Saturday Morning Center for Cartoon Studies Sights & Sites!

I’m off for a heady day of one-man drawing and cartooning workshop sessions right here in Marlboro at the Elementary School.

This morning, I’ll be working for two hours with a group of K-4th Grade students, some of whom demonstrated their cartooning chops in kindergarten when I gave the school a copy of the color Vermont’s Haunts map a couple of years ago. When my amigo Joe Citro was in town, lecturing about VT spiritualism at the college, a pair of these kids presented Joe & I with their own color full-page ghost drawings, which were amazing and highly entertaining. I believe at least one of those young artists will be in this morning’s group, so big fun ahead!

This afternoon, I’ll be working with 5th Grade and up (including two adults who signed on) on a more comprehensive cartooning and comics workshop from 1:30 PM to 4 PM. I’ve got some cool exercises worked up, and that should be a lively session, too.

[Aside: Tonight, I’ll be jumping from that frying pan into the fire of an evening meeting and dinner with Michel and Linda Moyse as a Board member of the Center for Digital Art in Brattleboro, brainstorming our upcoming October CDA celebration of the student’s filmmaking/video creations and a showcase of the work of various CDA graduates who have gone on to work in video and film. I’ll be tuckered by tonight, no doubt about it.]

All of which puts me in mind of an overdue overview of CCS Year One, best communicated via the students themselves, I think.

So -- here ya go. Savor this series of snapshots of what’s been stewing at CCS, via the online venues emerging from that which James Sturm & Michelle Ollie hath founded.

Everyone is still transitioning from the heady Year One experience into their respective and collective summers, but some of the student websites are operational -- so with their permission, I’m posting a few links this morning. Take time this weekend to browse ‘em, and be sure to leave your comments here or with them, if you would.
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Andrew Arnold was, by everyone’s assessment, one of the anchors and inspirations of CCS Year One for all of us, and a click will take you to

Andrew’s site

for a sampler of his work (but there’s no way to put across his skill at the ping-pong table!).

With Andrew away, Alexis Frederick-Frost seems to be dominating the ping pong table, but he’s got some solid licks in via the drawing board, too, visible at

Alexis’s site.

Colleen Frakes has two sites open for view, with

Colleen’s CCS site

worth some exploration, though you should also check out

Colleen and Jon-Mikel Gates’s ‘Cowboy Orange’ blog

for more of Colleen and Jon’s art, photos from the CCS Year One experience, and mucho insights, comments and observations on same.

Sam Gaskin has two sites up and running: one for

Sam’s comics & art (with a little music)

and the other for

Sam’s music!

And here’s a one-two punch from two of the CCS Year One dynamos:

Sean Morgan’s website

just a finger click away from

Adam Staffaroni’s site!

Josie Whitmore has maintained her

personal site for Josie art and stuff

for some time -- take the time to explore at length, please -- but notes she’s revamping that soon, too. In the meantime, she is working on her CCS site for future launch, so that’ll be posted once Josie lets me know it’s ready for primetime viewing.
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There’s more to come, but that’s what the students involved “cleared” for posting on my site and here.

In the meantime, other CCS-related “new developments” are already peek-worthy on the internet:

James Sturm just alerted us to the work Kevin Huizenga is creating for the new CCS school brochure. Kevin' has a new blog and has posted a few of brochure's images there; as James notes, “the snowy drawing of the Colodny/South Main Street is stunning,” and indeed it is. For this and oh so much more, hop on over to

Kevin’s blog The Balloonist!

As I’ve mentioned before, CCS also has four summer workshop sessions in place, beginning in late June and continuing through the first week in August. For info, click on

this link and scroll down to the CCS summer program schedule at the bottom of the page.

Hope to see some of you there!

Now, the CCS workshops are primarily for those 16 years of age and older. For younger, budding cartoonists of all ages, New Hampshire cartooning whiz Marek Bennett has his own summer workshops cooking all summer throughout New Hampshire, and I urge those of you in that area to immediately check out what Marek’s up to! All the info, including the full summer calender, is now posted on

Marek Bennett’s NH comics workshops site,

which BTW is part of Marek’s own multi-faceted site -- all well worth checking out.

As I mentioned yesterday, Marge & I saw and quite enjoyed Dan Clowes & Terry Zwigoff’s new opus Art School Confidential this week. I can say with complete candor that CCS is light years away from the sort of ‘art school’ experience so eloquently satirized in their film -- which leads me, in my typically roundabout manner, to CCS honcho and cartoonist extraordinaire Robyn Chapman, who recently posted this -- which I, ‘dial-up only’ castaway that I am, cannot access -- to a

Dan Clowes on TV link

she says “is so good!” Taking her word for it (as I always, always do), I hereby share it with y’all and hope for the best.

See you in the funnies...