Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 2, 1993 TAG: 9306020293
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JESSICA ANCKER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SCHENECTADY, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
Rob Curtiss, collector of odd facts, is something of a curiosity himself.
This amateur cartoonist has submitted more than 1,000 items to Ripley's Believe It Or Not, the syndicated cartoon feature, averaging half a dozen a week. While another man has had more items published, nobody has kept the Ripley mailroom as busy as Curtiss.
Curtiss has what he calls an addiction to collecting curiosities and bizarre ideas and sending them along to Ripley. He gets no pay, only recognition from time to time.
His living room is cluttered with antique prints, inspirational books, his own watercolors and cartoons, cigar stands, a cherub's face broken off from a local church facade, a white pitcher full of dead wildflowers.
He wears a jacket and tie, having just returned from work at the state's Department of Taxation and Finance. His knuckles are almost hidden by a collection of massive silver and pewter rings, and more dangle from a chain around his neck. A signed cartoon from a New York Post cartoonist is pinned to his lapel.
When a photographer asks him to pose for a picture, Curtiss insists on donning a braided headband adorned with a silver feather.
Curtiss reads three to five newspapers a day, plus magazines and books, and whenever he finds a fact peculiar enough, he types it up, decorates the paper with one of his original cartoons and mails it to Ripley's research department.
After his package arrives at Ripley's headquarters in Toronto, company researchers choose the most interesting tidbits and check their accuracy.
Curtiss, who once aspired to become a professional cartoonist, is disappointed that Ripley discards his illustrations in favor of those of its own cartoonist, Don Wimmer.
The winning factoids appear in Ripley's cartoon in newspaper comic pages and the company's 70-odd books. They might even show up in some of the company's 21 museums around the world.
Curtiss gets nothing but the satisfaction of seeing himself credited in the comic strip, which doesn't even run in his hometown newspaper.
"I'm really delighted to see it," he says. "People at work give me the clippings."
Curtiss says he started his Ripley research when he realized he suffered from seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a mild depression linked to the absence of sunlight during the winter.
"I find it energizes the lack of daylight, and it raises the energy and the enthusiasm," he says. "It makes me forget about the so-called cabin fever."
Curtiss considers himself a disciple of the cartoon's originator, Robert Ripley, a Santa Rosa, Calif., semipro baseball player who turned into a collector and cartoonist of the unusual.
Next year, the company will celebrate Ripley's 100th birthday and the 75th anniversary of the first cartoon he sold. The company plans a feature-length movie, a commemorative book, memorial exhibits and, of course, a cartoon about Ripley himself.
Curtiss, who looks to be about 50 but declines to disclose his age, hopes to be recognized during the celebration.
But even though Curtiss's stationery is a familiar sight at Ripley's Toronto headquarters, the company has no plans to honor him.
"I certainly haven't thought of doing a fan appreciation day or anything," said Edward Meyer, vice president of exhibits and archives.
Meyer says Tom Higgins, formerly of Kingston, N.Y., and now of San Diego, holds the record for published items with 300 to 400. However, Curtiss "is in a class by himself" with the most submissions and has had at least 150 of them published.
"He is a tie-dyed and true fan," Meyer says.
What characterizes a true Ripley's fan?
"Basically, it is a personal love of the odd and the unusual," Meyer says. "He is interested in finding it out and in spreading what he's found out. He probably sees himself as sort of a teacher."
\ Odd facts from Rob Curtiss
Here are some samples of the odd facts that Rob Curtiss has submitted to Ripley's Believe It Or Not:
In 1991, a company in Japan introduced a chewing gum that monitors stress levels by changing its color.
David Hammon, an artist in Harlem, N.Y., once sold autographed snowballs.
James Barry, an 18th-century physician who served in the British army for almost 50 years, was discovered at the time of his death to be a woman.
Kokichi Mikimoto, age 94, who developed the cultured pearl, attributes his longevity to the fact that he eats two pearls every day.
by CNB