Homesick, In More Ways Than One...

Joe Lambert's excellent "Homesick" appears in the center spread of the December 19, 2007 issue of the free weekly Seven Days, now available all over Vermont (especially the western Route 7 corridor).

This is a marvelous strip, kudos and congrats to Joe! Far from his and Becca's home in Kansas, Joe is currently amid his senior year at The Center for Cartoon Studies.

For those of you outside of the area, here's the Seven Days online presentation of Joe's "Homesick" -- enjoy!

_________________________

Well, the subpoena threats to the White House and CIA are beginning to have some effect: reportedly, "the CIA is expected to quickly begin turning over to Congress documents related to the destruction of videotapes showing the harsh interrogation of two terror suspects."

"Expected to quickly begin..." -- there's many a mile twixt cup and the lip, though.

What is clearly a widespread culture of torture has been cultivated in Iraq, involving all 'sides' of the conflict we initiated in 2003, has supplanted the late Saddam Hussein's regime, so what has been accomplished?

That's what I wonder as Bush gloats over yet another passing of a budget that finances his war plan, sans planning, and the House and Senate head home for their vacations, the GOP having filibustered the Democrats into submission yet again on behalf of the GOP's Fearless Leader.

And the body count climbs daily -- thousands of US soldiers (and uncounted mercenaries, Blackwater and otherwise, and corporate employees on top of those numbers), millions of Iraqis -- while the daily rush of wounded soldiers and civilians continues to mount unabated, and it all remains invisible to the American public at large.

The inability of the military to cope with the steadily mounting psychological ravages of the war, too, is mounting its own body count, "over there" and on American soil.

As I've noted here repeatedly, I don't see any real difference between this President and Administration's interminable, open-ended "detainment" practices and the breaking of contracts and constant extension of tours of duties for our military: for those on the receiving end of such abuse, the imprisonment/'tour of duty' has been a Kafkaesque nightmare without end.

Those unable to deal, unable to find relief, find their own ways to terminate the interminable. Pfc. Jason Scheuerman's tragic tale, just now emerging for his own family to deal with, amplifies the outrageous evidence of how completely the military is failing to care for its own.

But in a macho military culture embodying in-the-flesh the boast and swagger of their Commander in Chief's -- our President and Vice President's -- wreckless rhetoric, behavior and policies, any sign of desperation/weakness is met with punishment, humiliation and abuse -- period. As more soldiers approach or cross over the break-point with the ongoing irrational demands on our fittest and finest, I'm afraid we'll sadly see more such case histories come to light.

Of course, most soldier on, in silence, and we'll hear/read nothing. In the US, the war remains essentially invisible, its consequences wrapped in flags we aren't permitted to see.

______________

OK, I'm outta here -- it's snowing an inch an hour here, and I've got to clear our driveway long enough to run errands.

Congrats to Colleen Frakes!

Colleen, center, beaming at the CCS table at SPX this weekend. Photo (and the one below) by Joe Lambert.

CCS graduate Colleen Frakes has won a Xeric Award!!! Well deserved, Colleen, and big-time congratulations all around! More info later this week, along with links, etc. Congrats, Colleen!

Joe Lambert, cartoonist extraordinaire/CCS senior/Sundays co-founder & co-editor/One Percenter and oh so much more, has posted

this great photojournal of his SPX weekend, including the beard-o video!

And yes, I had a great time last night at the Main St. Museum, listening to Mooneye. My son Dan sang two of his songs to wrap up the set, and then I gave Dan, Sam and Ruth a tour of CCS. Much of the CCS community turned out -- you'll have to ask them what they thought of the evening, though, as I'm prejudiced on this one. Though the microphone didn't service the band's lyrics well, it was a grand evening and this poppa's heart soared. Bought a copy of everyone's CDs and will be drawing to their music all this and next week and beyond.

They're now on the road -- as you read this! -- and I'll post their schedule later today.

I'm sorry, though, that I've missed 2+ years of CCSer music at the Main St. Museum. It's a marvelous space, and I know Sam Gaskin, Gabby aka Ken Dahl, Cat aka Cayetano Garza and many others played there many times over the past two years, when I still lived 90 minutes away (three hour round trip) and just couldn't attend. Damn! Well, I'll be able to make it now...

Monsters and More Post-MoCCA Mortem --

MoCCA Post-Mortem continues at

the most excellent blog of the most excellent Joe Lambert, and Joe has posted variations on the same at

the Sundays Anthology blog/site and

I Know Joe Kimpel --

-- and Bryan Stone posted very different pix on his blog, check 'em out, too!

Check 'em all out, I'll post more here later as time permits.

________________

Now that I'm no longer plugged into the First Run Video circle (though I'm still a shareholder in that business), I have to track down my DVDs same as everyone else -- no more preorders, 5% above cost, special order insider cherry-picking. So it was yesterday morning that I was calling every DVD venue in driving distance to track down the new Warner Bros. Cult Camp Classic quartet of boxed sets; by 9:10 AM, I had scored paydirt, and by 11:45 I was driving home with all four sets.

I've only had time to screen one so far: The Giant Behemoth (1958, original UK title Behemoth: The Sea Monster -- less redundant, that), with the commentary track by stop-motion/CGI and all-around special effects gurus Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett.

Per usual, WB lists generic running times -- the box says '90 minutes,' but it clocks in a few seconds over 79 minutes. It's an excellent transfer of the best print of this film I've ever seen -- and it's complete, which was my reason for popping this undernourished radioactive saurian opus into the player first (instead of the film I most eagerly anticipate watching, Sergio Leone's The Colossus of Rhodes -- but more on that later!).

Unlike WB's vhs release of this title over a decade ago, this print is complete: the WB video was a sharp print but inexplicably missing the notorious ferry boat attack scene -- notorious among stop-motion fans for the embarrassing crudity of the live-action puppet effects in this (and other) sequences. The ferry boat attack supplanted the Pete Peterson and Willis O'Brien stop-motion animation with what is literally a dino head on a stick knocking at a miniature ferry, spilling Matchbox-sized tin cars into the drink; the water splashes are identical to those you'd create in your bathtub, the beading on the prop dino head further betraying the six-inch-plus scale of the foolish thing.

Ut! My contractor just arrived. More work on the basement library/office ahead.
OK, More later today --

Joe Lambert: The CCS/MoCCA Interview (A Talk for the Heart of Saturday Night...)

I could go on and on about Joe Lambert, who just finished up his first year at CCS and is about to launch into his senior year.

But I won't.

I'll let Joe do that, via this lengthy interview. Stick with it, it's worth the read -- as is reading anything Joe has had a hand in. Trust me on this one.

Joe's I Will Bite You minicomic is available right now at One Percent Press

and at the I Know Joe Kimpel site; after MoCCA, all four of the solo minicomics Joe is selling this weekend at MoCCA will be available at One Percent Press and I Know Joe Kimpel.

But enough intro -- let's open it up to Joe, who has plenty to share. Enjoy.

________________________

Joe Lambert:
Turtle Keep It Steady

Joe Lambert's Turtle Keep It Steady (2006), now on sale at MoCCA

SB: You arrived at CCS with pretty amazing comics chops, Joe, and you’ve only gotten better. What's your background?

JOE LAMBERT: I grew up in Newton , Kansas. After high school I flew to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts (SVA) where I completed the first year and ran out of money. I moved back home for a few months before fleeing to Denver, Colorado where my girlfriend (Becca, now my wife) was living at the time. I eventually got my own place and started attending the Art Institute of Colorado (AIC). After attending the school for six months and living in Denver for over a year I moved back to Kansas with my girlfriend where we got married and lived together for a year before moving to Vermont.

SB: What got you into reading comics?

JOE: I remember my dad trying to teach me to read when I was in Preschool/Kindergarten and he brought home these books from the library that I read but wasn’t too interested in. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t like to look at newspaper strips or superhero comic books, but it was at this age, around 4 or 5 that I started to actually read comics. My dad offered to buy me a comic at the supermarket if I learned to read it. So we sat down and he read the whole thing to me, and challenged me to read the back page by myself:

BETTER NAIL HIM WITH A SPIDER TRACER, SO I CAN FIND HIM LATER AND -- MISSED! MUST BE THE LISTING SHIP! OR MAYBE I’M STILL SHAKY FROM THAT SCREAMERANG! OR MAYBE… THERE’S A PART OF ME THAT DOESN’T WANT TO CATCH HIM?

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT, EH, WALL-CRAWLER? WELL HERE’S SOMETHING ELSE!

HOW YOU SURVIVED ISN’T IMPORTANT! THAT YOU SURVIVED IS! FOR AGAIN, WE ARE ONE! THE ONE CALLED – VENOM – AND VENOM WANTS TO PLAY! – The Amazing Spiderman # 345 by David Micheline and guest penciler Mark Bagley (that wasn’t from memory. I have the actual issue with me)

I remember sounding-out every word on that page and running to my old man to read it in front of him. When I was done he said, “Alright. Now read the whole thing.”

So I guess that was when I got into comics as a reader.

Page from The Kathleeno Beeno Follies (2006)

SB: What prompted your creating your own comics, and what were they?

JOE: The first comics I can remember making were the strips for a school news paper my class put together in fourth grade. That would have been 1993-94. By then I was already the artsy-fartsy kid in class so I was assigned to draw the whole section, doing four or five strips of fourth grade humor that probably weren’t funny to anyone else but me. There was Superdork who looked like superman but had tighty-whiteys instead of red trunks on the outside of his pants. I think he was cross-eyed too. I think I thought that was hilarious at the time. And there was a strip with some of the X-Men hanging out. I remember vividly the anxiety I felt sitting down and trying to come up with funny things to draw. It was always easy to make my friends laugh with drawings of people farting or punching each other in the groin, but none of these things could have gone in the paper, so I was just wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do.

Joe silkscreening for Sundays (June 2007; photo: Joe Lambert)

This is probably one of those profound times in my life when I started looking at comics in a whole new light because I was trying to do them; trying to deconstruct the magical process of making something that looked cool, was clear and easy to read, and was hilarious at the same time. I was really bummed out that this stuff didn’t come naturally to me, that I couldn’t just sit down with a pen and hammer out the magic. I remember feeling like such a hack when I turned it in to my friend who was putting the paper together with his mom. I had painstakingly constructed these delicate strips with humility and shame in my lack of talent and when my friend’s mom saw them she made me redraw them. I had drawn them on notebook paper and they couldn’t photocopy them because of the lines. So I had to redraw all of them right there in the library; reliving every damn mark and stupid punch line.

I stole one of the jokes from Wayne’s World 2 – in my strip the X-Men were hanging out and Rogue says to Gambit, “Do you want to have dinner some night?” and Gambit says, “Oh, I like to have dinner every night.”

I did two issues of the paper with crap like that, and when the third issue came around I wanted to do something different so I handed in a six page comic with panel after panel of this stick-figure stretching his tongue out and eventually suffocating in a pile of his own tongue. I think they stopped doing the paper because they didn’t want to tell me that they couldn’t print my comic.

SB: You must have baffled them. That’s pretty extensive creative experience for an elementary school student -- and then?

JOE: The next time I drew comics was in middle school. I did a four page comic about this superhero who saves the city by stopping a missile from hitting a building. I never did comics as a kid, I guess because I really wanted to be interested in the characters, and I never felt like I could write anything that I was interested in reading. Eventually I became interested in the mechanics of comics; it was the storytelling through a visual sequence aspect that made me really go for it. So I started doing comics about my friends (and people I wanted to be my friends) in these crazy adventures. I would draw these page-by-page, and a few of them I drew on the front and back, and then I would just show my friends. I was writing to a specific audience and was getting immediate feedback, they laughed at the inside jokes and the exaggerated drawings of themselves. And I also think that no one wanted to say anything bad about them because I was, still, the artsy-fartsy kid and no one wanted to make me feel bad, because really, it was the only thing I had going for me. Or more likely they did insult me and the comics, but I was too naïve to realize it.

In high school I did a few comics as assignments, and tried to start a narrative that I would continue for a few months before giving up. It was about a lumberjack who was raised by polar bears and who kept falling in love, only to be rejected over and over. One of my closest friends thought it was bland and saccharine so I quit.

Joe's strip "Terry & Jensen" (2006)

SB: Given your School of Visual Arts participation, you obviously got back into the saddle --

JOE: In my first year of college, in SVA, I did three or four comics, but they were very pretentious and over the top. I was trying really hard to be Dave McKean or David Mack because I was getting all of this fine art training and I loved to paint and draw and I didn’t want to give any of that up, but I was also starting to read all of these great comics in the New York libraries that I had never been previously exposed to. Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, and Jason Little I remember specifically. I was conflicted, but it was easy to set comics down and focus on the fine art because I wasn’t really liking the process of creating comics yet and I certainly wasn’t creating anything I was interested in.

It wasn’t until I moved to Colorado that I started drawing comics that I actually liked. I started working at The Tattered Cover, an independent, locally owned book store in Denver, and I, for the first time, was living on my own, without a roommate. When I lived in New York I had three roommates but I was the loneliest I had ever been. When I was living by myself in Denver I really wasn’t lonely at all. I was working fulltime so I had the regular faces at work that I liked seeing, and Becca (my girlfriend at the time, now my wife) was living a few blocks away, so I saw her every weekend at least. When I wasn’t working (or going to school, it was at this time that I was going part-time to AIC) I would walk around the city to the comic shops and libraries. So I had major exposure to all kinds of great books and comics at this time in my life, with plenty of time to read and really study them. And the bookstore let us employees check books out of the store, so I would often order books through the store just so I could read them, and when I was done I would put them on the store’s shelves and not have to buy them.

SB: What comics and graphic novels did you gravitate to then, with this kind of hands-on access?

JOE: Through the library system (Denver has one of the best, or had anyway), and book store I read more Chris Ware, more Daniel Clowes, James Kochalka, Craig Thompson, Warren Ellis, Art Spiegelman, Adrian Tomine, David B, the Hernandez Bros, Paul Pope, Paul Hornschemeier, Jason Lutes, Scott McCloud, Dave McKean, Paul Chadwick, Jim Woodring, Seth and I was finally able to read all of the Sandman and Bone collections. And because Diamond is basically the only comics distributor and it was so hard to return comics that don’t sell to them I was able to buy tons of trade paperbacks at a huge discount.

Pre-CCS Joe Lambert in warmer climes

Photo: Becca Lambert, from her blog Crambert

Probably because of James Kochalka’s Sketchbook Diaries, the autobio work of David B and Craig Thompson and the tidal wave of journal web-comics I was exposed to once I was able to afford the internet I began my own online journal comic. This solved all of my comic creating problems: it was easy for me to care about the characters because it was autobiographical, and it was quick so I would retain interest. And when I started coloring them it became this wonderfully fruitful exercise in the craft and I very much enjoyed playing with the elements that make comics fun to make and read: panel layouts and timing, composition and flow, color and mood, and dialogue combined with gesture to create character. I don’t like a whole lot of them, but I cherish that time as my creative growth spurt. It was daily for a long time, and then became more sporadic once I started other projects, like my application to CCS.

SB: What brought you to CCS?

JOE: A good friend of mine, Jarrad Maiers, sent me the link to CCS’s website before the school had opened and thought I would be interested. After looking at the names involved I was very interested. I began my submission comic for the school immediately – this was for the school’s first year, 2005 – and I almost finished it before I sat down to reconsider my life: I was working full-time at the book store, going to school part-time, doing this almost-daily journal comic, and was engaged to be married. So I figured going back to school full-time on the other side of the country to a school that didn’t yet accept federal financial aid wasn’t a good plan.

So I packed away that submission comic (It’s never seen the light of day since) and moved back to my hometown in Kansas and got married. After a few months, for some reason, I decided to look back into CCS and to my delight it was still there, and the first year was well underway and they were accepting submissions for the second year. So I spent three or four months on a twenty page comic and applied – and the whole time I was thinking to myself, You did a twenty page comic in three months! If you don’t get in to this school you’ll be alright on your own. Which was a ridiculous thought because this comic took so much out of me, on top of the time; I was so depressed and deflated during most of the process, and I was still doing my online journal comics occasionally.

Becca, with banner (Photo: Joe Lambert)

SB: If I may be so bold, where and when did you and Becca meet?

JOE: Becca and I met in our hometown, in Newton, Kansas. There are a lot of negative connotations that come with a small town in the Midwest, and most of them are probably true, but I’ve never been too attached to anything about Kansas, and so I don’t feel the need to defend it or justify anything. The only attachments I have to home are the people, and that’s the case for every other place I’ve ever lived. This is probably a big social disadvantage I should pay more attention to, but I’m rarely aware of my place in a community so it’s difficult for me to picture what this whole WRJ/CCS thing actually is to me. I feel like maybe we’re a part of something big, or important, but I think that just comes with the amount of focus we’re putting on ourselves and our work, which is good. We need that focus to keep ourselves sharp.

Joe & Becca, Red House party, 2007

SB: Well, here’s why I ask. A number of CCSers have relocated with their partners and/or wives to White River Junction since the first year. What has it been like for you two, locating to this area? This has been a major life change for you folks...

JOE: It has been a major life change but since high school neither of us has lived in one place longer than a year, so we’re used to keeping on our toes. And it seems like ever few months we have a major life change waiting for us. And as far as our experience with relocating: I don’t think it was so much of a culture shock for us as it was for some of the other kids. Again, Becca and I grew up in a small town, so we’re used to the people sitting outside with nothing to do, and everything closing at 8pm. We’re happy to stay at home and read together. Sometimes she’ll read to me while I draw, or we’ll listen to books on tape. I couldn’t have made it here to CCS without her; she’s the best thing to ever happen to me. I can’t really do much of anything without her – she’s at work right now (making a living so that I can sit on my ass and draw all day) as I type this, and I want to take a nap but I can’t bring myself to go to bed without her to tell me that we don’t have any errands to run this afternoon.

Would you buy a used car from this man? (Joe, Halloween at CCS, October 2006; photo: Becca Lambert)

SB: OK, let’s get back into comics. What moves you in comics -- past, present and among the work of your peers?

JOE: Lately I’ve been looking closely at guys like David B. and Lewis Trondheim. Both create pages that are visually appealing, often with consideration to the way a page reads – the flow, I guess. But they’re both great at symbolizing ideas and doing so in a way that doesn’t interrupt the reading. The easiest example of this would be in David B’s Epileptic, in expressing his brother’s illness as a monster/dragon thing he can express its traits as something that affects their lives. To me that is amazing. I’m really excited about that kind of storytelling, but I realize a lot of storytellers do this, and I think it’s one of those things I’ve been taking for granted or overlooking. So now I’m going back through all of my favorite comics, and some that I didn’t like too well and am finding storytelling elements that I never picked up on before. This is exciting to me.

I like the way Craig Thompson effortlessly guides my eyes across pages. I like the way Chester Brown’s thin, delicate line makes me uncomfortable; or the way Chris Ware evokes the passage of time and establishes rhythm using any number of panels; the way Lilli Carre packs so much into her characters’ expressions; I’m excited by Jordan Crane’s audacity to leap from moment to moment without holding the reader’s hand too tightly. Kevin Huizenga takes his comics very seriously, but still is still playful too. There are too many.

Page from I Will Bit You (2006)

I love so many things about comics, but at the same time I get really tired of reading something that I don’t like and getting this nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me that I should like it because it is done well. I think this is part of the complacency we sometimes fall into when creating things: thinking that it’s okay to be passive about what we’re doing or what we’re reading. I don’t want to get into value judgments, because everything is great all of the time, right? But I get tired of liking things just because they’re not bad. I really want to hate everything that isn’t amazing. I don’t think too many comics are doing everything that comics can be doing. I don’t want to talk about film versus comics and the budget restraints versus reaching wider audiences or whatever– I’m talking about the story of Peter Parker: is it better told in comics, or in film? Should it matter? Sometimes I think that the things we do in comics should only be doable in comics. Other times I think that if someone has a story they want to tell they should tell it any way they can. I’m losing focus here – I’m having a hard time raging up to get into a rant because I’m in love with storytelling, and so many people are doing so many great things. Like my classmates.

SB: Ya, you’re in a pretty heady group at CCS --

JOE: I was talking to my brother about art schools the other day and I caught myself blabbing on and on about my fellow students at CCS. There are things that each student does that moves me. I can’t talk about all of them though. Maybe someday I’ll interview each one and post them on my blog. Oh, wait.

I will say this though; on assignment day we’ll get a stack of comics from everyone and take some time to pour through each book. And with each one is a completely new world and language we have to adjust to. With a lot of the students that adjustment is immediate because their storytelling has grown to be so sharp and conscious that they have the reader hooked. And with some of the others, that challenge to adjust is intriguing and provocative.

SB: OK, enough about other people. Tell me about your new comic --

JOE: Right now I’m putting together my pages for the Sundays Anthology I’m helping to put together with some friends. The work I’ve done at CCS has been mostly pantomime, so I think I’m collecting them into a book with a few new stories and that will be published by Secret Acres.


I wrote a lengthy short story for Sarah [Stewart Taylor] that has become something that I want to do as comics. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that yet, but I’m very interested in what is happening with the characters, and I think the only way I’d ever flesh them out is through comics.

SB: You've produced a lot of work in your first year at CCS.

JOE: I have produced a lot this year. Like I mentioned before, I was never prolific. My application comic took three months to do, and I thought that was pretty good at the time.

SB: It seems you all produce one a week now --

JOE: Before classes started a few of us got together and did a bunch of jam comics. That was great because I wasn't sure what the students were going to be like, and when we were hanging out someone mentioned playing a game, or doing a jam comic, and everyone got really excited about drawing together. It was the first time I'd ever been around so many other cartoonists and it was easy to see that we were all coming from the same place. But at the same time it was a lot of fun to see how varied we were; the jam comic, as most jam comics do, devolved into sophomoric jokes, but it was immediately apparent the wide range of styles everyone was bringing to the school. And at that point I realized I didn't have anything to prove. I didn't have to validate myself or my choice to be a cartoonist; I didn't have to explain why comics are great and why I read and write and draw them.

Photo: Cartoonist & CCS instructor James Kochalka

So then the first class of our year was a seminar taught by James Kochalka. He talked to us about character design and our first assignment of the year was to draw one hundred characters, each character similar, but different than the last. I had so much fun doing that. That one assignment changed the way I draw, the way I doodle and the way I look at characters. I was so relieved too, to know that this school was already giving me so much to feed on creatively, and it had only been one day!

My classmates came from a pretty broad range of places physically and aesthetically and it really feels like everyone truly wants to learn and grow as artists while they're here. My previous college experiences have been with classmates who are kind of wandering around waiting for the school to give them whatever it is that they want, but here, it felt like most of us were ready to put ourselves into the work and the education processes as much as we were ready to take.

SB: There’s a competitive communal element to your class, too, that reminds me of my Kubert School class experience --

JOE: It's kind of hard not to be producing work while at the school. You feel like a jerk if everyone else is throwing out page after page; inking all night; making hundreds of copies at the copy machines in the basement; hammering out gorgeous screen-printed covers and really putting their hearts into it, and you're sitting around complaining about how there's nothing to do in White River and not drawing.

I guess I'm not answering your question, but I am happy with the amount of work I produced this year.

"Bait and Switch," page one, written by Dane Martin, art by Joe Lambert (2006)

SB: Well, let me ask a real question. You’ve mentioned the jams and collaborative comics; let’s discuss process a bit. For instance, how did you and Dane Martin approach that collaborative comic you two worked on

("Bait and Switch," which Dane wrote and you drew [note: you can read all 14 pages from this link]),

and how different an experience was the reciprocal comic (the one you wrote and another person drew)?

JOE: With the Dane script - it was all very vague at first we weren't sure what we were supposed to be doing. [CCS writing instructor] Sarah [Stewart Taylor] told us to write a script, I don't think she gave us a length, but she said that it had to have a 'bait & switch' in it. I actually had never heard that term before then, so I was pretty unsure about what I was doing. We were to use them later on in James [Sturm]'s class, but he didn't tell us what they were for until a week or so later. So I didn't actually do it until then, until James told us what they were for: we were to write a script -- a script that had a "Bait & Switch" in it -- and then we were to trade them with other students and draw each other's scripts.

I remember as James was pairing us up randomly, and I was teamed with Dane he stopped and said, "ha, that should be interesting" or something like that.

Page by Dane Martin, Wise Old Bird; click this link and scroll down to order some of Dane's amazing mini-comics!

Dane's work was already very individualistic and unique and I was really excited to jump at the chance to draw something he wrote. Dane has an amazing, intuitive sense of pacing and story structure, and his characters are always solid. His drawing style, for those who don't know, is very very unique, and I can honestly say that I've never seen anything like it. I think, at first, when I got his script I was daunted by the task of trying to draw in Dane's world. His world is populated by his stories and his own drawings, and I felt like whatever I did would have to fit in that world. But this wasn't the case. I'm sure if I tried to draw as surreal or abstract
or however you want to describe Dane's style, if I tried to draw in that vein it would have been a disappointment to everyone, Dane especially.

SB: A unique challenge -- and one that cuts to the core of the collaborative process! What was Dane's script like?

JOE: His script, I think, was written before he knew he would be giving it to someone else to draw. The script was pretty straightforward in terms of how it was laid out; it was mostly descriptions of the scenes and then the dialogue. He broke down the pages too, but not the panels or anything that specific. He had a good idea of what he wanted the mood to be like too. He sent me some image files and links to websites that had old children's book illustrations. Those really old creepy ones. But he was also very adamant that he didn't care what I did with it, that I should go my own route. So I did. I loved the old illustrations he sent me, and I looked up a bunch of my own. I also started looking at Winsor McKay, because you, Steve, had just done a little bit about him in your history class and the Schulz Library has that great book of his, and I was aching to do something tall and illustrative and fun. Also, in James's class, he was talking about allowing yourself to be influenced, and owning that influence. At the time I was looking at Chris Ware's big Acme Novelty Library collection (#15 I think, the big red one) and some Charles Burns, so all of these things influenced The Bait & Switch (the title of Dane's script).

Into the Woods: "Bait and Switch" by Martin and Lambert, page 7

At first, I was checking in with Dane constantly; showing him character designs and page layouts, but after awhile I stopped checking in and started on the pages after two or three thumbnail drafts. I was having a really hard time with the inking process when I first started, I was looking at all these great cartoonists with gorgeous line work (Burns, Ware, McKay), and I was so frustrated that my work didn't look like the wonderful amalgam I was imagining I was going to get after digesting all of their work. So I gave up for awhile. I tossed three or four inked pages and started over. I was way late with the assignment, turning it in a week late, and the cover is hideous. I'll be redesigning covers and inside covers, and redrawing a couple panels, and adding a couple new pages, and if I have time, I'd like to re-letter the whole thing before we take it to MoCCA.

You can read the entire thing on my website. The title is The Bait & Switch. There are 14 pages and a cover. [See and use the link, provided in my question, above - SB]

Backing up a bit, after James told us what the scripts were for, I started writing it. I wrote my script over a weekend and sent it to Jeff Lok. This process was similar to the one with Dane because Jeff's style is also extremely unique and vividly individualistic. For a long time I thought I needed to write something that fit right in with what I thought Jeff would want to draw. I started three times before finally deciding to do something that I thought would be fun to write, because otherwise I wouldn't have finished the script for Jeff by the deadline. So I sent him the script and he got back to me pretty quickly with ideas, page breakdowns, and soon after that thumbnails. He spent a long time on the thumbnails, working and reworking elements. Jeff has a really cool process of thumb nailing that involves glue and an exacto-knife and white out.

I can't describe how excited I was when I saw the first page drawn. I had never ever written anything for someone else to draw, this was my first time, and the excitement I felt when I saw that page was big and powerful. The way Jeff works -- when I look at his panels I feel like he has such a familiarity with every line; each hatch mark or contour line holds his characters tightly. To see my characters drawn this way was amazing.
Jeff gave birth to my baby, and it was a beautiful baby. I'm not sure if it's going to be at MoCCA or not. I guess he has custody of the baby, so it's up to him.

SB: Out of your initial year at CCS, what works are you happiest with?

JOE: I don't know if I can say. I Will Bite You and Turtle Keep It Steady have gotten the best feedback I think. I had a lot of fun with Turtle because the process was clean and fast and spontaneous. And I'm really happy with the Bowler Hat, Bear, and Cigarette Fun Fun anthology my group put together for the first semester's final project, and the time we spent putting it together was a lot of fun.

SB: What was your final project, year one, and what was the wellspring?

JOE: The assignment was to do something bound. It was to have at least ten (I think) new pages of comics, and we were encouraged to collect our previous works. And the binding could be anything from saddle stitch stapling to a perfect bound hardcover. This was easy for most of us because we were already doing mini-comics, but the entire class did something beyond that, every single book that was turned in on that last day of class was the best book that student had ever produced: not necessarily the content, the stories were strong all year, but the quality of the book making. I think we're going to have a huge presence at the conventions this year and I'm so proud to be a part of this wave of cartoonists.

My final project was a short story about being grumpy. It will be in the Indie Spinner Rack anthology called Awesome!

Cover to Joe's recent Grumpus (2007), "about being grumpy"

SB: Cool. There's something quite unique about your work, Joe, and everyone here recognizes that. It's hard to articulate, though, so bear with me. I want to find a way to address that here, if possible. First, you have a distinctive way of drawing: your characters and forms have this tactile, fleshy quality, and a great sense of movement, even when they are still. How did this evolve for you?

JOE: When I was younger I would strive for that representational drawing-from-life stuff that every growing artist needs. But as I edged my way into comics I came to understand the reason most comics are simple. For a long time I was conflicted by my desire to paint and draw in a representational way versus my desire to tell stories, and I know the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but I think they might be for me. Or at least they were for me back then. I think I needed to understand why Charlie Brown was so easy to read, and why it meant so much more to me than if someone put photographs of children in sequence and gave them word balloons. I needed to know why my stories were so hard to write and draw when I was trying to draw from life. And I couldn’t have had someone tell me this; I needed to get over it myself. I think this is something a lot of cartoonists take for granted. They see that Garfield is drawn cartoony, so they jump into that style and go from there. And I was the same way, but I didn’t know why it was that way.

Joe's cover for the May 2007 Graduation edition of Sam Gaskin'sFacebook

SB: This is a tough question, I know --

JOE: I’m rambling. I’ve never talked about my work much before. I think what I’m getting at is my style or aesthetic or whatever you want to call it comes from my need to draw and to have it be clear and an enjoyable process. I never kept a sketchbook until I started college, and that was more of a journal than anything, which is fine, and therapeutic, but creatively it was an outlet for whining rather than artistic growth. After my first year I started really doodling: trying things out with different mediums or different styles. Experimenting unhindered with no one to check my progress, and exhausted with bitching about being lonely and poor.

So once I began sketching and doodling regularly my ability to fill panels took off. And it was a clumsy creative adolescence. I would see things other cartoonists were doing, and I would say I want to do that. But then, of course, I would fail and be frustrated as hell. But I just kept doing it. For a long time all of my sketches were penciled and then inked. I think that frustration more than anything was what forced me to grow: the frustration of liking a penciled drawing, but having the inked version turn out differently. I guess this is something a lot of cartoonists struggle with.

SB: Yep, that's for sure --

JOE: Like I mentioned before, I was doing a daily, online journal-comic for awhile. Every single day I had to write and draw a strip, and no one can say that this is easy until they do it for at least a couple of months. It’s hard and time consuming and also a little boring. I had to keep coming up with ways to keep it interesting for myself. I would change the shape of the comic, the amount of panels, the style, the characters, everything. And this helped me grow as a storyteller too because I was getting immediate, with it being online.

After I got married and had a couple of honest day jobs and was out of the whole art school scene I had to come to terms with my career as a cartoonist, and with my work process. It was nice. And I was still doing the journal comics and working on a couple of short stories.

Page from Grumpus (2007)

When I came to CCS I had tried so many different things, some of it successful, most of it failure, that I felt like I had nothing to prove. I didn’t feel the need to compete with anyone and I was ready to learn. From the faculty and students. I was ready to kill all of my babies. And I kind of did. I gave up trying to do pretentious dramatic stories about loss and passion and failure, and instead started doing fun, silly stories about loss and passion and failure.

Cover, Turtle Keep It Steady (2006)

SB: Ya, that was somehow evident from the start. You were centered in a way that was quite unusual.

JOE: I started doodling straight in ink, without bothering to pencil, and I was going through sketchbooks like I go through soda (which is very fast). For some reason I really wanted the entirety of making comics to be as intuitive and spontaneous as possible. I talked to Tom Devlin very briefly about this, he asked how I wrote comics: if I typed everything out or if I just start drawing. I told him that I want to be able to just start drawing. He said, I think, that Chris Ware just starts in the corner of the page and starts going to town. I don’t know if that is true or not, but shit, that’s crazy. It’s kind of like when you see a stand-up comedian and know that he’s gone over that joke with a magnifying glass to make sure every word and pause and intonation is perfect to get maximum laughs, but you secretly wish that he’s just this guy standing up there telling jokes, making them up as he goes along. I don’t think I’ve answered your question. I thought I was getting to it but I lost focus.

SB: No, this is fine, Joe. Given what you've accomplished this first year, where do you hope to go with your senior year at CCS?

JOE: I’m putting together a collection of my mini comics for Secret Acres. I’m thinking that it’s going to be my senior thesis. It’s going to be nice because it felt like a bunch of last year’s senior class had a hard time at the beginning because they needed to lay the foundation and find some solid ground before they could take off. But if I do this collection I already have a foundation. But it won’t just be me throwing all the pages together and doodling up a cover, I plan on taking into consideration the flow and weight of each story and the book as a whole and maybe doing a couple new stories to even the book out.

There’s another project too. I’m not sure how much I can or should say about it, but it’s going to be pretty big and all consuming if it works out. I’m very excited about it though. If everything works out I will be writing (or co-writing) and drawing something that will push the limits of my abilities. That is what I want to get out of my senior year at CCS, to try things that might expand my cartooning. This story is going to require tons and tons of research, which is what I’m most excited about right now. I’m really looking forward to spending some days with my nose in books rather than with my hand cramped over my drawing desk. And then when I’m sick of reading and taking notes I will be aching to draw again. And I’ll look forward to that too.

"Architects are Assholes," page 1 (2007)

SB: What’s your own ‘dream project’, if there were no obstacles in terms of time and money?

JOE: I would love to do a sprawling story. I like books that breathe and that take their time with things. That’s hard to do because comics take so damn long to make. I think the most I could wish for would be time.

Also, I would like the time to do collaborations with other cartoonists I like. I’ve written two stories that other CCS’ers have drawn, and I drew a story that someone else wrote, and all of those experiences have been a blast for me. And each one was completely different too. Comics making is an insular process, but working with other creators is a nice way to feed that process in a way that it doesn’t normally allow.

SB: Thanks for your time, Joe, amid an incredibly busy couple of weeks. Good luck at MoCCA, hope it’s a great show and great trip!

______________________

You need more Joe! Here's the all-purpose homepage to all Joe's various sites/blogs/art and photo online venues, worth spending some time with --

and here's the easy link to his ongoing blog, which is peppered with photos, art, CCS news and other fun.

Enjoy!

And here, one more time, is the Sundays website -- lotsa Joe there, among all the other Sundays editors & contributors.

Tomorrow: Matthew Young's interview (another short and sweet chat), any reports from MoCCA that might surface -- good luck looking for the Heart of Saturday Night...

CCS/MoCCA Interviews with JP Coovert and Sean Morgan

JP Coovert art, "A drawing that sort of relates to my video game story" -- read on, below!

Morning, all, and welcome to the next batch of interviews in the ongoing Center for Cartoon Studies and MoCCA rev-up for this weekend's MoCCA Festival in NYC.

But first, a little catch-up info on the home front:

* My parents are visiting us this weekend, and we're looking forward to some laid-back fun, food and conversation through Monday night. I'm lucky my folks are still with us -- Mom and Dad are in their 80s, and Marge and I can only hope we're in as good shape as they are when we hit (if we hit) those autumn years. We'll be dining with Danny (and hopefully Maia) and with Mike and Mary (Bleier), too, making this a family reunion of sorts. It's also the first in a procession of summer visits from other family members (including our grandchildren) and friends (including Henrik from Denmark) in June and July; yep, it's summer!

* My stepson Mike spent a few hours here last night, setting up the speakers and helming the installation -- at last! -- of my home viewing theater. 150 feet of Monster Cable and a concerted consolidation of all my A/V equipment later, it's mostly in -- enough that I can now use this space as it was meant to be enjoyed. Until the room over our garage is finished (fall/winter project), this is also my writing space, too, but it's far more comfortable, organized and efficient than my old Marlboro basement room(s) would have ever, ever been. Whew -- another hurdle in the unpacking/nesting effort, nearly done. Bless you, Mike, and see you again this weekend.

* I'm writing an intro for one of the upcoming Marvel Masterworks hardcover collection of the pre-Marvel-era-monster comics; more info once this gig is done, accepted and reality.

* Sean Morgan (read on, below) dropped by yesterday around noon and picked up my final page contribution to his alien abduction story "Area Stoned." As I said to Sean when he first asked me to pitch in on the story, it was pretty ballsy of him to ask, but Sean's a ballsy fellow, and I was happy to jump in and play a bit by drawing the alien and spaceship portions of the story (and no, this doesn't mean I'll jump in and work on just anyone's comic -- Sean's a CCSer, among the first graduates, and a fellow native Vermonter. He rates a Bissette jam freebie, folks). Revisiting techniques I'd evolved with my old pal Rick Veitch back in the late 1970s, with a nod to my favorite Jack Kirby cosmic collages from the '60s and early '70s (e.g., Fantastic Four, Spirit World, etc.), my sequence built to a full-page color collage, so I carefully incorporated collage elements into the graphics of the prior panels and pages to ensure a more organic integration of collage with the more traditional pen, brush, sponge (yes, sponge) and ink renditions of the aliens and their vehicle. Sean was slinging the ink on his lion's share of the story, and we're both pretty happy with the fusion of our styles. It was fun, and I'm as eager to see the final result as anyone. But I'll have to wait, maybe until after MoCCA, to see it myself -- as mentioned yesterday, Sean broke his left hand Monday night; he's going into surgery this morning in a little over two hours, so send some good vibes his way. It's pretty extensive hand surgery he's enduring, and we're all hoping he comes through fine. But he's still heading for MoCCA this weekend, and hopefully the printer will come through in spades with the printing on Capsule. Anyhoot, keep an eye out for that -- and I will be posting graphics from the story here, once Sean has time and computer access to send those jpgs this way.

* A cool artist exhibition still up in Brattleboro, VT I highly recommend is

Through the Music Gallery & Studio's current showcase of Ellen Graham and Josh Steele's creations.

Ellen's work is compellingly organic fusions of animal bone, string, cloth and other organics, and it rings bells for me. In a brief conversation with Ellen (over breakfast with my son Dan a couple of weeks ago), I asked if she was familiar with Robert Burns's innovative, influential art direction from the '70s and early '80s (for films like Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Joe Dante's The Howling); she grinned ear to ear, and we chatted about the bone art of Burns, which is an obvious wellspring for Ellen's own work. Dig it, while it's up (through the end of this month)!

* "Destroying human life in the hope of saving human life is not ethical..." -- President Bush, yesterday, after vetoing the Stem Cell research bill.

He typically sees no hypocrisy between this and his death-dealing foreign policies, valuing the unborn over those already alive and suffering, dying at our hands. Hence, the utter insanity of our country, writ large, for all the world to see.

JP Coovert offered this as the only example of his work "I've got to appeal to your fans." Hmmm, what do you folks think?

OK, interview time; this morning, it's CCS pioneer class graduate Sean Morgan on the docket, followed immediately by CCS senior JP Coovert, who has already made quite a memorable mark with his minicomics creations, building on that impressive foundation with his first CCS year and growing new body of work.

Understand, up front, these two cartoonists are complete opposites in many ways. Diversity of interests, orientations and art is the life blood of CCS, and of these cartoonists, too.

Sean has already courted publisher outrage and a certain amount of infamy, having completed a zombie story ("He Is Risen") which -- due to content, not execution -- was declined for publication in the Accent UK Zombies anthology; it was 'too much' for Zombies! Sean's 'banned' tale is at last seeing print in his MoCCA debut comic Capsules, which you'll read about here.

Right: JP's self portrait

JP's work is from another planet than Sean's, a kinder, gentler planet attuned to the secret and nurturing rhythms of life, love and day-to-day rituals; his key ongoing mini-comic Simple Routines is aptly titled. These are both cartoonists with heart to spare, and I hope the following conversations prompts some of you to pick up their work.

Sadly, I haven't many graphics to run with Sean's interview this morning -- I'll be revising this post with illos once Sean survives today's ordeal and has time to get me stuff. Living as he does in one of Vermont's many areas lacking any broadband internet (a situation I know well, from the life we left behind in Marlboro), Sean has not maintained either a website or posted any photos or art in the CCS online venues, so it'll take some time to pull visuals together. But hopefully the ample JP Coovert showcase with his interview, below, will make up in eye candy what Sean's is short on in that department this AM. [Note: June 22: I've added art from Sean's latest comic at last -- so, eye candy remedied!]

Ladies and gentlemen, Sean Morgan and JP Coovert!
________________________

Sean Morgan:
Capsule: The First Dose

SB: You’re a local fella, Sean. How did you get into comics while growing up in the backwoods of Vermont?

SEAN MORGAN: Welp... I was in advanced placement art in high school and just have always sorta been an artist. During my first few years at college my art fell by the wayside, and was really only used during sketch sessions in class. While I was in college for web design I had a revelation, I liked drawing tits and gore way more than creating a PERL database.

As far as getting into comics... My mom has bought me comics since I was just a squirt. It's funny. My very first comic was Action Comics #1. I thought it was legit for years till one day I found out it was a reprint sold as a prize with Quick Chocolate Milk mix! I used to think I was so cool for having that first Superman, dork. Man, I coulda been rich!

SB: What got you into drawing your own comics in the first place, and what were they?

SEAN: When I was in first grade, I got this WWI book that had pictures so cool, that I just had to make them myself. I still have some of my old comics. If I find'em I'll dig'em out and scan 'em! But anything I could get my hands on made me want to tell my own stories. When I was in third grade I would bike down to the K&B drugstore and five-finger discount Punishers. I would do the same thing with Heavy Metal while I was in seventh grade; I was too young to buy them legally. I had an addiction to that shit. The images so powerful and cool that I would gladly break the law just for more!

My first comic I can remember was in third grade. It was a strip about a hapless nuclear power plant operator (pre-Simpsons) who has a bad day at work and gets attacked by gangsters with Uzis. I actually submitted it to Highlights with my teacher's help. I got denied. I wonder why? As far as life changing clicks... for me it was [James] O'Barr's Crow, Heavy Metal, [Art] Spiegelman's Maus, and of course... [Scott] McCloud. I would actually order those free Kitchen Sink Press catalogs that were available and pour over them for hours. The glorious tits!

Halloween 2006: That's then-CCS-freshman Sean Ford and then-CCS-senior Sean Morgan, both dressed as V from V for Vendetta! Also in the pic, left to right: Denis St. John, Lauren O'Connell, Emily Wieja (Photo: Joe Lambert)

SB: What led you to sign on at CCS?

SEAN: I am a Vermont native from Brownsville, VT... just a few minutes away from the school. When I came back from my debacle of a college attempt, my Mom told me about this new comic school they were opening in White River Junction. "Yer fucking kiddin' me, right, Ma?!" And so one day I called up, asked if they were still accepting, whipped out my submission in a night and a morning, and applied. I was on the wait list and got accepted about three weeks before class. During the application process, and the interviews, I just felt this sort of bloom of direction. I could actually physically feel that this school was calling me, would consume me. Besides... who wouldn't want to a comic book school?!?! So I am now a graduate of the first class of CCS. Go Pioneers!

SB: You've been influenced by the European comics, clearly, beyond just Heavy Metal. What artists have you been particularly drawn to -- and so, drawn from?

SEAN: Artists, hhhrrrmmmm.... Manara, Bilal, Baldazinni, Moebius, Corben, Frazetta, Frazetto, Julie Strain. I'm a geek for that kinda hairy bush and tits kinda thing. They are the guys and gals I would worship in the free Kitchen Sink Press catalogs I would smuggle into my room as a kid. I like visual artists, the ones with the ability to transcend vocal boundaries and still have you on the edge of your seat hoping the story keeps on going. I'm very interested in using that with comics. I was in Minsk, Belarus with my wife this last winter and I'm not shitting you... the whole country had one comic strip, 3-5 panels, that only ran on Sunday. This travesty happens around the world. And we can put an end to it. With pantomimes we can bring comics to the world. Anyway... I like those guys.

Into the Mothership: art by Sean Morgan & SR Bissette, "Area Stoned" from Capsule: The First Dose (2007)

SB: Your major project, since the spring of 2006, has been the provocatively titled The Petal Files -- what’s that about?

SEAN: The Petal Files has been a story that has filled every waking moment of my life since its conception. It is a story of twin girls, Petal and Pistil, and how, through horrifying circumstances and events, they manage to remain close, despite their situation. It is a story of passion, of intrigue, of living nightmares, and of family.

The story was born after I made a poster in my first year at The Center for Cartoon Studies. The poster was a portrait of a young girl and the title was something that I found intriguing and daring, yet completely innocent. And so the poster was put away for the summer and time came to choose a thesis project. After plodding through a few failed attempts I remembered the poster, the title, and the girl’s smile. I new right then that this girl Petal had a story in her, a story that needed to be told.

It's still in it's baby stages (yes even after a year in). I hope to really start with the new design sometime during the summer.

SB: How does your approach to your solo creations differ from your collaborative works (e.g., your stories with Ross Studlar, including “Paper Slave,” the alien story we're working on, etc.)?

SEAN: With collaborative work I like the feeling of having to step it up. To see if I can go toe-to-toe with the other writer or artist. It's sort of an unspoken agreement that you'll try and kick as much ass as you can. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do "Area Stoned" with you, Steve. I wanted to see if I could hold my own against a monolith of an artist (* ass kiss).

Trippy highlight from "Area Stoned" created for Capsule: The First Dose (2007)

SB: Brown-noser --

SEAN: But really. There is an undeniable need/drive to get it out. An urgency. With "Paper Slave" and all my other collaboratives, there has always been a desire to take challenges creatively.

With my solo stuff... especially with Petal Files, I sometimes become too mentally/emotionally involved in the final product. Like an over-bearing parent, nothing is ever good enough. I don't think I've quite worked out why I can't just produce insane page-counts with solo stuff compared to drop-of-the-hat-last-minute-projects.

Regardless of who the pages are made for, I always try and learn something new. If it's a new inking technique, a twist on panel layout, or a trick with isometric perspective, I always put furthering my craft first, with the story strapped firmly to it's back. Craft is the enemy.... pfffttt, laziness is the enemy. I always try to be better. No one else is gonna do it for ya. Draw faster, better, sharper, tighter.

SB: OK, so, what’s the latest project on your drawing board?

SEAN: My new project (ours, Steve!) is called “Area Stoned.” It's about a hippie who, while tripping on acid in the desert is abducted by aliens, and showed the secrets to humanity, only to meet a numbing end; a pantomime comic with two merging stories that twist in weird interpretive ways.

It began when I approached you, Steve, with an idea. I wanted to do a project with two distinct visual sides. You do everything alien and I'll do everything human and we'll see what happens. So far I think it's looking pretty good!

Rock Paper Scissors cover design © 2006 Sam Gaskin

SB: It's been fun to work on. You're debuting an anthology comic at MoCCA. What is it, and what'll be in it along with "Area Stoned"?

SEAN: Well the anthology will be called Capsule. It will have “Area Stoned,” “Paper Slave” (written by Ross Wood Studlar, edited and illustrated by myself) and “Vaya” (written by myself and illustrated by John Mikel-Gates), both from the Rock Paper Scissors anthology [a first-year CCS project]. It will also feature “He Is Risen,” a story about the "resurrection" of Christ, which was consequently "banned" in Britain. They seem skittish when it comes to pushing buttons over there.

SB: Tell David Britton and Lord Horror that! But go on --

SEAN: Both “Paper Slave” (a story of enslaved genetic creations) and “Vaya” (a story of a pregnant whore defending herself from marauders) were collaborative efforts with my stellar classmates/teammates. Like I said before... pushing each other around creatively is more productive than locking yourself in a closet and drawing for three months.

SB: Now, you're a CCS graduate. What are your plans for the next year, Sean?

SEAN: The next year... make comics. Whenever someone asks me what's next... I say "make comics." My immediate goals are to get a story into Heavy Metal and illustrate for Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse. Modest goals, I know, but I know that is where I want to go. Action, tits, gore, intricacies, and weaving stories/visuals, that's where I'm headed.

Also, I plan on getting started on The Petal Files. I want to take a more direct and solid attack on the book. With “Area Stoned” I wore costumes for reference. With Petal Files, it's a little more difficult to put on a school-girl outfit and not look like a cross-dresser (not that there is anything wrong with that). I want a more true to life look rather than just outta-my-head kinda illustrations... Shit, I don't know... everyone knows I've been eternally mounted on the fence as to how I want that fucking book to look. RRRAAAA!

SB: Well, your CCS classmates know -- now a lot of other folks know, too! OK, if money, time and venue were no object, what's the be-all dream project you'd love to tackle?

SEAN: Funds and time... hrrrmmm. I would love to do a graphic novel adaptation of Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. I think it's journal enteries are very visual and the text is so real. I'm also looking forward to doing a war story. Tom Clancy meets Kevin Smith meets Heavy Metal. Also a story about a sex offender who is brutally murdered by police in his cell for a crime he had not yet committed... things like that. My head is just spilling with crazy-outta-my-brain-illegal-not-publishable-ideas. But that's the fun of it. If there's a button out there, I wanna push it.

SB: Go for it, Sean, and thanks for your time. It’s been a blast working with you, too -- at CCS, and on “Area Stoned.”

"Top of the World, Ma!" Here's the best pic I could find with Sean, our guide (with trip instigator and fellow Brownsville VT homey Peter Money) atop the fire tower on Mount Ascutney in May: l to r, Chuck Forsman, Ross Studlar, Dane Martin, Alex Joon Kim, our main man this morning Sean Morgan, Peter Money, Steve Bissette
(Photo: Bryan Stone, who was on the hike, too, natch!)

_______________________

JP Coovert:
Simple Routines

SB: You arrived at CCS with considerable comics skills evolved and applied and a sizable body of work in print. What's your story, JP?

JP COOVERT: My background is mostly just making mini comics. I started in high school and soon after starting my comics studies at SCAD [Savannah College of Art and Design], my buddy Stephen Floyd and I started a record/mini comic label called

One Percent Press (onepercentpress.com).

It was basically just a way to get our stuff out there as well as friends who's comics and music we liked. Still going strong. We will be celebrating our three-year anniversary this July.

One Percent Press: Stephen and JP, thanking you.

SB: Congrats to you and Steve! Let's get into that after we lay a little more groundwork. What got you into comics at an early age?

JP: I was an X-Men kid... and in 6th grade I remember Dragon Ball coming on TV and I sought out the Japanese comic version (there used to be a great import bookstore in Atlanta I'd go to). Of course my interests expanded as the internet became so huge. I discovered mini comics in my senior year of high school and haven't looked back ever since.

JP, with attitude. (Photo: Joe Lambert)

SB: What was the catalyst in making the leap from reading comics to making your own?

JP: One of my best buds Chris and I used to draw our own (one of a kind!) comics based on ourselves in a super hero or video game universe. I did this little 8-page story in high school that sprang from junk I was drawing in my notebook margins and just decided that everyone I knew needed to not only read it, but have their own personal copy. The Vice Principal of the school had this weird two section office... the one section had two computers we were allowed to use and a copy machine that we weren't suppose to even touch. He always went out to lunch so I just snuck in one day and printed 50 copies of that 8-page story and handed them out to everyone. Most people just threw them out, but I was proud either way.

SB: Your first mini-comic!

JP: At the time I had no idea what mini comics were... but I knew what I had just done was special.

SB: What brought you to the Green Mountain State and The Center for Cartoon Studies?

JP: I was at San Diego Comic Con a few years ago and went to a panel where James [Sturm] was talking about the school. I had just read Golem [The Golem's Mighty Swing] and knew that he was a former teacher at SCAD (where I was going to college at the time). His ideas about teaching comics really struck a chord with me. It felt like what he was trying to do was what I was missing from my education at SCAD. So some time passed and I knew that I wanted to teach comics. So grad school was the logical next step. Yeah... CCS was the obvious choice.

Don't strain your eyes, Bunky! Click here for a closer look at these pages from Simple Routines #7, and quick!

SB: Robyn Chapman was at SCAD, too; you're in good company at CCS! Let's jump ahead, then. Tell me about what folks can pick up at MoCCA; your new comic --

JP: I will have two new books at MoCCA: Simple Routines #7 as well as a story called Adrift. It's about being lost at sea.

I also have a short 7 page comic in the newest Ballyhoo Stories magazine that will debut at MoCCA, as well as a one pager in the Sundays anthology some of the students are putting together. That one is called, "The Perilous Adventures of Zogger Slimebelly." Should be cool.

Here's a page from JP's Ballyhoo story, debuting at MoCCA this weekend! (2007)

SB: Cool, indeed. Now, let's back up a little. JP, you've already got a body of work that's available online -- comics and music. What's in

the One Percent Press catalogue and bibliography that you'd like to steer folks to?

JP: I guess I'd say the latest Simple Routines (number 7)... I think it's something anyone could pick up and get into. I don't know, maybe I should think about that a little bit more for future issues.

Right now my favorite of my own stuff is a book called Unattached. It's a short story about moving away. It's kinda like a letter to all my friends in a mini comic form. I think if you've ever had to leave friends behind you might be able to relate to it.

Also there is a split I did with Hope Larson called Double Yellow Lines. She's so incredible... we were just happy to have her do something for us.

Ah, Myrant is always in need of some good roadkill;
Hope Larson, "2 Rabbits", page one, from Double Yellow Lines (2007)

There's also Joe [Lambert]'s book called I Will Bite You. It was a big hit at last year's SPX. He's really someone to look out for. For MoCCA he will have another book called Turtle Keep it Steady. It's a great take on the tortoise and hare story. People always say that everything we put out is "cute," but I think this is really the first thing that has been cute and kid friendly... actually wait... the rabbit gets drunk at one point. Never mind.

[Note: Joe Lambert's CCS/MoCCA interview will be here tomorrow!]

One the music side we are about to release our third CD. Our good friends

Tin Armor have put together their first full length and it'll be available in July.

It's a lot different than the other stuff we've put out (not that we've released that much) but I love it. We'll also be releasing three more (at least) albums this year (if everything goes according to plan).

So yeah... I guess I'd say check it all out. Haha! We're proud of everything! It's also good to mention that if anyone ever orders from us, I'll always throw in extra stuff and maybe even a little original drawing or something.

SB: OK, heads up, Myrant readers; take JP up on that offer! What periods of your life did the first six issues of Simple Routines cover?

JP: Well... the first four issues of Simple Routines were daily journal comics. So that ran from August until the end of 2005. I enjoyed doing them (posting comics almost every day on the internet is probably the best way I've found to keep people interested in your work... even if the comics aren't that good!) but it was very difficult to get other stuff done as well. I had other stories I wanted to tell, but couldn't find the time to sit down and figure them out because I was always thinking about what I should draw that day.

So with #5 I decided to just keep it to real short autobiographical stuff. Just trying to sort of capture the mindset I was in during that time. I wanted it to be a quarterly thing, so four issues a year, but it's been more like two a year instead. So #7 is the fall/winter of 2006-2007 issue.

SB: One issue for most autobiographical comics creators is the impact the doing and publishing of such work has on people in your life. How has that impacted your life,
work and comics?

JP: Oh yeah. This is a big one. So the way I look at comics, and this is my reason for always doing autobiographical comics (which a lot of people refuse to even read! or at least quickly dismiss)... it's basically my way of figuring stuff out. So for example. I did a story about my grandfather's death. It's basically an account of me driving down to Florida for the funeral and all that. But by doing that comic it helped me really figure how I felt about the whole thing. I guess it's a sort of therapy, which is cool.

Right: Cover to JP's recent 10-page minicomic Unattached (2006)

Right now I'm working on a story... well, my fiancee just got this real big job with a salary and all that. She's moved to Minneapolis and started a career and is independent and everything! And I'm here in Vermont (actually I'm in Minneapolis with her at the moment, but I'll be coming back to Vermont to finish school once it starts back up again) just working on comics. No job. Playing way too many video games. I'm totally avoiding that part of life, the responsible part. So with this new story I'm trying to figure all that out. I think it's going to be some kind of video game type adventure story, but still very autobiographical.

I guess that sort of leads into how my comics effect other people. Jacie, my fiancee, is in a lot of my comics. But I love her and we have a wonderful relationship so there has really never been anything that would upset her. I'm not sure if I'd be able to write about anything that would upset anyway. But... I'm working on this graphic novel sort of about high school and all that mess. And I portray my Mom in not the best light, even though she was the best Mom anyone could ever ask for (seriously!!!), there were issues during that period of my life. So the problem really becomes how do you tell a convincing story? I know that when my Mom reads the story she's going to be hurt, and it's been a big struggle to try and figure out how I should right about this subject matter. But it is something I'm trying to figure out, so yeah... she knows I love her.

Unattached, page one: the big move

SB: Summer’s ahead of you, JP. Any projects planned for the post-MoCCA meltdown?

JP: Post-MoCCA I'll returning to Minneapolis and working on that one video game adventure story as well as trying to figure out my first graphic novel Salad Days, which I've already thumbnailed completely. I also have a really big project going on that I can't talk about (always wanted to say that!). So it'll be a busy summer!!

SB: OK, dream gig: you’ve got enough to live comfortably for two years and write and draw anything you want. What would it be?

JP: I'd really like to do a graphic novel about my best friend who's been to Iraq twice.

SB: That's heavy turf --

JP: It's a big story, but one I'd love to tackle.

Other than that, just keep making mini comics. My latest, Adrift, was a really fun escapist (not autobiographical!) adventure. I'd like to do more of that. Fun and crazy stories that you'd have to draw to tell.

Saying goodbye: Unattached, page two
_____________________

Thanks to Sean (hope that surgery is going well) and JP, and please note the links in the interview, per usual, but just to confuse and expand your horizons, here's a few more --

Jacie and JP -- note, this Jacie is not the same person as JP's CCS freshman year classmate Jaci June, and if you get 'em mixed up, this Jacie will pop you one!

Here's the One Percent Press website's comics and mini-comics section -- and I hasten to add, given the question posted on one of this week's earlier interview, JP and Stephen post sample pages from every single comic and minicomic available from One Percent Press, meaning you can take a taste before you take the plunge with your online purchases from their venue. Check it all out!

If you'd like to read some of JP's comics right here and now, click this link -- JP has posted a generous quantity of his online Simple Routines strips here, from its initial 2005-2006 run. Check 'em out, it'll only sweeten your day!

The Sundays Anthology blog is here, still updating daily (until MoCCA arrives -- but hopefully thereafter, too!).

And need I remind you all of the I Know Joe Kimpel site, home of a plethora of CCSers's comics, creations, art and insanity? I thought not. Well, here's the link again, anyway!

OK, that's it for today! More interviews tomorrow, the very day the rest of the CCSers head off for NYC and MoCCA -- and more, still, to be posted on Saturday and Sunday, folks.

See you here with more talk, art and eye-candy tomorrow.
Have a great Thursday!

JP Coovert, living the cartooning high life!