similar observations through assorted medieval characters and their quirks.

Mason always knew he would make his living as some sort of artist, but his interest in film drew him towards animation. After graduating from the Digital Animation and Visual Effects school on the back lot of Universal Studios in Orlando, Mason found work at Wet Cement, an animation studio in Minneapolis, helping create the company’s Emmy-Award-winning children’s series Auto B Good, among other projects.

Then came a spring day in 2007 when Mason returned home after learning the sad news of his grandfather’s sudden death from a stroke. Hart’s family, still grappling with their grief, was faced with an uncertain future and a range of questions. What would become of Hart’s two daily comic strips? He had written and drawn B.C. for 49 years and he and artist Brant Parker—and more recently Parker’s son—had produced Wizard of Id for 43 years.

Difficult questions and an unexpected answer

Not only were the two enormously popular strips carried in close to a thousand newspapers, but they were the family business, providing careers for Mason’s mom, Patti Hart, and especially his aunt Perri Hart, who had been working with her Dad since 1985. Much of the discussion at the family gathering, Mason recalled, centered on the future of B.C., which Hart wrote and drew, and which he was working on even up to the moment of his death.

The strip could go into reruns, as Peanuts had after Charles Schultz’s death. Or it could be retired, leaving an unclear path ahead for family members engaged in the business. Was there anyone else to fill the famous cartoonist’s shoes?

“I could give it a shot,” Mason volunteered. Afterwards, the casualness of his remark, shared with the rest of the family around the dining room table in the aftermath of the funeral, would surprise him, but make perfect sense at the same time.

“We had never talked about this before, even when my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer,” Mason says. “But I knew this was something I could do for my family—continue the legacy.”

According to Mason, words of support from the rest of the family were instantaneous—they all knew he excelled as an artist. But they voiced concern for his own future. He was building a strong career in animation, forging his own path and, as his grandmother asked, “Are you sure this is what you want to do with your life?”

Mason remembers his own thoughts were mixed. “I’d be giving up something I really love, but I felt I was going toward something I really loved, too.”

“Ghosting” grandfather’s creations

Mason wasted no time getting started, going upstairs that very night and starting to draw the familiar cavemen and cavewomen and prehistoric creatures of B.C. His aim was to craft them so exactly that there would be a seamless transition from the strips his grandfather had completed to the new ones Mason would create from there on.

“I knew I was a pretty good ‘ghost’ artist—and it helped that I’d grown up with it and had a drawing background,” says Mason. He practiced until all involved agreed he had nailed the images.

But there was more to the work than getting the characters drawn correctly. The other part of a cartoonist’s job is to keep the gags flowing, day after day, week after week. One-to-three panel black-and-whites Monday through Saturday, and an extended color strip every Sunday—and all had to be true to the spirit of the themes and personalities Johnny Hart had been developing for nearly 50 years.

The pressure was enormous, but Mason kept drawing while the newspapers ran previously-published strips for six weeks. He created enough to begin publishing. Then came the transition.

“We kept it low-key and some people never noticed that Mason had taken over B.C.,” notes his younger brother Mick Mastroianni, now also involved in the family business. “We lost some newspaper outlets right after my grandfather passed away, but it eventually leveled off.”

Some newspapers still carry the Hart byline on the strip, while others have added the Mastroianni name. Either way is fine with the family.

Wizard gets a new writer

But the way forward for Hart’s other strip, Wizard of Id, took a different trajectory. Hart had written the strip, but it had been drawn by Brant Parker from its inception in 1964. Parker’s son Jeff had later taken over and had been drawing it for a decade. Coincidentally, just eight days after Hart’s sudden death, Brant Parker also passed away, while the Hart family was still working on the matter of who would assume the writing of the strip.

Mick, who had been developing a comic strip of his own, began writing the Wizard of Id with the younger Parker drawing it, leaving the legacy of the two strips completely in the hands of the next generation. This arrangement continued until 2015, when Parker stepped back and Mason took over the drawing of Wizard, with Mick continuing as the writer.

Today, Mason remains the cartoonist for B.C.—drawing and the writing—as well as the artist for Wizard of Id; Mick writes Wizard of Id and contributes ideas for B.C.

And even though those duties sound like more than a full-time job for both, the two brothers also produce another original comic strip: Dogs of C-Kennel, which Mick created in 2003 after volunteering at an A.S.P.C.A. shelter and noticing how the personalities of its canine residents could become a unique source of humor. Currently, Mick writes the strip; Mason draws it.

The old-fashioned way

If cartooning in the 21st century sounds like an easy craft, with computers and digital technology, the Hart/Mastroianni family turn those assumptions upside down. All three comic strips are to this day hand-drawn by Mason, the old-fashioned way—every single panel. Every. Single. Day.

Aunt Perri—a successful artist in her own right—does all the lettering for B.C. and Wizard, also by hand—each painstaking word.

“It actually doesn’t take that long and after doing it for years; it comes naturally to me. It gives each strip a unique look, with slight differences in the lettering for B.C. and Wizard,” Perri says, explaining that the letters aren’t any particular font, just her own style.

She also used to hand-color each Sunday strip with a watercolor overlay, but since Johnny passed, she has conceded to the faster process of digital scanning and coloring of all the strips.

Completing the family affair, Mick and Mason’s mom, Patti, handles the organizational and administrative part of the business, working closely with all three.

Handcrafted strips mean that tens of thousands of past strips are a part of the family inheritance, in vaults, and sometimes auctioned for charity events.

Giving back to the community

Charity and concern for the communities of Broome County are additional hallmarks of Johnny Hart’s legacy. Broome County Transit and county parks use characters from B.C. as their mascots, and it’s not uncommon to see Hart’s beloved creations associated with various fundraising for nonprofits.

Whereas many artistic or media businesses might enforce restrictive copyright rules and steep licensing fees, initially Hart himself—and nowadays his family—have been more inclined to permit the likenesses without charging, out of a sense of supporting worthy local causes.

Hart’s characters have also made their mark on well-known local events. Before Dick’s Sporting Goods took over the annual PGA Golf Tournament, it was the B.C. Open, with some of the strip’s characters used for publicity. A Christian fellowship breakfast originally hosted by Hart continues now as a memorial breakfast in his honor when the tournament comes to town each summer at En-Joie golf course.

Johnny Hart’s well-known Christian beliefs occasionally found their way into the themes of his comic strips, causing controversy among detractors and delight among readership with similar sentiments. At times when the Christian theme was too overt, some newspapers would relegate the strip to the opinion pages.

As for Mason and Mick, they say they don’t deliberately try to include or exclude such themes, but simply follow their grandfather’s advice to “stay simple and be funny,” according to Mick. They’ve successfully walked a sometimes-delicate line between staying true to the spirit of what Hart created and infusing today’s strips with their own blend of humor and personality.

“The one strip where I will do a Christian theme is on Easter Sunday, because I see it as carrying on my grandfather's legacy,” Mason notes.

New horizons and coming full circle

Now that this comic strip legacy lives securely in the hands of Hart’s family, what might the future hold for dinosaur Gronk, Peter, the character known as B.C., the King, the Wizard, and all their assorted cohorts, along with their canine brothers in C-Kennel?

B.C. turned 60 this year and celebrated early with The Best of B.C.: 58 Years of Pithy Prehistoric Puns and Fun, a hardcover collection available on Amazon. On the 50th anniversary of Wizard of Id, many other prominent cartoonists paid tribute in their own comic strips.

The future of comics strips can seem fraught with uncertainty; Mick points out that newspapers are struggling to stay relevant in the age of digital media, but all three comics: B.C., Wizard, and Dogs are carried online daily at GoComics.com. Viewing them there carries the added delight of being able to pore over decades of strips.

Mason and Mick look ahead and speculate about the possibility of related merchandising: books, licensing, perhaps even movies or TV, which would bring Mason back full-circle to his previous career in animation.

For now, all family members stay super busy keeping up with the pace of daily comic strips. They voice happiness that Hart’s creations continue, that they bring chuckles to millions of people every day, and that they’ll continue to provide satisfying careers and secure futures for Perri, Patti, and especially Mick and Mason.

Mason seems to speak to all of these sentiments when he says, “I love getting up and going to work every day. The fact that I can do this with my family is a gift.”