Evolution of a Cartoonist

What a long strange trip it's been... and still is.

Recently I went through the hard drive that housed all the comic strips I had drawn since I received my Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellowship in 2009. I was looking for a comic that commented on MINIUSA and MTTS (MINI Takes The States) to share with those folks complaining about lack of details. People didn’t complain for the first one in 2006, because they had no idea what was going on.

During that exploration I was somewhat shocked by what I saw- hundreds upon hundreds of what I now look at as “bad” drawings. At the time they were the best thing I could do. I really hadn’t developed any kind of style. The character designs were still being worked out. Cecil didn’t even have goggles! One thing I do remember from drawing these was the pride I felt when I published them. Now I just shake my head and think about what Charles Schultz must have thought when looking at his original strips for Peanuts In comparison to his later strips.

The comic I was looking for colored by my former student Ben Majercek.

Am I embarrassed by my earlier work? Not in the least, I just think about the growth I’ve made and the growth I still will make as long as I keep drawing. Hergé, the creator of Tin Tin, is said to have had all of his early comics redrawn by his studio once he had developed a style he liked. He wanted everything to look the same. This is something writers don’t have to worry too much about when telling stories. No one compares the type style in one book to the type style in another. Artists change, as they learn new techniques. This changes the way everything looks. Most of the time the audience doesn’t see this. The change is slow strip by strip, comic by comic. It is there if you compare an artists early work to recent pages. For the most part those drawing comics have a developed style before they are hired by a publisher. For me, I took a long hiatus where I only did comics for FTF Geocacher, because I just didn’t know what direction I wanted to take.

The initial idea was a webcomic based on the trip I was taking for my Teacher Creativity Fellowship. I was driving around England in a MINI Cooper during the 50th anniversary of the Mini Cooper. I realized that the concept was sound, but a four panel strip wasn’t the best format. Instead of adjusting the format, I adjusted the comic. My goal while in England was to draw a strip a day. I was stuck by the idea of it must have a punchline. While I think I’ve learned enough to be able to do something like that now, back then? not a chance. Cecil was with us, but I hadn’t given him a role in the comic, or much of a personality beyond geocaching logs.

Like I said…bad drawing. This was one of the first… ugh. Everything was done by hand, including the lettering.

The trip helped me consider stylistic changes and how I really wanted things to look. by the time I returned home, I think I had a better grasp, but not all the pieces had fallen into place yet.

Cecil made an appearance but in his actual form, a stuffed monkey. I thought having him relate to the audience in thought bubbles would be “cute” even though it had been done with Garfield.

At some point I decided to make Cecil more of a real moving character but he still wasn’t what he evolved into. Then again, I wasn’t exactly drawn the way I ended up either. That trip lead to another to Mini Meet East meets West in Winona, MN where I drove my classic Mini and I decided to move way beyond the scope of a biocomic. Characters were developing, but I still needed to draw more and find my style.

That was a unique summer with travels all over the place, Cecil vanished at San Diego Comic Con and reappeared on Maui. I started to work out my look, but still was having issues with Cecil.

New York Comic Con brought about the concept that “Lettering is an Art” and I needed to either focus on that or move to digital lettering. I moved to digital lettering adding a step to how I did the comic strip, but made it more legible.

The first actual strip using a digital typeface. About a new teacher who doesn’t want to actually teach, but wants to write a novel about a struggling teacher with a heart of gold who saves the community and the future. You know, like most movies based on a “true story.” After two-weeks she went around the country talking to groups about the future of education.

Was trying to teach and draw a comic, knowing that the more comics I published, the better I would get and hopefully my readership would grow. My mother commented once about when I would make money doing this… I tried to ignore that comment. I wasn’t trying to be the next multi-million dollar comic creator 🤪 I still am just trying to do this for fun and for me.

Going back and looking at these old strips, most of them over 16 years old, has been interesting and actually makes me want to draw more and not worry about so much. Cecil didn’t get goggles until October 2010. I didn’t start adding full color until almost a year later. I decided that I was adding spot color to a few strips so it wasn’t much more work to just color the strip 😂.

The comic had color before this, but this was the first one where I stopped doing the strip in black & white. Cecil by this time has a pretty consistent design although there have been a few tweaks to the design since 2011. This comic came out before most people were using their phones.

Yesterday I finished my next comic for publication in FTF Geocacher, the week before was PinPoint. I like having that obligation and now I just need to work on drawing more. I’ll drop back into the old stuff again now that I know where it all is.