Some Bones to Pick...

Horny in Paris! Photo: Associated Press/AFP/Miguel Medina

As if it weren't a joyous enough occasion to celebrate this weekend's opening of the 21st Century's first primordial magnum opus 10,000 BC on movie screens across America on lo, this, the very week of my birthday, I must also note the news in

in Paris, where the skeleton of the 65-million-year-old Triceratops horridus is now on the auction block, the first such specimen in 11 years (remember the T. rex Sue?).

So, if anyone's looking for the appropriate gift for me, look no further. It would like mighty fine in my back yard.

Birthday girl, fellow Pisces, cartoonist extraordinaire and Center for Cartoon Studies anchor and faculty member Robyn Chapman has launched a new blog, beginning humbly here (click on this link). Check it out, stay tuned and enjoy!

And speaking of CCSers, birthdays aside just for the moment,

check out CCS pioneer class alumni Alexis Frederick-Frost's latest, now previewed on the First Second Books site.

But the best birthday gift of all will have to wait until next year, when the Bush Presidency is history. Still, mighty damage must yet be done, and rest assured he's doing it. President Bush's final year in office continues to be characterized by his ongoing attempts (and those of the hardcore Republican supporters remaining) to wriggle out of legal consequences for Bush and Cheney's extraordinary redefinitions of Presidential power, a topic being carefully kept off the table by the Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle.

In terms of the ongoing maneuvers to let the phone companies off the hook for selling us all down the river post 9/11,

Stephen Colbert's 'AT&Treason' sums it up nicely.

Further tortured interpretations of US and international law also plague the shameless Presidential justifications for ignoring all standing 20th Century laws of fair treatment of prisoners and 'detainees,'

likewise in the name of national security.

Come what may on those fronts, the Bush legacy will be devastating and long-lasting, a staining beyond

the economic crater that will left behind when Bush continues to refuse to acknowledge the consequences of his disastrous Presidency: the 2007-8 Recession and likely Depression to follow.

We're already reaping the benefits of rampant deregulation and 'free market' forces the GOP has touted since octogenarian Reagan was in office, so what the hell? To quote Bush (in another context, even more foolhardily there), 'Bring it on!'

So what if your home is now worth squat, while property taxes skyrocket to staunch the regional devastation due to Bush domestic policies and tax cuts and the terminal erosion of all previous social support services and networks?

With almost 100,000 jobs cut since December 31 (and note that "450,000 people left the labor force" in the same period), gas costing three times what it cost at the pump when Bush took office, billions squandered every month on ongoing unprovoked pre-emptive war, the national deficit and debt racking up far beyond any historic record previously set, and the gap between the rich and the poor greater than its been since the Robber Barons era of a century ago, Bush is spreading the love and the wealth from sea to shining sea.

So, okay, I'll likely not even end up with this. But I can dream, can't I? Can't I?.

Yippee-ki-yi-ay, motherfuckers!

So, really, if just one of you could see your way clear to buying me that Triceratops skeleton, I reckon Marge and I just might make it through the coming Depression. Then I could really embrace extinction -- or at least climb onto those glorious skeletal shoulders and wave my hat and cry out, "Yippee-ki-yi-ay!" while my mental faculties completely disintegrate.

Barring that, I reckon I'll have to make due this year with a token gift from my old home town -- a symbolic gift, really. I'm absolutely delighted to note that Marge's and my old home town, Marlboro VT, joined neighboring Brattleboro VT this past Tuesday on Town Meeting Day

passing an article calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for their horrendous abuses of power.

Now, I know it'll never happen -- I mean, after all, Bush hasn't even visited Vermont once his entire Presidency.
But that would be one hell of a birthday gift.

And on that happy note of no doubt vain but voiced rebellion, I bid you all adieu for the day.

Bushy-Eyed and Blurry-Tailed

I popped in for the opening session of yesterday's final day of the first 2007 CCS summer workshop, arriving in time to assemble and trim my own copy of the amazing World War Awesome comic we created, and for Robyn Chapman and James Sturm to snap some class photos (hey, Robyn and James, send me copies, I'll post 'em here!). World War Awesome is sweet, sweet creative chaos, and I enjoyed reading it again and again yesterday.

I enjoyed the first hour of James's session, then had to head out -- expecting to pick up Henrik earlier in the day. Continental Airlines had other plans!

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Our friend Henrik Andreasen arrived -- at last! -- at about 11:20 PM last night, after a day of plane delays (starting in Copenhagen) ensuring his Friday the 13th lived up (or down) to superstitious expectations many harbor about said day.

Still, he arrived safe and sound, nary a bit of luggage lost or damaged, so all is well. We drove under starry skies and through a bit of fog, got to Hacienda Bissettios around 1:30 AM this morning. Though Henrik hadn't slept in two days, we ended up talking all the way back, finding Marge still awake upon our arrival here; greetings, helped Henrik with his luggage up to his room, Marge showed him the lay of the land thereabouts and then we were all off to bed. Not in one big bed, wiseass -- Henrik has the guest room, we have our room.

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Killing time while Henrik's departure from Newark was delayed again and again, I ducked into a cinema to catch Live Free or Die Hard, the one movie in town Marge had no interest in seeing with me (and I'm saving Transformers to see with Jon-Mikel later this week). It proved to be a completely efficient and engaging time-waster aided immeasurably by the fellow in his 60s sitting about four seats away from me on my right.

He and I both began to laugh heartily at the film's most outrageous action setpieces, which became outrageous almost instantly after the fairly believable opening act. The shared high hilarity proved contagious and appropriate to the film. By the time Bruce Willis was cranking an eighteen-wheeler while targeted by Air Force firepower, we were in hysterics and practically crying with laughter. A fine time had by all, and a woman sitting in the stadium seats above us thanked us on the way out for improving her evening: "you guys got me in the spirit, I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did without you in the theater!" Better than having someone punch us in the collective nose, mind you.

With Harry Potter's latest opus also playing in the same cineplex, parking and getting to and from the ticket counter and then popcorn was a lengthy process. Still, all went well, time was duly killed, and then I was off to the airport for the final leg of the journey.

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Monday kicks off the second 2007 CCS Create Comics Workshop, which runs from July 16th to the 20th, with Robyn Chapman helming alongside visiting cartoonists and teachers -- extraordinary in both capacities! -- Alec Longstreth and Aaron Renier.

Alec, Aaron and Robyn are comic-making dynamos individually: as a team, they are more formidable than Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard.

And I ain't shitting ya.
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Have a great Saturday, one and all!

World War Awesome is Here!

Yesterday was the penultimate day of The Center for Cartoon Studies first July 2007 workshop -- and it was a beehive of comics creativity, as we all cranked ourselves up and over the work needed to complete our collaborative 48+ page comic, World War Awesome!

Yep, that's the title the group voted onto the cover masthead of our massive collaborative comic scrimmage between the group's menagerie of characters.

I drew the final confrontation (three pages) between the last survivors, Spork and Wolor Burtle. I also re-introduced a character from the first round, due to a narrative loophole the storytellers of that particular page left dangling (and didn't notice until I pointed it out yesterday morning, much to their consternation). I also drew the cover, inked the back cover and Robyn Chapman's beguiling four-panel "L'il Sally meets Surly Snail" (originally intended to be an inking demo piece, nothing more -- hope it made the final editorial cut, but I won't know until I see the book myself), and typed up the credits page. Just doing my part, with Robyn jumping in and helming the afternoon session of intensive production which spilled well into the evening -- and will spill into this morning! Robyn Chapman and James Sturm are handling this morning's session, which will wind up this amazing whirlwind week of creativity, drawing and publishing in style.

It's been a lot of work and a lot of fun. It's been a pleasure to get to know and work with all the Create Comics 1 students -- Matthew Loiosa, John Woods, Liberty Roach, Rebecca Miller, Lee Williams, Dominick Cariddi, Ellen Langtree, Daniel Matthews, Michel Valdes, Nick Langley, Emily Kelly, Brendan Cornwell, Kyle Warren, Jonathan Gorga, Joseph Worthen, Tom Laurent, Dave Remillard and Cory Daniels (ages 16 through various stages of adulthood, including three teachers/professors). Kudos, one and all, and happy trails -- it would be my pleasure to see you and draw with you again.

We couldn't have done it without our stellar summer interns, Jon Chadurjian, Simon Reinhardt and Ellie Manny, who juggled many tasks all week and still contributed characters to World War Awesome! Simon played a critical role, coordinating the final cartography of clashes to ensure we arrived at the correct final face-offs in World War Awesome (and in a timely manner), a tall order given the plethora of characters and tag-team nature of the enterprise -- thanks, Simon, for keeping it all in order! I can't wait to hold a copy of World War Awesome in my hot little hands -- what a zine, what an accomplishment for this group!

In every corner of New England this week, comics are being created. I know CCS graduates Colleen Frakes and Adam Staffaroni are working in various comics camps -- Colleen is somewhere in New Hampshire this week, filling in for N.E.'s busiest cartoonist Marek Bennett, who (click here) is busy with another comics camp in Keene, NH!

The buzz is in the air, the ink's on the fingers, and the images and word balloons are spilling off the pages.

If you've the inclination and energy, join the beehive -- and if not this summer, next summer. We've already had four returnees (Dan, Liberty, Tom and Simon were part of prior CCS summer workshops, happily back for more), and I've no idea who or what next week will bring.

Looking forward to the people, the energy and the comics next week...
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It has arrived!

Dr. Ulrich Merkl's massive, marvelous Dream of the Rarebit Fiend has arrived -- and what an incredible book it is.

This hefty, lavishly-produced and bound book boasts 464 glorious pages and over 1000 illustrations, with the first 135+ pages alone dedicated to a rigorous overview of McCay's life, work and career; the precursors to, and imitators of, McCay's pioneering Dream strip; the influences of Dream on the pop culture (with many delicious frame blow-ups from the films and animated cartoons placed side-by-side with the relevant McCay panels), from Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel's L'Age D'Or to Walt Disney's Dumbo and beyond -- and then, the strips themselves! Over 300 pages of the Dream of the Rarebit Fiend strips, beautifully restored and reproduced, showcased in their original chronological order, footnoted and indexed for handy cross-referencing (based on associative content, imagery, etc.).

Do you have a shelf big enough for this book? Trust me, you do!

Simply put, this is the comics archival book of the year, an essential text for all comics fans, creators, historians and archivists; for all Winsor McCay fans; for all libraries; for -- well, for you. Yes, it's pricey ($114 plus shipping, from NJ), but it's worth every penny of its price, and a bargain at that. It's also an absolutely essential companion to Peter Maresca's Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Glorious Sundays! in every way.

I first wrote about Dr. Merkl's book this Monday (click here to revisit that post),

and am conducting an email interview with Dr. Merkl (as I did with Peter Maresca about his 2005 masterwork Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays!) to post next week, with more info on the man, the dream, the dreams and the tome.

But I urge you all not to wait for that post to get excited. This is a simply stunning book -- and there's only one place to order your copy -- now! -- and that's here, at Dr. Merkl's website. Note he is generously offering discounts for bulk purchases (two or more), so find someone to order with you. Whatever you do this month, set aside the $114 (plus shipping) needed for this book, and get your copy now!

FYI, this is not an ad -- I get nothing from this, and bought my own copy, mind you. This is an enthusiastic recommendation from a fellow reader of the book, and devoted McCay and comics scholar.

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The entire deck enclosure is now framed, the roof going on -- good progress from our contractors in just two days. But we'll miss today's efforts -- we're off this morning to pick up our incoming guest from Denmark; he's flying into Burlington at some point today (alas, his arrival is already delayed due to a canceled flight from Copenhagen, but he'll still be here before midnight!), and we'll be there to pick him up.

I don't know what the rest of Friday the 13th has in store for us here, but I hope it's nothing but roses for all of you --

Have a Great Friday, and a fantastic mid-summer weekend!

Makin' Comics!

Contractors Bill and Mike Trombley are hammering and nail-gunning outside, getting the roof of the deck on; I was up and had my morning chores completed by 6:30, just in time for Bill and son Mike's arrival.

They got a lot done yesterday, despite the rains; the vinyl siding removed from the work area facing, the walls framed and up, and a bit more. I lugged the scraps down to put out with our garbage this morning, and today promises to be a sunny day all day, so it'll be interesting to see how much goes up today. Marge is overjoyed this is all happening, and we're looking forward to enjoying the new addition to the home by the end of next week.

Dave Gabriel will be back up next week, sheet rocking the rest of the basement at last (he's had to wait for me to clear the last of my boxes from that end of the basement area; it's about done) -- then, the rest of the shelving and the small office area will go in. I still have to paint the rest of the basement floor, too, between now and two weekends from now -- it'll all get done.

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Thursday AM, Day Four of this summer's first Center for Cartoon Studies summer workshop. Yesterday was a heady day of drawing, coordinating and keeping everyone on task (not a hard job) as the rain and lightning came and went outside.

The magnum opus of this first workshop (the second, separate workshop next week will have its own epic comic creation marathon) is a variation on a mega-battle comic assignment James Sturm had cooked up for his freshman Cartooning class this past spring. To ensure a multitude of imaginary participants, and the full participation of everyone in our class (18 students this time around; we aim for 20-25, so this is a great quorum), the exercises leading up to this two-day-comic-creation/publishing marathon included (a) creating 'composite creatures,' a pair of 'em, from which each student chose their favorite and named it; (b) creating two additional characters, a hero/protagonist and villain/protagonist.

Thus, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, I created a 'game chart' featuring combos of every character, using the creatures as villain 'sidekicks' or minions -- choose your poison. This ensured a lively mix of characters, and ensured too we could make sure no one worked on a character they'd created (hence, had a stake in ensuring survived), as I assigned the initial matches. It was up to each team of two whether the characters assigned were in conflict, harmony, clashing or simply meeting -- all that mattered is that they determined which character or characters survived the encounter to make it to the next level.

Some teams were surprisingly productive, getting through two (even three!) laps by lunch, others creating more than one page for each encounter; others took their time with their page or pages, focusing on care and quality over quantity. Everyone has done a tremendous amount of work, and the results are very cool.

By the end of the day, we had two teams of 4 and one of 5 ready to leap into major matches of long-surviving characters to kick off their work this morning, and one more team of two to turn in their second effort. Lively fun, all the way around! By 4:30 PM, when class ended, we had 32 completed pages on the wall and a student-penciled back cover (by Brendan, and it's a good one) I've inked this morning.

Thus far, Jumbo Arachnopian, Insecta Bear, Mechanical Menace, Ligleish, Purepeace and Apewolf, Mrs. Wasp and Cuddles, John Glenn (the aging astronaut), Sloppy Joe, Captain Cannon, Bobby Foliage, The Lobbyist, Kirk the Alien, The Businessman, Robert the Shy Ninja of Good, Zog the Destroyer, Dr. Deathskull McDeathyDeath, Babrar, Stickfigure Satan and The Meep, Louis (from the planet Omega-Dufin), The Bear Guy, Sticky Monktil and Vortor have snuffed it -- and that was just the first round. More have bitten the virtual dust since, while diehards like Wolor Burtle, Beekeeper and Beelock, Jenkins & Wade and the minimalist but tough-as-nails One Bad Mother are riding high, but that all changes for most of 'em this morning.

It's going to be a wild morning! We also vote on our comic's title from a list of potential names posted in front of the classroom all day yesterday -- then we get cooking on the cover title logo, cover, and other components.

This afternoon, Robyn Chapman supervises the publishing workshop, turning the raw material into a completed, printed, saddle-stitched 8 1/2" x 11" comic zine: the product of the entire class's work together. Everyone goes home with a copy of the comic they had an active hand in, featuring their characters: a real high for many of these young and young-at-heart cartoonists!

Robyn wrote and penciled a four-panel, one-page humor strip, ostensibly for my inking demonstration -- but now that it's done, I'm hoping we can incorporate the strip into the final zine as our sort-of Murray Boltinoff 'gag' comic page. We'll see. Whatever shape the final comic takes, I'm looking forward to it...

OK, off to work. Have a Great Thursday, one and all!

Gabbing with Gabby: The Livin' End!
Part Five (and Final) of the Gabby Schulz aka Ken Dahl Interview

Photo: You can write & draw anything you want about cats; they'll still love ya. Photo compliments of Josie Whitmore.

Well, all good things must end -- and that includes this interview.

I'll be jawing and drinking with Gabby next week, but you won't. It's the end of the road, folks, and I hope you enjoyed the visit. Last call.

More on Monsters (see yesterday’s interview installment for context, if you’re just joining us today), the risks of spilling the beans in pen, brush and ink, life in 2007, The Center for Cartoon Studies scene and a wrap-up to our conversation follows.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen and read here, be sure to order some of Gabby's comics, here.

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SB: You go through great pains in the text pages of Monsters #2 to distance the comics from any real persons or events in your past, or any adherence to specific people, places or events. This isn’t something I noticed in your earlier comics. Has the more intimate -- in terms of sexuality -- nature of Monsters been problematic for you, in terms of feedback from friends, etc.?

GABBY: According to some people, I'm still making Monsters way, way too close to reality for their comfort. I really need to go back and make sure that there's no possible way anyone can mistake any of the characters in the comic for anyone they know. So the intimate stuff is a bit problematic, yeah -- mostly because my own story involves other people who might not be as much in the mood for confession as I am. Most of that is just my fault; when I was drawing the first issue of Monsters, like I said, I had no idea that anyone was going to actually read it. So I was a lot less concerned with making “all resemblances to people and places living or dead purely coincidental” than I probably should have been.

And writing Monsters also forced me into a private debate over the strengths and risks of drawing autobio comics, too -- I worried that if a story became too fictional, it would lose the whole impact of the story. I didn't want to lose that voyeuristic, Real Story quality that makes autobio comics like I Never Liked You, Epileptic, or My New York Diary so engrossing (and gross). I wanted to make sure people reading the comic really knew that everything in Monsters was at least possible, that it could happen to them too -- that anyone could put themselves in the shoes of the characters, and not just write them off as gross or stupid or slutty. I was also afraid that, if I didn't ground it in autobio, some parts of my story might seem so over the top that people would write it off as fantasy, or metaphor.

It's actually really frustrating to me that I couldn't write out the full story of what happened during the first two issues -- since the reality of it was so, so much worse and more awful than what I write about in the comic. I had to cut out everything about my mother's death, for example, which came immediately before finding out about the herpes, and made things exponentially harder and more insane at the time. But at some point I decided I needed to focus on just the herpes, and save the other stuff for another, even more miserable comic book.

But I guess really what you're asking is whether it was hard for me to draw and self-publish a comic book that basically screams I have herpes!!!... yeah, it was a bit uncomfortable, even for a masochist like myself -- only because I didn't want anyone to think I was, you know, totally stoked about it or anything.

SB: To understate the obvious -- clearly, it sucks, that comes through loud and clear. I know folks who’ve struggled with it for decades -- it usually provokes the reaction, “There but for the grace of God go I,” unless one is a moralistic prick who considers such infections punitive in nature, which is utterly stupid, but sums up the knee-jerk reaction many still harbor towards AIDS and STDs in general.

GABBY: I guess part of my motivation for drawing and publishing the books in the first place was to force me to "get over" having this virus, and to force other people to get over it too. A couple of my friends at the time when I was first trying to cope with having herpes were really strong women who made it a point of being vocal about their having HPV, which is genital warts. Their talking about it in public seemed to have this magical effect on other people, including me; suddenly it was OK, not an issue, not anything gross or sordid or shameful. And that made me realize that the people who talk about herpes like its gross or disgusting or a big deal are the people who don't actually know much about herpes, and are still ignorant enough to assume they don't actually know anyone that has it -- when, statistically, it's more likely that they already have it themselves! So idiots create the stigma... and, from my personal experience, it seems like most of us are idiots -- about herpes, anyway.

"Ew, grody" people, look away: Monsters #2, 2007

But I also noticed, from watching how my friends with HPV influenced our other friends, that these same ignorant "ew grody" people all generally take their cues about STDs from people who DO have STDs. So if you act ashamed or disgusted about your virus, other people are going to follow your lead, because what the hell do they know about it anyway? So if you can get it together to just get over all that bullshit and treat it like any other innocuous disease or virus, people generally follow suit with that too. (Plus, if they keep being assholes about it anyway, you're now allowed to fuck with them by threatening to spit in their drinks.)

I know it's fucked up that it has to work that way, and it's a lot harder than it sounds to just "get over it." It's not right that people with the disease are also forced to correct everyone else's cruel ignorance about it; but I just don't see anybody else bothering. And forcing myself to come out of the closet about herpes was literally the only thing that kept me from killing myself over the initial shame and disgust, and allowed me to see it for what it was: just a fucking skin rash.

The irony of all this is, it turns out that I might not even have herpes myself -- but I don't want to ruin too much of the ending of Monsters.

Good lord, I'm sorry for going off about this. I guess it's obvious by now that this has become my favorite topic of conversation. The short answer to all that is that drawing Monsters is just a way to force myself to deal with something I couldn't have dealt with otherwise. And that worked really well. Too well, actually, as people have started treating me like some kind of authority on herpes (which I'm not!). People are always asking me questions about what's contagious and what's not; what's safe to do sexually; what the different strains are about; how to talk to other people about having it. These are all things everyone in a just world would have been taught in grade school.

Also, dozens of people have told me things about their own STDs that they've never told anyone else before. There's so many people with herpes walking around, and most of us are too embarrassed to say anything about it. So it feels good to help with that, in a way I never thought would be possible and in fact seems kind of absurd. But I guess it's a good deal for me, since as long as there's STDs there'll always be an audience for my ridiculous little comic book.

From Monsters #2, 2007

SB: Actually, The Comics Journal said Monsters is

“A must-read for anyone with genitalia,”

so I reckon you’ve got a species-wide guaranteed audience. You've gone from a creator of confessional comics to a Father Confessor for STDs?

GABBY: Yeah... it's all very Catholic. I've gone from having stigma to having stigmata.

SB: The first two issues of Monsters clearly present stages of your own process, which is almost like the stages of grieving. The excruciating exchanges between 'Ken' and his girlfriend in #2 are really agonizing reading, you perfectly captured the nuances of such dynamics: the clumsy word choices resonating with blame, maladroit verbalization of confusion and ignorance inherently skirting any culpability for the situation, and so on. This is tough stuff, Gabby.

GABBY: Yeah... it was really hard to draw. I mean I literally spent most of the time at the drawing table not actually drawing but just sulking, paralyzed over how to plot out these miserable interactions. To draw something out well I have to mull over every little tiny part of it, every hand gesture and sweat-bead -- so when I'm drawing traumatic or depressing situations it can be just a huge bummer. I'm glad it sort of came through, and didn't just come off as ridiculous -- although part of it should be a little ridiculous too, I guess. But I think for my next comic I'm going to draw something about hugging puppies on a sunny day outside a chocolate castle. On vicodin.

SB: Let's get into some technical storytelling and graphic decisions: there's a careful pacing in both issues I love. In #2, it's shaped by the shift from a predominate four-panel grid to the accelerated nine-panel grid (on pages 24-25) as events push 'Ken' toward dropping his guard and risking intimacy again. Was this predetermined, or did it just emerge as you drew that sequence?

GABBY: I think I regretted the square, four-panel format just a few pages into the first issue, after I found out how restricting it is, and how hard it is to build up momentum on a mood with just four panels. I would switch to the nine-panel grid when I wanted things to flow a little faster... to suddenly hurry up the reader with the smaller panels, so they'll feel like they're being rushed a bit, in places that I thought that would be appropriate (like with the rollercoaster, or when 'Ken' is drunk and suddenly making out with someone). But from all this drawing in a square, I sure have a new appreciation for the versatility of the nice, long rectangle.

OK, enough on herpes: Gabby, "Why Do I Care?," 2006.

SB: Your basic drawing has evolved tremendously. Your observational skills are formidable in the day-to-day details. The body language between your characters read/feel/look true, but you bring the same chops to bear on the more fantastic elements: the herpes critters, in all their various incarnations; Herpesland; the dream landscapes. It's all of a piece. Is that flowing easily for you these days, or do you agonize over those imaginative elements, too?

GABBY: Hey uh, thanks. I really enjoy drawing the imaginative stuff. As for getting better at drawing in general, you know what helped the most? The realization that someone other than me was actually reading my comics. After Monsters #1 got all that attention, I got scared straight about drawing -- that is, I figured that if people were actually reading it, I should actually bother to, you know, draw elbows right for once in my life. I think for most of my life it's been hard to justify going whole-hog into drawing comics because there was just no possible way I could make a living off of it. And because if it wasn't making any money, it was just a waste of time that could have been better spent doing something to make my rent. What gives me the right to draw funny widdle cartoons, when the rest of the world is busting their ass just to catch up with their credit-card debt?

The Ignatz thing: Ken "Gabby" Dahl with his Ignatz Award -- "The Brick" -- at the Small Press Expo (SPX), October 2006 (photo from Greg Means & Tugboat Press)

But now I guess I'm trapped, since after the Ignatz and The Comics Journal thing I would feel like if I stopped drawing, or only drew crappily, I would be an even bigger asshole and failure than ever. I don't know. I have no idea how the hell to talk about drawing cartoons. It just sorta happens and then afterwards either people like it or they don't; the truth is I have no idea what I'm doing, or what looks good or bad. I can never guess what other people are going to think about it. I keep reminding myself of that Jackie Gleason line though, that goes something like, "Talent doesn't ask, 'will they like it?' Talent says, 'I like it.'" Pretty big-headed, but it seems to work -- at least for people who don't have terrible taste in comics.

But you know what else really helped my drawing a lot? Not having a job. The last time I worked anything over an 8-hour work week was in 2005. I've spent over a year now basically living out of a truck and spending all day and night drawing and sitting in parks thinking about drawing comics. And being unemployed freed me up to take the Fellowship at CCS, too, which couldn't have possibly hurt my drawing "skills." So I think unemployment has really done me right, even when you factor in the abject poverty and chronic periodontal disease.

On the other hand, I'm broke as a dead-baby joke now, so I fear my days of beer and roses will soon come to an end -- as will the new comics -- as I plunge back into that big Barrel o' Shitjob.

Babes He'll Never Have:

another page from "Why Do I Care?," 2006

SB: College is about providing that kind of environmental bubble environment, really. Well, I want to back up a bit and get into something else about this current body of work. Gabby, what kicked the puppy over the mountain three years ago?

GABBY: Oh, you know: getting dumped.

SB: Hah! That’s what prompted me to get going on Tyrant! Sorry, I guess I essentially asked about this earlier in another way. But I’ve got to ask if there’s more to it --

GABBY: I don't know if this is true for a lot of cartoonists, but I really, really need to be totally alone to be productive. Not just physically alone but, like, "psychically" alone too. Because when it really comes down to it, there's a thousand things I'd rather be doing than laboring over comics. I suppose if I were more disciplined, I could set up some kind of regimen for drawing that still allowed me to have time for a relationship and (shudder) a full-time job. But the truth is, I am just so fucking lazy and unfocused that if I am given any reason whatsoever to step away from the drawing table, I'll probably take it. So if I'm living with someone and they're watching a cool movie in the next room, or going out with friends to a bar, or making pancakes, I'm not going to be able to resist joining them.

It's also hard for me to be really close to anyone while I'm working on comics, since it feels like there's someone else in my brain. I'm too easily influenced by other peoples' opinions, especially people that I respect -- and that usually makes me self-conscious when I'm drawing. I need to be a brain in a jar in a dark basement while I'm working on a comic book -- free to obsess over the most stupidest, lamest, most depraved and inappropriate things I please, without the feeling that I'm being judged or put on display. The idea that someone I'm living with might come across some pencils I drew of a naked person is just abhorrent to me. There's nothing a voyeur hates more than being observed himself. That's basically why I stopped drawing comics from 2000-2004 -- I was involved with an extremely PC person, and I didn't want to freak her or any of her friends out. Not that anything I’m drawing is so reprehensible -- but the idea that it might be, to someone, is enough to shut off the tap.

So I guess I just can't win. On one hand, the lonesome cartooning life is perfectly suited to my disposition, and I really enjoy being alone; on the other hand, drawing cartoons is really fucking lonely! I think for people like me, there's nothing noble or workmanlike about comics. Comics for me are just a cry for help. I started drawing comics to prove that I existed; to communicate with people that otherwise would never have bothered listening to my dull, petrified stammers. For whatever reason, comics-speak is the only language my brain is fluent in. It's how I think -- which is an immense fucking burden, since it's impossible to translate that into any other type of communication. But every time I'm offered a quicker, easier, less labor-intensive route to gratification or validation -- like a relationship -- I go and ditch comics again. Hopefully that's going to change someday; but most likely I'll just die unhappy and alone under a pile of inked pages, like most "indie" cartoonists -- that is, if I'm lucky!

SB: Well, we’ve all got Jack Kirby to look to on that -- he had a full life and drew a monstrous amount of amazing comics. It’s possible to do both, but that’s not an easy path to find. You've been on the road most, if not all, of your adult life thus far. Now you're plugged into a new comics community, the new one evolving around CCS. It’s something pretty unique, really, unlike anything I’ve experienced since the Kubert School days. How did you get involved with CCS -- the Fellowship (no Tolkien reference intended) -- and has this been feeding you creatively?

GABBY: I know that there's a legitimate selection process and everything, but I'm pretty sure that the main reason I got the CCS Fellowship was because I went skinny-dipping with Robyn Chapman at the San Diego Comics Con a couple years ago. Now I realize Robyn's rationale: White River Junction can be a pretty boring place, and we need to import as many people as we can get who have poor impulse control. I'm sure it also helps that I was able to drive my entire house here; otherwise I imagine it would be really hard to drop everything and move up into the wilds of Vermont for a year. But basically she told me to apply for the Fellowship a couple cons ago, and I did, and James Sturm liked my stuff, and so the next thing I knew I was stocking up my housetruck with rancid oil to make the cross-country trip from Oregon to Vermont.

Now that the Fellowship's over it's becoming obvious that I was pretty lucky to have done it. Like you say, there's a real comics community up here, which is something that's really rare and special, especially for cartoonists, who spend so much of their time alone and underappreciated. It's like being at a comics convention every day... well maybe not that exciting. But I've definitely learned more about comics and cartooning life in the past year than I have in the other 33 -- primarily from you, actually! And most of it has been pretty much just by accident, because I happened to be in the same room while something cool was going on.

I've met some really cool people here, and feel like we've got an awesome (if dysfunctional) family going on. Everyone's really eager to help each other out, share information, critique each other's work, buy each other beer, and generally make life up here more bearable. It's not like some art schools, where the students can be really antagonistic and catty and mean to each other. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens to the new CCS students in their second year. I'm actually, against all sanity and good judgment, even thinking of sticking around for another year myself, to watch the second-year kids graduate.

SB: Do it!

GABBY: I might not have a choice -- I’m too broke to get my house out of the driveway!

Being here has definitely been feeding me creatively -- there's so many other cartoonists to swipe from! I've been ripping off [student] Joe Lambert's style more than anyone realizes, and he's only like 22 years old. Everyone's gotten way better at drawing cartoons since they got to the school, and I think a big reason for that, other than the formal education, is all the time we spend together. Oh, and the ping pong. The intensive ping-pong training has been invaluable to my development as a cartoonist and a human being.

Steven Wright's house key could start this house and drive it around... Gabby's home away from, uh, home, a biodiesel wonder!

SB: OK, other than ripping off Joe and ping pong, let’s get to brass tacks: how has CCS affected or altered your comics work, or your orientation to it?

GABBY: Being at CCS has definitely helped me take comics more seriously -- or at least made me feel like it's OK for me to do so, without getting laughed at. It's also nice to be around the younger cartoonists -- most of whom draw better than me. It's been really reinvigorating, like when they bring kittens to nursing homes. It feels good to have a bunch of people who care about comics collected in the same geographic location. I'm really worried about what life's going to be like back in the real world, where nobody gives a crap about my little comics.

At the same time, traveling has really helped me make better comics. I think it's a good idea to get out in the world and force yourself to out of comfortable mindsets and habits. That sounds obvious, but I know so many comic-book people who have no idea there is anything to life beyond their sheltered little menagerie of Comics Journal flame wars and pop-culture references. And there is no better way to ensure that your comics will eternally suck than allowing yourself to remain in an exclusive, insular group that always validates your work, no matter how derivative or mediocre it is. Cartoonists need to be kicked in the ass a lot more than most people.

So traveling has helped a lot for me in that regard -- it shows me exactly how little my private interests, concerns and beliefs really matter to the rest of the world; it reminds me that nobody outside of this clique knows or cares what the hell an "Ignatz Award" is. Most importantly, it reminds me to draw for a wider audience than just other indie-comics geeks. It's so easy to fall into a rut of ideology, not just with comics but with anything -- I've found this especially true with political activists -- where you think all that needs to happen for the whole world to be better is for everyone to shut up and be more like you. When I was vegan I totally forgot that the rest of the world gave zero shit about my dietary dogma. It was easy to forget because I surrounded myself with other vegans, or at least with people who knew what the word "vegan" even meant; and so eventually I stopped even questioning the legitimacy of our convictions. And that's how people go crazy, no matter how clever or persuasive their theories are. It's never a bad thing to keep throwing all your cherished theories and assumptions against the cold, hard wall of reality to find out what sticks.

Crap, I don't think that had anything to do with your question. Um, yeah, CCS has been great. I'm sad to leave. The industrial paper-cutter alone made it worth the trip.

SB: So, in the big life journey, do you feel part of a community at last? I mean, I feel you’re a big part of what CCS is right now, if nothing else --

GABBY: Yeah, very much. Especially with "my" class, the second-year kids; a lot of us are really supportive of each other's efforts, and make a point of helping each other to do better, and everyone seems to have improved so much over the year because of it -- me included. There's a bit of healthy competition too, which is great for motivation. There's some people here who think a whole lot about comics, and I get to drink beer and talk with them like every week. I'm sure it helps that there is literally nothing else to do up here than sit around and talk and draw, at least during the winter. And now that it's summer we all get to go play kickball together. I love the kids here (including you, Steve!), and I'm really excited to see what the new class will be like.

SB: Huh, so I'm a kid, eh? What or who are you reading these days -- in terms of book, comics?

GABBY: Sadly, I have been reading a lot less non-comics books this year -- although I did finally get around to reading Don DeLillo's White Noise a few months ago... that would make a great comic book!

Being at CCS has exposed me to a lot of new great foreign comics -- I really flipped over European cartoonist Christophe Blain, just for the gorgeousness of his drawings, and how easy and casual they the story reads. And when the school went up to Montreal a few weeks ago I found a ton of really incredible-looking French-language comics by cartoonists I'd never heard of before and no one in the US has ever heard of, since they've never been translated into English.

Although I'm probably forgetting a lot of people, I am eagerly anticipating new stuff from Dan Zettwoch, Aaron Renier, Sammy Harkham and Kaz Strzepek. And I've picked up a lot of great stuff at cons lately, too -- Elanor Davis, Drew Weing, Matt Bernier, Chris Wright, and Nate Beatty are all people I wish would put out even more comics, and get more recognition (and money!) for them. And that big King-Cat Collection that just came out was a really great dose of nostalgia -- although it also made me really glad that people aren't doing so many of those "dream" comics anymore.

And, mark my fucking words, people will be going apeshit over Laura Park once her comics start coming out.

Photo: Gabby, CCS Guest Lecturer, May, 2007; photo by Joe Lambert.

SB: So, about your own comics -- what's the plan with Monsters? What's the scope of this project at this point?

GABBY: Agh, I'm not really sure yet... to be honest all I want now is to just finish it as soon as possible, before I piss too many more people off or I die or something. It should be going on for at least three more issues -- but frankly I'm not sure. Since it's going to be pretty much pure autobio from issue three on, I keep having to add on different endings and footnotes every few months, every time I get a new test or find out something new about herpes.

Just last week I read that having herpes might actually protect people against the bubonic plague.

And I want to include all this stuff that I find out about herpes, but really at this point there's so much to still be learned about it that I could just go on forever, way past any sane reader's capacity to care. So hopefully I'll rein it in to just a few more big comic books -- and then it'll be published as a book, probably by a very new comics publisher called Secret Acres. So Monsters has already got a little home, once it's all done.

SB: Any other projects you care to discuss?

GABBY: To procrastinate on drawing the rest of Monsters, I've been drawing a few things for some really cool anthologies coming out. Julia Wertz (of Fart Party fame) is getting a bunch of great cartoonists to illustrate Craigslist "Missed Connections" ads -- that should be out sometime in early 2008. And some CCS students are putting together an oversized anthology called Sundays, which I'm drawing my largest pages ever for -- we should have that ready for the MoCCA in just a month from now!

Also, when my roommates aren't home I've been trying to teach myself how to play the fiddle. So if anyone out there wants to give me any pointers...

SB: Bring ‘em on, folks, if you’ve got ‘em. Thanks, Gabby, and thanks for the considerable time you poured into this interview -- much appreciated!

____________________

You can find Gabby’s currently in-print comics and minis here, along with other excellent work from the CCS graduates and students.

That concludes our first marathon interview; hope you enjoyed it. There will be more to follow from other folks, including more cartoonists and fellow CCSers.

Have a good weekend, one and all -- I’ll be posting between now and Monday, but if I don’t see you here ‘till then, have a great one.

HAPPY EASTER, one and all!

Hey, it's the Easter -- uh, canine?

Though there's nothing particularly Easter-like about this post, let me wish you one and all a great Easter. And leave it at that, save for the Easter Egg of sorts: another Criswell Predicts!, closing this post. Enjoy!

[Illo: Ross Wood Studlar, "Deranged Canine", copyright 2006]

The illustration I'm heading off with today is by Ross Wood Studlar, one of the stellar seniors at CCS I've been yammering about all week.

This is one of Ross's wilder creations, as much Seussian as Big Daddy Roth-like, but it's a particular favorite of many of us who know and love Ross. It was an experiment in wash and animal forms that is emblematic of his love of smearing pigment on paper and fusing and stretching elements of earthly lifeforms into -- well, see for yourself. I dig it.

I've got a lot to show you this morning, so maybe you should treat all the following as Easter eggs, though they might bite, and I sure won't be hiding them.

____________

I've been posting the student Center for Cartoon Studies links all week, and as promised will wind it up today with a peek at some of the art I didn't post (due to time constraints) for some sites, and a little more.

Among that "more" be the two links I've saved for your Easter Sunday,

Robyn Chapman's amazing "Unpopular Comics" site,

and the "Make Comics Forever" blog, which is a collective blog by a group of cartoonists, including Robyn, who are clearly obsessed with the medium we all so love.

Both are sorely in need of updating (the most recent blog post is February, for instance, and Robyn no longer lives in Brooklyn, she's White River Junction/CCS all the way now!), but it's all new to you, I bet, so just check 'em out, and now! Robyn, BTW, is the first-ever CCS Fellow -- and a fellow faculty member. She's an excellent cartoonist, a tough editor (kicked my sorry ass out of an anthology last year, justifiably so), and a great all-around person.

[copyright 2007 Robyn Chapman]

Just go with the flow, now --

I have been coyly dishing out these links so as to open your eyes to the students themselves, cartoonists, all! But

here's the all-purpose CCS student websites/blogs link I've been hoarding, which I'll now post in the permanent menu of links on the right for future easy access.

But that isn't all: I still owe you some peeks at the CCSers whom I didn't post art from this time around. Here's a mini-gallery of images from everyone I previously short-shrifted in the image department.

Along with Ross and Robyn, here's peeks at images by (from top to bottom, in no order other than my random access to art this AM) Adam Staffaroni, Sam Gaskin, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Josie Whitmore, Andrew Arnold, Jon-Mikel Gates and Colleen Frakes:

[copyright 2007 Adam Staffaroni]

[copyright 2007 Sam Gaskin]

[copyright 2007 Alexis Frederick-Frost]

[copyright 2007 Josie Whitmore]

[copyright 2007 Andrew Arnold]

[copyright 2007 Jon-Mikel Gates]

[copyright 2007 Colleen Frakes]

Hmmmmm, there's also these good folks and cartoonists -- vet pro Rich Tommaso, CCS students Caitlin Plovnick, Emily Wieja, and the effervescent Ignatz-Award-winning CCS fellow (and what a fellow) intern Ken Dahl (aka Gabby) -- who don't have sites, that I know of, but are selling comics via the link below the four images, below, by Rich, Caitlin, Emily and Ken, natch:

[copyright 2007 Rich Tommaso]

[copyright 2007 Caitlin Plovnick]

[copyright 2007 Emily Wieja]

[copyright 2007 Ken Dahl]

And as a reminder, for those in need of more material, "in your hand" access, to this new fountain of comics,

here's where you can buy, one-stop, much of the new published work emerging from the CCS stew of creativity,

which now accepts both PayPal and credit card orders, so there's no reason to hesitate ordering some goodies right now, today, this morning;

and here's where you can order the first-ever, all-new graphic novel to emerge from the CCS student experience, Alexis Frederick-Frost's extraordinary Xeric-Award winner La Primavera (2006)!

What are you waiting for? Hell to freeze over, or the Earth to bake?

___________________

The current era of 21st Century duality we find ourselves in is endlessly fascinating. Debate is debased to the unwieldy sham of presenting two "opposing views" -- best of all, extremist "either/or" "views" in complete polar opposition -- as the only viable "views" to be considered. It's bullshit and it's doing immeasurable, perhaps irrevocable harm to us, as a nation, as a culture, as a people and as a planet.

President Bush, Karl Rove and their pack of junkyard dogs have refined this form of "dialogue" to a perverse art, subverting debate entirely by eliminating any measure of conversation, consideration or due logic. They are culpable, but hardly the sole or even key culprits -- the media, so addicted to sound and image bytes, has played a prominent role in this reductionist insanity, as have the citizenry of the US. It's a form of collective madness, really, though it's not yet been diagnosed as such -- and the mad, well, they just don't see a problem.

When your "choices" are false choices by definition -- "stay the course" or "cut and run," for instance, in the case of one ongoing sore point in the international arena -- presented with such vehemence that one is also prevented from addressing the initial actions or inactions that precipitated the untenable situation one finds oneself in, four-to-six years later (choose your case history to apply this to), rational discussion, debate or action is rendered nearly impossible.

This is, of course, a strategy as well as a symptom of collective madness, and it succeeds brilliantly all too often.

It's a false duality, though, and typical of the obscene 'black or white' think this current generation has embraced like sheep.

Over the past few weeks,

this link has been spam-emailed to me more than once, most recently from one Luke Przybylski, which claims to link to "a recent BBC production, [which] is constantly dissapearing [sic] from Youtube and Google Video, only to be uploaded once again by concerned members. See it while you can..."

I love the intro to these spammed "science" exposes: "Before we all subscribe wholesale to the secularist rapture theology we've come to know as Global Warming, I think it's important to hear from the dissenters; climatologists and other scientists who were effectively barred from the mainstream (politicized) scientific "community" after their findings diverged from the manufactured consensus presented by the UN."

There is, of course, no 'rapture' whatsoever implicit or explicit in the science of climate change research and investigation.

The affixing of that term to the sentence is in and of itself misleading, with intent: it plays to two sets of prejudices. On the one hand, it's an alert signal to those predisposed to belief, in some measure, to 'the rapture,' and thus suspicious of anything that smacks of secular science. On the other hand, it ridicules science in the eyes of those who do not subscribe to belief in 'the rapture.' Thus, the cynical adoption of the phrase "secularist rapture theology" cuts both ways, a masterstroke of manipulative agitprop of the worse (and most seductive, to many susceptible minds) kind.

First, though, let's frame the subject itself -- Global warming -- with some objectivity.

Clearly, something is going on, and on a global scale.

But the reduction of the legitimate questions associated with "What is going on?" to this false battle -- over which extreme "side" is "right" or "wrong" -- ignores the obvious.

Something, globally, is changing with the Earth's climate. What is it? What's causing it? What, if anything, can we do about it? Those are the vital, literally the life-or-death, questions.

Where ever one lives, the evidence is manifest: there were never annual wildfire seasons on the mindboggling scale we see (or experience); the winters have clearly changed in Vermont and New England in a significant, measurable way (this year was the warmest winter ever on record), and the climate changes have already yielded measurable results. It's all around us, here, and if you talk to those who have worked all their lives in the affected arenas, sometimes carrying on generations of tradition it's irrefutable that something fundamental is changing: ski seasons abbreviated to a mere six weeks; maple syrup yields down and maple trees showing limb damage, loss and degeneration; apple orchards blooming too early; etc. These are all having momentous impacts upon our home state: the life cycles, ways of life, traditional livelihoods.

Of course, the 'dissenters' habitually refer to the scientists on "their side" (most of whom are corporate-funded shills) as now besieged and ignored "experts," neglecting to note that "their side" has held sway for decades now, actively undermining any advances the 1970s environmentalist movement gained in the wake of a prior generation's most obscene excesses: Lake Erie rendered toxic, rivers that could be lit on fire, etc. The nay-sayers have had the full weight of the current Bush Administration behind their ongoing campaign to deny any climate change -- or, admitting that, any human culpability in said climate change -- for the past six years.

Reality has caught up with them. Hence, they are now besieged and ignored.

The wording of this particular piece of spam is telling. The nay-sayers are embracing tactics familiar to those of us invested in the more-than-a-century-old conflict between Darwinism and Biblical literalists. Note the now-current contextualizing, the cloaking, of global warming and the related sciences in the vocabulary of matters of faith.

This is accomplished in a heartbeat, almost invisibly to the casual reader, via the inverted logic of the phrasing, "the secularist rapture theology we've come to know as Global Warming" -- it's a cynical adoption of the Creationist/Intelligent Design tactics which deliberately plunges science into the realm of religion.

This conceit, born of and insistently refined by the Creationist and Intelligent Design corruption of science (neither is, of course, a 'science' at all), is the most insidious aspect of this spam, denying science as having any validity whatsoever by framing science, as a whole, as a matter of faith; that is, science recontextualized into the arena of religion.

This is a complete misrepresentation of the reality and function of science -- all the sciences -- by instantly relegating science, per se, from the natural world to the supernatural realm, the realm of religion, faith, and belief.

Thus, any 'science' one objects to, be it climatology or paleontology, Darwinism or ecology, geology or biology, can be handily refuted if one redefines science, or 'the' science deemed objectionable, as not being science at all, but a religion -- a matter of faith, of inherently fallible interpretation of unknowable, unquantifiable supernatural phenomenon (which, being supernatural, cannot in fact be properly defined, observed or measured), not analysis of natural phenomenon.

This is, at best, delusional projection, and at worst reprehensible misrepresentation and caricature. It is a lie, a lie built upon a lie, an abomination in terms of both science and of religion.

I always wonder what motivates such generation of falsehoods -- a knee-jerk breaking of one of the Ten Commandments, a lie -- and what the person insisting upon such inherently corrupted logic stands to gain. "Follow the money" is applicable, though "follow the faith" is the more religious (Christian) thing to do, really.

Why this refusal to grasp a measurable, quantifiable, and increasingly obvious reality? Is it just too scary?

In this case, the only human beings who could possibly benefit from an orchestrated denial of the realities of climate change are those who will profit from that denial -- corporate energy providers, corporate polluters, etc. -- and those who still buy into the corporate falsehood of "free market" as having any validity in an economic environment increasingly controlled by multinational corporations who function above the law in every arena.

This past week found one of the GOP's most insistent nay-sayers on the topic changing his tune a bit, arguing now that Global Warming "may result in the relocation of 600 thousand South Sea Islanders" but will be a boon for real estate values in the northern states -- to which one can only respond with either laughter, despair, or the pragmatic solution of working to ensure this bozo is canned in the next election cycle.

Huh. Interesting. Now that a few of the nay-sayers have to admit that, indeed, something is going on, their spin is: "how can we profit from this?" The only ones to profit, of course, being the rich. Fuck the poor. Those 600 thousands South Sea Islanders can bake if there's no money in it.

Anyhoot, Tony Millionaire responded to being on Luke's Easter weekend spamming of the link by emailing all receiving the above link and attendant bogus "science"

this link to another online video that competently refutes all the crapola being shoveled about Global Warming by its "opponents," as if one could be "opposed" to climate phenomenon (in reality, simply pretending nothing quantifiable is going on).

The naysayers will continue to refute the evidence of their own eyes, bodies and experiences until they're either dislocated, relocated, drowning, burning to death, starving, or profiteering from the new real estate boom in Wisconsin and the Dakotas.

If that's the current scraping-belly nature of "the debate," fuck it, give me what Drinky Crow's drinking!

Tony, wit that he is, also opened his email reply by saying, "First of all Luke, I'd like to thank you for adding me to the 120 people on your Cc list."

Yep, thanks, Luke! Thanks, Tony! Thanks, Drinky Crow!

___________________

Criswell Predicts!

I predict that our Scientists will be concerned aobut a mysterious cloud appearing over the moon two years after we land there! The cloud will stay there, hiding the moon from earth view, much to the amazement of the world! Many will say it is created by living people beyond the moon to deter our new progress in space! I predict it will be Mother Nature's warning that we are going too far and to immediately stop!
______________________

Happy Easter, One and All!