For What It's Worth

Darrin Bell is the talented creator of the comic strips Candorville and Rudy Park, as well as the proprietor of a comics forum called ToonTalk that I visit from time to time. It's not the busiest forum on the Web, but it is a convivial place where a few pros hang out and happily share their advice and experience with anyone who asks. I pass some time there myself and recommend it.

A recent poster wrote that he had some gag writing experience and wanted to try drawing his cartoons as well. He's taking some classes and already knows he has to "practice, practice, practice." But, he asked, what exactly should he be practicing? It's a question I've been asked before, so I thought my reply might make a good blog post. Interestingly, I think it's one of those questions that every cartoonist would answer in their own way (in the ToonTalk thread, it sparked a discussion about the merits of "simple drawing" versus "bad drawing") and reveals more about the respondent and their philosophies of cartooning than it does cartooning itself.

Anyway, here's what I wrote. By the way, if anyone can help me track down that Thurber anecdote I alluded to and probably butchered, that'd be great.

Some of my comments will repeat others, but I'll try to distill my thoughts and advice as best I can. All below is only my opinion:

Absolutely give drawing a shot yourself. Even if you eventually decide your art doesn't have the quality you're looking for, getting a feel for how words and pictures can combine to create something bigger than either of them alone will make you a better cartoonist. When the art supports the gag and the gag illuminates the art, and neither communicates the full idea without the other, that's good stuff.

Learn what you can from the work of others but spend most of your time drawing from real life. I think cartooning is about simplifying things to their essence. Good cartoonists know what to leave out. Don't draw Jim Davis eyes or Garry Trudeau eyes, look in a mirror and draw your own eyes, then draw them over and over until you can express as much with two lines as you originally did with 20. I think studying the work of other cartoonists can be a very helpful part of that process as you specifically look to see how they solved the same problems.

(There's a cartooning story I've always liked and unfortunately I don't have time to look it up, so this may not be accurate: I think it involves James Thurber, who was accosted by a reader demanding to know why he got paid a princely sum to draw a cartoon that consisted only of three squiggly lines. He answered, "If I could've drawn it with two, I would have charged twice as much." Again, accuracy not guaranteed, but illustrative of a good point.)

Re: developing your own style, comic book artist Neal Adams has said that "style" consists of the mistakes artists make that keep their art from being a perfect representation of the thing they're drawing. If we were all perfect artists, all of our drawings would be identical photo-realistic renderings. I don't think I completely agree with that, but it's food for thought. I do believe style evolves from choices--choices of material and media, scratchy vs. smooth, anatomically accurate vs. fantastically exaggerated, etc. Make enough of those choices for yourself and after a while, without you even consciously trying, your style won't look like anyone else's.

So, to your original post, I'd elaborate on the "practice, practice, practice" advice to suggest you practice drawing everything around you: telephones, cars, coffee tables, comfy chairs, cats and dogs, hands and feet. Draw them as well as you can, then "dial down" the realism. As an exercise, maybe see how little you can draw and still have your art communicate "telephone," "car," "chair," etc.

At this point, play with as many media as you can: markers, technical pens, india ink, brushes, nibs, washes, different textures of paper, digital. You could hit an art supply store and for probably less than $30 take home enough experiments to last a month. Give them all a fair try.

In addition to that, learn what you can about how the gag business works and how pros do their jobs. And take any chance you can to look at original cartoon artwork done by pros. When I set out to seriously study cartooning, I learned more by looking at a wall of originals for a few minutes than I could've via books or trial and error for years.

Good luck!

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

My wife, two daughters and I are back home from a summer-ending trip to Disneyland. As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned once or twice, my twin daughters begin college in about a week (later than most, we know) and we wanted to send them off in style. We were also joined for a day by Kid Sis, who hadn't been to the original Magic Kingdom in years and I think had a good time with us.

Having written that, I almost feel like I'm unveiling a terrible secret: "Hi, I'm Brian, and I love Disneyland." It's not cool--in fact, pretty much the opposite. I'm embarrassed.

There is certainly an adult, rational, cynical side of my brain that understands the Disney Corporation to be a crushing behemoth that competes fiercely, exports some of the most vapid aspects of American culture around the globe, and never misses an opportunity to wring every last cent from its properties and customers. One of the great truisms of U.S. jurisprudence is "Don't Mess With Disney" because their lawyers will bury you. You don't have to explain that to me; I get it.

And yet....

There is the other side of my brain that grew up in 1960s' South Dakota watching the Mickey Mouse Club and Wonderful World of Disney (in COLOR! once we finally got a color television set). My Adult Brain knows now that those programs were little more than commercials for Disney theme parks and products (surely Uncle Walt invented multi-media synergy), but my Kid Brain saw them as windows into an exotic realm I would probably never enter. I had a friend who'd visited Disneyland and returned with one of the mouse-eared hats, just like the ones I saw on TV, and we treated it like a sacred holy relic. When he let me perch the ears atop my crew-cut for a moment, I felt cold, electrically charged mercury flow through my spinal column. He told and retold the stories of his travels and was a hero for days.

When I made my first visit to the park around age 9, I was not disappointed. And now that I have the means to visit Anaheim pretty much whenever I want--which since we've had children has been every couple of years--I'm still never disappointed. Fact is, I'd rather give my leisure money to the Disney Corporation than a Vegas casino, a cruise line, a liquor store, gasoline for a fast car, or whatever it is people spend their cash on in the name of fun. I find real value in the immersive environment, attention to detail, genuine commitment to pretty good customer service, and opportunities to evoke old memories while making new ones. I like studying how so many creative people have applied their talents for 50 years to entertain me. And I perceive a purity of intent and purpose that I think escapes Disney's harsher critics.

The Disney folks and I have a business arrangement: I give them money and they give me magic. It's a fair trade.

By the way, the photo above illustrates how empty Disneyland's Main Street was last Wednesday morning, our first day in the park. We walked onto ride after ride, with even the most popular demanding no more than a 10-minute wait. After years of only going during school holidays (because that's when our kids were free, just like everyone else's kids), it was an extraordinary experience that spoiled us. Nothing but off-season mid-weeks for us from now on, I'm afraid. If the kids can't make it, too bad for them. My wife and I will send them a postcard.

Dog Days

Apologies for my lack of posts lately. No big reason. Some weeks are just less interesting than others and I seem to be in a welcome end-of-summer lull.

Here's the latest thing I drew in my sketchbook, which may or may not have anything to do with future book proposals I may or may not be working on:

Was that vague enough?

I did recently finish a tiny project that I enjoyed very much. Mike Peterson is a journalist and friend I met on the newsgroup rec.arts.comics.strips. His job involves bridging the gap between newspapers and children--for example, developing a series of articles that newspapers can publish while local teachers follow along with related lesson plans. He's also responsible for the "Nellie Bly" series, in which a character named for the famous reporter explains current events to children (often with a thoroughness that educates adults as well) and "Drawing Conclusions," in which he dissects newspaper editorial cartoons for kids.

Anyway, Mike's latest project is a series explaining the science and mythology of the constellations. Although my astronomy pedigree is kind of dusty and rusty--dating back to my university days teaching astronomy labs and running public telescope viewing sessions, plus a weekly astronomy column I wrote waaaaaay back when I was a newspaper reporter--I volunteered to review Mike's drafts to spare him any embarrassment I could. Turns out Mike's a good writer who did his homework and also had a professional astronomer standing by, so I didn't have to do much.

But it was all good, fun stuff ... and also very important, I think. I worked for an astronomy professor who opened the first class of every quarter by pointing out how everyone pays obssessive attention to the half of the universe below eye level, but knows almost nothing about the half of the universe above. If you don't understand what's going on in the sky, he said, you're missing out on half of life. I don't know if that's actually profound, but it stayed with me. In addition, anything that impresses upon a young brain the notion that the universe has a lot of interesting questions awaiting even more interesting answers is enormously worthwhile. I can barely imagine a higher calling.

Miriam Engelberg Update

My friend* Miriam Engelberg has posted a remarkable "Comic of the Week" on her website. No telling how long it'll be there (typically a week, though recent weeks have been anything but typical) so check it out soon. [LATER UPDATE: The "Comic of the Week" to which I referred has been replaced and doesn't appear to be available online. However, Miriam's comics are always worth a look; click the link anyway.]

I gather Miriam actually did this a while ago. Her self-described "web slave," Gina, informed Miriam's mailing list that she has stopped chemo, is being treated well by hospice, is tired and experiencing some symptoms related to her brain tumors, and is doing about as well as can be expected. I'm really hoping for the best for Miriam and her family, even if I don't have a clear image of what "the best" would look like.

Miriam is the first to admit she's an unschooled artist. During part of our NPR "All Things Considered" interview that was edited out of the aired version, Miriam said something like, "I'm not a real cartoonist like Brian." She was wrong (not least because I hardly consider myself a real cartoonist either). Yeah, I can draw better than Miriam, but her latest work demonstrates how that's almost irrelevant. The mystery of cartooning is how it transcends its parts to become more than the sum of words plus pictures. I think her latest "Comic of the Week" is first-class cartooning.

*Footnote on the use of "friend": It's presumptuous of me to claim to be the friend of someone I've e-mailed a few times and met twice. But I couldn't think of a better word. Besides, she did offer to let me sleep on her futon; if that's not a friend, what is?

Quill Award Field Report

I mentioned on August 22 that Mom's Cancer has been nominated for a Quill Book Award in the Best Graphic Novel category. Voting is open to the public and winners will be announced October 10. The nomination is a surprising honor I'm very happy and grateful to receive.

That happiness and gratitude are only slightly tempered by what I see in the field. In the past few days I've been in two Borders stores and one Barnes & Noble (I like bookstores and, yes, I also patronize and treasure small independents) and seen no advertising, no ballots, no tables filled with Quill-nominated books, and no awareness among the staff at all. Keeping in mind that Barnes & Noble and Borders are two of the Quill Awards' corporate partners and are supposed to be promoting the thing, I was nonplussed. In one Borders I did find stickers on some Quill-nominated books (though not mine), so it seems like headquarters is at least making an effort. But judging from the blank stares I encountered everywhere, that effort hasn't percolated down to the workers who interact with the public. Two of the stores had sold out of Mom's Cancer (hoorah for me!) and, as far as the kids manning the computers knew, had no immediate plans to re-stock it (boo!), Quill Award or no.

The Quill Awards only started last year. I like the concept. Books are nominated by booksellers and other publishing professionals (which theoretically weeds out the riff-raff) and the winner is chosen by popular vote (which theoretically weeds out the critical darlings that no real people read). But looking over press reports of last year's awards, one repeated criticism of the Quills was that winning had very little impact on sales. There was no bounce.

That could be a consequence of the awards' newness. It takes time to build awareness and reputation. If my little microcosm of the literary world is any indication, however, it could also be because the folks who should be promoting the Quill Awards, and maybe even have a few copies of nominated books on hand in case somebody happens to ask for one, have never heard of them.

Lynne White

When I wrote and drew a story about cancer, put it on the Internet, and worked hard to get it published, I knew it would be read by people fighting cancer themselves. I wanted it to be read by them. So I was kind of prepared to get e-mails from readers telling me about their own experiences. For quite a while I felt bad that there was nothing I could do to help, until I realized most just wanted someone to listen. I could do that.

What I wasn't at all prepared for was the reality that when you write a book whose readers include cancer patients, some of your readers aren't going to survive long. The first time I heard that someone who'd read Mom's Cancer had died, I was startled. I don't know why. And now I've just learned of the passing of Lynne White, who was a long-time supporter of Mom's Cancer and frequent commenter on my blog. I knew she was a cancer survivor but, to coin a cliche, I didn't even know she was that sick.

Lynne struck me as a tireless engine of enthusiasm and delight. Some of her comments to my blog are nothing more than encouraging exclamations: "I am so thrilled for you!" "Brian, this is wonderful!" She corresponded with my mother and lifted her spirits tremendously. She was also an artist and cartoonist herself, and we passed some notes about technique. Her cartoon character was a dog named "Pogo," and she was kind enough to send Kid Sis a copy of a self-published Pogo book that was then passed on to me. Some of Lynne's other artwork is still available on her blog.

Here's a message Lynne sent to my Mom during a rough time in May 2005:

"Yes, dwell on what is good, whole and right. Live for this day.

Allow yourself your feelings; let the anger out, ask for what you need, and feel the sunshine.

Peace."

Peace to Lynne and her family as well.

Blue Green Floral by Lynne White

P.S.: I sent a draft of this post to Lynne's daughter Jill for her approval and permission to use Lynne's art. Jill replied, in part:

"My mom once said to me that she never wanted anyone to say about her that 'she lost her battle with cancer' as this is a common phrase that is often uttered regarding someone's death. For this, to her, implied some sort of failure. She never failed, she just had to leave us a bit sooner than we all would have liked. So as you think of your mother and her disease, just remember that it takes an incredibly strong person to be knocked down time and time again, and still be able to pick themselves up repeatedly. No one would should ever consider that as loss, rather a strong spirit that won many times, they just walked away when they were ready."

Oddly Normal

Otis Frampton is one of the good guys in the world of comics and cartooning. We made Internet contact a while ago and met briefly at the San Diego Comic-Cons in 2005 and 2006. Otis was among the first and most encouraging of the friendly creative people I've met. I think his work shows a lot of talent and heart.

Lately, Otis has kept pretty busy drawing official trading cards of characters from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Marvel Comics. He's also the creator of the "Oddly Normal" series published by Viper Comics, the first four issues of which were recently collected in a trade paperback. Oddly is a 10-year-old half-witch, half-human misfit whose birthday wish goes horribly awry and sends her into a strange magical world, where she makes new friends and enemies. It's a little pre-teen angst, Wizard of Oz, Wendy and Casper, Harry Potter, plus a lot of Otis.

At any rate, in the back of his first Oddly Normal paperback collection, Otis published a few pages of artwork done by friends who interpreted his characters in their own styles. He extended the same invitation to me for his second Oddly book, which will be out sometime next year. I happily accepted.

Remember (and as Otis reminded me), the point of the guest art gallery isn't to copy Otis. When I started to sketch, I asked myself what Oddly would look like if I'd created her. With Otis's permission, here's my take:


The little yellow critter is her pet/pal Oopie. By the way, in light of my manifesto of August 25, you may be surprised to find that although I inked the black line art by hand, I did the colors in Photoshop. Conscious choice: Otis's art is all digital, very crisp and clean. Although my Oddly looks very different, I thought she should share that aesthetic. But it'd be interesting to see how she'd appear in watercolor, pastel, pencil, etc.

My thanks to Otis for letting me play in his universe for a moment. I enjoyed it.

Oh, The Humanity!

I haven't done the "You Tube" thing before and don't intend to make a habit of it, but I just came across one I couldn't resist.



The first half of this clip is the funniest 2½ minutes of television I ever saw in my life, while its final line stands as the Gold Standard of well-intentioned befuddled futility. Of course your mileage may vary, and maybe you had to be there... If you're not as entertained as I am, that's all right. Sometimes I post as much for me as you.

Color Experiment 1

In anticipation of my next project, I've been experimenting with different ways of handling color. Coloring black-and-white line art is a challenge in digital media. Cartoonists spend a lot of time debating and sharing the best ways to achieve the look they want and have it appear in print as intended.

Of course, one approach is to simply color the original with inks, watercolors, markers, etc., then scan it as a single work of art the same way you would a photograph. The main drawback is that you only get one shot at that; mess up the coloring and you're starting over from scratch. A more subtle drawback is that printed blacks come out much cleaner and blacker if they can be printed by themselves. It's good to keep blacks and colors separate if possible.

Another approach is to scan the line art and then color it digitally with Photoshop or similar software. That's what I did on Mom's Cancer. Once you learn to do that right, it works pretty well. Some artists (not me) are Photoshop masters who can use different techniques and effects to create beautiful work. But unless you're really good (again, not me), I think Photoshopped work has a sterile quality I dislike.

A similar approach is to do the entire project digitally, line art included. Increasing numbers of artists work entirely on the computer, start to finish. Without igniting a heated "Digital/Paper" debate, I'll just say I don't have the equipment to do that and wouldn't want to if I did.

In fact, I feel pretty strongly that I'd like to go the other direction, making my work as hand-crafted as possible. It's more fun and shows more life and personality. Today's experiment was aimed at finding a new way of doing a black-and-white drawing on one piece of paper, watercolor on another piece of paper, and combining them in Photoshop.

Here's my line art:


This is india ink on bristol board, about 5.5 x 8.5 inches, done with a brush. To start, I scanned this at a very high resolution (1200 dpi) in bitmap mode to capture nothing but pure black and white--no grays.

In Photoshop, I flopped (reversed right-to-left) the image. I then printed this reversed version onto an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of watercolor paper. This became the back of the surface I painted; I used a lightbox to see the drawing through the paper and painted on the other side. The result looked like this:


Remember, the flopped line art is printed on the other side and I could see it while I painted. I could have simply put a piece of watercolor paper over the original drawing and, with light shining through both sheets, painted it that way. But everytime I try that I can never keep the two sheets lined up, even with registration marks and tape. By printing the line art on the back of the actual watercolor paper, I made sure it didn't go anywhere. Also, I want the option of doing the line art and coloring at two very different scales. For example, with this technique I could draw my line art huge, shrink it down, and color it with tiny of splashes of paint to create a particular look. In this case, the painted image is just a little smaller than the corresponding line art.

Then I scanned the watercolor, selected the black line art from the original, pasted it on top of the color, matched them up, and cropped. Only the blue sky is colored digitally. The composite picture looks like this:


Not my neatest paint job ever, and if I were doing this for real I'd probably do quite a bit of supplemental touch-up and color detailing in Photoshop. But this is basically the look I was going for and I got a few ideas to try next time. All-in-all, a pretty successful experiment.

Quill Award Nomination: Go VOTE!

So in light of my previous post, it somehow seems an apt day to discover I've been nominated for a Quill Book Award in the category of Best Graphic Novel.

The Quill Awards were established in 2005 to "celebrate excellence in writing and publishing, recognize and praise the creators of important books and great literature, interest more consumers in acquiring books and reading, and act as a bellwether for literacy initiatives." According to the Quill's website, "the Quill Awards pair a populist sensibility with Hollywood-style glitz and have become the first literary prizes to reflect the tastes of the group that matters most in publishing: readers."

Books are nominated for Quill Awards by a committee of 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians after meeting some qualifying criteria, including earning a starred review in Publishers Weekly (check) or being one of Borders' Original Voices (check). Readers vote on the five nominees in each category between now and September 30. Winners are announced and prizes awarded October 10. The polls are open now!

This is very cool. Very, very cool. It will be an honor to lose to Alison Bechdel.

A Day to Remember

I'm not fishing for unnecessary sympathy, but I didn't want August 22 to pass without noting that it would have been Mom's 67th birthday. If you find yourself with a glass of something tasty in your hand today, it would be nice to send a little toast her way.

Cancer Did Not Make Miriam a Shallower Person

I've written about my erstwhile competitor Miriam Engelberg, author of Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person, a couple of times (for example, when we were profiled together in USA Today and when we were interviewed together on NPR). Miriam wrote a cartoon collection ("graphic novel," whatever) about her experience fighting breast cancer that came out a month after Mom's Cancer.

Frankly, I don't think my publisher and I were overjoyed to find unexpected competition in the "cancer comics" market. My petty, pouty, envious attitude changed as I read Miriam's book, corresponded with her, and spent a little time with her in person. I thought her work was genuinely honest and insightful, darkly funny, and I liked her a lot. It also became clear to both Miriam and me that we got more press attention together than either of us would have alone. As I once wrote, it was like being in an arranged marriage neither of us volunteered for, but we were good together.

You may suspect where I'm going with this. A couple of days ago Miriam told her mailing list and blog readers that new tests have found cancer growing in her brain. I don't think the news was a surprise; Miriam has now entered a home hospice program. For readers not sure what that means (and I do get an occasional e-mail asking, "my father just went into hospice, when do you think he'll get better?"), hospice is about pain management, familiar surroundings, comfort and dignity. It's not about treatment, although if a miracle happens I don't think anybody objects.

I'm sad for my friend Miriam, her husband and her son. Although I hope everyone buys a copy of my book if you haven't already, I wouldn't mind terribly if you bought Miriam's as well (Amazon.com even makes it easy to buy both at the same time). It would be for the best cause I can think of.

More Inking Life

Cartoonist Mike Lynch has posted some great pictures of the cartoon art exhibit he helped put together in Long Island, N.Y. called "This Inking Life: The Essential Cartoonist." As I wrote on August 6, Mike asked me to contribute a couple of pieces, and he was kind enough to take a photo of one of them hanging in the gallery.

I stole this picture from Mike's blog. Come and get me, coppers!

I don't part with my originals easily. Right now, everything I drew for Mom's Cancer, minus the two pages in New York, is sitting in an accordian file beside my desk. If I had to, I could recreate the entire book (although it'd probably be quicker and easier to redraw it from scratch...). A lot of cartoonists aren't very sentimental about their work, and can often earn more by selling their originals than they did from their publication. I suppose I might feel different if I had their output. After you've drawn a few thousand comic strips, I imagine you start looking for constructive, profitable ways to get rid of them. But I can't foresee ever letting the bits and pieces of Mom's Cancer out of my sight for very long.

Take good care of my babies, Mike. I know where you live.

Extended Coverage

Comics expert, historian and Web buddy D.D. Degg commented on yesterday's post that he tried to click on my cover montage to view individual thumbnails up-close. No dice, I'm afraid. But below are the two to which I think he referred:

This was the cover concept I proposed at first, with my "Mom in the Chemo Chair" art flopped. The colors are pretty arbitrary, but I wanted to use strong primary red-blue-yellows to communicate "Comics!" while at the same time use muted browns and grays to communicate "But not funny!" I think the result was a fairly unattractive palette that would have surely changed if we'd gone this direction. If I recall correctly, some on the cover committee found this image too clinical, distressing, and depressing.

This cover evolved a bit later in the process, when I somehow got it in my head that "oak tree" would evoke a contemplative, sunrise-sunset, circle-of-life theme. I dunno what I was thinking. But I spent the better part of a morning driving around taking photos of real oak trees, intending to find one standing by itself in an open field that I could Photoshop into a silhouette, under which I could insert a drawing of Mom. It wasn't until I'd shot a couple dozen pictures (it turns out to be unexpectedly hard to find an elegantly proportioned oak standing by itself in an open field) and brought them home that I realized the scale was all wrong: Mom would be completely dwarfed by these giant trees. So in the end I just drew a little one instead. The drawing of Mom sitting on the bench was a real quick sketch I did with a brush-pen, a new tool I was trying out. If we'd gone this direction I would have redrawn it, although I really like the spontaneity and quality of line I achieved here. The panel separating Mom from the background is supposed to communicate "Comics!" and also symbolize...I don't know what. Being trapped in her own world, seeing life from a limited perspective, having her world close in on her? You decide.

In his comment, D.D. also complimented the cover typography. I heartily agree. All the type in my samples was intended as placeholders only. I think Abrams designer Brady McNamara came up with the font we used--though art director Mark LaRiviere may have had a hand in it too, I just don't remember--but I thought it was terrific. Big, fat, Deco-evocative sans serif letters that managed to say "comics" and "classy" at the same time.

No one remembers who came up with the bit for the back cover involving the six panels of Mom with the words stripped out (probably Brady again). It wasn't me but I loved it. Charlie surprised me by adding my drawing of the Eisner Award, which I'd sent him as a lark, to my bio.

George Lucas once said that the only aspect of the original "Star Wars" movie that exceeded his hopes and expectations was John Williams' score; I felt that way when I saw the my book's cover coming together. It's not at all what I pictured when I was writing and drawing Mom's Cancer, but once it was done I couldn't imagine it being anything else.

Exhaustive Coverage

It's been longer than I'd've liked since my last post. Sorry. My book life is kind of slow right now, while my real life is not.

Part of my Comic-Con Spotlight Panel slide show described how Abrams and I designed the cover for Mom's Cancer. One thing I learned about the publishing business was that, unlike almost every other book-related decision that involved only Editor Charlie and me, picking a cover involves everyone. Marketing, sales, management: covers (at least at Abrams) are chosen by a committee of people whose expertise and interests don't always overlap.

Here's Charlie's very first rough of how he thought the cover should look. He just printed a copy of one of my story's pages, blacked out the captions, added the title, and indicated how the colors might look. Charlie liked the "iconography" of this image--the sense the panels simultaneously communicated that this was a comic and at the same time suggested looking into Mom's life through a window. It really spoke to him.

I wasn't immediately sold. I understood why he liked it, but I wanted to build the cover around my drawing of Mom sitting in the chemo chair. That was the very first picture I sketched when I conceived the idea of telling our family's story as a comic and it meant a lot to me. If I recall correctly, members of the cover committee found it too bleak and busy. I reluctantly moved on.

Over the next several weeks, Charlie and I batted dozens of ideas back and forth--generally beginning with an overarching concept and then playing with color, font, layout, etc. to get different takes on the idea. One time it was "cartoon panels," another time "trees." These were all my brainstorms that Charlie was genuinely happy to consider and pass on if he liked them. The image below summarizes just a few of the variations we went through.

No one liked any of my alternatives as much as Charlie's concept; in the end, neither did I. The last one in the lower right corner was my last-ditch attempt to find a cover guaranteed to please my editor, who'd spent 12 years at DC Comics working with talent like Alex Ross, Roger Stern, Chip Kidd, etc. I don't recall Charlie sounding as amused as I'd hoped when I called him to discuss it, but the Comic-Con audience loved it:

Anyway, after weeks of sketching, drawing, coloring and e-mailing, we at last arrived at the cover we did. I was happy, my editor was happy, the committee was happy. Most of all, my most important and potentially harshest critic, Mom, was happy. And Charlie called it pretty much from the start. Also note that on his mock-up, Charlie inserted a little caption box reading "Eisner Award Winner" when at the time I had not yet won it. Right again. This was not my last opportunity to learn to trust his judgment.

My Friend Ronnie

I have a best friend in Canada I've never met. "Ronniecat" was one of the very first readers of Mom's Cancer on the Web and one of its greatest supporters since. She's talked it up to friends, cancer clinics, hospitals, and bookstores throughout two or three eastern provinces. She corresponded with Mom before she got too sick to write. I cited Ronnie in my book's dedications and wish I could've done more to acknowledge her friendship to my family.

Anyway, Ronnie was nice enough to mention Mom's Cancer in a recent post on her own blog, which I thought provided a nice excuse to return the favor and point it out to anyone interested. Ronnie began her blog when she suddenly went deaf at the age of 39. She wrote movingly and fascinatingly about her experience trying to find her way into the deaf community while at the same time seeking a medical solution for her condition. She eventually received a cochlear implant that restored some of her hearing and, in the months since, her writing has moved away from that topic to address anything that catches this smart, opinionated woman's attention. It's a daily stop for me.

I don't think I say "thanks" enough, so thanks, Ronnie.

This Inking Life

Mike Lynch is a professional freelance magazine cartoonist who actually makes a living at it, a strange and wonderful enough accomplishment on its own. In addition, he's the co-chair of the Long Island Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, a man I got to know first online and then in person, and a well-connected extrovert who seems determined to drag me kicking and screaming into the brother/sisterhood of cartoonists. I hope it's not too presumptuous to also call him a friend.

Mike wrote a couple of months ago to tell me about an exhibit of cartoon art he's helping put together for the Great Neck Arts Center of Long Island, N.Y. He lathered me up with enough flattery (it didn't take much) to convince me to contribute two pieces of original art from Mom's Cancer for the show that, as you can read on the postcard above, runs from August 12 to October 1. I gleaned from my conversations with Mike that a big part of the center's mission is understanding the artistic process. With that in mind, I also sent along the preliminary sketch and finished printed version of each page, all matted together in the same frame. I think they turned out kind of cool. I wish I had pictures of the finished pieces to share, but last week my girls took the camera to summer camp, where they worked as adult volunteer counselors. So instead, here's a picture of their camp:


They're gonna kill me for that. Anyway, Mike has many, many other friends and/or blackmail materials. Among the artists contributing are Isabella Bannerman (Six Chix, Funny Times), Sy Barry (The Phantom), Mort Drucker (Mad Magazine), Nick Downes (The New Yorker), Joe Giella (Mary Worth, Batman), Guy Gilchrist (Nancy), Irwin Hasen (Dondi--hey, I know him!), Bunny Hoest (The Lockhorns), Dan Piraro (Bizarro), Stephanie Piro (Six Chix), Frank Springer (Phoebe Zeit-Geist, Terry and the Pirates), Rick Stromoski (Soup to Nutz), Carla Ventresca (Six Chix, On a Claire Day), Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey), and Mr. Lynch himself.

The center is also planning a reception and two cartoonists' panels to mark the exhibit, and I don't think I'll be able to fly cross-country to get to any of them. But if you're anywhere near Long Island, please check it out.

Ich Liebe Annik Rubens

Many visitors are finding me today from a German podcast by Annik Rubens via her website Schlaflos in München ("Sleepless in Munich," I guess). If you understand German and can download and play an MP3, give it a listen. I think she said nice things. Even if she didn't, she said them in such a velvet-smooth sultry radio voice that I don't care. In any event, my thanks to Ms. Rubens.

And if anyone is actually interested in reading my book in German, it's available from Amazon.de. Danke!

Sell Sheet

Today, Editor Charlie sent me a new "sell sheet" Abrams has put together to further promote Mom's Cancer to booksellers. I think it's intended as a reminder and update: "You saw this book back in March, but look at all the great reviews and press it's gotten. Maybe you'd like to order a few copies?" Kind of building on what we've accomplished so far--which, when you see it all listed in one place like this, is pretty remarkable I think.

Click on the image above to open
a larger PDF of the Sell Sheet

Keeping in mind that Abrams is a smallish publisher with fewer resources than, say, a giant like Random House, I've been pretty satisfied with their promotional efforts for my book. They can't afford to fly me around the country, but then I'd rather not do that anyway. When opportunities such as my recent Tucson speaking engagement come up, Abrams helps make them happen. I know Mom's Cancer is getting more support than many (most?) of their other books, and Charlie assures me that even though the fall season of shiny exciting new releases is just around the corner, they'll keep doing all they can for mine. Sounds more than fair to me.

The Final Frontier

Along with retail booths, exhibits, panels, sneak peeks and other attractions, Comic-Con International offers every attendee a Souvenir Book. It's a nice, perfect-bound, 128-page publication separate from the Program Guide that profiles the Con's special guests and provides artists and writers a chance to reflect on appropriate subjects. Themes for 2006 included Dick Tracy's 75th anniversary, Captain America's 65th anniversary, Gumby's 50th anniversary ... and Star Trek's 40th anniversary.

I may not have mentioned it, but it may be no surprise that I'm a Trekkie. (Some Trekkies insist on being called "Trekkers" because they find "Trekkie" demeaning. I think those Trekkies take themselves too seriously.) Star Trek was important to me. As an adult, I realize it's not tremendously deep or any kind of profound blueprint for life or society; nevertheless, it hit me at the right time in my life and made a difference. So when I read that Comic-Con planned to commemorate its 40th anniversary, I wrote and submitted an essay that they were kind enough to include in the Souvenir Book.

In point of fact, I doubt many of the 100,000-plus Con attendees read it. No one mentioned it to me in the three days I was there. It's kind of long and not the best thing I ever wrote. However, it's from the heart and I wanted to post it here. By the way, the first sentence is now inaccurate; I had a birthday since I wrote this several months ago.

The Ages of Man: An Appreciation of “Star Trek”
I am 45 years old: old enough to claim Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) cred. I was there when Earth’s molten crust cooled, simple molecules linked to form complex proteins, and my family bought its first color television in time for me to feel the electric primary colors of “Star Trek” burn from ember-orange vacuum tubes through my retinas into my brain.

After 40 years, the thematic depth of the McCoy-Spock-Kirk trio has been well plumbed and hardly bears repeating. McCoy is emotion, Spock is reason, and Kirk is the balance between emotion and reason that draws on both to inform decisive action. Id, ego, superego. However, as I age, I’ve been surprised to find I gain new appreciation for these three characters as my understanding of them evolves. Their velour-bloused TOS incarnations haven’t changed since 1969. But I have.

When I was a child and teen, Spock was It: the apotheosis of alienated intelligence. His tools were logic, quiet confidence, and bone-dry wit. He defeated his enemies with brainpower. His weapons were numbers and words. Yet beneath that cool facade roiled overpowering emotions and superhuman strength barely contained. On the rare occasions Spock lost control, the results were unpredictable and frightening.

Adolescence never had a better metaphor.

Spock was important to me. He valued things I valued—reason, science, knowledge—and wasn’t embarrassed by it. I had a temper as a child; watching Spock struggle to maintain his self-control helped me tame it. He taught me grace under pressure. When a junior high bully twice my size picked me up and threatened to drench me under an overflowing rainspout, I replied with cold Nimoyan indifference, “I would actually prefer it if you didn’t,” and he released me with a laugh and enough respect to never bother me again. Being cool worked.

Spock was about restraint, temperance, placid courage, and the triumph of the intellect. He guided me through many rough passages as I matured, and got me safely to the other side.

Where I was met by James T. Kirk.

It’s always been easy to mock the flamboyant Kirk, yet I believe—in all sincerity and without a trace of condescending sarcasm—that Captain Kirk is one of the great characters of twentieth-century American fiction. Kirk was twentieth-century America, or at least the best of how twentieth-century America saw itself: bold, confident, powerful, ambitious, thoughtful, resourceful, loyal, compassionate. Had a twinkle in his eye. Did all right with the ladies. Always found a way to win. Shatner made him that.

For the past couple of decades, Kirk has gotten a bad rap as a trigger-happy gunslinger. Slander! Not this man who agonized over decisions that sent crewmen to their deaths. Who knew Shakespeare and quoted Masefield. Who once had a Gorn by the throat (felled by a cannon Kirk fashioned from dirt and twigs, and I’d like to see you try it) and showed the impressively advanced trait of mercy.

Spock may have been superhumanly smart and strong but, like an adolescent, he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin. Kirk knew who he was, what he was doing, and why he was doing it. He was a man.

Of course, part of being a man is that you quit looking to fictional role models to show you how to be one. Unlike Spock in my youth, I can’t pinpoint aspects of my adult life consciously patterned after Kirk, unless you count his purposeful stride as he leaves the Enterprise’s chapel headed for the bridge at the end of “Balance of Terror.” Sometimes I walk like that. I like to think I’ve internalized some of his courage and cleverness, but until I actually have to face down a rock-melting Horta or drive a computer mad with illogic, how would I know? Nevertheless, if anyone had asked me between the ages of 20 and 40 to name the best character in the “Star Trek” canon, I would have said Kirk.

Perhaps I still would. But when I watch TOS lately I find myself powerfully drawn to Leonard McCoy and the understated performance of DeForest Kelley. I never cared for Bones when I was younger. He was a few years older than Kirk and a few watts dimmer than Spock. Distrustful of technology and contemptuous of trivial rules. Cranky. Jaded. Jowly. Maybe a little weary.

Maybe I’m beginning to relate.

McCoy trusted the ship to Kirk and Spock while he calmly commanded Sickbay, comfortable in his mastery, as much a man of science in his element as Spock was in his. If you needed someone to brew a telekinesis serum or reinstall a brain, there was no one better in the galaxy. He faced down a scalpel-wielding Khan and, in my favorite McCoy moment, knocked out Kirk and Spock to take their places in an alien torture chamber. McCoy had paid his dues and didn’t have anything to prove to anyone. Despite his occasional bluster, he was probably the most laid-back person on the ship.

Until recently, I might not have recognized the quiet heroism of a genuine mature adult who could be counted on to keep his cool and do the right thing. By now I’ve seen enough of the opposite in the real world to treasure those qualities wherever I find them.

Smart and Stylish
TOS was a sophisticated program for sophisticated viewers, and even before I finish typing this sentence I imagine scoffers pointing to its sometimes laughable effects and props, day-glo sets and costumes, outdated sexism, and overwrought melodramas with ham-handed morals as proof of my lunacy.

Touche.

On the other hand, audiences in the 1960s didn’t need to have everything spelled out for them. They understood the art of allegory in ways that seem to escape modern viewers. TOS charmers like “A Piece of the Action” or “Bread and Circuses” would be impossible in later decades because more modern audiences, blinded by literalism, know for a fact that when we eventually travel the galaxy we will not find strange new worlds populated by Chicago gangsters or twentieth-century Romans.

Guess what: we won’t find pointy-eared Vulcans or blue-hued Andorians, either. Guess what again: people knew that in the sixties, too.

Nor would modern audiences accept such highly stylized episodes as “The Empath” or “Spectre of the Gun” that deliberately screamed out, “This is a make-believe story filmed on a soundstage for your entertainment!” Today we applaud ourselves for seeing the mirrors and wires that sustain the illusion, not realizing that perhaps the greater skill lies in ignoring them. We’re not holding up our end of the artist-audience bargain.

(A similar erosion of sophistication killed the movie musical, I think. Audiences of the nineteen-thirties, forties and fifties knew as well as we do that overjoyed or heartbroken people don’t actually break into song and dance. They were just able to wrap their minds around it. We apparently cannot, and more’s the pity for us.)

TOS was a smart, stylish program of its time. The fact that many viewers and fans moved on to newer, flashier, darker, or grittier Trek incarnations that abandoned metaphor and humor, and felt compelled to actually explain why everyone in the galaxy spoke English and looked like an L.A. starlet, reflects worse on them than on the original “Star Trek.” If you’d rather watch an hour explaining how Klingons got bumpy foreheads than exploring why a half-black half-white man hates a half-white half-black man, I won’t argue. Everyone’s entitled to their taste and opinion. We can both call ourselves “Star Trek” fans, even if it turns out we don’t have all that much to talk about.

But you may be surprised to discover which Treks grow on you—and with you—in the long run.

Brian Fies is a writer and cartoonist whose webcomic, Mom’s Cancer, won the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic and is now available in print as a graphic novel published by Abrams Image.

Tucson

I'm back home after an extraordinary couple of days in Tucson, Arizona. Dr. Scott Bolhack, Paige, and their colleagues at TLC Healthcare couldn't have been more gracious or welcoming. As I wrote earlier, Dr. Bolhack first found Mom's Cancer as a webcomic and has been working a long time to make my visit happen. I got to know him a bit better before my talk and during dinner afterward, and was happy to find he's a real comics fan knowledgeable about the potential of the medium to tell serious, adult stories. Not a lot of men, let alone accomplished professionals, would be secure enough to share their passion for The Flaming Carrot.

Dr. Bolhack and his staff had invited hospice, palliative care, counseling, and related healthcare professionals from all over the area to hear me. Perhaps 40 to 50 came, and Dr. Bolhack made sure they all got a signed copy of the book. I put together a PowerPoint presentation and talk just for this audience that, like my Comic-Con talk, might have been more ambitious than I originally thought. Before I began, Dr. Bolhack asked me how long I thought I'd speak; I estimated 20 or 25 minutes. I think I actually went about twice that (I've really got to start rehearsing these things....). Couldn't shut me up. Luckily, unlike my Comic-Con panel, there wasn't anyone waiting for me to leave so they could take over the room.

I think this engagement was one of the most moving, fulfilling things I've done. These folks who help people like my mother live and die every day--physicians, nurses, chaplains, social workers--told me I'd done a good thing and done it right. A few said I'd made them rethink their approach to their jobs and given them insights they could apply to people they were serving now.

Which is pretty much why I wrote the book.

Which is as good as it gets.

With Dr. Scott Bolhack

In addition, I had the pleasure of visiting Tucson. I'd never been there before and didn't realize there are about a million people living in the city and nearby. Beautiful mountains all around, a nice summer desert rain shower the morning after I arrived ... it looks like a great place I'll have to come back to and get to know better.

When I approach a signing or speaking engagement, it's very important for me to know who I'm talking to. The story of Mom's Cancer has a lot of stories within it: how you create a webcomic, how you get a book published, how a family dealt with a crisis. At the San Diego Comic-Con, I talked about the creative and life experience that put me in position to write and draw Mom's Cancer, as well as the process of refining the story and working with an editor to produce a book. In Tucson, I said very little about creating a comic and more about my family's experience, trying to tease from the story threads I knew my audience encounters in their jobs. I like doing both kinds of talks but they're completely different. I can't deliver my message well unless I know who's there to receive it. It is hard for me to imagine a more receptive audience than I found in Tucson.

My thanks to Dr. Bolhack, Paige, and everyone who made this event happen and treated me so well. They're doing some wonderful work in the Southwest and this was definitely a lifetime highlight. I'm very grateful.

Guten Tag
I knew something was up when I checked my visitor log today, and reader Michael was kind enough to e-mail me and explain it. Mom's Cancer has received a very positive review in Der Spiegel, an immensely popular German periodical. I had no idea that was coming. My thanks to Michael and Spiegel writer Stefan Pannor, it is much appreciated.

What's Up

Interrupting my coverage of Comic-Con International (which I may have exhausted anyway) to mention a couple of things I'm doing....

I had a nice time yesterday being interviewed for German television. Regular readers may recall that there's a German edition of Mom's Cancer--the only non-English version so far, though I think we're working on others. I met Dennis Wagner from the weekly magazine program "Kulturreport" broadcast on ARD, which Dennis described as the biggest public TV station in Germany. I'll take his word for that. I enjoyed spending some time with Dennis, his girlfriend, and the three adorable German-singing children they're schlepping down the West Coast in a minivan as Dennis pursues a working vacation. I met Dennis in San Francisco at a beautiful spot I suggested overlooking the Golden Gate (near the Palace of Legion of Honor, if you know the area). Dennis really wanted the Golden Gate Bridge in the shot. Unfortunately, the Golden Gate Bridge really wanted to be completely obscured by fog yesterday morning. We made do.

Later today I'm flying to Tucson, Arizona to talk to a meeting of four hospice groups, including nurses, physicians, administrators, social workers and chaplains, about 50 people in all. This speaking engagement was arranged by Dr. Scott Bolhack, CEO of the Tucson Long-Term Care Medical Group and the TLC Palliative Medicine Team, who read my book quite a while ago, saw some value in it, contacted me, and worked with my publisher to fly me down there and put me up for a couple of nights.

I'm very excited about this opportunity. Next to people who've been through a similar crisis themselves, no one's opinion means more to me than that of healthcare professionals who think that Mom's Cancer has something to offer them or their patients. When Mom's Cancer was still online as a webcomic, one of the earliest e-mails I got was from a nursing instructor in Australia who asked permission to print some pages and give them to her students working with cancer patients to help them understand the family dynamics they'd find in the field. That blew me away; I consider it one of my coolest lifetime accomplishments. I've gotten that kind of response from other medical professionals a few times since and it's always a thrill.

I love Comic-Con and similar events but, as I wrote last Sunday, I don't think the wonderful folks who attend them are necessarily my book's first, best audience. The people I'll meet in Arizona tomorrow are the ones who deal with the issues I raised in my book every day and will know whether I got it right or not. I'll try my best to do a good job for them.

Post Post 3: Comic-Con Buys

Third in a series summarizing my time at Comic-Con. Check out the installments below and then come on back.

Although I saw much to covet at Comic-Con, ranging from Golden Age comics to really cool movie props, I came home with just two new things. A lot of cartoonists are also collectors, I think. It's an urge I've resisted although, as I wrote a while ago, the first thing I bought with my advance for Mom's Cancer was a 1914 drawing by cartooning great Winsor McCay that I felt I didn't deserve to have until I could pay for it with "cartooning money." Fantastic, but not the start of a habit.

However, I have begun a small collection of original comic and cartooning art that I hope will grow. The catch is that it has to be drawn by, and acquired directly from, someone I've made a personal connection with. Not necessarily a friend--that would set the bar pretty high--but someone with whom I've spent a little time, had a nice conversation, shared a moment I valued. I expect that criterion to both keep my collection (and related expenses) manageable and give it some emotional weight. I'm collecting pieces that mean something to me.

Raina Telgemeier, "The Baby-Sitters Club."

I think very highly of Raina as a cartoonist and storyteller. She has a crisp, clean, expressive ink line that I really like. On Saturday, she and I spent five minutes discussing ink viscosity (she likes hers thin, I like mine thick). I haven't talked with her about her artistic aesthetic in any great depth, but based on her work I believe we share similar ideas about what cartooning can and should be. She's thoughtful, and deceptively good--moreso because she makes it look easy. I think those traits made her the perfect choice to relaunch "The Baby-Sitters Club" stories as graphic novels.

My page from "The Baby-Sitters Club." Raina pencils with non-photo blue and produces some of the most pristine originals I've ever seen. I love the expressiveness of the figure below from Panel 4, as well as the brick-work texture she uses to anchor both the beginning and end of the page. She makes good choices.

In my previous post, I wrote about the warmth and lack of cynicism I perceive in the cartooning of both Raina and her fiance Dave. It's interesting: as time passes I think I'm getting more opinionated and cranky, but at the same time I have less and less patience for cynicism. Cynicism is lazy. It's arrogant and anti-creative. It doesn't accomplish anything. As hard-headed a rationalist as I am, I increasingly treasure art and literature with heart. Heart is risky and takes skill to pull off. And Raina's work is always 0% cynicism, 100% heart.

Not very flattering, but the only photo I have of
Raina and me together, taken at APE in San Francisco.

Irwin Hasen, "Dondi"

I love the old guys.

The comics industry is famous for devouring its own. I know good, professional artists in their thirties forced out of the business for lack of work while thousands of eager teens line up with sketchbooks in hand ready to take their places. Short memories and fickle trends turn today's creative heroes into tomorrow's tired hacks. There's precious little appreciation or respect for the men and women who began and built the business--many of them still alive, some of them still working.

I've mentioned how I originally met Irwin Hasen in February at my book launch party at the Society of Illustrators building in New York. I saw him again the next day at the New York Comic-Con, selling prints of the old DC characters he drew plus originals from his long-running comic strip "Dondi." I only took the time to greet him briefly, and left New York regretting that I'd let an opportunity slip through my fingers.

.

This original strip from 1968 is huge, nearly two feet wide. No contemporary cartoonist that I know of works that large, mostly because the shrinking space newspapers devote to comic strips doesn't allow for the kind of detail Mr. Hasen drew, for example in Panel 1 below. (I don't know what the ® symbol is doing under the right word balloon--I suspect it was originally pasted elsewhere and migrated over the years--but that's the way I got it so that's where it's gonna stay.)

Last Thursday I saw Mr. Hasen again, set up in Comic-Con's Artists Alley. No one was at his table; in fact, I had to elbow my way through a line of fans queued up to meet the Hot Young Artist at the table next door to get to him. I reintroduced myself and we had a nice conversation, when I looked over his table and noticed only the prints. No originals.

"Oh, I remember you had some Dondi originals in New York," I said, disappointed. "I was really hoping to see them."

Mr. Hasen gave me a conspiratorial nod, pulled a portfolio from under the table, and slid out a dozen "Dondi" strips. We continued to talk as I flipped through them, figuring out which one I wanted to buy. At last I chose my prize.

"You've got a good eye, you S.O.B.," said Mr. Hasen, eyes twinkling. "You picked the best one."

With Irwin Hasen in New York, February 2006

Two pieces of art that will always remind me of the creators who made them and the time I spent with them.