More Student Highlights

 

Comics is a medium that welcomes every style and level. It benefits from casualness, whimsy, and economy. The point is to convey your imaginings. 

In the continuing ed classes at SVA, we cover a lot of information on style, theory, and technique, but always while having a good time. 

Doug Keljikian crystallizes the essence of cartooning.

Here’s a teaser for Jeffrey Johnson’s first minicomic under his pseudonym.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find this in a local shop.

Paul Centrone is working on a story about a young man’s experience in Berlin when the wall came down.

We often pass constraint-based jam pages around. Over the years, some get finished.

Doug K. was in my basics course last semester and also assists my afterschool classes at P.S. 154.
Sometimes when the kids are busy, we pass drawings back and forth.

Summer classes are enrolling now. The figure course is offered online on Tuesdays and live on Wednesdays. Cartooning Basics is offered on Thursdays.

Let’s play.

Student Spotlight: Earl Holloway

On week 3, we create new poses for characters from old Max Fleischer model sheets.

 

One of my GOAT students, Earl Holloway, retook Figure Drawing for Cartoonists last semester to hone his chops. 

On week 5, we agree on a joke to tell in the form of a comic

The work he produced was typically stunning. Earl’s examples help show the range one can achieve with the assignments.

On week 6, we improvise comics from narrative poses wth a costumed model

These are just a few of the many figure drawing activities we explore to develop an understanding of the human figure in the cartooning context.

On week 9, we practice free doodling with brush, ink, and lettering guide.

Summer classes are enrolling now. The figure course is offered online on Tuesdays and live on Wednesdays. Cartooning Basics is offered on Thursdays. Let’s make comics!

Valses Balsamiques

My favorite project in 2024 was this cassette package I designed for Klimperei and Denis Fedabeille:

This story began in 2022 when I posted a Facebook announcement for my book, Poem: A Mashup, illustrating a cento by MD Usher. 

My all-time favorite composer, Christophe Petchanatz of Klimperei toy music, whom I’d surreptitiously friended some years before, responded enthusiastically to the post. I responded equally enthusiastically to his response, letting him know how much I love his work. Christophe ordered the book and granted me permission to play his songs during the online Daredoodle sessions I was hosting. 

I sent him this illustration on the book’s theme, pictures made of words, and we vowed to work together someday. 

That day came when Christophe invited me to design a cassette package for a collection of waltzes he’d recorded in collaboration with electronic composer Denis Fedabeille, to be issued by another of my musical heroes, Denis Tagu of the label InPolySons 

The cassette came to be called Valses Balsamiques. 

It’s a hauntingly toe-tapping series of strange melodies in waltz time. You need to hear this.  


The cardboard package folds up to wraparound, with song info printed on the inside. 

Christophe asked for  “something full, colorful, different styles, many different characters dancing, some happy, some not”

To populate the dance floor, I generated several pages of doodles of dancers and musicians to combine into a scene in photoshop.

We see, for example: 

A pinhead and frankenstein collapsing into each other

An eyeball/egg figure swaying from side to side

Tango dancers merging into a shared face

A robot trying to twist

A dino succeeding

The right honorable Pere Ubu

Hidden under the flap: figures falling into a time tunnel/gidouille void

In a couple of cases, I revived stray characters from my old work:

In Steel Pulse, Pro-Wrestling Adventures #4, 1990, we published a theme song for our imaginary Megiddo Mosquito cartoon show. On the masthead to the music, I drew an insect band.

This time I swiped (clockwise from left):

Astor Ant, Casanova Cricket, Bertolt Beetle, Frankie the Wasp, and a baritone sax player who fuses Gerry Mulligan with Kafka.

  

In a Hector strip called Lodo Friday Nights (for “lower downtown,” the Denver arts district back then),1995, I included a romance sequence, in the spaces on the floor, of dancing cigarette butts. 

I incorporated them on the inside of the cassette around the song titles.

For the title, I drew inspiration from this image I’d seen of Lygeti’s musical notation.

Of course it’s all very tiny. It may be obvious that my primary purpose with these obscure details is to amuse (soothe?) myself. I had a good time with this project. I’ve been such a fan of the InPolySons label and Klimperei especially, for so many decades, I was only too happy to give something back. I made them pay me in music, and was well compensated. And happily for me, they loved the result. Again, enjoy the music here.


And check out my spring courses including one for high schoolers. Drawing cartoon figures and putting them in situations and stories is supremely gratifying. Why should I have all the fun?

A look at some lost minicomics of the 80s & 90s

 

Student Spotlight: Jonah Newman

 

One of my GOAT students, Jonah Newman, has a graphic novel about to hit bookstores. It’s a beautifully illustrated and emotionally moving story of mastering baseball and coming out in high school. It’s already notching rave reviews.

When Jonah took my figure drawing for cartoonists class at SVA, he had already completed a graphic novel set in Napoleonic Europe. So I can’t pretend to have taught him much of what he knows. But I was able to coach him on figures holding baseball bats and twisting as they swing ‘n stuff like that. I’ll pat myself on the back for that one piece of it. Below are some of Jonah's other assignments:

character turnarounds and sample poses

cafe and subway observational sketching

drawing from life models

Check out Out of Left Field, coming from Andrews McMeel Kids imprint in March and join Jonah for the Launch event at Bluestockings, 116 Suffolk St., New York, NY. March 26 @ 7:30 pm ET. 

Meanwhile, my spring classes start soon. Let me help you draw figures in action and put them in comics.