FAYETTEVILLE — According to his mother, Gary Thomas’ interest in drawing can be traced back to his childhood.
She would often remind him growing up that while he sat in a pew next to her during church sermons, he was preoccupied, sketching the pastor standing behind the pulpit. That's where it all began. Years later, in high school, he became fascinated with cartooning.
These days, there is a fascination with the wide-ranging cartoons he creates and posts on social media. Thomas, a longtime Razorbacks fan and former pastor who lives in Fort Smith, is the man behind the Hogtoons account on Twitter. He also posts all of his work on a personal Instagram page.
“It’s been good,” Thomas said of the reaction from Arkansas fans to his cartoons. “I always enjoy kind of seeing the likes stack up, and the retweets. That’s kind of telling me people enjoy them.”
Long before he began producing Razorbacks-related pieces and started what turned out to be a two-plus-decade run as a cartoonist and illustrator with the Baptist Trumpet and 11 years at the Arkansas Baptist News, a visit to Six Flags as a high school student proved to be influential.
It was there he came across caricature artists. He was captivated by them and wanted to learn more.
Thomas’ mother, an art minor in college, provided him a few tips and showed her son some of the work of George Fisher, a former editorial cartoonist at the Arkansas Gazette. He then grew interested in not only drawing people but cartoons and making a statement while doing so.
During his senior year of high school in Vilonia, he illustrated the school yearbook and designed the cover and a few pages. At Central Baptist College in his hometown of Conway, Thomas’ work began to gain traction. The dean of students asked him to create cartoons to promote recruiting events, and those cartoons were eventually published in The Baptist Trumpet, the official publication of the Baptist Missionary Association of Arkansas.
After stepping away from drawing years ago to travel full-time in the ministry with his first wife and family, Thomas met Tim Yarbrough, the editor of the Arkansas Baptist News in 2011, introduced himself and asked if he was in need of a cartoonist.
Yarbrough said yes, and Thomas was back in business. The bi-monthly magazine, though, dissolved earlier this year and he submitted his final cartoon to the publication in March. Thomas is now submitting cartoons for the Baptist Trumpet again.
His work for the ABN was done on paper, the method he enjoys most. But all of his Hogtoons are done on his iPad Pro.
“Sometimes while I’m watching a game an idea will come to me in the middle of a game and I’ll sketch it out,” said Thomas, who does non-ambulatory medical transport for a living. “A lot of times it’s after the game after I digest a win or a loss. I’ll kind of just read some feedback on Twitter and see how fans are feeling and an idea will come to me and I’ll produce it and kind of do it in stages.
“Sometimes I’ll start it, have to drop it and do something then get back to it as soon as I can. I like to get it pretty quick out there.”
The time it takes to complete a cartoon can vary depending on the subject. Some of his work, like the drawing he published after former Arkansas basketball coach Eddie Sutton was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, can be a roughly two-hour process stretched out over the course of a day.
Typically, Thomas is creating his content while sitting on the couch in his living room. He will work in the study from time to time, too. His wife of nine months, Dixie, is often nearby and he will bounce ideas off of her.
Dixie and Gary Thomas at an Arkansas basketball game during the 2019-20 season.
"I just find it fascinating how he does it," said Dixie, who for 23 years worked at TEC Staffing Services in Fort Smith and has now been retired for six as of the end of March. "Usually he’s very quiet. Actually, if I say something to him, he’ll look up at me and hear me but not retain what I said. He really doesn’t talk while he’s doing it.
"He focuses on it. He’ll acknowledge I’m talking, but it’s like the light is on but nobody is home."
His cartoons on the Razorbacks began to take off, he said, during Arkansas baseball's run to the College World Series in 2018 when it came within one out of a national championship. Ideas were coming to him left and right, and he saw his Twitter following surge.
Another cartoon favorite is one titled "Hog Tales," which features a father reading a story to his daughter as she lies in bed wearing a Hog hat. It is particularly special to him because his oldest daughter, Jessica, is an avid Arkansas fan and the two talk Razorbacks sports regularly.
Thomas' work also caught the attention of Arkansas basketball coach Eric Musselman and his staff early last season. Razorbacks recruiting coordinator Pat Ackerman reached out and asked him to produce a few cartoons for the program to use on social media, he said.
For a while, he was creating content exclusively for the basketball staff. He received game tickets in return.
"That was kind of cool," Thomas said. "It was cool to be kind of connected to the program that way."
Dixie was thrilled to see someone acknowledge her husband's work and talent.
"The stuff he comes up with just amazes me," she said. "He’s pretty entertaining, and he’s pretty funny and talented. Plus, he knows a lot about the Razorbacks, so he’s a very good conversationalist. I teased him that I married a renaissance man."
Gary has been a fan of Arkansas sports since about the sixth grade. His earliest memory as a fan is at a Razorbacks football game in Little Rock that his dad took him and his sister to. He doesn't remember who Arkansas played that day, he just knows that's where he was introduced to the Razorbacks.
Dixie has been a fan for quite some time, too, but she says she falls in the category of fans who enjoy games more if they are around someone who gets excited about them, like Gary.
"You know, I called the Hogs all through high school, college and currently," he said. "I’m a loyal fan - win or lose - and I’ll always be a Hog fan. I enjoy just watching the progress.
"Of course, I don’t like to see us lose, but I enjoy seeing the progress."