Over the summer I did some guest instructing at CCS’s Summer Workshops. I taught one class on freelancing alongside Alec Longstreth. We’d done it once before. I also supplemented Jon Chad demonstrating nib anatomy and technique with a lesson on brush inking. It’s always a thrill to get in front of a class of eager grown-ups and talk about comics. Sure, it takes getting over a strong sensation of Who Am I to Tell These People Anything?, but sharing comics energy with enthusiastic fellow cartoonists has got it’s rewards, too.

So I inked these both as live demos. Later I went back in with a pen to tackle the backgrounds and some details. Then I colored em because Everything is Funnier in COLOR!! Even a pair of distressed Catholics. [Buchwald the Repentant Demon, ever-developing character at top. Wilma Whistlepig, who I miss drawing in Farmy Acres, bellow. If you don't know, now ya know.]

Back in June, Caitlin and I made this birthday card for our dear Devon. Cait collaged some old screen prints, some rock rabbits (cute, right?) from Wild Life the World Over (1950), and money. Then I drew the Queen Rock Rabbit. Fun in different media, you guys! That’s the theme. Now hold on tight because I’m about to gush.

Remember how I said this was gonna be the Summer of Collaboration? Well, I did. And well, it has been, and actually still is. Just as I started to feel like I’d taken on too many projects, some started to finished, and I’ve realized that this was exactly how I wanted to follow up two years of intensive cartooning study and practice. I got what I wished for! At times, I felt anxious, or like I wasn’t doing any of my own work, but with some distance–and some time spent with family and with old friends–I realized that it’s worked out perfectly, and in many ways better than I could have hoped.

For one, I’ve been a color assistant for Joe Lambert, whose work (posted on Drawn!) got me to take CCS seriously in the first place. Last year, after some discussion that included my offering to be the Center for Cartoon Studies’ indentured servant, James Sturm offered me the gig. Oh, what? Work with my friend, a cartoonist whose work I continue to whole-heartedly admire and aspire to? Yes, please.

Joe’s written and drawn the latest in the Cartoon Studies Presents series of biographies published by Hyperion. It’s about Helen Keller and her mentor Annie Sullivan, but it’s a whole lot more than The Miracle Worker. I’ve tried to treat this project like any other work, which means striving to do it as fast and as well as I can (productivity! America!). So, my read so far has been only cursory, and has focused on finding clues to help my coloring. Even still, it made me cry twice. I can’t wait to sit down and read the finished book.

Jess Abston as Tibby Bonet as Paradisa in Nymphonomena. Photo by Colleen Frakes.

Doing the first pass of colors (Joe has been revising them, and our pal Dakota has co-assisted on the last leg of the project), I felt like a cinematographer, trying to help establish mood or location with lighting and set colors. For the swelter and hazy humidity of a Southern summer, I pushed up the atmospheric perspective. For certain scenes, I aimed at romanticism, or grim drudgery, or shock. I don’t know how much of this Joe has chosen to use, but he’s the director, you know? He doesn’t have to take every suggestion I throw at him.

Speaking of movies, this summer the Nymphonomenauts have been taking our little collaboration about a gender-bending space rock opera in new, exciting directions. More on that later.

In the meantime, I’ve mostly taken a break from drawing comics. I think I needed it. I’ve been doodling idly in my sketchbook, making new oddities, and thinking vaguely about character designs. I’ve been building Legos and coloring/printing some of my comics from the past year. I’ve been reading comics like crazy, and devouring anything I can find about comics online and in the Schulz Library. And now, I miss drawing them! I can’t wait! Sure, I’ve still been making a new Farmy strip every three weeks (and I think this running collaboration is going to better and better places), but I’m truly excited to make some new little comedies, and I’m starting to think that maybe I won’t give up on Petrified Girlfriend, even.

—- ++++ —-

As things turned out, we became close friends, and he and his wife Becca are one no-foolin aspect of what makes a prolonged stay in White River Junction appealing. Did I mention that Caitlin and I are sticking it out in Vermont for another year? Well, we are. [BACK]

If you didn’t go to art school, that means making things grayer/lighter/bluer as they recede into the distance. Aren’tcha glad you know now?? [BACK]

[Props to Jen May, who loved to say that and then pump the Jock Jams, once upon an undergrad.]

Here it is, folks. The culmination of a year’s work at the Center for Cartoon Studies. This thesis book wouldn’t be nearly as neat-o without the hard work of my best half, Caitlin. She diligently cross-stitched eight individual covers; three for the thesis committee,* one each for the library, archive and gallery,** one for CCS Director James Sturm and one for my masterful thesis advisor, Brett Warnock. Caitlin zipped through British Period Drama after British Period Drama while she embroidered, and would come home from work, cook, eat, and get right to business. She is a wonder and they look lovely.

The stitching on the front was based mostly some sample alphabets I found online. Thanks to flickr-er “superminx” for posting the inspiration for the shadowed title lettering. The single-thread  “comics by…” part I invented from whole-cloth, after seeing some examples of script and sans-serif lettering styles designed for gridded fabrics using a single thread, as opposed to a series of Xes.

The look of the front cover sorta dictated the design of the pages within. I chose Gotham Condensed Thin as my body type, since it feels like a cousin to that tall, skinny, humanist thread lettering that I made up.

Hicough & Belch in color, as they appear on Top Shelf 2.0.

Here’s a sneak peek at Petrified Girlfriend chapter 3: Invasive Species, which will come out in some form or another some time, I think.

And can’t for-get about the Farrrrm-yy Acres.

– – – –

*President Michelle Ollie, and cartoonist-instructors Alec Longstreth and Jason Lutes. Thanks to Alec for letting me keep his copy, and for looking forward to getting the individual books of the separate projects as they come out. Which, I assure you, he will, or my name isn’t…!

Aaaaahhh…whatever it is.

**Images from the CCS gallery show, featuring both original and finished art by each of the graduates, are up (thanks be to Josh Kramer) at the Summer Showcase blog. Lotssa talent and lotssa interesting work up there, my lovelies. (See if you can’t spot your red-faced Irish host, too. Oh, and his work.)

From Steve Zimmer's Passive-Agressive Avenger. I'd show more, but I don't wanna spoil a future video.

Drawn-Out Storytelling was a great time. Thanks are due especially to Nisse Greenberg, Paul Swartz, Lena Chandhok & Mike O’Malley [who provided music and doesn't seem to have a webby] for making it happen. The efforts of all the storytellers, musicians and fellow cartoonists involved, as well as the support of The Brick Theater and Kickstarter donors, made for some rollicking and entertaining shows.  And it wouldn’t have been nearly so enjoyable without the enthusiastic crowds night after night. Thank you too much for coming out!

For me, it was a thrill to be able to invite friends and family to an event at which they would actually have fun. I feel like I’m always inviting folks to come out and pay 15 bucks just to get into the door of some strange and out-of-the-way building so they can look at some Xeroxed comics they don’t care about, and maybe some graphic novels they could just get at the store. But not this time! This time I could boldly extend my welcome to all comers, feeling secure that they had an actual, engaging and satisfying diversion! Oh, theater, such is your allure. Thanks to all you scads of friends and family for helping the house sell out, and for being such a generous audience.

Remember when I promised that I’d be posting a side-by-side-by-side comparison of three different cover printing techniques? Well, here it is. And I’m gonna talk about it. At length. I know you’re very excited for it. But first I want to note that Oak & Linden issue #3 is now available at the PB dot C shop. It features the second chapter of Petrified Girlfriend, and those little imps Hicough & Belch. I’ve also posted chapter one in it’s entirety to keep you up-to-date. I plan to continue posting the previous chapter as each new one comes out, so chapter two will be online in the fall, when I print chapter three. Make sense? Exciting? Legions of fans??

My plan for the Petrified Girlfriend book, which I’ll someday make in the hopefully not-so-distant future, is to print in two Pantone colors on a nice, creamy paper. I thought I’d try to hone the two-color process by first giving it a whirl on the cover of O&L 3, since it features the second chapter of Petrified. I’ve colored this way a few times before, including on Lawrence the Projectorhead. I’m still trying to figure out a way to make it easier. So far, I’ve been working in the Channels in Photoshop, which means I have to fill each color in two parts, individually on the red Channel and on the green Channel. It’s laborious and it’s time intensive. Does anybody know a better way?

First I printed the cover with a silkscreen. I’ve done screenprints that involve halftone screens before, with good results, but I was really disappointed with how my screens turned out. Part of the problem had to do with burning them on a less-than-ideal light table. I kept bumping up the size of my dots to try to make it easier, and still kept shooting out a pretty rough and ragged image. Lots of people who also screenprint were into this cover, I think basically because they understood the work that went into it, but I gotta admit I hated it. I also didn’t think I did a good job mixing the colors I was looking for. It was tough to create the lightness of the green ink without adding too much white, and still allowing it to be transparent to create nice mixes with the red. I also was disappointed in the paper I bought, which was a little too thin and a bit too yellow. The worst part, though, was the feeling of the cover when I’d read the book. With that much coverage, the acrylic ink feels all chalky and gross on the fingernails.

If you read this far, then bless you. You are a true friend or mother. It’s almost over. So, I made some laser prints (or color copies for the layman). I don’t like the shininess or the plasticky feel that these things make. Plus the colors came out a little dull and dark after they got run through the four-color process. So I said to hell with it. I’ll get it done for real. I’m gonna print with Pantones. I’ll pay an offset printer and I’ll get it done. The thing about offset printing, though, is you gotta make 500 or so prints to make it cost effective. So now I have 500 covers. I honestly don’t expect to sell or trade more than 200 copies of the comic, ever. What I’m saying is, now I have 300 posters. Anybody want one? Also I owe my girlfriend a fairly large chunk of change for covering the printing.

This Thursday, March 10, the grand state of Vermont will name James Kochalka as its first Cartoonist Laureate. More information about the position can be found at Vermont’s own Center for Cartoon Studies website. The title was conceived and advocated by CCS’s founder James Sturm. I was lucky enough to be in the right room when he was looking for somebody to design an official seal to accompany the honor.

When somebody is crowned Laureate, an obvious choice of leaf with which to adorn the title is laurel. The freakin root of the friggin word, alright? Cartooning has something to do with ink and with panels, Vermont has something to do with mountains, and above you see some variations on these themes. Before I got to sketching, James and I also talked about incorporating an image of the exhaulted cartoonist honored for each three-year term into the design itself. Some demented version of Kochalka’s American Elf self-portrait therefore found its way into many of these drawings.

Sturm added some information to my first doodle (top-left in the previous image). We discussed replacing the shield at the bottom of the design with just an ink pot. We also decided that we’d make two versions of the crest, one with the descriptive text encircled by the laurels, and one with the Kochalka elf head replacing at least the “Vermont Cartoonist Laureate” language. While we talked, James (Sturm, that is) also recommended some places to eat in Seattle.

I went off and drew this. To me, the graphic needed to feel as if it had all the weight and power of officialdom. I was searching for something Victorian and Protestant-ly New England in the rigor of its details. Perhaps that’s what led me to draw something approaching an actual laurel branch, rather than the iconic version seen on metals, crests, plaques and coins since the Roman Empire.

With some digital tom-foolery, the initial pencil sketch looked like this. We went through several drafts back and forth, redrawing the laurels and the ink, moving the honoree’s name into a banner (and actually spelling it right… and “cartoonist” too, while we were at it).

Most of these changes I made on the computer, so I printed the eventual approved “pencils” in blue ink onto Bristol board so I could move on to the final inks. James (still Sturm) and I agreed that, while the design should suggest historical significance and time-honored government institutions in its staid nature, it should also have it’s heel firmly planted in the world of cartooning, and be drawn by a brush dipped in ink.

To lend the original art a certain touch of being discovered in a forgotten Congressional flat file, I signed the work for both of us in a sort of old-fashioned manor. The finished piece blends elements of nineteenth- and mid-twentieth- century hand-made design, and is hopefully an intriguing blend of fun and stodgy.

The last, delightful touch, of sticking that little James Kochalka elf right on top of his banner, was a Sturm move. It kept the thing from becoming too serious, while balancing the black of the ink well. That’s why he’s James Sturm, and this was how the Vermont Cartoonist Laureate seal came to be.

This is a lidl’ comic I drew almost a year ago, for almost-a-year-old baby Sam. He was born to the Center for Cartoon Studies’ intrepid bursar/registrar/loan councellor/all-around administrator, “Valorous” Val Fleischer. I didn’t want to post it then because I didn’t wanna ruin the surprise, and then I guess I forgot about it. Baby Pat was taller then. At least in the first panel. The simplicity, though, is something I wanna keep going for.

Speaking of CCS, two recent illustration/design jobs for the school are up on my portfolio page: one is for the Visiting Faculty Archive and the Vermont Cartoonist Laureate. And now, I gotta drop Tha Bomb.

I think I’m gonna have to go on a two-month hiatus, folks. There is much to be done by May. I have one post planned for next week, and I know that you’ll have things you’ll want to talk about, and I…will…too.* Socially, I may be a bit of a hermit-monk too. I’m sorry if I’m slow to respond to emails, or have to turn down a killer hangout here and there, but I gotta buckle down and draw comics.

Farmy Acres will still be going, and I’ll try to make at least twice-weekly updates on Facebook/Twitter/Goog Buzz (these updates are also posted on the sidebar, if you’re reading this at my actual website, Dear Reader). They’ll all say the same thing, so it’s up to you which you choose to follow, or if you choose to follow! I can’t tell you what to do!!

Next week! Don’t miss The Vermont Cartoonist Laureate crest: How we dood it!

*Yes, another Mr. Rogers reference. Don’t ask me why. (Another White Album reference in the title, too, you may notice. That’s two in a row!)

What’s that I hear? Do you think Mr. McFeely is here with today’s speedy delivery?? Oh boy, neighbors, I hope it’s a video about how they make something we all love! What’ll it be today? Crayons? Maybe rocket ships??

“Aheheh, sorry neighbor, but today I just brought some slides.”

Oh, that’s alright. I’m sure they’ll be very interesting.

“Well, uh Fred, not too interesting. You see, I couldn’t get into a factory this week, and all I got was a tour of one corner of the Telegraph Studio at the Center for Cartoon Studies.”

Telegraph! Cartoons! That does sound interesting!

“You see, Fred, this is Pat Barrett’s corner of the Telegraph Studio. You can see from his wall that things are heating up on Petrified Girlfriend chapter 3: Invasive Species!”

I don’t know what that means, but allllrighty! And what’s that, that daisy chain there?

“Each of the second-year students at the Center for Cartoon Studies (or CCS) has a space at the Telegraph. It’s in the former cafeteria of the town’s original phone company building. Well, one of the students, Josh Kramer, instigated that paper chain. Now it’s making its way through the studio with a lot of help from Beth Hetland.”

OK. I’m sure this is about to get very interesting.

“Here we can see a closer look at some of the pages on Mr. Barrett’s wall. Peaking up at the top-left of his drafting table is a floor plan he made for the imaginary apartment where much of his comic book adventure story takes place. He says it’s really made drawing scenes a whole lot simpler. When he needs to fill in a background, he just looks at the map. Then he’ll draw the furniture as its positioned in his diagram.”

I’m sorry, I fell asleep.

“Oh, that’s OK, Fred. Just one more slide to go.”

That’s fine. Take your time, Mr. McFeely.

“This is a table shared by Mr. Barrett and his dear pal Ben Horak. They lived together last year, and this photo that Mr. Barrett marked up certainly demonstrates who was the Felix and who the Oscar in their relationship! Did you notice that Lego race car sort of pushing into Ben’s half of the desk? And there’s the sex change gun from the hit comic anthology Nymphonomena!”

Gosh, that really is special. Well, thank you, Mr. McFeely, I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again soon.

“Speedy Delivery!”

Bye, neighbor!

it gets a lot bigger || that is, if you click it

Poll time, blogheads! Would anybody be interested? in purchasing or gifting these two posters? They’d be digital inkjet prints on nice, archival, 11″×17″ cream colored paper. Probably with short descriptive text (hand lettered) in the black corners. Signed and numbered. The whole deal. For $8 for one or $12 for both (the second at half-off). Let me know, by comment or by email, and I’ll make em available on the shop or by direct order. If you’re not sure how you feel about my work, maybe you can allow some other people to tell you it’s not too bad, for some punk kid.

Now that you’ve slogged through my hucksterism (second week in a row), how about some good news of family, friends, and fun? I’m getting pumped to roam around all three of the NYC tristates! First at my family’s in Connecticut, see Better-Half Caitlin’s family in Jersey, then pal around with my dear ol’ college chums in Brooklyn.

And how better to kick off this whirlwind tour of the New York metropolitan area? A Wu-Tang concert in Burlington! It’s gonna be full of bros, but all the founding members but ODB and the RZA are gonna be there! (Although, the Razor dropped out only about a week ago, and after I bought a ticket. Supposedly he’s filming something in China. Whatever. Maybe they’ll each drop out, one by one. Still ready to love it.)

Somethin’s comin, dear readers. While you’re stuffing your face and quaffing champagne, I’ll be diligently working to bring you something earth shattering Monday morning. All while I recite the name of every Wampanoag killed by Whitey and collect my tears in a jar, so that I might drink a people’s sorrows. Nah, I’m just playin. I’ll be stuffing my face and quaffing champagne. Look out on Monday, though. Look out. Farmy Acres is coming.

Also seen here (upside-down) are revised panels for a story I’m submitting to my pal Kevin Uehlein’s Visions of the Aporkalypse anthology. I highly recommend getting in on this action. It’s gonna be hilarious. He’s taking drawing, writing, comics, whatever. So do it.