doodle diary

I filled a stack of cocktail napkins, and ended up with this one image that I kind of like.

More Tragic Strips

Here are a couple more strips from The Brooklyn Rail, united by the theme of women falling off of cliffs. The second is a constrained piece. It's made of the end rhymes from Browning's famous sonnet.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Why I Keep At It

Trying to connect with publishers, reviewers, and the various other comics experts can be frustrating, to say the least. But the reception my work has gotten from actual people has been often positive and sometimes enthusiastic. The other day, I received this email from a stranger:


Hi,
I just wanted to send you a quick note of thanks for this comic:

I have had a copy of it pinned up in my office for as many years as I can remember and it never fails to bring a smile to my face. It has been up there for so long that I don't even remember where I first ran across it.

I just wanted to let you know that the genius of that little strip is still out there and being appreciated now.

Thank you.
Cheers,
Marc

When I thanked him and asked permission to quote him here, he added that he'd posted the strip to his Twitter account and got this reaction from a friend:

"Wow - that comic strip was profound | deep | sad | moving | realistic - thanks for sharing."

So that felt good. That'll sustain me for a while ( in lieu of food money). I confess I tend to think of that one as the best strip I've ever done.

Doodle Diary

A couple unsavory characters.

Comics and the Literary Establishment

Here's the last of the Post Bang sketches I made. This panel featured comics historians and critics. L to R we see moderator Kent Worcester, Jeet Heer, David Hadju, Hillary Chute, and Douglas Wolk.

Subway Sketch

I ended up giving this sketch to the mom. She just sent me this scan of it.
The subway makes my line bumpy. When the train stops, I have to stop drawing.

As of Yesterday...

Good People Who Make Good Comics for Kids

Here are a few convention sketches of artists and publishers who focus on young readers. The con program books aren't always thorough and I don't take the best notes. If anyone who sees this can help me get the attributions right, please respond.


This first sketch is from the Post Bang conference, June 2008. The panel was called "Comics and Kid's Lit." L to R are Raw Jr. publisher Francoise Mouly, historian Leonard Marcus, cartoonists Sara Varon and Mo Willems, and teacher/librarian Lisa von Drasek.


This second sketch is from a panel on Toon Books at the New York Comic Con. We see Francoise Mouly again, artist Frank Cammuso, Dean Haspiel (sitting in the audience), a librarian named Michelle (?), illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, and writer Jay Lynch.

Here's where I really need help. I arrived late to this panel and wasn't able to catch the names of the first three gentlemen in this picture. Assuming I achieved a likeness, does anyone recognize these fellows? The last two are David Saylor of Scholastic and Chris Staros of Top Shelf.


And here's a super quick impression of some creators from Nickelodeon Magazine: Dave Roman, R. Sikoryak, and Chris Duffy.

Comic Con Diary

This one was legible enough when it ran in The Brooklyn Rail, but I've since made some small corrections to it. That's my excuse for reposting it here.

Marvelous?

I see that my new book, Rikki Ducornet's The One Marvelous Thing, is now available at Amazon.

I always wonder what people will make of my drawings. Are they "inky, scruffy" (Publisher's Weekly), "insidious, witty" (Harry Mathews), "gritty, fantastical" (Dalkey Archive) or what? You decide.

I should offer an incentive. If you order a copy, send your mailing address to mot@tmotley.com and I'll send you an index card covered with original doodles. They make pretty good bookmarks.

Doodle Diary

My Cubofuturist dream girl.

Some Recent Strips

When my Tragic Strips appear in The Brooklyn Rail, they print them nice and big. But the versions on their web site are kind of too small to read. So I'll start reposting them here at a generous size. Click on these for a good look at the drawings.

These three are from an oubapo-esque series I'm developing called "Made Out of Mac."

Doodle Diary

Tahm fer a showdown!

The Word/Image Problem

Since moving to New York, one of my favorite cartooning related events was on a very rainy March 8th at Parsons School for Design, where Ben Katchor organized a symposium called "Rodolphe Topffer and theWord/Image Problem."

Katchor gathered a stellar group of artists and academics to present slides and discussions on visual narrative throughout history. The guest of honor was David Kunzle, biographer of Rodolphe Topffer, considered by many to be the inventor of the comic strip.
(I'm thinking of composing a post that addresses that question. Stay tuned).

For me, the highlight of the day was that I met my lifelong hero, Peter Blegvad. Years before he took up comic strips, Blegvad's songs and their accompanying notes and illustrations shaped my thinking about comics in crucial, fundamental ways. Please excuse my sloppy sketch of the man-- he performed songs accompanying slides of his artwork and I had to put down my pen to marvel at the effect.

Reading down the sketches, we find Steven Guarnaccia, Chair of Parsons' Illustration Department, giving the introduction; Victor Mair, Professor of Chinese Literature, speaking on Indo-Chinese picture recitations; biographer Aimee Brown Price on the unofficial cartoons of painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes; Blegvad; Princeton University's Anne-Marie Bouche on Dialogues of Text andImage in Medieval Art; cartoonist Ben Katchor on Graven Images in the Yiddish Press; Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman in the audience; James Miller and Noah Isenberg of The New School for Social Research in conversation On the Perils of Academic Specialization; David Kunzle on Topffer as Professional Dilettante; and Patricia Mainardi, Professor of Art History at Brooklyn College, delivering a very inspiring presentation on forgotten proto-comic approaches in nineteenth-century book illustration.

Scoff if you wish, but this is my idea of a good time.
(You'll want to click on these three pages to really see them)

Doodle Diary

What're you lookin' at?

Cartooning Today

"Cartooning Today" was, I'm pretty sure, the name of this outdoor panel last week at the Brooklyn Book Festival. From left to right we see Kyle Baker, Mo Willems, a statue of Henry Ward Beecher, and moderator Brian Heater. One could read the whole interview here.

Brillig

My new book with Rikki Ducornet should be out soon from Dalkey Archive Press. Here are some of the preliminary, concept sketches for one of the comic stories at the back of the book. Click to enlarge, of course.

Ben Marcus and William Gass

Here are a couple of sketches from readings at the Brooklyn Public Library sponsored by The Brooklyn Rail.

Doodle Diary

Izzy Challenge #5

I contributed to a panel in J.B. Winter's newest Izzy Challenge. My MoCCA tablemate, Isaac
Cates and I were amused to see our contributions side by side, through an accident of alphabetization.

Read Isaac's post about it, then read Winter's.

Winter does cool jam comics. You should check this one out.