| sketchbook: eggtown |
[May. 17th, 2012|06:47 pm] |
A few weeks ago, I was in a professional development and (I know you won’t believe this, but I’m going to come right out and say it) was getting bored. A colleague of mine was doodling on her notebook and she drew this… thing. It sort of looked like a viking egg. I kept it up in my notebook.
Here's the rest of them. |
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| 2011-2012 school year: heavy users |
[May. 15th, 2012|03:38 pm] |
I don’t know if “open campus” is a practice which other high schools indulge… I know my high school didn’t have it when I was growing up. In brief: Upperclassmen who hit certain GPA and conduct standards are allowed to leave the campus for lunch.
As an incentive, open campus seems to be a double-edged sword; while I believe it does inspire kids to do better in classes, the process seems almost impossible to monitor. Many kids skipping off campus for some Arby’s haven’t truly earned the privilege. |
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| a eulogy for maurice sendak |
[May. 8th, 2012|04:22 pm] |
Writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak died today. He was 83 years old.
I loved Sendak’s picture books as a kid, and I love them today. His scratchy, well-layered illustrations always seemed to have so much more depth than many of the other picture books I read. My boys are currently enraptured by Chicken Soup with Rice, one fourth of The Nutshell Library; they were gifted a copy of the book from a reader of these comics, many years ago.
Obviously, the book Sendak will be most remembered for is Where the Wild Things Are, the riotous, game-changing picture book from the 1960′s. Where the Wild Things Are dared to feature an angry, almost unlikable protagonist in little Max. It seems almost commonplace today, but back in 1963, the image of Max running after the family dog with a fork was shocking.
I’ve paid homage to Sendak often throughout the years with my comics, going all the way back to when I was continuously drawing journal comics about my personal life.
Even there, I was processing my anger through the monster character… and I had quite a lot of anger! At the time, I was living with my parents, eking out an existence on substitute gigs. I was hopelessly in love with someone who wasn’t going to give me the time of day. My life was a shambles! Gradually however, my use of the monster shifted away from being a purely angry expression of my personality.
Here, the character twisted somewhat to become more a harbinger for my anxieties… specifically, my anxieties about teaching. Here’s one I drew right before I had to go back to work after my first extended holiday break. I was teaching 8th grade in Brooklyn and flailing mightily.
I look at those comics and I remember all those angry, anxious feelings intimately… but the funny thing is, I didn’t know I was drawing the monster for either of those purposes! I’ve never been really great at expressing my emotions; it’s one of those things that really limits me as a cartoonist/artist/whatever. I just knew that there was a small contingent of my readership who really liked it when I drew myself as a monster! It’s easy for me to see all those emotions now, but at the time… nope.
Meeting Ellen and starting a family has mellowed those angry, anxious feelings quite a bit. I started drawing a lot of comics where the monster was a hapless, sometimes even fun protagonist. There was this extended run of strips I posted about a few years ago. Then there’s this comic I did after Elliot was born, where I detailed all of our nicknames for the kid.
…of course, angry monster does come back from time to time.
I quite like the idea of doing a comic strip where the main character is malleable and changes to suit the tone of the story. It’s something I considered pursuing awhile back.
At any rate, I hope I’ve made it clear how very much Maurice Sendak means to me as an artist. The guy lived a long life full of every accolade and award an illustrator can hope to win; he produced work that will stand the test of time and journey on into the future as true classics. I’m sorry to lose him, but I’m glad to have known him through his art. |
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| summer journal comics: elliot made up an insult! |
[May. 3rd, 2012|08:50 pm] |
(I colored this using a whole bunch of Prismacolor markers I’m trying out. It looks much better in my sketchbook than it does scanned!)
As we ramp up to the end of the year, I start thinking about what I’m going to do with myself and this blog over the summer. The answer in years’ past has been to turn an eye toward my home life and do a couple of strips featuring Ellen and the boys. In particular, I’d like to do a whole bunch of comics featuring Henry, who has definitely received the short end of the stick on being written and drawn about. Henry’s birth coincided with the second year of my teaching comics and I’ve done very little to detail his personality and character; he’s certainly gotten less attention than his brother… as evidenced in the comic above.
Here’s the wildly ambitious plan right now- I’d like to do a solid month of comics about my homelife. That is, 31 days including weekends. I have no idea if I’m going to be capable or invested enough to get to that point but it seems like a solid experiment to me. It’s a schedule I used to keep pretty regularly, in the days before spousal and parental responsibility. |
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| one last plea! |
[May. 1st, 2012|04:22 pm] |
This is the last time I'm going to ask folks.
Take a minute to vote for me in Panera's Top Teachers of Southwest Ohio contest. I'm currently about 40 votes away from second place. It's an entirely attainable number of votes! I just need about one out of every three of you jump over to the website and click "Vote for this Entry." You may need to fill out a small amount of information to verify, but it's pretty unobtrusive!
The contest ends in seven hours, so get your votes in and tell your friends! |
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