Drawing on an Opportunity: A Conversation with Artist and Firefighter Paul Combs

For Paul Combs, an award-winning illustrator, artist and retired firefighter with 25 years in the fire service, saying yes to opportunities requiring courage has made all the difference.

By Julie Fitz-Gerald

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2021 issue. View the full issue here.

Paul Combs sat down with CRACKYL to talk about life, the fire service, and the conversation-stirring cartoons that he creates from his home in Ohio.

CRACKYL: Paul, what came first: art or firefighting?

Combs: Art! I have been an artist since I could hold a crayon. It is the only thing I have ever really known. I created my first comic book at 10 years-old. For me, art is like breathing. I actually stumbled into firefighting when I was in my late 20s.  My buddy’s uncle was a retired firefighter and he had a room dedicated to all his firefighter memorabilia and awards. I asked what it was like to be a firefighter and two hours later he had talked me into being one. I called my local fire department, asked for an interview and the minute I walked in the door – the ambiance, the smell – I just knew I was home. It all happened within a 24-hour period.

CRACKYL: How did you get started with your fire service artwork?

Combs: Kind of like firefighting, I fell into cartooning by accident. I was working for an ad agency, while on a two-year break from firefighting, and they wanted me to do an editorial cartoon about another ad agency as a joke.  In the process of researching and trying to find a style, I fell in love with the cartooning craft. With fine art, if you ask five fine artists to do a portrait, you are going to get five portraits that look similar. But if you ask five cartoonists to do the same thing, you are going to get varying styles that look very different. It is such a unique art that I just fell in love with it.

CRACKYL: Do you remember the first drawing you ever shared? What was the reaction?

Combs: I was living in Tampa, Florida at the time, out of the fire service and missing it like crazy, and just by chance I did an editorial cartoon for the Tampa Tribune on the Fire Act that was starting to go through Congress. My boss knew that I had a fire background, so she agreed to run it in the paper and that evening I approached firehouse.com to see if it would be something they would want to run. Within a couple of hours, they called me and I had a contract to do two editorial cartoons a month for the fire service. It is funny how these opportunities in life come about. The reaction to it was good. There have been fire cartoonists in the past, but no editorial cartoonist with a social or political point. 

CRACKYL: How do you feel your drawings have affected the fire service?

Combs: I don’t really know. I think my work has started conversations, which is what it is meant to do. Firefighters sitting around the kitchen table at the firehouse open up the cartoon and it starts a conversation on the topic. I hope that’s the impact I’ve had, but I really don’t know. I purposely kept myself in a bubble, even at my own fire house, and I never brought up the cartoons. It was always a running joke that I might put someone in a magazine, but that’s where it ended.  I was just Lieutenant Combs. I can draw, but so can a lot of people and just by chance in life I have stumbled onto things. Being an introvert, I have purposely kept myself in that bubble.

 CRACKYL: Where do you get your inspiration from?

Combs: From a lot of places. You don’t always know where inspiration comes from and it’s kind of scary to start naming it, in case it goes away. As an artist, I am a sponge in my surroundings. It could be a gesture or one word that convergences with something else that turns into an idea for a cartoon. I carry a small black sketchbook with me everywhere I go. Every cartoon I have ever done is in one of those black books and I have a collection of five already; small thumbnail ideas, fragments of ideas from five years ago, and they often resonate now, so I continually revisit these books. Inspiration comes from an emotional connection to the things around you.

CRACKYL: How many drawings have you published?

Combs: I hit the 500 mark in April. I have been doing this for over 15 years now.

CRACKYL: How do you find a work/life balance?

Combs: Being an artist and being someone who is creative, I never quite turn off that switch. It’s on all the time. When I’m watching tv or I’m on vacation, I always have my sketchbook. I never consider it work. Art to me is like breathing, so it’s always there. My wife, bless her heart, knows there are times when I am in that zone – there is an ebb and flow to that creativity – so when the tide is in, I can’t turn that off. After 28 years of marriage, she has learned to live with this crazy artist.

CRACKYL: What is the best thing that has come from uniting your love of firefighting with your talent for drawing?

Combs: I think it comes back to having the two best jobs in the world. You either go to the fire house or you go to the studio. I am incredibly blessed to have had those two things in my life. Since retiring from the fire service, I miss my guys on the truck, I miss the calls, I miss the rush – I still have not figured out how to replace that. I totally do not miss the BS and the politics that go on in the fire house though. I am ready for that to be over. But firefighting and art to me are like conjoined twins. I cannot have one without the other. I do work outside of each, but to me they are together.

CRACKYL: Do you have any upcoming projects that you’re working on?

Combs: I am currently working on my first children’s book with Frank Viscuso called Sprinkles the Fire Dog. It’s about firefighting, leadership, being strong, not getting pushed around and finding your voice. Frank is a retired fire chief from New Jersey and a best-selling author and I’m handling the illustrations. We’re hoping to launch it in the spring of 2021, in time for the FDIC International Convention.

This article originally appeared within the Spring 2021 issue. View the full issue here, or browse all back issues in the CRACKYL Library.