Salesman's comical creations promise navigation with a smile

Lost? Al Jabaly's maps can set you straight. And maybe make you chuckle along the way.

The Loxahatchee salesman makes a living creating colorful and comical cartoon maps for counties and cities in the state.

His cartoon maps are useful, depicting major streets and highways just like any map, but he uses 2-D hand-drawn caricatures to highlight landmarks, parks and beaches.

Jabaly began making the maps six years ago. His first client was Palm Beach County, the result of a successful pitch. Jabaly's 2007 county cartoon map will come out in January.

"I saw my first cartoon map on somebody's wall. I said `Wow! That's neat,'" said Jabaly, 52. "I knew they could make people smile."

A former map salesman, Jabaly decided to make his own maps chock full of caricatures, and offer them free to municipalities, which, in turn, would distribute them at parks, business chambers and public events. He makes a living by selling advertising around the maps and works with a cartoonist to give the maps their personality.

Once Jabaly gets an OK from a municipality, he creates 10,000 to 30,000 maps. Each map takes six months to complete. His son, Tarek, 25, also helps by selling ads. Jabaly designs some of the ads with a computer.

Cities and counties decide what major landmarks to include. In Palm Beach County, parks were especially important, county officials said. On Jabaly's map, dog-friendly parks are denoted with a big, brown, floppy dog.

Last year, he featured the cities of Delray Beach and Boca Raton on the other side of the county cartoon map. Old School Square Cultural Center in Delray Beach was symbolized by a walking guitar with boots and sunglasses. Lake Wyman Park in Boca Raton shows a raccoon waving.

"It's the cartoon-look people find that makes it easier to navigate," said Anne Fogarty, Economic Development Director for Clearwater Beach, which had a map made last year. "We had quite a lot of them, but they're probably all gone by now."

Jabaly has so far stuck with Florida cities. He made a centennial map for the city of St. Petersburg and maps for other cities such as Bradenton and Sarasota. All his maps are featured on www.citycartoonmaps.com.

He also spotlights businesses with caricatures. Realtors seem to favor exaggerated mini-portraits of themselves.

There have also been quirky requests.

The owner of Buckingham Blues Bar in Fort Myers asked that his mascot be the bar's location marker. The mascot was a donkey.

In a map of Largo, a cigar store owner didn't want his logo on the map, but a replica of his dog, smoking a cigar.

"People see the maps and they say `This is great,' or they'll request them," said Jeanne Peterson, of Palm Beach County's community relations and marketing department. "What's great is that the maps came at no cost to us and they really point out our parks. That's important because we have so many."

Jabaly sees his creations as not just location finders, but ultimately, souvenirs.

"The nice thing about these maps is that people don't throw them away."

Ivette M. Yee can be reached at imyee@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6538.