Chalk Talk

I've never made a big deal about the fact that a big-time syndicated cartoonist lives in my neighborhood. In fact, out of a high-minded notion of being cool and respecting his privacy, I don't think I've mentioned it at all. Out of that same sense of respect, I won't tell you who he is; I'll just show you two pictures I took of his driveway.


Karen and I noticed these on an after-dinner walk a couple of nights ago. I figure if he's going to out himself so shamelessly and publicly, I could at least share the charming results with you.

Sorry again for the dearth of posts. I'm on a tough deadline for at least the next few weeks and can't remember when I last worked so hard. It's good busy, even fun, but tough to sustain for so long. It's only temporary, I promise. Unless it kills me.
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Baby Blues

One of the very nice things about being a member of the Charles M. Schulz Museum is that you don't have to waste a lot of time seeking out your favorite cartoonists. Sooner or later, they all come to you.

So it was last Sunday, when I went to a talk and book signing by the gentlemen who do the successful comic strip "Baby Blues," Jerry Scott (writing) and Rick Kirkman (art). Jerry had been scheduled to appear last year with his "Zits" co-creator Jim Borgman but canceled for a medical emergency, so it was good to finally see him. They gave a swell chalk talk in the museum's little theater, clearly something they have a lot of experience with. Jerry spoke and Rick drew, anticipating and punctuating each other's points like a good comedy team, and they did a nice job talking about the origin of the strip, how their partnership works, how they developed the characters and themes, etc.

View from the back row of the theater. My wife and I habitually
sat up front for these things until we figured out that, when it came
time to queue up for book signings afterward, everyone behind us
got to file out of the room and get in line first. We learn by doing.

The most fun part of the talk was a look at some of the outraged letters they receive from readers--some not entirely unexpected, as when the strip jokes about (and shows) breastfeeding, but others from completely beyond left field. For example, I learned that you never want to anger square dancers. They also marveled at the mail they got when cartoonist Stephan Pastis borrowed their characters for his "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip--for example, showing the "Baby Blues" toddlers driving a car to go on a beer run. The very best part of that story? Stephan himself sitting beside me in the theater laughing his butt off.

I was really looking forward to meeting Jerry and Rick afterward. Jerry I didn't know, but Rick and I have met electronically in an Internet forum. He's said some very kind things about Mom's Cancer and even given me some invaluable Photoshop advice. So I figured he'd recognize my name, and it turned out Jerry did, too, and we all had a very nice conversation for a minute until it was time to move the line along.

Rick, Jerry and me

What Rick is drawing in the photo above. This
brings my collection of original "Mom and Dad
cartoon character art" to two (see Borgman).

Once again, after hearing Scott and Rick's talk, I was struck by how hard these guys work. Anytime I've met professionals at the top of their field (any field, not just cartooning), I came away impressed by the time and dedication they devote to it. That seems like such an obvious secret of success--"hard work, huh, who'da figured?"--and yet it seems to be the one thing I've seen that always separates the achievers from the wannabes. It also always strengthens my resolve to do better.

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Ollie Johnston

I'm lifting my head above the surface of work and deadlines to note the passing of animator Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney's "Nine Old Men." Walt Disney himself gave the group its name--though most were only in their thirties at the time--in deference to their pioneering work in the earliest days of the studio, when they refined a new art form beginning with Snow White and progressing through about the 1970s.

Johnston began working for Disney in 1935 and animated movies ranging from Snow White, Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio to The Rescuers. He retired in 1978. In 2005, President Bush presented Johnston the NEA National Medal of Arts in recognition of his career. Late in life, he and his partner Frank Thomas--the second-to-last "Old Man"--experienced something of a renaissance, as younger audiences remembered and honored their work. They became the subjects of a popular documentary film, Frank and Ollie, and won much well-deserved recognition. Among Johnston's new generation of fans were director Brad Bird, who used caricatures of Frank and Ollie in The Iron Giant, and the people at Pixar, who put them in The Incredibles (also directed by Bird). It was nice to see.

Johnston in Iron Giant (top), and Frank and
Ollie in The Incredibles, voiced by themselves

There are far more knowledgeable Disney experts and animation historians who can talk about Johnston and his colleagues' artistic contributions. Jim Hill is one. What Ollie Johnston meant most to me was that he and Thomas wrote The Illusion of Life, an inside look at the art and process behind Disney's classic films. Though ostensibly about animation, I think it's also an excellent book for cartoonists and even writers, and one of the first I recommend when asked.

The Illusion of Life is a beautifully illustrated coffee-table "How To" book. I'm sure it's one of the first that a serious student buys when they get to animation school, but I think it's more than that. What I got out of the book was less about how to do the work than how to approach it, and those lessons apply far beyond animated cartoons. I was amazed by how much thought went into the apparently simplest of things. How much analysis lay behind structuring stories and building characters. It's hard, and it's supposed to be hard, but if you do it right it looks easy--even inevitable, as if it were impossible to imagine turning out any other way. I use insights from this book every time I draw.

When I pulled my copy of Illusion of Life off the shelf this morning, I found tucked into its pages a few sheets of paper I printed off the Web more than 10 years ago summarizing advice from Johnston as passed on by Pixar's John Lasseter. Luckily, the same list is still available online. The 30 tips include technical notes that only an animator would need, but also some good advice for anyone creating characters in any medium. For example:

• If possible, make definite changes from one attitude to another in timing and expression.


• It is the thought and circumstances behind the action that will make the action interesting. Example: A man walks up to a mailbox, drops in his letter, and walks away. OR: A man desperately in love with a girl far away carefully mails a letter in which he has poured his heart out.


• Concentrate on drawing clear, not clean.


• Everything has a function. Don't draw without knowing why.


• Does the added action in a scene contribute to the main idea in that scene? Will it help sell it or confuse it?

Solid gold principles to write and draw by. More information about Johnston is available from Disney and at the official (and not recently updated) Frank and Ollie website. The Associated Press has written a nice obit as well.

Edited to Add: New links to nice tributes by animator Brad Bird and writer/animator John Canemaker.
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In Praise of Pioneers

A recent discussion at an Internet watering hole got me thinking about pioneering cartoonists, comic book artists and writers, and the lack of respect they get. The business has always been cruel to its veterans--comic books much more than comic strips, I think, but both find new voices more compelling, new styles more diverting. They eat their old. That's the way of the world, the way of business, and I understand it. I expect a profit-driven publisher (and publishers who aren't profit-driven don't publish long) to put out what sells.

What pains me is that fans go along.

The newspaper comic strip is just over a century old. Comic books have a history almost as long--at first, many of them existed to reprint newspaper strips--but turned a corner when Superman debuted in 1938, 70 years ago this June. Before the invention of television, comic strips were a major mass medium of entertainment and cartoonists were stars. Millions of comic books were sold every month during the "Golden Age" that began with World War II and lasted about a decade after (again, probably not coincidentally ending with the proliferation of TV). Into the 1970s, comics and cartoons were important and popular cultural touchstones in a way that many, including I, believe they haven't been since and probably won't be again.

That wasn't that long ago! A lot of very creative people who did that work are still alive. A few of them would still love to work. Not many of them get the opportunity.

Attending the big San Diego Comic-Con the past three years, I've gotten used to seeing cartooning pioneers sitting ignored in Artist's Alley, their view blocked by a long line waiting to meet the superstar wunderkind sitting at the next table. I dunno.... I've got no business telling people what to like. But to me, being a fan of something means having an appreciation of its history and the contributions of those who came before. To me, those fans lining up at the wrong table are like baseball fans who worship Barry Bonds but have never heard of Willie Mays.

(It's not the same thing, but I remember reading about a convention whose guests included "Star Trek" actors and Apollo astronauts. The actors drew huge crowds while the astronauts sat alone, chuckling to each other that fans would rather meet people who pretended to explore space than those who actually had.)

I can't say that the experienced pioneers deserve work; that's for the market to decide. But they deserve acknowledgement and respect. I've been lucky to meet a few. I never know what to say and I'm sure I always manage to sound like an idiot fanboy. It seems to come down to "thank you for your work, it means a lot to me," which is pretty weak but I think is better than nothing.

I'd take Willie Mays any day.

Top to bottom: Jerry Robinson, Irwin Hasen and Gene Colan,
talented pioneers and gracious gentlemen all. Look 'em up.

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Gus Arriola and the Language of Lines

Cartoonist Gus Arriola died yesterday at age 90. His Associated Press obit is here. Mr. Arriola wrote and drew the comic strip "Gordo" between 1941 and 1985, when he retired. It's fair to say he's not a household name, but when I was a kid trying to figure out how comics worked, his strip was among those I most frequently clipped and saved. I think he's one of the all-time underrated greats.

"Gordo" was set in Mexico and featured an overweight tour guide, his housekeeper, and various human and animal characters--notably a chihuahua, pig, cat and rooster. The strip had swell characters and an easy-going charm, but what really caught my eye was the way Mr. Arriola played with the language and iconography of comics in ways I'd never seen before. His use of graphics was masterful.

Unfortunately, good examples are hard to come by online and I have no idea where to find my 30-year-old clip file (though I suspect I still have it somewhere). The images below were the best I could find, and you'll just have to take my word that I remember several even better.

(click to see larger)

The Sunday strip above, which I scanned from Jerry Robinson's book The Comics (which unfortunately reproduced it in black and white), is a nice piece from 1954. There's a lot of arty goodness going on here: the shapes of panels, the bottom border and negative profile in panel 6, the playful use of lettering guides as a design element in panel 3. Even the cigar smoke in panel 6 is an interesting squiggle. But what sells it is the checkerboard pattern, introduced in panel 4 and finished off in the final panel, where Gordo is not just a checkerboard silhouette, but one that has shattered into surprised shards.

The next Sunday strips are in color and highlight's Mr. Arriola's use of same as well as his incredibly graceful and expressive ink line. I thought he really shined when drawing the animals, particularly in frenetic action accompanied by colorful streaks or lightning bolts. I love the first strip, which is very "meta," in that the cartoonist literally cools off the characters by coloring them in cool colors (and letting in some cross ventilation by cutting two holes through the panel border!).

(click either to see larger)

Next, another black-and-white Sunday strip I found online, this one capturing the dark festivities of Dia de los Muertos. Note that these aren't just pretty pictures, but pretty pictures that tell a story. But mostly, it's just Grade-A cartooning.


In his imaginative use of the entire cartoonist's toolbox, I always thought of Arriola as a natural heir to Cliff Sterrett, the best cartoonist you've never heard of. Mr. Sterrett did "Polly and Her Pals" in the 1910s through '30s, when he created innovative, abstract work that was both of its time and far ahead of it. Below are a couple of good examples.

(click either to see larger)

Here's a close-up of that sixth panel, which I think shows just how far comics allows you to push the boundaries of literal representation to communicate an idea--in this case, a spooked cat in the middle of the night--that couldn't be shown any other way. This is just beautiful stuff.



The Language of Lines
Coincidentally, I learned of Mr. Arriola's death after coming home last night from the opening of a new exhibition at the Charles Schulz Museum titled "The Language of Lines." The show pretty much covers what I've been writing about: the unique symbolism of comics that instantly communicates an idea, from the antique "light bulb of inspiration" and "sawing log of slumber" to increasingly sophisticated techniques that continue to emerge. Originals in the show date from the early 20th century (including Sterrett) to today, as represented by "Pearls Before Swine" and "Stone Soup," among others. Good examples from "Peanuts," "Pogo," "Doonesbury," "Calvin and Hobbes" and many others illustrate the thesis. When you see Snoopy dance on Schroeder's musical notes, Calvin melt into a puddle of snot, or George W. Bush depicted as an asterisk wearing a Roman soldier's helmet, that's the language of lines.

(An "inside baseball" note: I don't think I've ever seen "Calvin and Hobbes" originals before and was astonished by how small Bill Watterson drew them--particularly his Sundays, which looked even smaller than published size to me. Most cartoonists draw originals at least 1.5 to 2 times the size at which they'll be printed, and often larger. For example, "Peanuts" originals are huge. I guess the tight confines gave Watterson the look and line he wanted, but it really surprised me. Very gutsy.)

The exhibition was curated by Brian Walker, cartoonist Mort Walker's son and part of the Walker-Browne dynasty that continues to produce comic strips such as "Beetle Bailey" and "Hi & Lois." However, Brian may be even better known as a comics historian, author and museum curator, having organized dozens of comic art shows in the U.S. and abroad, including the very high-profile "Masters of American Comics" in 2005 through 2007. He also flew across the country to speak at last night's opening.

I've met Brian twice before. We share a publisher in Abrams and, I discovered just last night, the same editor (look out, Charlie, we compared notes). I also met his wife Abby. Brian grew up immersed in comics and is one of the most knowledgeable experts around, and it was a pleasure to reconnect with him. A bad cold, as well as sadness over not being home to see his beloved New York Giants play the Super Bowl, didn't distract him from giving a nice talk on the language of lines as demonstrated in the pages we then went into the gallery to view. Add some music, wine and snacks, and it was a very memorable evening.

So it was somehow fitting to come home with that exhibition and conversation on my mind, and then read about Mr. Arriola. "Gordo" isn't represented in "The Language of Lines" but it could be--probably should be. It was a very influential strip for me personally. In the bigger picture, I can't help comparing the bold graphic sensibilities of creators like Arriola and Sterrett to the much more pallid, static comic strips of today. If somebody drew comics like that now, it'd be heralded as a cutting-edge creative breakthrough--never mind that Sterrett did it 90 years ago and Arriola 60. This great stuff used to be in the newspaper every day!

Too many contemporary cartoonists and readers don't even remember what they've forgotten.
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All The World Seems In Tune

Little by little, the industrious (or even lazy) blogger reveals more about himself than he realizes or intends. My few long-time readers may recall mentions of the roles Star Trek, Monty Python, Victor Borge, Carl Sagan, Walt Kelly, Disney, NASA, comic books, comic strips, and many other influences played in forming little me. However, I have never mentioned the towering influence of Tom Lehrer.

Mr. Lehrer is a musical satirist who came to prominence in the late 1950s and '60s, a proto-Weird Al who composed and performed little piano ditties on best-selling comedy albums and, occasionally, on stage. His songs were smart, sharp, funny, wry, very dark and a little naughty--the perfect combination to appeal to 14-year-old Brian. His heyday was before my time but we got acquainted through a local radio comedy hour that played him regularly, and he perfectly captured the dry, sarcastic, mocking, too-cool-for-school attitude that comprises the mandatory uniform of adolescence. Song titles include "The Old Dope Peddler," "The Vatican Rag," "I Got It From Agnes" (a saucily subtle ode to VD), and "Lobachevsky," a jaunty tribute to the Russian mathematician. Luckily, and unlike many favorites from my youth, Mr. Lehrer still turned out to be pretty cool even after I grew up.

Mr. Lehrer left entertainment to teach math at the University of California, Santa Cruz, cementing his nerd credibility forever. He became something of the Salinger of Satire (or perhaps the Watterson of Wit) and rarely performed in public after the 1960s, although he did surface briefly in 1980 when a Broadway show titled "Tomfoolery" revived his songs in a well-reviewed revue. He is also reputed to have invented the Jell-O shot. I won't go so far as to say Tom Lehrer was an important intellectual influence in my life, but he sure was a fun one.

That's my introduction to these videos that capture the magic of Mr. Lehrer. My favorite is the last, which not only features one of my favorite Lehrer songs but shows a rare later performance in 1998 to honor the producer of "Tomfoolery," who also did a little show called "Cats." If you're inclined to watch, I hope you enjoy.










Extra Bonus Video: Something else by Mr. Lehrer that those slightly younger may remember from "The Electric Company":

Raindrops on Roses, Whiskers on Kittens

This seems like the right time to remember people whose work--and, when I was lucky, friendship--made my life better in 2007:

My friend Mike Lynch, successful magazine cartoonist and fellow Trekkie, whose impromptu calls I'm always delighted to take and whose blog is terrific.

My friend Patricia Storms, whose cartooning and illustrating career really seems to have taken off lately, and it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

My friend Jeff Kinney, whose career as a best-selling author I can actually claim to have witnessed the very start of. It also couldn't happen to a nicer person.

My friend Paul Giambarba, a cartoonist, artist, illustrator, author, art director and much more, with a multi-decade career I can only envy.

My friend Otis Frampton, writer, artist, and creator of Oddly Normal among other great work.

My friend Arnold Wagner, who made my life better until the evening of August 31.

My friend Ronniecat, who started a blog when she suddenly lost her hearing at age 39 and soon branched out to write about anything else that interested her.

My friend Mike Peterson, a career journalist and newspaper editor in Maine, and a cartooning connoisseur.

My friend Sherwood Harrington, an astronomer, traveler, and better writer than he lets on.

My friend and editor Charlie Kochman, who grasps ideas immediately, figures out ways to make them better, and would never do anything to disappoint me in any way ever.

Writer, comics creator, and Hollywood insider Mark Evanier, whose blog is a daily stop of mine.

Annie and Jazz Age cartoonist Ted Slampyak, likewise a regular surfing destination.

Between Friends cartoonist Sandra Bell-Lundy, likewise likewise.

Agreeably cranky writer and artist Eddie Campbell, who made my week a couple of months ago.

The many artists, writers, comics and cartooning professionals I've gotten to know online, plus a few I've gotten to know in person, including Guy Gilchrist, Stephan Pastis, Michael Jantze and Terry Moore. Thanks for your time.

Annette Street, Professor of Cancer and Palliative Care Studies, La Trobe University, Australia.

My neighbor Larry, who I just discovered reads my blog. Thanks for helping me fish my eyeglass lens out of the storm drain that time, plus for protecting our country. That was good, too.

Martin Mahoney, Jeremy Clowe, and the staff of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Jennifer Babcock and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in New York City.

People who voted for me in the Eisner Awards in vain.

People who voted for me in the Harvey Awards--not in vain.

Wolfgang Fuchs, who translated my book into German, accepted an award on our behalf, and exchanged some very nice notes with me about it.

Germany.

People who read my book, and maybe even paid money for it. I don't ever, ever take that for granted. Thank you.

People who read my book and then wrote to tell me about it, themselves, their families, and their stories. Thank you especially.

Everyone else I don't want to embarrass by naming in public but who know who they are.

My wife Karen, who didn't think the preceding sentence applied to her.

My girls, who make me proud.

A happy new year to us all!


*I reserve the right to wake up in the middle of the night, slap myself on the forehead crying "How could I have forgotten them?!" and add names to this post at any time. If that's you, I apologize.
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The Trip Report

The Mighty Housatonic
(I hope to someday learn how to pronounce that)

One of the nice things about travel is it makes you appreciate home. My wife and I are happy to be back, although I return to face a mountain of work that has to get done before Thanksgiving. You may judge how eager I am to tackle the mountain by the length of this post. Let's see how well I can procrastinate.

Elaborating on my previous post's highlights:

1. Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Berkshires. Beautiful country, perfect little villages full of nice people. If there is a single home in the entire region that doesn't look like it belongs in a painting by Grandma Moses, Currier & Ives, or Norman Rockwell, we didn't see it. Ordinary houses well off the beaten path have all the clapboard, dormers, gables, cupolas, cornices, finials, and flying buttresses you could hope for (maybe not flying buttresses). Beautiful brick construction of the type we simply never see in northern California because ours all fell down in 1906. We're pretty sure everyone keeps their one-horse sleighs locked up in their garages until the first snow falls, because that was the only detail missing.

We met several locals who were almost apologetic about the state of their trees' leaves. Leaf tourism is a big deal, and we were alternately told that we'd missed the best colors by a few weeks, that we'd see better color a little farther north, or that the colors were bad everywhere this year. As we explained to a few folks: we're from California. Our standards for fall leaf color are pretty low. However, I don't see anything wrong with vistas like these:

2. Opening of the LitGraphic Exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum. What a beautiful facility. I only realized as we drove to it that the reception was scheduled to begin after sunset, and it was pitch dark by the time we arrived at 5:45 p.m. So of the building exteriors and surrounding landscape, I can only say that the photos I've seen look very nice.

The interior, I can report first-hand, is terrific. Galleries are arrayed around a small central rotunda featuring Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" paintings. Many of Rockwell's huge, stunning originals are on display, in some cases accompanied by the sketches or studies he used in their creation. It's not an enormous place; I'd call it appropriately intimate, in an architectural style that seems to reflect a Rockwell aesthetic without calling attention to itself at the expense of the artwork.

The LitGraphic exhibit occupies three galleries in the back, with one dedicated to "historical" work by artists such as Eisner and Kurtzman, and the other two to more contemporary pieces. A tiny side gallery--almost a corridor--has benches facing two TV monitors that looped five-minute interviews with six of the exhibit's contributors, including me.

Me and my wall.

Watching myself on TV.
Because I'm just that vain.

It's hard to estimate how many people attended the opening reception. More than 100 for sure. Several were museum patrons and members, though the museum staff told me there were many new faces they didn't recognize--presumably people just drawn by the subject matter--and they were thrilled with the turnout. The first person we recognized shortly after we arrived was curator Martin Mahoney, who came to my home to interview me. I also reconnected with Jeremy Clowe, who ran the camera and did a fantastic job editing all the interviews into a great presentation. He worked very hard to find five minutes that did not make me look stupid. We also enjoyed meeting their friends and loved ones as well.

3. Meeting Artists. Dave Sim, Peter Kuper, Howard Cruse, Marc Hempel, and Mark Wheatley all had work in the exhibit and attended the opening. I spent a few minutes and had good conversations with each, during which we said nice things about each other. Dave was great, and Peter and I turned out to have a mutual friend in Editor Charlie (not as big a coincidence as it may seem; Charlie knows everybody). Even artists much cooler, better, and more experienced than I admitted that showing their work in the Norman Rockwell Museum was something of a career highlight, which made me feel a bit less like a freshman at the senior prom.

With "Cerebus" creator Dave Sim.

4. Terry and Robyn Moore. I mention Terry Moore of "Strangers in Paradise" separately because we had a little more time to talk and, maybe, connected in a less superficial way than usual at an event like this. We really had a good visit about writing, the creative process, family, all sorts of stuff. As I wrote in my last post, Terry and Robyn seem like especially nice people I look forward to seeing again whenever I can.

Terry (center) and I chatting with a museum patron who was very proud of the comic-themed tie he'd worn for the occasion.

Dinner following the reception was held at the palatial (literally) Cranwell Resort in nearby Lenox, where I got to know more of the museum's staff, curators and administrators. I was impressed by how excited they seemed to be about hosting the exhibit. They talked about the emergence of a new narrative form and the continuum of telling stories with pictures that linked Norman Rockwell to us. Good food and better company. It was after 11 when we finally parted.

5. Guy Gilchrist. Guy began his professional cartooning career at age 14. Mentored by "Beetle Bailey" creator Mort Walker and often working with his brother Brad, he's had an impressive career that's included "The Muppets" and "Nancy" comic strips as well as many books and commercial art projects. Now he works out of Guy Gilchrist's Cartoonist's Academy in Simsbury, Connecticut, which serves as his studio, a school, and a summer day camp for kids.

The first impression any fan of comics and cartoons would have when entering Guy's academy is jaw-dropping wonder. The walls are covered with original art, some by Guy but most by other great pros: Milt Caniff, Stan Drake, Curt Swan, Cliff Sterrett, Jack Davis, too many others to count or recount. As I told Guy, I think young cartoonists can learn more from looking at original artwork for 10 minutes than they can from a shelf full of books, so he's done them a tremendous service right there. The academy is also outfitted with desks, art supplies, light boxes, and computers for the students to make their own comics and flash animations. It's quite an undertaking.

Guy very graciously treated us to lunch and spent about two hours of his day off with us. He's known a lot of the old-guard East Coast cartooning elite and is quite a raconteur. He's also very generous. I won't embarrass Guy (or me) by revealing how generous; let's just say I'm pretty sure if I'd expressed admiration for his microwave oven, he would have unplugged it from the wall and carried it to my car. All in all, it was one of the nicest, most interesting, insightful and engaging conversation I can recall having with any cartoonist. Thanks, Guy.

Talking cartooning over the foosball table. Guy's students do animation at these computers, hence the cels on the wall for them to study.

6. Historic Boston. Not much to add here, except that we spent a day walking the "Freedom Trail" and seeing all the highlights. A couple of hours were spent in the company of this delightful man, who led a group tour and enhanced our understanding and enjoyment enormously.

My wife Karen and I flanking Revolutionary-era hat maker Nathaniel Balch.

We spent some time exploring the Common, the Public Garden and Beacon Hill, and Boston seems like a perfectly fine city that well deserves it reputation for nighmarish traffic. Now, I expected that in the heart of the city, laid out 250 years before the invention of the auto. Jumbled narrow streets are part of the charm. My real puzzlement and frustration was with the modern stuff, which was a lot more baffling than it ought to be. Tunnels you can't get to, streets with five names within four blocks, interstates to nowhere. And the Massachusetts Turnpike: seriously, what the hell? I'm familiar with the concept of toll roads, but this thing's got booths that take cash, booths that dispense little tickets with teeny Excel spreadsheets printed all over 'em, booths at every exit manned by three guys who collect $1.10 from the six cars per hour that wander through. We went through one booth whose entire purpose seemed to be circling us around to a different booth. To misappropriate an old saying, this is no way to run a railroad.

However, it's a poor guest who leaves badmouthing his host, so I'll wrap up by saying we had a wonderful time in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and only regret we didn't have a chance to see everyone we wanted to. Also, I have never seen so many Dunkin' Donuts franchises in my life.

UPDATE: At the request of exactly one person, I've linked the first four photos above to higher-resolution version of the same. OK, Sherwood?
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Mini-Memo from Boston

Weather Report: Chilly but clear, perfect for our Nor'east trip so far.

Highlight #1: Western Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Highlight #2: My work on a wall at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Holy cow.

Highlight #3: Dave Sim, Peter Kuper, Howard Cruse, Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley.

Highlight #4: Especially Terry Moore ("Strangers in Paradise") and his wife Robyn. Nice, nice, nice people. I feel like I made new friends for life.

Highlight #5: Two hours with cartoonist Guy Gilchrist, a kind, generous, and entertaining gentleman. And he bought the pizza.

Highlight #6: Historic Boston. Never been here before, and I love going someplace and having my perspective rearranged. The places in the history books are real, many within a short walk of each other. Cool.

Pictures and more maybe late Wednesday.

Oddly Ends

Oddly Normal creator Otis Frampton had posted some thoughts in response to my October 22 post in his own blog. While I touched on the idea that too few "mature" comics actually aspire to provide mature characters, plots and themes, Otis comes at it from the other direction: too few comics that should be for kids actually are.

Good point. While some sigh in frustration that comics aren't taken seriously as adult literature, it's worth remembering that they're still a terrific medium for juvenile literature--and there's no shame in that. As I replied to Otis, creating quality juvenile literature is hard and important, and I have great respect for people who do it with integrity and responsibility. Comics are big enough to embrace both--or should be.

Can't Think of a Good Segue to....
Family, friends, and regular readers know of my fondness for "Star Trek." Less frequently mentioned is my affection for Monty Python. I hope I'm forgiven, then, for finding the clip below irresistible. Thanks to my friend, cartoonist Mike Lynch, for the lead.




Sorry. I feel happy....
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Eddie Campbell + A Bonus Tirade

I broke a rule. Turns out it's more of a "guideline" than an actual "rule," but I wanted to explain myself anyway.

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In a few long-ago posts I wrote about my tiny collection of original cartoon art. Knowing that I could easily get carried away and bankrupt my family, I established my rule: I would only acquire art from friends or artists with whom I'd developed a relationship. We don't have to be buddies forever; just a couple of e-mails or a nice 10-minute conversation will do. The point is that when possible I'd get pieces directly from the artists themselves and have an emotional connection to the work that conjured a good story or nice memory. Right now I've got Irwin Hasen, Raina Telgemeier, Otis Frampton, Ted Slampyak, Charles Schulz (acquired way before I made up the rule but still a nice story) and Winsor McCay (also pre-rule--but I would have broken it for him anyway).

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And now I've got Eddie Campbell. Here's the original Page 80 from Mr. Campbell's recent book, The Black Diamond Detective Agency.

Original p. 80, Black Diamond Detective
Agency, by Eddie Campbell. Captions and word
balloons were added in production.

I broke my rule for Mr. Campbell. Never met him, never corresponded with him. I saw him at ComicCon last July and almost approached his table, but he looked too busy and I never got back to him.

Eddie Campbell is probably best known for drawing From Hell, a retelling of the Jack the Ripper story written by Alan Moore. He's the creator of a long-running series titled Bacchus about the Greek gods living in modern times; a few semi-autobiographical works including The Fate of the Artist, which I thought was terrific; and The Black Diamond Detective Agency, based on an unproduced screenplay about a deadly train explosion in 1899 Missouri and a Hitchcock-esque man-on-the-run framed for it.

On paper, I'm not a particularly devout fan--haven't seen much Bacchus and didn't actually care for From Hell, which I found unengaging and lurid in a Bret Easton Ellis sort of way (I concede that if any subject cries out for carving up some women for fun, it's Jack the Ripper). However, Mr. Campbell's contributions are, I think, always excellent. Both his writing and artwork are interesting, witty, well-researched, and thoughtful. His confident, relaxed impressionistic style is built on a rock-solid foundation of craft. He's comfortable with ink, paint, collage, multi-media, typography: whatever he needs to get the effect he wants, he's not afraid to put it on the paper. He knows which rules to follow and break, and why. Everytime I read his work, I come away inspired to try two or three things I'd never thought of. In addition, I always get an absolute sense of integrity from his work.

Reading his blog for a while, I've also gotten a sense for Mr. Campbell as a person and I like the cut of his jib. He seems to be one of a small number of grown-ups working in the comics/cartooning/picture book/graphic novel business, and now I need to go on a little rant to explain what I mean by that.

Here's the Tirade
Comics are in an interesting, tricky place right now. First, there's the problem that much of the general public thinks comics are for kids. Some creators are striving mightily to have their comics taken seriously as literature, while others deliberately wallow in their low-class outsider status and confirm every slander against the entire medium. Others just don't care. Every few months for the past couple of decades, some reporter does a story with the headline "Pow! Bam! Comics Aren't Just for Kids Anymore!" Some of them have been about me. Every comics convention has at least one panel discussion on the topic of when comics will finally enter the mainstream. I've been on some of them.

As comics have been taken more seriously, they've drawn critics, students, analysts, theorists, and cranks. Much of their discourse happens on the Internet, though it occasionally spills over to print. There are people dedicated to making rules, defining terms, arguing what is or isn't a comic, deciding who's in or out of the club. Is it a comic strip, a comic book, an illustrated book, or a graphic novel? There are people who question whether "Prince Valiant" is a comic because it doesn't use word balloons or whether "Family Circus" is a comic because it doesn't show the passage of time via sequential panels. (Answer: they're comics. If your definition of comics excludes them the problem is yours, not theirs.) Webcomics spice the debate with arguments about what is or isn't a digital comic.

There are people who confidently declare that there are only eight kinds of this or four ways to do that, and whenever I hear that I immediately think of three other kinds of this and two different ways to do that, and then I realize what a waste of time it is. It all reminds me of a Victorian gentleman's butterfly collection in which the point isn't to appreciate butterflies or advance science, but to pin the right label on every specimen so it ends up in the proper cabinet drawer. That's the sport of it: getting the taxonomy right. And the way some of these guys talk, if they don't have a drawer for your butterfly, it might as well be a lemur.

In response to such as that, Mr. Campbell once assembled a tongue-in-cheek "Graphic Novel Manifesto." All 10 points can be read at the end of Mr. Campbell's Wikipedia entry; I'll just provide the first and last:

1. "Graphic novel" is a disagreeable term, but we will use it anyway on the understanding that graphic does not mean anything to do with graphics and that novel does not mean anything to do with novels.

10. The graphic novelist reserves the right to deny any or all of the above if it means a quick sale.

Yes! If I could be so bold as to sum up Mr. Campbell's perspective in one sentence, I'd say it's "Just shut up and make the things as best you can!" Don't worry about fitting into someone else's definitions or rules. Don't fret over whether its Number 6 or Number 7 on somebody's list of the only 12 things it could possibly be. It doesn't matter if it's a cartoon or comic or graphic novel. Like the shoe commercial said, Just Do It. If it's good, people will find it. None of them will care what it's called.

This was brought home to me in a small way at the San Diego Comic-Con last July, when I had dinner with Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We were on our way to watch me lose two Eisner Awards and had a short chat about whether Jeff's book would be eligible for Eisner consideration next year. It looks like a comic--it's got little cartoon drawings with words coming out of characters' mouths--but, on the other hand, most of the book is typeset text (in a font made from Jeff's hand printing), so maybe it's more of an illustrated book or novel with pictures. As we were having this discussion, I realized two things: first, it was a ridiculous conversation that had absolutely no impact on what the book actually was and who would buy and read it; second, this was almost the only context in which that conversation had any merit whatsoever. The only people who should ever care are award administrators who need to decide which trophy to give you and bookstore clerks who need to figure out which shelf to put you on. It's otherwise useless, irrelevant, and probably counter-productive.

Anyway, in the weeks to come, we did figure out what to call Jeff's book: "Bestseller." Now with 26 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List for Children's Chapter Books, including a stint at Number 1.

I've never liked the term "graphic novel," though I accept its practical utility. When I was making Mom's Cancer, I thought of it as a serial comic strip. In light of the rant above, then, I've been especially delighted that it's gotten some recognition from the American Library Association, the German Jugendliteraturpreis, and others as a work of youth literature. I didn't know I wrote a kids' book. Never intended it, my publisher never positioned it as such. It not only broke out of the graphic novel drawer others put it in, but the drawer I put it in. I think that's just wonderful.

Here are some questions I ask when reading anything--even a graphic novel. Does it reward my time and attention? Does it introduce ideas I've never had before? Is it skillfully made? On its own terms, does it accomplish its goals? Is it worth the $2, $12.95, or $200 I paid for it? Is it good?

Some people in comics/cartooning are doing excellent, ambitious, high-quality work. But far too often, based on what I see (which is far from the whole industry), a lot of creators demand literary respect but do little to earn it. They want to sit at the adult table but don't know how to use a knife and spoon. They have no idea what makes great literature great or why theirs falls short. They're their own worst enemies. Not all, but some. Many. Maybe most.

(What's funny is to read someone's high-minded academic defense of their comic as art and literature just as good as anything ever done by Hemingway or Joyce, and then go look at it and find an artless scrawl about a video-gaming slacker with a time machine and wise-cracking dinosaur. You're not part of the solution, dude, you're part of the problem.)

That's what I mean when I say Eddie Campbell is a grown-up. He not only knows how to use a knife and spoon but also a finger bowl and the funny little fish fork (metaphorically; I have no idea what his actual table manners are like). He's cranky. He's sat on too many panels dedicated to dissecting what graphic novels are and when they'll be respected as real books, and he's tired of it. Instead of endlessly debating, he works. He makes books with words and pictures that reward the reader's time and attention, introduce new ideas, accomplish their goals, and are worth the money people pay for them. Even more than his work, I appreciate and respect his attitude toward his work. It's worth breaking a rule--or bending a guideline--to have it in my home. It makes me happy.

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More Jugendliteraturpreis

I got a great note yesterday from Wolfgang Fuchs, the German translator of Mom's Cancer, following our win of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. Although I couldn't attend the awards ceremony in Frankfurt, a publicist for my German publisher Knesebeck e-mailed to tell me that Herr Fuchs accepted on our behalf with thoughtful and touching remarks in which he spoke of working on my book at the same time his wife was diagnosed with cancer. She's reportedly fine now, and I couldn't imagine a better acceptance speech. I thought Wolfgang's e-mail was very interesting and, with his permission, I've excerpted it below:

Heartfelt congratulations for your winning the Jugendliteraturpreis 2007 in the non-fiction section with "Mom's Cancer". It was the first time ever in the Award's 50 years history that a comic book won this award. And thus it has become proof positive of my conviction--stated in a number of publications, lectures and articles--that comics are not a medium that can be used for entertainment purposes only.

(Wolfgang and I are in strong agreement on that.)

I found the book straightforward and yet also highly emotional--which sometimes interrupted my work on the translation because it was so easy to identify with the characters and to be swept away by emotion. But--discounting for a moment the award the book brought--it was well worth it that you wrote and drew this book. And I am glad I could help in bringing it closer to German audiences.

(As am I. Wolfgang then provided me with a more natural translation of the award citation I ran through BabelFish's delightful online translator in my previous post:)

In the award-winning book "Mother's Cancer", translated by Wolfgang J. Fuchs in stylistic perfection, Brian Fies documents, diary-like, the problems in coping with his mother's getting cancer: This results in a moving non-fiction comic book which appropriately uses the medium for a sensitive treatment of the topic in an up-to-date format.

(And an explanation of "nut/mother":)

Incidentally, the translation of Mutter as "nut/mother" just shows an ambiguity of langauge that is also present in English. While nut means edible nut, crazy person, and the nut you screw on a bolt, in German "Mutter" in addition to meaning mother also is the word used to described the nut you screw on a bolt....

Wolfgang also described the Jugendliteraturpreis "trophy" to me, a 15-pound bronze statue of author Michael Ende's character Momo. A moment's googling turned up the picture below of a Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis from 2005 that fits his description. What a fine work of art and honor to receive! Many thanks again to Wolfgang for his work and his gracious note.

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Rachel's Dad's Cancer

Last November, a Georgetown University master's candidate named Rachel Plotnick wrote to tell me that her father had recently died of lung cancer and she was working on a thesis on the topic of comics and cancer. She asked me some questions and we exchanged correspondence that amounted to a mini-interview. The results of her work are now available at Gnovis, Georgetown's online journal of communication, culture and technology. It was also posted in two parts on YouTube, to which I've linked below.

(By the way, Rachel explained to me that the YouTube images are grainier than she'd like and she had to swap out the music she really wanted to use to avoid copyright concerns. She promised to send me a "good" version; however, I think this one is fine, and also the only one I can link to, so....)






There are two things going on in this video, which runs about 17 minutes total. At the beginning and end, Rachel takes a scholarly look at how and why people tell stories like Mom's Cancer, and why comics is an apt medium with which to do it. She writes about the role of families as stewards of memory and tradition, and the responsibility within families to tell our unique stories and pass them down. At the end, she writes about the power of cartoons as icons that allow readers to project their own lives into, and more closely identify with, the story they're reading. I certainly think that's true.

The heart of the video shows Rachel applying her academic insights to her story of "Dad's Cancer." I wouldn't be writing about if I didn't think she did an extraordinary job. Purely from a creative standpoint, it's interesting for me to see how Rachel approached and solved some of the same questions and problems I faced. As I mentioned to her, I'm envious of the tools of motion and sound she has at her disposal that I didn't, and I think she puts them to good use. It's nice work, and Rachel was very gracious to acknowledge my work as part of it.

It won't be to everyone's taste--nothing is--but if you appreciated Mom's Cancer and have 17 minutes to spare, I think you'll appreciate "Dad's Cancer" as well.

More Arnold Wagner

One of the Internet forums Arnold participated in was Toon Talk, hosted by cartoonist Darrin Bell (Candorville, Rudy Park). Another poster there, Armand Anloague, compiled some of Arnold's Toon Talk contributions over the years and I thought they were worth sharing, both for their content and the insight they provide about their author. With thanks to Armand, here's Arnold:

ON STRIPS VS. PANELS: "I've always seen a correlation between cartoonists and comics. The gag cartoonist is doing standup and the the strip cartoonist is doing situation comedy. Not everyone can do both. I'd make a third classification for a few like Wiley. There are comedians who don't really fit into either class. Fanny Brice, Red Skelton, and Carol Burnett are examples. They have a repertory of characters they use without order or set frequency. Wiley obviously does that. Larson also did it to an extent, his cows were the most noticeable example, but you can go through one of his collections and make a list.

As gag cartoonists most of us never develop a strong connection with the audience, not the way a strip artist can, or the way Wiley or Larson could (can't believe I'm putting those two in the same category). That isn't to say the strip artist has it easier, developing characters that the reader connects with isn't easy."

ON LEGACY STRIPS [Note to those not hip to comics lingo: a "legacy strip" is a still-published comic that has outlived its creators, e.g., Blondie, Dick Tracy, etc.]: "This plays into the myth that it's the legacy strips that are keeping newcomers out of syndication. Syndicates don't have a limit for signing strips. They sign those they think they can sell. If they haven't signed a strip that's the reason. They may be wrong, but it has nothing to do with numbers, budget is the only other factor involved.

Actually the legacy strips help with that. The profit from them pays for launching new material. If we knocked out all the strips not done by their creators tomorrow it wouldn't change anything for the hopefuls, unless it makes it harder. It would be huge benefit to those already syndicated who don't have enough papers to make a decent living, but have a good product, and I'm all for that."

ON HUMOR VS. GAGS: "There are basically two kinds of strips, those that use gags, and those that use humorous situations that we can identify with. In the long run humor is better than gags. Strips that become popular are ones that we identify with. Appeal tops funny every time. In addition to Dilbert another strip that takes a lot of hits here in a mostly male forum is Cathy, and yet the feature has a huge and very loyal fan base who identify with it."

"A mistake too many beginners make is thinking they need a knock 'em dead gag every day. If that were true, or even half true, Mutt and Jeff would still be syndicated as one of the hottest strips around. Generally that approach may result in a strip that's hot for a year or so then fades rapidly without ever building a strong following. If you look at the top strips they have a much larger repetoire. That's true of gag cartoons, stand up comics, sit-coms, the works. They do the ironic, the satiric think bits, the pathos, bathos, maybe even a touch of tragedy now and then. They may be nostalgic or sentimental. Variety makes them real."

ON STYLE: "Without naming the guilty, copying a style is not good. At least four features looked so much alike I had to check to see if they were by the same person, they weren't. A sophisticated and fairly illustrative style hooked to slapstick humor kills the gag. Colored art that is busy and doesn't have good contrast is hard to read, and you only have a couple seconds to get your premise across. Contrast and simplicity are better. If you have to use templates or tracing to make the strip you're wasting your time, and don't fool yourself by comparing it to Dilbert. He spent a lot of time developing his style.

Assuming that the goal is syndication (and that may be a false assumption in some cases) there were features that would have failed simply due to the language or the situations. Others used formats that wouldn't fit in papers. Old gags, gags that telegraphed the punch line, and captions that should have been polished for better tempo and impact, were also very common. Never use the first idea you come up with."

ON WORKING: "The one thing never to do is stop and wait for the muse to return. In any of the arts the difference between a pro and an amateur is that the amateur waits for their muse, the pro does their best and works through it."

"The reasons vary, but it's always because of pressure we put on ourselves making us tighten up. Some of the work I've been happiest with was when things went wrong and I had to get something for a client yesterday. No time to redo or be careful, quality wasn't the issue, having something on paper was."

Arnold Wagner

For several reasons, I'm sorry to follow my previous post with this one. I heard this morning that a good artist, cartoonist, historian and terrific friend of mine, Arnold Wagner, has entered hospice care after fighting cancer for a long time. His daughter Rachel posted the news at an Internet watering hole Arnold and I both frequent, and I've already replied privately to Arnold but wanted to say a bit about him here, too.

Arnold was one of the first professionals to read Mom's Cancer and encourage me strongly and frequently to pursue it, for which I was happy to mention him in my book's acknowledgements. He's an old-school cartoonist whose career goes back decades and who brought a lifetime of experience, authority, and real-world saavy to any discussion he entered. He co-authored The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cartooning, a how-to book I know he wasn't entirely happy with (lots of editorial interference, I gather) and which frankly isn't the best of its type but nevertheless captured some of his wisdom and wit.

His Amazon.com bio says this about him: "Arnold Wagner is a cartoonist, gag writer and cartoon scholar, whose work has been featured in many publications, including: IF Science Fiction, The Saturday Evening Post, Writer's Digest, Boys Life, Parade, Suburbia Today, The National Enquirer, Golf World, Broadway Laughs, and the New Yorker. In addition, a great deal of his work has appeared in the syndicated strip 'The Flintstones.' Arnold has always held an interest in historical, technical, and artistic subjects relating to cartooning, and has collected a great deal of material along those lines."

I got to know Arnold the same way I've gotten to know a lot of people in the past few years: online. Never met him in person. As I mentioned in my note to him this morning, I wish I'd had a chance to buy him lunch and run my fingers through his extensive collection of antique and exotic pen nibs. But I think you really can get to know a person well through writing--perhaps better than face to face--and I'm happy for the relationship we have and proud to have him as a friend.

Arnold is a great man and a great gentleman. We all face our ends someday and, if this is his, I hope it comes with all the ease, grace and love he deserves. My best to him, his wife Connie, and his family.

A card I drew for Arnold when he was in the hospital for
a short stay last year. I'm sure he's still giving 'em hell.

UPDATE: Arnold passed away the evening of August 31. I will miss him keenly for a long time.

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Patricia Storms

One of the nice things about cartooning is getting to know other people who do it. Despite being in a competitive business where too many people chase too few jobs, cartoonists have a reputation for being gracious to newcomers and generous with their time and advice. I've found that to be mostly true.

Among the first and kindest pros I got to know after Mom's Cancer gained some notice was Patricia Storms, whose encouragement I greatly appreciated (and which "earned" her an acknowledgement in my book). She lives in Toronto and we've never met, but we've gotten acquainted online and via e-mail, and I think of her as a real friend. Better yet, I think she's a very good cartoonist, with a rich, expressive, confident ink line and a passion for hand-crafted authenticity I really respect. Best of all, she loves books. Over recent months it seems like Patricia's career has really taken off, with several book-illustrating projects and exciting new opportunities. It's been neat to watch and well deserved.

I mention her now because Toronto blogger Debbie Ohi has posted
a nice interview with Patricia, and because I feel like I owe her one. Or several. Now go buy her books. She's a great talent and person.

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Mister Wizard

I was trying to think of something to write about the death of Don Herbert, whose "Mr. Wizard" television program was the introduction to science for millions of children--including many who went on to become real scientists and never forgot how important he was to them.

But in fact Mr. Wizard's heyday was a little before my time and I don't have vivid memories of his program, which ran from 1951 to 1965. I know I saw it, and grew up with a general awareness of Mr. Wizard's responsibility for the dry cell batteries and coils of wire that cluttered the floor under my bed. I read one blogger who called Mr. Wizard "a Mister Rogers for geeks," and that sounds about right. Herbert had the same even, direct, patient tone as Fred Rogers, and he never condescended to kids. Mr. Wizard understood that even though you might not know how a coil of wire around a nail becomes a magnet or how a needle gently placed on a cup of water can float, you weren't an idiot.

Still, not really being a rabid first-hand fan, I was probably going to let Mr. Wizard's death pass unmentioned until my newspaper editor friend Mike Peterson referred me to a nice remembrance on the Huffington Post by Marty Kaplan. He wrote anything I might have better than I could have. An excerpt:

It's a pity that scientists today, including those who owe their career starts to him, are so often snobbish about show biz. That mandarin condescension toward the masses is why Carl Sagan, one of Don Herbert's television successors, was dismissed as a vulgar popularizer by many of his peers. Entertainment, as Herbert knew, is the art of capturing attention. Scientists depend on public funding, and therefore on the theater of persuasion. Scientists, like it or not, have become hostages to culture warriors, and their ranking in the public's hierarchy of epistemologies, like it or not, depends on the sympathies of citizen audiences. Evidence and proof, conjecture and refutation, theory and argument: these may be defined by scientists with reference to a community of their peers, but if they have any hope of staving off a new Dark Age, it's their non-peers to whom they must also communicate....

That's one good reason why Mr. Wizard was important and will be missed.
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Wimpy Kid: I Told You So

My friend Jeff Kinney's book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, just made the New York Times Bestseller List for Children's Chapter Books, entering at number seven. Wow. I'm struggling to come up with a simile for how cool and amazing it is for a first-time author to crack the bestseller list right out the gate: like a minor-league pitcher getting called up to the majors to throw a no-hitter in the deciding game of the World's Series? Cooler than that.

I met Jeff at Comic-Con International in 2006, when our mutual editor Charlie brought us together so Jeff could tap the deep pools of experience and wisdom I'd accumulated during my whole year in the business (that's sarcasm). We had a good talk, I liked him a lot, and we've kept in contact since. I also reviewed Wimpy Kid when it was published earlier this year, and I'm feeling a little smug that I saw this success coming a mile away. You never know what the book-buying public will go for but I had a good feeling about this one--which, by the way, is the first of a three-book Wimpy Kid series and, I strongly suspect (hint hint), much more to come.

Anyway, congratulations to Jeff, a great guy who I know truly appreciates his good fortune. My young Padawan learner has become a powerful Jedi knight with more midichlorians than I'm apparently packing. If it were anybody else, I'd be jealous; in Jeff's case, I'm just very happy for him.

Comic-Con 2006: Jeff Kinney on the left, me on the right, and our mutual editor Charlie Kochman butting in uninvited. I just noticed I'm wearing that same shirt today. I need a new shirt.
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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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