It’s the last Thursday of the month, and as it has for more than 50 years, one of Long Island’s more exclusive clubs is meeting.

Some of the nation’s best-known cartoonists are members of the Long Island Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, uniting monthly for camaraderie, conversation, connection, commiseration, and, in recent years, a little Chinese food at Albert’s Mandarin Gourmet in Huntington.

“Long Island has been an important place for cartooning. We’ve had one of the largest collections of cartoonists,” said John Reiner, 68, of Huntington, who illustrates the long-running cartoon “The Lockhorns,” written by Madeleine “Bunnie” Hoest, 92, of Lloyd Neck. “Animators, comic book artists, comic strip artists, advertising guys, book illustrators, magazine illustrators. We’ve had fellows who did covers of TV Guide, [and worked for] advertising agencies.”

Long Island has long been a kind of cartoon central due to its proximity to New York City, although members of the society said that many from the generation of cartoon greats have passed away.

This monthly lunch became a tradition for cartoonists who find connection in an otherwise solitary profession.

“This is a small community. Very few people work in this industry,” Hoest said. “Being together is invigorating. It’s a tough business. That’s the best part, to be among our friends.”

The National Cartoonists Society was formed in 1946 by cartoonists who traveled with the USO to cheer up troops. “They came back, the war was over and they decided to hang out more,” said Ray Alma, of Great Neck, who worked for Mad magazine and won the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award for Best Magazine Illustration in 2009. “They created the National Cartoonists Society. We continued the tradition.”

The national group today has more than 20 chapters, including three in New York, and over 500 members. The Long Island chapter was started in 1966 by cartoonists Creig Flessel, Bill Lignante, Frank Springer, Al Micale and Lee Ames, who were freelancing on an animation project for Hanna-Barbera.

The group soon became known as the Berndt Toast Gang after a toast was made to Walter Berndt, the late creator of the “Smitty” comic strip and a local member. Toasts continue today.

Adrian Sinnott, a Huntington Station resident, the chapter’s chairperson and an adjunct assistant professor at Farmingdale State College, raised a glass of water during the June meeting and others did the same. “To the guys and to the ladies who came after.”

But not all group members have reached the pinnacles of professional success as a cartoonist or illustrator.

Helen Murdock-Prep, of Huntington, who paints and draws a comic strip titled “Shrinking Violet,” said that, during the meetings, famous cartoonists converse with others who simply love to draw.

“There are some cartoonists who are very well-established in this group, but artists also come in on different levels,” she said. “They welcomed me so beautifully over 20 years ago. I said, ‘I’m not published.’ They said, ‘Come on in.’ We’re lifelong friends.”

Murdock-Prep likes the lack of pretension and the collegial feel regardless of status in the craft and career. “For being known nationally, there were no huge egos,” she said.

Hand-drawn cartoons and illustrations were once pervasive in print, routinely gracing magazine covers, appearing in ads and in cartoon-heavy publications such as The New Yorker magazine.

“Let’s say you wanted to sell toothpaste. You’d hire an illustrator to draw a cartoon or an illustration that caught the reader’s eye,” Reiner said. “You had magazine covers like Time and Newsweek [that were illustrated]. They had illustrators covering stories. They were legends.”

Comic strips were big selling points for newspapers daily, particularly for the special Sunday editions. “Newspapers used the comic strips to try to get the public to buy them,” said Andy Eng, of North Babylon, noting many still do.

A long list of greats lived on Long Island and belonged to the Long Island group, such as Mort Drucker (Mad magazine); Stan Goldberg (Archie Comics); Joe Giella (Batman comics); John Romita Sr. (The Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine and The Punisher); Bill Kresse (the Daily News); Bill Hoest (The Lockhorns creator); Don Orehek, (The Saturday Evening Post and Cracked), as well as Pulitzer Prize-winner Jules Feiffer.

Changing technology has long challenged the profession. From the rise of photography and television to the decline of print publications, these artists have faced headwinds.

Now cartoonists fear companies will turn to AI, not human beings, for art.

“Previously, you had to reach a certain level of competency before someone would buy your work,” Sinnott said. “Now there are cartoonists whose work is being copied by people with AI, doing art with AI and pushing it out as their own.”

However, if technology brings challenges, Sinnott said it also opens doors, allowing people to work, sell and even publish books without the backing of a big company. “There’s more opportunity than ever to do a children’s book like the one I did over there,” Sinnott said, referring to “Grasshopper Pie and Other Poems” with text by D.J. Steinberg, who worked for Disney, and Sinnott’s illustrations. His book, however, was published under the Penguin Young Readers banner.

Sinnott said artists can create books to print on demand and sell on Amazon, but must do their own marketing. “In theory you can make more money doing that,” he said. “But it requires a tremendous amount of input on your own part.”

Eng noted social media lets people build a fan base, which can lead to sales. “Hopefully, the people who follow you will buy your stuff,” Eng said. “You can put your stuff on T-shirts, self-publish your own books.”

While many members are professionals doing this for a living, it’s a labor of love for others. Roberta Fabiano, who grew up in Carle Place and lives in Stony Brook, is the lead singer for the Peter Duchin Orchestra.

“It’s always been in my blood,” she said of music and art. “At one point a mentor said, ‘You can’t do both.’ I made a decision to go more into music. This is what I did for love and fun.”

Fabiano draws mostly “observations” of what she sees at parties where she plays, with some of her work displayed at The Cutting Room in Manhattan.

“Inspiration, friendship and networking,” Fabiano said, are the things she gets from this cartoonists’ club. “I’m trying to figure out what to do with my own cartoons.”

Hoest likes that her work offers both celebrity and privacy. “Our work is known by everybody, but we have the anonymity and privacy that you usually don’t get when you’re that well known,” she said. “We have the best of both worlds.”

Reiner enjoys the solitude and accountability of creating cartoons along with monthly meetings. “All the artists work alone,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see somebody and chat and say, ‘How was your week?’ ’’

Like many others in the room, Eng, who retired in 2023 as a graphic designer at Arcade1Up, which makes in-home arcade machines, feels fortunate.

“I got lucky. I have a talent and I was able to study and bring it to fruition,” said Eng. “And it’s fun.”