By Sean P. Ray | Managing Editor

*Editor’s note: This story appears as part of Newsapalooza at Point Park University, Sept. 26-28 celebrating local journalism in southwestern Pennsylvania. This fun event brings the public together with 30 newsrooms, 20 civic sponsors and leading newsmakers. Tickets on sale now: nextgenerationnewsroom.org/newsapalooza

For more than a century, comics have been a staple part of newspapers, whether they be satirical political cartoons on an opinions page, or long-running comedic pieces such as “Peanuts” or “Calvin and Hobbes.”

While many such comics are syndicated across multiple newspapers nationally or even internationally, some newspapers have the good fortune of having their own artist to provide their readers with drawings more focused to the paper’s coverage area.

Such has been the case of The Northside Chronicle since 2008, when Nils Hanczar began providing comics for the paper. Now his “Yinzburgh!” comics, which are typically single-panel, are viewed by the thousands of readers of The Chronicle.

Despite the large audience, however, Hanczar initially wrote “Yinzburgh!” for a smaller crowd.

“My grandmother is a Northsider and she was still living when I started on the comics,” he said. “So basically I was making the comics for her and her friends.”

Family has long been a source of inspiration and drive for Hanczar’s art. He first got interested in comics as a kid when his grandfather would cut out particularly funny newspaper comic strips and hang them on his fridge.

Hanczar said this inspired him to attempt to make his own funny drawings and hit it big by “making it to the fridge.”

Now, Hanczar still feels a swell of pride whenever he sees one of his comics clipped out somewhere or hears that people got a chuckle out of it.

“Yinzburgh!” comics have touched on numerous topics over the years, whether they be Pittsburgh sports, the invasion of spotted lanternflies, observations of holidays or motivational pieces.

Hanczar said he tries to “catch the vibe” of what’s going on in his neighborhood and the city as a whole.

The December 2022 ‘Yinzburgh!’ comic, depicting snowfall in Pittsburgh with a view of downtown. Hanczar makes all of his comics with paper, pencil and ink, eschewing from digital art tools. Comic by Nils Hanczar

The process to complete a “Yinzburgh!’ comic can be highly varied. Sometimes an idea comes naturally to Hanczar for any given month. Other times, when nothing obvious presents itself, he delves into his file folder of various sketches, searching for one that he could complete. This means that sometimes the time between when a sketch was first started and when it was completed for “Yinzburgh!” can be a matter of years.

Hanczar likes to keep things old fashioned with how he makes his drawings. Instead of using a tablet and drawing program or app, he draws all of his comics with paper and pencil, finishing them off by hand inking them. Each comic is then scanned and, after a little bit of digital clean up, is sent off to The Chronicle for publication.

While perhaps best known by Chronicle readers through “Yinzburgh!,” Hanczar has made other illustrations, including longer form comics and books. He’s even responsible for a mural of Pittsburgh baseball player Honus Wagner on the side of American Legion Post 82 in Carnegie. Wagner’s baseball card is one of the most expensive in history, selling for more than $6 million in 2021.

Yet through it all, he’s stuck with The Chronicle, and with good reason. “Making that newspaper comic, and often one that’s single panel, that’s always been a puzzle that I like to draw,” he said.

“I’m proud to be part of The Chronicle and I think having neighborhood newspapers, let alone local newspapers, is beyond important,” he later said.

Past “Yinzburgh!” comics can be viewed online at thenorthsidechronicle.com and on the newspaper’s electronic edition archive.