How to be a Successful Comic Artist

I stole this from Eddie Campbell's blog and guarantee that cartoonist and friend Mike Lynch will steal it for his blog before the week is over. It's an invaluable guide to the nuts and bolts of cartooning, done by George Storm in 1923.

Click on the top image to see it at a readable size. For those not so inclined, I blew up a couple of panels I liked below.

The keys to the kingdom are yours. Best of luck in your new career!
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Dog Days of Summer

Yesterday, I had to teach myself to draw a prairie dog, and it occurred to me I was applying some principles that some of you might find interesting. If not, come back in a few days and I'll try to write something better.

Reference images are a good place to start, and one nice thing about living in the 21st Century is that several hundred prairie dog photos are just a google away. Pause for a moment and offer a quiet prayer of appreciation and pity for old-school artists who diligently clipped pictures out of newspapers and magazines to create their own enormous "morgues" of reference images on every subject imaginable and then cursed themselves for not having a prairie dog on file.

But, to paraphrase Spock on logic, reference images are the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

I don't recall ever needing to draw a prairie dog before. However, I start with the knowledge that many vertebrates--and all mammals without any exceptions I can think of--are basically built the same. We've all got the same parts; only the proportions are different. (I'm talking about quick and dirty cartooning here, not veterinary textbooks.)

Human, Horse, Bird

Human arm, Bat wing

Knowing that is a big head start and helps avoid some common mistakes, like drawing animal legs sticking out of the bottom of bodies like table legs.

Now this is a perfectly valid cartoon cow, depending on what you're going for. However, it will be a more problematic cow to show walking, running, lying down, or chatting about the weather with its fellow cows. It won't move right. Also, if you don't understand how the legs basically attach to the top of the cow instead of the bottom, you miss out on drawing the nice fiddly bits like the hips and shoulders that give your line something interesting to do and help position the cow in space. Since I don't want to spend all day learning how to draw cows, I borrowed the cartoon below to illustrate how an artist who know how cows are put together can do a lot more with them.

I've got no argument with a cartoonist who draws a "table leg" cow, but they should realize it's a choice, with pros and cons.

So with a basic understanding of bone structure and some reference photos, I can sketch out a prairie dog, always looking for how its proportions differ from a human's. I don't need to do a detailed anatomical study--after all, it's a cartoon--and I end up with a critter that might be a prairie dog, groundhog, woodchuck, nutria, or any of a hundred similar rodents. I'm not claiming it's a great prairie dog but for my purposes it's close enough; if I draw it standing in a hole, readers will get it and I've done my job.

However, I still have some decisions to make. How much do I want to anthropomorphize my prairie dogs? Do I want them to move and react like fuzzy little humans (e.g., Mickey Mouse) or retain their essential prairie doginess? In real life, an alert prairie dog looks different than an alert person. Depending on the character and story, I may want to map human poses onto their little bodies to help readers recognize movements and reactions they're used to seeing in people. There are different degrees of this:

Alert prairie dog, Alert anthropomorphized prairie dog, Alert prairie dog businessman wondering if the coyote next door is going to catch him before he gets to his commute train

If I were drawing a lot of prairie dogs or creating ongoing characters I'd have to draw the rest of my life, I'd spend a long time sketching them in every pose and activity imaginable, making sure I understood the shapes and how they moved in space, always looking to streamline and simplify. But in this case I just need a prairie dog to be a prairie dog, and I'm done.

Writing it all out, that sounds like a lot of thought and analysis just to draw some stupid prairie dogs. In fact it's a pretty quick and not entirely conscious process, and I've already made a lot of decisions before I put pencil to paper. But these principles and questions are always in the back of my mind. I ain't sayin' it's the only way or the right way; it's just one way that seems to work sometimes.

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On Economy

Phil May's Self-portrait

Finally, and by complete happenstance, I've discovered the source of a quote that has been a cornerstone of my cartooning philosophy but which I could never track down. I first heard the story decades ago and long ago forgot where. Now I know.

Phil May was born in 1864 and died in 1903, only 39. He was one of the great British cartoonists of the late 19th century, contributing to Punch and other periodicals. In 1885, May went to work for the Sydney Bulletin in Australia, where he came across an editor who thought he wasn't getting his money's worth out of May. Evidently believing he was paying by the line, the editor asked if May could produce more elaborate and detailed drawings. Replied May, "When I can leave out half the lines I now use, I shall want six times the money."

That's what cartooning is all about to me: distilling a thing to its essence, so that nothing but the information needed is presented, and everything that is presented provides essential information. May's reply reminds me of my all-time favorite quote about writing by mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), who concluded a long-winded letter with, "Sorry this post was so long, I did not have time to make it short."

I work on that. In both writing and cartooning, my first inclination is to do too much. If I'm writing a 3,000-word article or 100-page report, I'm very happy if my first draft goes 10% to 20% over because I know subsequent drafts will only improve with tightening. Same with cartooning, I think. I'll draw something several times, figuring out what I can get rid of and what needs to stay, trying for fewer lines and less clutter in every iteration, working hard to make it simple. I always fall short but it's an interesting and worthwhile target to aim for, I think.

When I can leave out half the lines I now use, I shall want six times the money.
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Cartoon U.

I steal all of my ideas from Mike Lynch, who pointed me to an article in the Christian Science Monitor about the first graduating class of the Center for Cartoon Studies. Located in Vermont, the center offers a two-year, $30,000 degree program whose mission appears to be teaching students to produce literary graphic novels. This emphasis seems a bit different than that of the Joe Kubert School, which has been running successfully for 30 years and takes a very hard-nosed vocational approach to comic art education.

As I commented on Mike's blog, I have some mixed feelings about a program like this. Drawing an analogy with journalism, the best reporters and editors I knew never went to journalism school. They majored in history, political science, English, or even hard science, then used that background to enrich their journalism careers. Some never went to college but had decades of life under their belts. A good editor once told me he'd rather hire kids who know something about the world and teach them journalism than those who know nothing but journalism and teach them about the world. I agree with that sentiment.

Turning to cartoon school, I just wonder if they're missing the point that cartooning isn't technique, it's ideas. Art Spiegelman didn't win a Pulitzer for Maus because he's the best cartoonist ever--he's not--but because he communicated great ideas. I knew a lot of kids in high school and college who were excellent cartoon artists but quickly fizzled out because they had nothing interesting to say about the world. Good cartoonists are smart, curious and well-read--really, all the qualities required of a good writer plus the ability to draw. Surely that description fits some graduates of the Center of Cartoon Studies, but I wonder if anyone there ever emphasized that?

Still, I'm sure these students worked hard and learned some great stuff--just as journalism school students work hard and learn some great stuff--and some will surely go on to achieve tremendous things with their training. It'd be interesting to survey that graduating class in 10 years and find out how their expectations met reality. I suspect some--many?--most??--will discover they're the best unemployed cartoonists they know.

Jim Borgman

Yesterday my wife and I attended a talk and book signing by Jim Borgman, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and "Zits" comic strip artist. "Zits" writer Jerry Scott was also supposed to be there, but canceled because of emergency surgery he needed to treat diverticulitis.

For an hour, Mr. Borgman entertained an audience of about 200 with stories about how he and Mr. Scott created "Zits" almost accidentally during a mutual visit to Sedona, Arizona. He talked about cartooning, family, and the creative process, and was a terrific speaker. He also struck me as being more sensitive and even sentimental than I'd expected a hard-bitten award-winning editorial cartoonist to be. He choked up talking about letters he gets from readers describing how much "Zits" has helped them understand and communicate across generations, or even from parents whose children have died and who read "Zits" as a way to keep up with the lives their kids might have had. Unexpectedly moving, and a good reminder of the subtle power of this medium.

Although the audience seemed most impressed by the stories he told or the sketches he drew, what I took away from his talk was awe for his tremendous work ethic. As Mr. Borgman described it, he works on "Zits" about three days a week, does editorial cartoons three more days a week, and saves the seventh day for whatever he didn't get done the other six. In other words, he works constantly and hard to maintain a high-octane level of quality and professionalism--which made me more acutely aware than ever of my own wasted time. Hard Work = Success: who knew? I resolved to do better.

I had a chance to tell him that after waiting in a looooong line for him to sign a book for us. My wife and I were nearly literally the end of the line; the venue had sold out of his books before we could buy one, so after his talk we actually drove to a nearby bookstore, bought a "Zits" collection, and drove back to the signing. I've done a few talks and signings myself--though nothing remotely so large--and was incredibly impressed with the fortitude Mr. Borgman displayed in chatting charmingly and drawing sketches, staying more than a hour past his scheduled time to make sure everyone was served. Meanwhile, his wife worked the line with her own conversational charms and made sure everyone signed a card for Jerry Scott that Borgman had drawn. They made a good team.

We reached his table, chatted for a moment, and he asked if we had a favorite character we wanted him to draw in our book. I in turn asked if there was a character he wanted to draw--maybe one that no one ever asks for and he wasn't yet sick of. He replied that no one ever asks for Connie and Walt, the Mom and Dad in "Zits." We said that would be perfect, since we pretty much are the Mom and Dad in "Zits." So he autographed our book and drew this:

That there's Grade-A cartooning by a man who earned every success he's enjoying today. It was a pleasure to see and meet him.

A Walt Kelly Appreciation

The International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood has posted a terrific tribute to "Pogo" cartoonist Walt Kelly written by Mike Fontanelli that includes several examples of Kelly's early work I'd never seen before.

A pre-Pogo piece that was new to me

Coincidentally picking up where my last post left off, Kelly started his career as a Disney animator. He worked on "Snow White," "Fantasia," "Dumbo," and "The Reluctant Dragon" before striking off into book illustration. "Pogo" began in 1948 and, until Kelly's death in 1973 and a while afterward (carried on by his wife Selby and assistants), was one of the all-time great comic strips. In my private roster of Top Ten Best Cartoonists Ever, Walt Kelly is at least two of 'em.

In my opinion, Kelly could do it all. Humor, absurdity, satire, political commentary, romance, pathos, even action-adventure--anything a reader could want from a comic strip, "Pogo" delivered. He could make you laugh, make you think, and rip your heart out. His graceful brushed ink work was second to none. In addition, Kelly good-naturedly subverted the comic strip form, frequently breaking the fourth wall and playing with lettering to give characters unique voices. He was very, very smart.

In Mom's Cancer, I explained that my Dad was actually my step-father. He entered my family's life when I was 8 or 9 and, while Mom had her own reasons for falling in love with him, he seduced me with his collection of "Pogo" books from the 1950s. I'd never seen the strip before and, even though I didn't get all the references, I absorbed it osmotically. It did things I didn't know comics could do and influenced me tremendously. Plus, every Christmas to this day, Dad and I are nearly guaranteed to regale each other with a rousing round of Kelly's fractured carol, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie."

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To be fair, not everyone took to "Pogo," and I think it remained something of a cult favorite for most of its existence. College kids loved it. I've seen cartoonists criticize Kelly for being a little too slick and polished, a little too clever and cute for his own good. Some people simply didn't like it, and there's certainly no answer for that; however, those who did like it loved it. I'm one of those guys.

If I've piqued your interest, go read the ASIFA tribute. If that's not enough Walt Kelly for you, I also recommend the official Pogo website, maintained by his family. If that's still not enough, find a used book store or comics shop that carries his out-of-print collections and get a shot of the straight stuff. If you can hunt up a copy of Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo, my copy of which I stole from Dad decades ago, I think you'll have a good time.

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Animation

I enjoyed the YouTube newsreel mini-doc below about the making of Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (8:32). It's a good look at not just the creation of an animation classic but a glimpse at Old Hollywood as well. It's impossible not to notice the strict division of labor: artists and animators were men, while women (or "pretty girls") did ink and paint, which was the more mechanical (though still creative and demanding) process of tracing and coloring the animators' pencil drawings.


The transparent plastic sheets that the crews work with in the film are called cels (for "celluloid"). Like so much else in the history of both animation and comics, the materials actually used to produce the finished products got very little respect. To the creators, they were a means to an end, often considered disposable. Some animation studios scraped the paint off of cels to reuse them; others piled them in big heaps and burned them. In addition, the paints weren't intended to last and often flaked off over time, adding to the scarcity of cels that managed to survive.
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For a while, the Disney Studios sold cels to tourists at Disneyland for a few bucks each. When I finally figure out how a flux capacitor works and build my time machine, that's one of the first place-times I intend to visit. In the last 20 or 30 years, of course, the value of original animation art has been recognized and, in some cases, inflated beyond reason. Today an early Disney cel in decent condition with a famous character could sell for several tens of thousands of dollars or more.
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As I wrote about original comic art a while back, original animation art is something I could easily become obsessed with. Too easily. Fortunately I have some self-control, and have so far limited myself to three pieces, ranging from ridiculously modern to almost as ancient as you can get.

This is three-cel set-up from the PowerPuff Girls cartoon. The two girls on the sides (Buttercup and Bubbles) are on one cel, the center girl (Blossom) is on another, and Blossom's mouth is on a third, all stacked atop one another. The mouth gets its own cel so the animators can draw Blossom talking without redrawing the entire figure each time. My girls and I were fans of the PowerPuff Girls, which I thought was occasionally one of the smartest, funniest cartoons around. I bought this as kind of a gift for us all.

Above is a two-cel set-up of Piglet from the 1968 movie "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day," which won an Academy Award for "Best Cartoon Short Subject." Piglet is on one cel and his chair is on another. Since they came without a background, I painted a watercolor landscape to go behind them and printed the lyrics on the painting. I was drawn to this piece for perhaps the most common reason people collect stuff like this: I remembered loving this movie from my childhood and wanted a piece of it. It was Disney. And it was Piglet, who's been a favorite character around our house. I lied and told my family I got it for them; it was really for me.

One of the fun parts of getting an animation cel is watching the movie and freeze-framing it to find exactly where your cel was used. My Piglet actually has little dimples in the pink paint on his arm and foot that I assumed were age-related damage until I saw the exact same dimples on-screen. The flaws are impossible to see blazing past at 24 frames per second, but they were there in the original. I thought that was pretty cool.

I've written about this piece--not really a cel because it was drawn on rice paper before animators began using transparent celluloid--and what it means to me before. This is a frame from "Gertie the Dinosaur" by Winsor McCay done in 1914, many years before Disney made "Steamboat Willie." McCay was a giant in both cartooning and animation, and buying a piece of his work was a long-time ambition of mine and the first thing I did with the "cartooning money" I earned as an advance on Mom's Cancer. When my house catches fire, this is the one thing I plan to grab on my way out the door. After the people and animals are safe. Of course.

That's my entire animation collection. As long as my will is strong and my kids remain in school, that'll be it for a while. I can see how people could go crazy with this hobby, though. Collecting favorite films, themes, artists, owning a unique piece of movie or television history. It's probably just as well I don't have all the money in the world.

More on Jay Kennedy

By far the best of many remembrances I've read of Jay Kennedy is this column by Tom Spurgeon, in which Tom interviews Jay's brother, people who knew and worked with him, and many cartoonists. It's a great piece.

My favorite quote about Jay in Tom's article is from artist Gary Panter: "He liked Reddy Kilowatt." Although really, what's not to like?



The online reaction to Jay's death has confirmed what I wrote before: although he wasn't a household name to readers and fans, he was tremendously respected and influential among cartoonists. Interestingly, my impression is that few people seemed to realize how widespread that respect and influence were until he was gone and everyone started comparing notes. "He was exceptionally kind, engaging, and generous to you, encouraging you to persevere when no one else gave you any sign of hope? Me, too!"

Tom's article is a fitting tribute that puts Jay's career into context and suggests how long-lived his legacy will be. I'm proud that a tiny, tiny part of his legacy includes me.

Jay Kennedy

(photo from Hogan's Alley)

Jay Kennedy, editor-in-chief for King Features Syndicate--a job that made him one of the most important people in the world of cartooning--sadly and unexpectedly died yesterday. He reportedly drowned while vacationing in Costa Rica.

I'm pretty stunned. A syndicate editor is the person to whom you mail samples of your comic strip when you want it to be published in newspapers, and for a long time I did that semi-regularly. Every year or two I'd develop a comic strip, put together a month's worth of samples, send them to the syndicates, and wait for the rejections to roll in. Usually it's a discouraging, dehumanizing, unrewarding process.

Jay was one of the few editors who took the time to provide notes and encouragement along with the rejections. I knew I was getting somewhere when his notes grew from a scribbled sentence to a few paragraphs to comments on the individual strips. Finally, I came up with an idea he really seemed to like, and we corresponded back and forth for months trying to shape it into something I could write and draw and he could sell. That idea eventually died, and I think the fault was mostly mine. Jay gave me the opportunity and I didn't know how to take advantage of it.

I since learned that this is a very common story cartoonists tell about Jay. Turns out he treated a lot of people with the same kindness, grace, and generosity of spirit--which actually makes me less special than I thought, but him more. The number of cartoonists who say "I persevered because of the encouragement I got from Jay Kennedy" is enormous.

At last summer's San Diego Comic-Con, I attended a panel featuring several syndicated cartoonists and afterward reintroduced myself to Brian Walker, who is a comics historian and writer in addition to his work on "Beetle Bailey" and "Hi and Lois," two strips originated by his father Mort. I'd met Brian at my book launch in New York, he remembered me (I'm always surprised when people remember me), and after we talked for a minute he gestured to the man standing next to him and asked me, "do you know Jay Kennedy?"

After years of imagining Mr. Kennedy ("call me Jay") as a giant of the industry, I was kind of shocked to meet a man much shorter than me who at first seemed very quiet, almost timid. I introduced myself, told him I'd written Mom's Cancer, which he'd read--his wife had recently died of leukemia, though I have no idea if that experience and reading my book coincided--and figured this was my chance to tell him what I'd always wanted to:

"You won't remember, it's been a long time, but I submitted work to you and it meant more than you'll ever know to get any feedback at all, let alone the kind of encouragement and respect you gave me. Thank you."

And in fact he did still remember my work, said he'd always liked it and was sorry it didn't work out, and we had such a great conversation that I'm afraid I rudely cut out Brian Walker, who kind of wandered off and I really hope doesn't remember me now.

I haven't tried to come up with a comic strip for a long time--just haven't had any good ideas--but always in the back of my mind was the germ of a notion that I'd give it another shot someday and, when I did, Jay would be there to read it. I'm sad that will never happen and very glad I took the opportunity to thank him when I did.
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Joe and Monkey, Zip and Li'l Bit, plus a Review

I've had a chance to check out "Joe and Monkey," a Webcomic by Zach Miller and a fellow nominee for the Lulu Blooker Prize. It's an interesting, creative strip about Joe, his monkey, some robots, and...some other guys. I like Zach's lean and confident linework. "Joe and Monkey" also illustrates a characteristic that I think separates exceptional Webcomics from the 97.5% that are ordinary or worse: it offers something new every day. Zach's archive holds an impressive 718 episodes of "Joe and Monkey" and he clearly treats it like a profession. I think after you've done anything 718 times you get pretty good at it. Good luck to him.

Cartoonist Mike Lynch (two cites in one week!) alerted me to a very nice review of Mom's Cancer that Gina Ruiz wrote for the online "Blogcritics Magazine." I particularly appreciated the fact that she understood some of the choices I made in writing it. "Mom’s Cancer isn’t some overly sentimental cancer story," she wrote. "I was a bit hesitant to read it, thinking it was going to be a tear-jerking, sentimental story meant for a movie of the week. I was more than surprised at how personal the story was, at how it was gentle, honest, and true without being sloppy."

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Hey! I meant to do that! Many thanks to Ms. Ruiz.

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Just to avoid writing about Mike Lynch again any time soon, I'll mention an outstanding Webcomic he turned me on to a while ago called Zip and Li'l Bit whose creator, Trade Loeffler, just finished a 62-page story featuring a young boy named Zip, his sister Li'l Bit, their bobbie friend Officer John, and their adventures in the world of "Upside-Down Me." It's wonderfully drawn, evocative of Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo," Sendak's "In the Night Kitchen," and similar stories that capture the semi-dreamy state where a clever child's imagination can make anything happen. I thought it was terrific. The complete story can be read via the link above (go there and just click on "First"), and Trade promises to begin a new story in September. I'll look forward to it.

Zip (on ceiling) and Li'l Bit begin the
adventure of "Upside-Down Me" by Trade Loeffler

R.I.P. Captain America

The Star-Spangled Avenger in better days.

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News Item (AP): Captain America has undertaken his last mission--at least for now.

The venerable superhero is killed in the issue of his namesake comic that hit stands Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported. On the new edition's pages, a sniper shoots down the shield-wielding hero as he leaves a courthouse.

It ends a long run for the stars-and-stripes-wearing character, created in 1941. Over the years, some 210 million copies of Captain America comic books, published by New York-based Marvel Entertainment Inc., have been sold in 75 countries....


This is news? Doesn't anyone remember when DC killed Superman a few years ago? Or Robin? They got better; so will Captain America.

This non-event nevertheless coalesces some thoughts about comic books, which I read and collected quite passionately between the ages of about 5 and 25, but turned away from in the late 1980s and haven't bought since. The obvious conclusion is that I outgrew them, but I never thought that was the case. Rather, I always felt like comic books turned away from me. They stopped being about the adventures of characters I loved. Their creators showed no appreciation for my loyalty or my business, so they lost me. When I realized I was only buying comics to keep my collection current and throwing them on a pile unread, I walked away with no regret.

What happened to comic books? They became grim and gritty, cynical and nihlistic. Trying to be more "mature," "adult,"and "realistic," their creators loaded them with depressing sex and violence--seldom handled in a way that a mature adult would recognize as realistic--while at the same time cutting our heroes from their moral underpinnings. Good guys became killers, then murderers, then mass murderers. Hopelessly square characters like Superman and, yes, Captain America were derided as old-fashioned Boy Scouts (take a moment to reflect on the perspective of comic book creators who use "Boy Scout" as an insult).

What they lost was the fundamental understanding that superheroes are adolescent wish fulfillment characters who are by definition better than us. They do things people in real life wouldn't or couldn't do--that's the "hero" part of superhero--and provide examples that in some small way we might emulate. When I was a child, they taught me concepts of courage, justice, resourcefulness, determination, and selflessness that were integrated into the foundation of my personality. I'm not attempting to be funny or disrespectful when I say that the Lone Ranger, Batman and Captain America were as important as my family in making the younger me want to become a good person who tries to do the right thing.

From the 1940s through the '70s, comics creators were professionals producing the best juvenile literature they could. The best of them, such as Julius Schwartz, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby, added layers of meaning that more sophisticated adult readers also appreciated, but they knew who their audience was. Since then, I think a few unfortunate things happened. Kids who grew up on those comics wanted their favorite characters to grow up with them--to get older, have sex, battle existential depression, and shove samurai swords through each other's guts. Unfortunately, many of those fans became pros in a position to do something about it. Naturally bored with the heroes and adventures that had so successfully entertained them when they were young, they made stories to entertain their older, too-cool-for-school, cynical selves. "Hero? There's no such thing. Everybody's screwed up and looking out for Number One." They couldn't imagine anyone living to a more heroic standard than they did.

The old guard was proud to produce good juvenile fiction; too many of the new guys were embarrassed by it. At the same time, the comic book business shrank dramatically, so that today's creators are working for a smaller and smaller group of increasingly older fans who value the same things they do. One sad consequence is that there are very few comics produced in the last 20 years I'd be comfortable handing to an 8 year old (please don't send me a list; I realize there are exceptions and I don't currently know any 8 year olds). Another sad consequence is that a kid coming out of a recent movie featuring Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, or The Fantastic Four--generally depicted in their "classic" incarnations defined at the height of their popularity decades ago--would find nothing on the comics rack resembling those film heroes. What a lost opportunity!

(I feel duty-bound to say I'm not objecting to comics for adults. I wrote one. Comics are a medium that I truly believe can handle any mature themes and characters their creators can conceive, including sex and violence. If I have any complaint, it's that too few "adult" comics aspire to actual maturity. What I'm bemoaning is the misguided drive to shove that content into the pages of Superman. To shift genres, I wouldn't be happy to see the Hardy Boys fishing bloated corpses out of the river and getting into gun battles with drug-running rapists, either.)

See, the thing about Captain America is that he really has no superpowers. He was a scrawny kid during World War II who volunteered for an experiment designed to produce an American super-soldier. The treatment (think super-steroids) gave young Steve Rogers a perfect physique and the acrobatic skills of an Olympic gymnast. With such relatively meager abilities, Captain America went on to lead the Greatest Generation in The Last Good War. When Marvel Comics revived him in the 1960s, he became something more: the embodiment of the American ideal. Liberty, opportunity, the triumph of the ordinary man, all the good stuff about us that we hardly ever live up to but hope we can. At the same time, Captain America became the one man you'd follow into a fight because you knew he'd never give up and always find a way to win. Over the years, with hardly any superhuman abilities at all, Captain America grew into the respected moral center of the Marvel Universe. You could never go wrong asking, "What would Captain America do?"

Captain America won't stay dead. But, y'know, he might be better off if he did.

Originals Shmoriginals

This post might be a bit too "inside baseball" for some, but I know a few people who'll appreciate it. If you're not one of them, thanks for your indulgence.

The nice folks at the Norman Rockwell Museum e-mailed me a wish list of the original art from Mom's Cancer they'd like to include in their "LitGraphic" exhibition, which opens this November. I was sorry to inform them that, of the eight pages they requested, four of them suffered from a minor problem called "not actually existing."

I am a proud cartooning dinosaur, drawing with brush, pen, ink, and a strong aesthetic that if paper was good enough for McCay, Kelly and Schulz then, by Zeus, it's good enough for me. But something I noticed in the many months it took me to draw (and live through) Mom's Cancer was how my relationship with digital art--specifically Photoshop--grew and evolved in that time. For example, on Page 10 of my book, I drew a picture of Mom metaphorically drowning in a sea of medical jargon.

Now, I actually did that: the jargon was printed onto a sheet of paper that I carefully trimmed to size, glued to my two-ply bristol board, and painstakingly cut around the shapes of Mom, the waves, the bubbles, and the caption. That's what the original looks like.
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But that's insane! The way to do that panel right (which is to say, the way I would've done it six months later or today) is to create Mom, the jargon, the captions, and the bubbles as separate elements and then layer them atop each other in Photoshop. It'd take one-twentieth the time and look much better. The only downside is that there'd be no original ... just scattered bits and pieces, half of them ephemeral electrons on a hard drive.

I'd regret that. But I'd still do it. Sometimes it's nearly unavoidable. For example....

One of the originals the Rockwell people asked for was the two-panel image of Mom on Page 47 that we also adapted for the cover. Now, Mom's Cancer began life as a Webcomic. Here's how that original looked:


A year later, Abrams agreed to publish Mom's Cancer and Editor Charlie picked this image as the one he wanted for the cover. Two problems: I needed to get rid of the captions--which meant I had to draw what was hidden "behind" them--and I frankly thought I could draw it better. Best to start from scratch. So I drew this:


Obviously the captions are gone. The large space to Mom's right that I inked black in the first version is now blank, to be filled with color as we choose. And there are also no stripes on Mom's shirt. I wasn't sure we'd want the stripes for the cover and I was thinking about trying some fancy color separation stuff so, using a light box to trace over the drawing above, I drew those on a separate sheet of paper:


Then, combining the new drawing of Mom with the separate stripes and captions cut-and-pasted from the Web original gave me the published Page 47:

Combining the same elements differently, cropping, and adding color gave me a book cover. The only thing this process didn't give me was, again, an original that looks like either Page 47 or the cover.

There's a tiny subsequent irony. When we were getting ready for my book's debut, Abrams wanted to make buttons using Mom's profile. The problem was that in my new art, I'd still drawn her with a panel gutter bisecting her head. So for the button graphic I had to digitally erase the panel borders and fill in the missing details. If I'd been smart, I would've drawn it without the panels in the first place. Yet another non-existent original.

As I say, I'm not entirely happy about this state of things. Original cartoon art is very, very cool and I've always gotten both pleasure and education from studying it. I'm afraid we'll have volumes of great original hand-crafted art from the 19th and 20th centuries that will last forever and then nothing from the 21st century onward, as more and more of it is done digitally on media that won't survive a couple of decades (anybody got a 5.25-inch floppy drive?). That's a great loss.

I think the best I can do is value hand-crafted physical artwork and continue to do as much of it as I practically can, within the bounds of modern reproduction requirements and sanity. Although I've become much more proficient with, and even dependent on, Photoshop, I'd much rather spend hours hunched over a drawing board than a computer monitor. Originals matter.
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By the way, I gave the Rockwell Museum a good list of alternative pages that do exist. We'll see what they like.
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Graphic Novel Reviews 2

Before diving into my thoughts on the three graphic novels below, I'd like to apply the first two paragraphs of my previous post here as well. I'm not an expert on graphic novels nor a professional reviewer. I'm just a guy who wrote one, and who has some thoughts on a few good ones.

Also, as I mentioned in a recent post, I'm very uneasy recommending anything to anyone. I don't like that responsibility. If you buy a book I like and discover not only that you hate it but that my judgment and sanity are marginal at best, there's a fair chance you're right and I'm wrong. But I won't refund your money.

Pyongyang by Guy Delisle. Born in Canada and now living in France, Delisle is an animator who worked for two months in North Korea, where he supervised a squad of anonymous artists with the laborious task of drawing cartoons for French television. Pyongyang is a wonderfully observed look at the country that shows both keen compassion for the people and horror over the oppressive bubble in which they live.

The adjective "Orwellian" is overused, too casually applied to anything vaguely authoritarian, nationalistic, or propagandistic. Pyongyang presents a rare case in which no other word will do. I can only accept Delisle's word that the one book he took along on his trip was Orwell's 1984, because no writer would dare invent a detail so "on the nose." The North Korea he describes is 1984 realized: a country of institutionalized paranoia where neighbors vanish in the night, foreigners aren't allowed outdoors without a handler, portraits of Dear Leader hang in every room and stare from pins on every lapel, and monstrous monuments to ego consume all the meager energy and resources the country can muster. Delisle sketches a portrait of a Potemkin Village of impressive facades, empty boulevards, unfinished grand hotels, and magnificent subways to nowhere, all built to impress a world that never arrives.

Delisle has a good ear for truths that remain unspoken. Riding with his guide, he realizes he's never seen a handicapped person during his stay. His guide replies that there are none. Incredulous, Delisle reasons with him: Some small percentage of humanity everywhere is handicapped. "We're a very homogenous nation," replies the guide. "All North Koreans are born strong, intelligent, and healthy." As far as Delisle can tell, his guide believes it. Delisle doesn't have to ask and cannot answer the question that lingers in the lie: what happens to all the imperfect people?

I very much appreciated Delisle's eye for the telling detail. He knows an important foreign delegation has checked into his hotel because the lights in the lobby are on and the restaurant has fresh melon. He notes the many "volunteers" doing absurd manual labor. Studying the toothpicks in a restaurant, Delisle deduces that they're individually hand-carved. In a visit to a museum documenting the glory of Kim Il-Sung, he notices that a miner's pick displayed on the wall is not the same one shown in the photo taken at its supposed presentation, and realizes the futility of asking about the inconsistency or expecting a sane answer.

Pyongyang also captures Delisle's stir-craziness as he visits the few people (all foreigners) he's allowed to see, eats and parties at the few establishments (again, all for foreigners) he's allowed to visit, and tries to make sense of a country and people that defy rationality and are either too indoctrinated or cowed to admit it. He's going nuts after a couple of months; what must it be like to be born and raised there? In an insightful passage Delisle echoes Orwell when he writes,"At a certain level of oppression, truth hardly matters, because the greater the lie, the greater the show of power. And the greater the terror for all. A mute, hidden terror."

Despite the evident mind-bending authoritarianism, Delisle never fears for his own safety. He's an honored guest. The only dread in Pyongyang arises when Delisle realizes how his playful prodding puts his handlers, whom he regards with sympathy and affection, at risk. He loans his copy of 1984 to a man who returns it, badly shaken. Near the end of the book Delisle manages to ditch his translator and take a solo stroll through the city. He's surprised that his obvious alienness doesn't attract any attention until he realizes that everyone is afraid to be seen speaking to him. When he returns, his translator is a wreck; the penalty for losing his charge for even a few minutes is clearly dire.

Delisle's grayscale artwork (the grays look like pencil or charcoal but could be wash, it's hard for me to tell) is well done and appropriate for his subject. He uses his animator's skills to bring motion, mood, and life to simple drawings that clearly communicate their point without extraneous detail. To my mind, that's what cartooning is about. It occurs to me I haven't mentioned how funny a writer Delisle is; I very much appreciated his wry, dry sense of humor in the face of the dark absurdity of North Korea. Delisle is a good traveling companion and I enjoyed Pyongyang very much.

Epileptic by David B. Epileptic is perhaps the best marriage of form and content I can recall. Born Pierre-Francois Beauchard, David B. is a French cartoonist who tells the story of growing up with his sister Florence and older brother, Jean-Christophe, whose epilepsy dominates David's youth and proves impossible to escape as an adult.

The artwork in Epileptic is really remarkable, if probably not to everyone's taste. Stark black and white, with grays achieved only through cross-hatching, David B.'s drawings carry uncommon narrative weight. Some look like woodcuts hacked from blocks with an urgency and anger that matches the passages they illustrate. Others are delicate and detailed. Able to draw with great clarity and tenderness, David B.'s hand turns abstract, surrealistic, dark, dense, jumbled and ugly as his life does the same.

Epileptic is an ambitious, challenging, difficult book that I think is worth the effort. It has 361 dense pages (full points to David B. for endurance!) and I'd be hard pressed to describe what exactly happens in at least 200 of them. David B. dedicates a lot of room to conveying haunted mood, internal musings, and fevered memories rather than advancing his plot, but that's clearly by choice. When he does turn to plot--as when describing his parents' heartbreaking attempts to help Jean-Christophe via a series of quacks and gurus, or his struggles to escape Jean-Christophe's suffocating shadow and find his own identity in art school--he does so very effectively. And David B.'s honest depiction of his own fear, jealousy, loathing, compassion, cruelty and humor in the face of his brother's illness is remarkably brave and self-aware. He's not afraid to show himself in a very unflattering light.

I first read Epileptic perhaps a year ago, and find that it's one of those unsettling stories that won't quite lie still in my mind. Every so often a memory or image from the book bubbles to the surface and draws me back for a second look. Somehow, Epileptic always floats to the top of the pile of books beside my desk. The good ones do.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. Two conflict-of-interest disclosures: First, this book is put out by my publisher Abrams, so I'm shilling for the home team. Second, I met Jeff at last year's San Diego Comic-Con, we've corresponded since, he may be the nicest guy on the planet, and I consider him a friend.

Through our mutual editor Charlie I was able to read an early proof of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is enjoying its debut at the New York Comic-Con this weekend. Printed in Jeff's hand-lettered font and illustrated with his simple but clean and evocative line drawings, Diary tells the first-person story of middle-school student Greg Heffley and his family, friends, and tormentors. Jeff developed Diary online at Funbrain.com, where it drew an enthusiastic following of young fans. His story, structured as a series of incidents loosely built around the school year, grew to more than 1300 pages (!) that Abrams plans to publish in three books (I believe the online material was significantly edited for print).

When Editor Charlie introduced me to Diary I was a bit puzzled. He told me very little except "Check this out," and I approached it as an adult expecting a faux-naive adult take on young teens, but it wasn't as knowing or arch (or "ironic" in the currently fashionable meaning of the term) as I anticipated. It was sweet and mildly subversive, meandering good-naturedly from one episode to the next without a lot of jeopardy or drama. It was understated and sincere. I didn't get it. Then Charlie explained that its fans were kids and the book would be aimed at the youth market, and everything clicked. Diary of a Wimpy Kid is too good for grown-ups.

Which is not to say there aren't layers for an adult to appreciate. What really makes Diary's story and characters work for me is how well Jeff observes and remembers the unthinking narcissism of that age. When friends take the rap for offenses actually committed by Greg, his response is unreserved relief that he didn't get caught, without a trace of guilt, responsibility, or urge to "do the right thing." Indeed, as far as Greg is concerned, his unjustly punished friends did the right thing by "taking one for the team"--the "team" being Greg. Greg's universe revolves around Greg but, because there's not a molecule of malice in his heart, he remains a very sympathetic, likeable character throughout. It's a very tricky characterization to pull off and I think Jeff does it remarkably well. Making it look easy is the mark of a skilled and thoughtful cartoonist.

As a former boy myself, Diary felt true and right to me. There's no accounting for taste and hardly any way to predict what the public will take to its heart, and less so when that public is kids. But I believe Diary of a Wimpy Kid has the potential to really catch on and become the start of a terrific series of books and more for Jeff. If it realizes the success I hope it does, it'll be well deserved.

UPDATE: On February 22, the Publisher's Weekly website posted a very nice article about Jeff and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It even quotes Editor Charlie and mentions me, which I appreciate very much. Good stuff.

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Graphic Novel Reviews 1

Someone e-mailed to ask what graphic novels I'd recommend. I appreciate the question and, since I wrote a graphic novel, might be expected to have a ready answer. In fact I read a lot of books, but don't confine myself to graphic novels by a long shot; if one happens to catch my eye and make it into the rotation, I read it. But I miss most of them and don't consider myself a student of--or, heaven forbid, an expert on--the form.
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I also think I'm harder on graphic novels than some of their readers are because I don't condescend to them or only compare them to other graphic novels, but to all the great and terrible books I've ever read. I never think, "This book is good for a graphic novel," and I have yet to find a graphic novel that's earned a place in the Pantheon of "Best Books I've Ever Read." My standards are high. With that caveat, these are my thoughts on a few good ones.

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Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Beginning with the hardest.... In an earlier post I wrote that I liked Fun Home but maybe not as much as everyone else seemed to; I had some reservations about it. In another post, I explained my policy of refraining from saying negative things about other people's creative work. In contemplating this review, I wrestled with that. But Fun Home is a book that deserves to be wrestled with, so I hope the thoughts that follow are read with the understanding of how much I respect Ms. Bechdel's accomplishment.
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Fun Home is Bechdel's autobiographical story of growing up in a smart, talented, damaged family. Her father is the local funeral director who is revealed to his adult daughter Alison to be gay, and whose possible suicide closely follows Bechdel's coming out as a lesbian. It's a powerful, well-drawn tour de force, buttressed by Bechdel's meticulous attention to detail which in turn draws on journals she kept during her teen years.
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The story is organized into chapters, each of which captures a particular theme or thread, so that over the course of the book the same event might be shown two or three times. Some reviewers have complimented this approach for allowing the reader to look into the prism of Bechdel's life through different facets, each adding layers and depth. Perhaps the repetition reflects Bechdel's changing perspective throughout her life. I understand that.
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Yet I thought Bechdel's chapter divisions were simply the most straightforward way to tell those particular tales within tales, and while reading Fun Home I was struck by how powerful it might have been if her narrative threads had been woven throughout the story as a seamless fabric to deliver the same richness in one pass, instead of as stitched-together patches worn threadbare through repetition (and now I'm done with that metaphor). We discover the secret of Roy the babysitter twice, and I didn't learn any more the second time than I did the first. On the other hand, Bechdel waits until more than halfway through the book (Page 135 out of 232) to introduce her childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder, a fascinating insight that would have enriched material that preceded it.

I also found the shifts in time occasionally confusing--is Alison in elementary school now, or college?--with insufficient cues to keep my bearings. Easy reply: if I can't keep up, that's my problem. Yet I'm a motivated, attentive reader, eager to meet Bechdel halfway. I'm also a writer from the school of thought that anything pulling readers out of the story and interrupting their flow is a flaw, not a strength. My flow was interrupted.
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A lot's been written about the connections Bechdel builds between her family and literature, notably the work of James Joyce and to a lesser extent Camus, Proust, and others. To a point, that's great: literature was the foundation of her family's intellectual life and there were surely times when she really was reminded of literary themes and characters. The references add texture. But through no fault of Bechdel's, I think reviewers are too impressed by this; I'm nagged by the suspicion that they like the Proust, Camus and Joyce stuff because it makes them feel smart.
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In fact it's a short cut, and a fine one. I used it in Mom's Cancer when I put my father in the role of Philip Nolan in Hale's "Man Without a Country." If you write a story about two boys and explicitly compare them to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, you want your readers to map the relationship of Twain's characters onto yours without doing the heavy lifting yourself. You hope the juju rubs off. But drawing parallels between your story and Joyce's doesn't make it Joycean (not that that was Bechdel's intent, but it's a claim I've seen some make). Again, I'm only mildly critical of Bechdel's over-reliance on Proust, Camus and Joyce--just a bit too much salt in the soup for my taste, and surely more impressive choices than, say, Jacqueline Susann--and it's to her credit that it's not an embarrassing over-reach. But great literature is great because it leads, not follows; it is not that which cites, but that which is cited.
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So my first gripe was a difference of opinion about structural choices (the reviewer's biggest pitfall: reviewing the work you wanted instead of the one you got?) and my second gripe was really more with Bechdel's critics than her. My third gripe is entirely a matter of taste and where I may be on shakiest ground. There's a style of autobiography that just chafes me, in which the protagonist is the most sensitive, perceptive person who ever lived and no one ever experienced life quite as deeply as he or she did. And there's some of that--even a little goes a long way with me--in Fun Home, particularly when Bechdel discovers sex.
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Bechdel's early relationships are not just the sometimes sweet, sometimes hurtful, sometimes embarrassing episodes of discovery they are for everyone else on Earth. They are literally mythic adventures that conjure Odysseus in the Cyclops's cave, Scylla and Charybdis, and eye-rolling ruffles and flourishes. And because Bechdel is a lesbian, she imbues her romances with tremendous political, historical, and literary significance as well. It's all way too much weight to rest on the shoulders of two girls just gettin' it on.
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As I say, a matter of style and taste. I don't like "overwrought" and tried very hard to avoid it in Mom's Cancer, in which I portrayed the worst thing that ever happened to my family with the awareness that it was not the worst thing that ever happened to anyone ever. In fact, it was routine and banal; the fact that suffering is so unexceptional is partly why it's so sad. Most people navigate life's setbacks and joys without accompanying thunderclaps from Zeus. From my perspective, Bechdel fell into snares I worked to skirt.
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Finally, Fun Home confronts an issue to which I'm sensitive: the autobiographer's responsibility to tell their story as they honestly see it versus the pain such honesty can cause. I've read interviews in which Bechdel acknowledges that her mother and family were very hurt by how they were portrayed. In addition, Bechdel's book outed her father to his community and speculated without proof that he killed himself when he was unable to respond on either count. I am genuinely ambivalent on this question--meaning I really don't know how I feel about it.
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I know for certain that if my mother had been unhappy with or distressed by Mom's Cancer, I would have killed it. No question. If my sisters or father had been hurt, I would have tried my best to be fair and address their concerns. I might have agreed to take them out of the book. I think at the very least you owe your subjects--who are at their most vulnerable and never asked to be characters in your by-definition-narcissistic story--the humility of realizing that your perspective is as biased and limited as theirs. I never thought my right to tell my story or the world's need to read it trumped my family's rights to dignity and privacy. It just wasn't that important; it wouldn't have been worth it. Was Fun Home worth it? I don't know, but I'd sure love to hear Bechdel's mother's side of the story someday. Problem is, she's too dignified and private to tell it.
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Am I saying I'm right and Bechdel's wrong? No. Only that I faced some of the same questions she did and arrived at different answers. Hence my mixed feelings. Maybe she's just a better journalist than I am.*
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Such are my reservations, explained in good faith as best I could. I liked Bechdel's two-color ink-and-wash artwork very much. Despite patches where I think she made dubious choices and over-cranked the melodrama, I do recommend Fun Home as a good, smart, sensitively observed portrait of an interestingly twisted family and an exemplar of some of the best qualities graphic novels have to offer.
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* Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
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--Janet Malcolm

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Next: Three much easier and shorter graphic novel reviews.

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Pin Me Down

I had a terrific interview yesterday with a woman named Psyche--the first Psyche I can recall meeting--who is the editor of a healthcare-related website that explores the connections between medicine, people, and culture. They do feature articles, book reviews and such, and have the backing of a big-time company, so I suspect they get pretty good traffic. I'll be sure to point you in the right direction when the story appears, which Psyche thought might be March.

Changing subjects....

I signed up for a Family Membership in the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center as soon as I could, shortly after it debuted in 2002, making me a Charter Member of that fine institution. Charter Membership confers no benefits or status I know of, except the indirect bragging rights of having a complete collection of the little lapel pins they send when you enroll or renew. They're cute little collectibles and, since I just got a new one and some of my readers are comic strip fans, I thought I'd share 'em here.

The pins aren't dated but I think I managed to get them in order from top to bottom, left to right: 2002 Grand Opening, Snoopy in 2002, Woodstock in 2003, Charlie Brown in 2004, Lucy in 2005, Linus in 2006, and Retro Peanuts in 2007 (corrections are welcome).

If you're ever in the San Francisco North Bay, love comics, and have a couple hours to kill, I think the Schulz Museum is worth a visit. It has an active corps of volunteers, continuously freshens its exhibits, and seems to take the "research" part of its mission seriously in terms of hosting events and bringing in speakers to explore the art/craft of cartooning and Mr. Schulz's place in it. It's also got a low-key charm that I think captures something of The Man himself.

What I Drew Today

My family's been into Girl Scouts since my girls were wee little Brownies and my wife became their troop leader. But now they've got their Gold Awards (the Girl Scouts' "Eagle") and gone to college, and with my kids out of the program my wife's trying to ease out of her obligations but still likes the people and helps out when she can.

So the local Girl Scout council is having a dinner to honor two long-time volunteers. They know I can draw so they asked my wife if she'd ask me to do a cartoon for the event to put on flyers and such. She said "please" and I said yes.

Now, the deal with Girl Scouts is that both Scouts and adult leaders pick "camp names" they use for all troop functions. Their camp names become such a strong part of their identities that sometimes that's the only name by which they know each other--I mean, there are actually grown women I've known for 10 years only as "Ziggy" and "Snow White." The two volunteer leaders being honored are "Flamingo" and "Parrot."

So I drew this.

Al Hirschfeld

All the cool cartoonist/bloggers are linking to the video clip below and, although I'm not much of a joiner, I enjoyed it and thought I'd post it, too. Al Hirschfeld, who died in 2003 at the age of 99, was the dean of classy caricature, particularly of the Broadway theater scene. Mr. Hirschfeld had a distinctive, instantly recognizable style that served him well for about 80 years, and the YouTube clip below shows him drawing a caricature of Paul Newman in the revival of "Our Town."



Purely from a technical standpoint, it's a treat to watch him work. I caught a couple of details. I appreciated how loosely he held his pencil during the preliminary sketch, and the construction lines he would erase later that helped him define the figure. Given how incredibly flowing and spontaneous his finished work looks--all graceful swooping lines and curls--I was surprised by how deliberately he inked. Very slow and disciplined. Many tiny scritches that melded into the one inevitable line he intended. I learned something from that. I also liked his wife's gentle nagging ("I'll stop whenever you say." "Stop.")

If you know who Hirschfeld was or appreciate the craft of cartooning, I think you'll like this seven-minute film. Keeping in mind that everybody needs to discover the techniques and tools that work best for them, it's illuminating to see what a master can accomplish with the most basic tools available: ink and nib.

Young Cartoonists in Love

One of the best parts of getting a cartoon/comic/graphic novel book published has been getting to know a few people who are really good enough to make a living at it. Some have become friends, in that "hey it's good to run into you once a year and meanwhile I'll read your blog" type of friendship. Completely coincidentally, two of those friends (who I'm sure don't know each other) got married in the past few days, and the mind hungry for blog topics grasps at any connections it can.

Otis Frampton, creator of Oddly Normal and several series of collector art cards, has been trying to marry Leigh Lawhon during a wedding/honeymoon trip to Tokyo, where I believe Otis either lived once or may have been stationed when he was in the service (?). I say "trying" because, according to Leigh's blog of their trip, their plans to wed in a quiet civil ceremony have been complicated by the need to translate documents into Japanese and run back and forth between Tokyo City Hall and the U.S. Embassy. With luck, the deed has been accomplished. It sounds like the kind of petty frustration that'll make a charming story 20 years from now.

In New York, cartoonists Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman married on December 2. Raina is drawing the graphic novelizations of The Babysitters Club (I wrote about acquiring an original page of that artwork from Raina in July) and I admit I'm more familiar with her work than Dave's, but they're both very good cartoonists who write and draw with a lot of heart. They really seem perfect for each other. Raina has posted some photos of their wedding that show her absolutely gorgeous and Dave, for the first time in my experience, clean-shaven. My eyes ga-oogahed like a wolf's in a Tex Avery cartoon on both accounts.

You know it's true love when you tell someone you draw funny pictures for a living and they still want to marry you anyway. My best wishes to both talented couples.

Three-Point Perspective

Another way I spend my time instead of working:


Original is non-photo blue pencil, about 14 x 17 inches. Maybe I'll think of something useful to do with it... Hmm....

Kerning

In yesterday's post about digital type, I bemoaned the inability of my custom hand-lettered font to do kerning. That's because I'm a big dummy--but a big dummy who can be taught. Ten minutes ago I figured out that I can do kerning with the Type Tool in Photoshop, and I got so excited I had to share.

Kerning means making individual letter shapes fit together in ways that are pleasing to the eye. A good example are the letters "A" and "V," whose sides have complimentary slopes. In the top example below, the letters are printed next to each other without kerning, while in the bottom example I used kerning to slightly overlap them (see how the top left of the "V" hangs over the bottom right of the "A") and reduce the empty space between.

In yesterday's example caption, the words "STARS" AND "LOT" caught my eye, both due to the letter "T." T is a good candidate for kerning since it's got all that empty space at the bottom that many slanted letters could slide into. Here are the two words, without and with kerning around the T's:

I think the bottom example is easier on the eye. Notice that kerning doesn't mean squishing all the letters together (that's "tracking"), but overlapping the space only between certain letters. If it's absent, words can subconsciously look funny even if you can't figure out why; if you do it right, no one ever notices.

I'm so happy I can kern. And it's still prodigiously faster than lettering by hand.

By the way, this is how I spend my time instead of working.