A Character Named Gladys Gives A Shy Artist A Big Voice

People who haven't met Seattle writer/illustrator Debbie Tomassi imagine she is the hard-boiled, cigarette-smoking, red-hot-mama of a senior citizen depicted in her greeting cards and her rapidly developing comic strip.

They're always surprised when they meet Tomassi, a very shy, fawnlike woman of 33 who looks like she could be a fashion model (and who was, in fact). Can this be the creator of Gladys, that purple-haired character with the cat's-eye glasses and the pearls and the hairy sweater?

Tomassi can be and is. She still seems slightly bemused by her success, chiefly through her contract with American Greetings, through which she has sold hundreds of images and one-liners in greeting cards, keychains, tote bags, baby bottles, gift wrap and other "social expression products." She still seems a little surprised that Universal Features Syndicate would be interested in her comic strip prototypes (they are) and that American Greetings would like to have the rights to the strip instead (they would).

In her heart, the 33-year-old designer still is the Bremerton kid who grew up loving art even though her parents said she'd never make a living at it. They counseled her toward other careers, sometimes tactfully dropping job applications in her room.

Tomassi's is the classic story about overcoming odds by believing in yourself - except that when it comes to believing in herself, she's really something of an agnostic.

"I always thought, I can't write, but they're sending me paychecks!" marvels Tomassi.

"At first, I thought the greeting-card job was a big joke. This is such a competitive field, how could I be making it? But I've just kept doing it until somebody told me I can't, and nobody has told me I can't yet."

This is the girl whose report card always said, "Debbie is shy. Very shy. She doesn't play with the other kids. She just plays with the clay and the art projects." Even now, Tomassi seems mildly mortified at the idea of being interviewed, and downright horrified at the idea of posing for a photograph.

But in her greeting cards, it's Gladys and Friends, plus a handful of other sassy, smart-mouthed characters, who do the talking for the artist. They say the things she might be thinking, but wouldn't say herself. Those who look in vain for Tomassi in the character of Gladys, a perennially blunt realist of a certain age, should know that Gladys really is the persona of Tomassi's late and much-loved grandmother.

Grandma Gladys wasn't your average cookie-baker. Given to rakish cigarette holders and red platform shoes, she was an artist who always entered Tomassi's youthful paintings in the local county fair. The real Gladys could be more than a touch unorthodox; she once dressed up her little granddaughter as a hooker for Halloween. She was creative and resourceful, and it is Gladys' voice Tomassi hears in her ear when it's time to come up with a new one-liner.

The cards are mostly what Tomassi calls "woman-to-woman" subjects, at least partially because women buy more than 90 percent of all greeting cards. They also buy calendars (Tomassi has created one every year since 1986) and all those other items, and increasingly they look for Gladys and Friends, Tomassi's own imprint for witty sayings about friendships, aging, diet and the general shortcomings of men.

How does her husband of nine years, Tony, feel about the feminist tone of some of the cards?

"He loves them," laughs Tomassi.

The success of his wife's career has allowed Tony Tomassi to retire from the fire department and to go back to college. He has encouraged her ever since 1986, when she answered a cartoon employment ad with some cartoons of her own, and American Greetings chose her over 1,200 applicants and offered her a job in Cleveland. The Tomassis didn't want to leave Seattle (". . . for Cleveland??"), and the company finally offered her a contract that would let her stay here.

Don't be surprised if you see her "Gladys and Friends" comic strip before too long. Tomassi is going to keep working at it until someone tells her she can't.

Here's betting no one tells her she can't.