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June 12, 2001
EDGAR SOLLER: 1944-2001 -- A Fellow Filipino Recalls a Friend and Colleague
By DANI DﾒUMUK AGUILA(Filipino Reporter, April 20-26, 2001)
The cartoon brush/pen of Edgar ﾓSolﾔ Soller lies still and dry. Thecreative guest cartoonist of Filipino Reporter, whose pungent andpun-laden cartoons began appearing in its pages in 1980, died April 5,2001, of renal cancer at age 57.
ﾓItﾒs a family curse; it took both my father and younger brother,ﾔ Edgarsighed during what turned out to be our final phone visit lastChristmas. ﾓBut Iﾒve accepted it, and have no regrets. Please include mein your prayers.ﾔ
Our family first met Edgar in 1963, when he had just graduated from theUniversity of the Philipppines and was a 19-year-old fledgling graphicartist for the Philippines Herald.
After his arrival in New York City in 1979, we invited him to Nashville,Tennessee, in time to pinch-hit at a weekend cartooning stint atOpryland Hotel. To celebrate our reunion, together we drew what wethought would become a series, ﾓDos par Dosﾔ (ﾓTwo Cartoons by Twoﾔ) forFilipino Reporter. After that, Edﾒs cartoons ran from time to time inFR, sometimes occupying my space on the editorial page.
Ed and I joined the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in1980 and attended our first AAEC meet in Washington, D.C. The followingyear, as co-host of the 25th anniversary AAEC convention in Nashville, Iwas assigned with Ed to meet Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger at the airport.His bull-neck bulged out of his collar, so while I drove our speaker totown, Ed drew him with an ill-fitting necktie. Ed and I also met for thefirst time the junior congressman of Tennessee, Albert Gore Jr., whoexpounded on his favorite environmental concerns. Songwriter Tom T. Hallentertained us in his farm, and Ed got his first ﾓimmersionﾔ intoCountry Music.
At the 1982 AAEC meet in San Francisco, Ed and I mounted our first jointcartoon exhibit at the Philippine Consulate, along with Pol Galvez,former cartoonist of Manila Daily Bulletin. Both Ed and I were houseguest of Ambassador Romeo Arguelles. In LA in 1983 we met Edﾒs formerwife Nina Rodriguez and the coupleﾒs children, Kareena ﾓSunshineﾔ and Oliver.
Although low-key, Ed was gregarious and made friends easily. Hiscartoons mirrored his wit and were filled with puns, both visual andwritten. He credited me as his cartoon tutor, especially with his playon words. ﾓYou mean torturer,ﾔ Iﾒd reply.
In 1978, a collection of his work appeared in a book, The World of EdgarSoller. In 1980, he won the Special Prize at the 22nd World CartoonGallery in Skopje, Yugoslavia. His cartoons were featured in twotextbooks: American National Government, Institutions, Policy andParticipation (Brown & Benchmark) and American Essentials andPerspectives (McGraw-Hill).
Last January, Edgar held a successful one-man show at the PhilippineConsulate in Los Angeles of ﾓDances of My People,ﾔ a series of paintingsthat paid tribute to the rich culture of the Philippines.
Ed contributed more than his cartooning talents. Besides his craft,which was inspired and influenced by one of his University of thePhillippines instructors,Larry Alcala, Edgar was also an accomplisheddancer. He toured with the world renown Bayanihan Dance troupe.
Ed was preceded in death by his parents, Leopoldo Soller Sr. andRoselily Rodriguez, and younger brother Leo Jr. Besides his wife and twochildren, Edgar is survived by an older sister, Melinda S. Abaya;step-children Vincent Montesino, Lize Steele, and Fela Rodriguez; auntsRebecca, Reynalda and Luz Uy; uncle Jose Sanidad, and many extendedrelatives. Not to mention the some-300 members of AAEC, the cartooningfraternity of US and Canadian political and editorial cartoonists. Andby his many readers and fans of the five newspapers he drew for, and notthe least of which is the Filipino Reporter, which published his firstcartoon in the USA.
Edgar ﾓSolﾔ Sollerﾒs sun has set, but not before it shone dear andclear, funny and punny. Edgar had his SolOpinion, which he shared withus all.
Filipino Reporter -- April 20-26, 2001