The "Space Kid!" webcomic ran 2010-2018. Previously from the same creator: "The Mundane Adventures of DISHMAN". Currently making the web strip "Not That Magic".
When I was in my twenties, I thought I was a better comic artist than the majority of the artists who were professionally published.
When I was in my forties, I thought I was maybe in the top third of all comic artists, and considered writing a how-to book on cartooning.
Now, almost seventy, I think I (as a cartoonist) am maybe in the top third of all people, including the vast majority who don't normally draw comics at all.
It's weird how, the older I get, the more practiced I become, and yet the less I impress myself.
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ink doodles where I try out a technique I've seen recently in mid-century modern illustration: where you forgo the outline of some shapes and just let the tone hold them. I can see potential....
In order to do so, I need to practise. Which means making drawings of the things where I don't already know how to draw the things.
Which means the drawings will not be good drawings of the things. Ergo, I must by necessity make drawings that are not good, in order to learn how to make drawings that are good.
Seems like a simple enough concept to grasp.... and yet, sometimes I have real problems with it.
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In order to do so, I need to practise. Which means making drawings of the things where I don't already know how to draw the things.
Which means the drawings will not be good drawings of the things. Ergo, I must by necessity make drawings that are not good, in order to learn how to make drawings that are good.
Seems like a simple enough concept to grasp.... and yet, sometimes I have real problems with it.
ink doodles based on the illustration work of Miroslav Šašek -- trying to combine the Sasek eye for telling details with the looseness I see in some of the urban sketching work I've been enjoying in recent years…. also looking to see how to incorporate this sort of work into cartooning
I spent a while today whipping up quick loose doodles of one of my characters, and ended up with one that was so "sloppy" that I got the shape of the head all wrong….
….but I dug it. So I played around for a while with the idea of changing the character design ! But eventually decided no, it isn't the right vibe for my character. But I'm keeping this design handy for some other character someday, cuz I really do like this one.
FYI, the original of this is really small… like it would fit on a postage stamp [if you remember postage stamps], or within a square inch [if you remember inches].
I didn't choose this year, more like it chose me... and why now, I don't know. But there it is -- I can feel it. This year I re-invent myself as a cartoonist, as a painter, and [if I can manage to tackle poetry] as a writer, too.
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When I was in high school, our art teacher would occasionally show us Norm McLaren's experimental animated films, and we loved all of them. But this one in particular grabbed me for its music. I'd never heard anything like it before, and fell instantly and fanatically in love.
Back then, I wasn't clued-in or media-savvy enough to register the name Albert Ammons in the opening credits. So, when it was over, I asked my friends if any of them knew what this kind of music was. One of them thought it was some sort of jazz, and the only jazz piano player he knew of offhand was Dave Brubeck.
Armed with the only clue I had, I went downtown to the record store, located the Dave Brubeck section, and looked over everything in it. The album Time Further Out had a song on it called Bru's Boogie Woogie. When I saw that word Boogie, I went bingo and bought it.
I got the album home, played it... Bru's Boogie Woogie wasn't the song I heard on the film, but I wasn't expecting it to be. It did sound like the same general idea, though, so that was enough to delight me.
I listened to the rest of the album, and it fascinated me. So this is jazz, I said to myself. [My big brother said what is this garbage, but so be it.] I realized that I had heard some jazz-influenced bits on some of my other records, loving them without knowing what I was loving.
I became, not just a jazz listener, but a jazz scholar. Time Further Out got me into the lifelong habit of reading the liner notes, along with reading all the jazz books in the library. Which led me to following up on names that got dropped, picking up more albums by more artists, and it snowballed from there. This was how I became the hopeless jazzbo I am today [much to your chagrin].
P.S.: years later, I finally came upon an Albert Ammons album.... which included the song Boogie Woogie from the McLaren soundtrack. Naturally I went geekily ballistic...
Margeaux Pepoy, acclaimed comics creator, comes out as transgender and embraces her true self publicly
"Hi! You've known me as Andrew for many years, but today I'm finally letting you all know that I'm Margeaux. Pronounced Mar-go. I've known I was different since I was a kid, but it's only in recent times that I stopped being scared and embraced what that was. I'm excited and nervous about going public, but it's time I live as my true self. I understand this will take some getting used to, but I'm still the person you always knew: I still love comics, music, and all the same things, and I'm still going to draw fun comics and tell dumb jokes. I'm very fortunate to have the support of my partners, many friends, and some family. Kind questions are welcome. I'm happy and hope you all can be happy for me."
My most recent painting was a gift for a fam member, and I felt like it was one of the worst ones I've done. I mean it wasn't total garbage, cuz I finished it and didn't chuck it out afterward, but just kinda lackluster and letdown, ya know?
But the recipient fam-member loved it, and a bystander fam-member said, "Man, you just keep getting better and better!"
So, my point, I guess, is: if you make things, and you made something that sucks, then maybe you're wrong. Like, how can you know, eh?
Just decided I wanted to update my influence list, o lucky reader!
Here are my current all-time Top Ten Cartoonists. Today's list is geared toward those whose work I not only enjoy and appreciate, but whose work speaks to and inspires my own current work. So they're more about where my cartooning head is at right now - therefore, some old major idols and influences don't appear, or appear differently ranked:
Bill Watterson
Dik Browne
Alex Toth
Lee Holley
Hank Ketcham
George Lichty
Mort Walker
Frank Robbins
Jaime Hernandez
Leonard Starr
And, to flesh things out further, here's my Top Ten of cartoonists currently working:
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