Somerville artist/animator Alex Salsberg observes and renders the world around him in his own unique way.

Jeremy F. van der Heiden

“I’ve been drawing my whole life,” Alex Salsberg exclaimed over a cup of coffee, “When I was six, I decided I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist.”

A native of Wayland, Massachusetts, and current Somerville resident, Salsberg is an artist devoted to socio-political satire, and has created a wide breadth of works in myriad mediums since being a boy with a dream. Now creating comic strips, illustrations, animations and more, he has branched out of his original passion substantially.

Salsberg created some of his first animations using clay and a toy camera, taking shots frame for frame and bringing his imagination to life when he was just 10 years old. After continuing his work through high school, taking some related classes during that time, the animator went on to the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, where he created his first animated film for school, which focused on bathroom etiquette.

The artist explained that the video went viral in a time before the web-based video explosion of today, leading many interested viewers to reach out to him and offer contracts for private jobs. Through college, Salsberg did freelance work, which he continues to do today. Additionally, he has honed writing skills, which has been a passion from a young age, from screen-styled to short stories to enrich his animations and illustrations further.

Specificity of direction, subject matter and the eventual publication has never held the animator back, as he explained he has done work for everything from Nickelodeon to Playboy. He has done instructional animation, motion graphics, and is currently doing work for the U.S.S. Constitution, while teaching each summer at the Digital Media Academy in Harvard University. Additionally, Salsberg is working on a children’s book with a collaborator, which has been one of his lifelong dreams.

With influences ranging from Bill Watterson and Gary Larson to The Simpsons and Dr. Seuss, it’s no wonder that this talented individual creates such eclectic pieces. His original works walk the line of political correctness, poking at the social norms and mores that often divide individuals with the end game of uniting otherwise conflicting groups with humor. Coupled with his style of drawing, this makes his work suitable for audiences of all ages and from a wide range of social backgrounds.

“Usually when I do an original cartoons, I’d say the target audience is adults, though not adults,” Salsberg explained. “I do a lot of satire, though for client work it’s been a range…For my own original work, I usually do not have an audience in mind, other than the target audience of the satire and observational humor. I tend to keep things very light-hearted, I don’t like to be too cynical, mean or offensive.”

Taking a potentially hard hitting message and mixing in this style of child-friendly humor has given the artist the opportunity to create each work in a way that can be viewed and received in a variety of different ways from varying audiences. He used his experience of being commissioned by Playboy to animate their party jokes as an example of this.

“Almost just because I thought it was funny, I did that in a very Saturday morning cartoon-style, and directed the narrator to read it as if it was a children’s book,” he said, “and a lot of those voices were even teachers I had from high school.”

The animator stays very busy, as he is commissioned to do a variety of works, such as caricature drawing at parties and other hired projects, while still keeping up with his own original pieces.

His goals are very much oriented in his current projects, as he aims to create more original works and gain a larger viewer-ship online through his website, while pitching ideas to television stations for animated programming and other pursuits, keeping the idea of a feature-length animated film in mind for when the proper time and financial backing are available.

Salsberg loves the fact that his passion and profession allow him to live wherever he likes. He did note that even with the opportunity to live anywhere and continue his work, he chooses to live in Somerville, as he loves the city and intends on sticking around for a long time.

Interested parties can find all of his contact information, as well as the majority of his works on his website – www.pokegravy.com – named after a cartoon Salsberg used to draw in middle school and high school, and managed entirely by himself and long-time friend Ellery Harrington. His latest original animation, a hilarious take on the tension between Passover and Easter titled “The Focus Group,” can be found there along with a tremendous amount of satirical and social-humor based original and commissioned works.