Six Chix: The Comic Strip

I live on a dirt road surrounded by woods, fields and other dirt roads. Neighbors are sparse and I assume the few I have are used to seeing me walk with Gabby.I always over-dress because I’d rather be too warm than even a little bit cold.And I always wear a hat because that’s how I am.After the second bug bite that made my eye puff up like Mickey Roarke on a bad day I added a foolproof insect repellent to my walking attire.I like to ramble on my walks and often cross streams or wander dewy fields so my footwear must be water resistant. Because real ground is uneven and often slippery and because I’m clumsy I use a walking stick. Besides they’re really good for poking stuff.

So there I was, dressed appropriately, walking my dog down an uninhabited stretch of dirt road when a red SUV pulls out of a piney path and my new neighbor introduces herself. I figure it’s always good to set the bar low, right?

Every cartoonist I know has their own way of conceiving their
cartoons. That is, the way they write, sketch and come up with a finished product.
Sometimes, I’m amazed at how finished some of my friends first drafts are. I’ve seen Mike Lynch’s sketchbooks…and they could be published right off the page! Margaret gave us a peek at how she creates “Apt. 3 G”.

When I work… I have to practically use stick figures, and as you’ll see, these may be one step ahead.

 

I have to prevent myself from drawing anything too good…because then it will intimidate me, and I will never be able to redraw it as a finished piece, because I’m too happy with the rough. Odd, I know, but we all have our quirks. And some might say “Too good???”

 When I sketch I use a bic pen or whatever is lying around and I write (and draw and everything else) on copy paper. This is the clipboard I use:

 

  

 And the most recent pen.

Then I use my Koh-i-noor Artpen to do the actual cartoon:

Here are a few examples of the scribbles I start with followed by the finished cartoons:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 When I write, I play around with the rhythm of words, so, might change the wording several times:

 

 So, there you have it. Some paper, a couple of pens and an idea can turn into a comic you eventually see in a newspaper, a magazine or online!

Here is a panel from the story that Laura Sanchez and I have been working on for the past few weeks. It is a graphic travel journal of a trip I made to Israel in 1983. We started with some very rough sketches, and Laura has been helping me with pencils, inking, and research. The Hastings High School Senior Alternative Internship presentations are on June 19th. Laura and I are hoping to have our first draft finished by then.

Last winter, I read an article in Down East Magazine about the Loki Clan Wolf Dog Refuge that was located in Chatham, NH. http://www.angelfire.com/folk/lokiclan/

It was an absolutely fascinating story about a gentleman named Fred Keating who started out over 20 years ago with a wolf dog  named Loki he raised as a pet, which he eventually learned was not the best idea, as they were much smarter and more complex than a domestic dog. He went on to rescue over 80 of these beautiful creatures on the refuge he founded. The article mentioned one of Fred’s associates did speaking engagements… so, I called them up and Myrtle Clapp and Denne Couchon graciously came to the library and gave a great talk with a DVD presentation and brought lots of fundraising items. It was a successful event with a huge turnout.

Afterwards, I called Farmington Rec and suggested it for one of their day trips, which is where I was yesterday, along with my friend of friends, Steve W.  We caravaned (is that a word??) up about 2 hrs.  with the 2 rec buses, finally finding the Loki Refuge which was hidden away down a loooooong, bumpy dirt road.

 

When we arrived we were greeted by about a hundred free range chickens,
Denne, Fred, Dan Hazlett, our guide and Katie Papoulias a Refuge intern.

The place is huge, going up and down hills decorated with the wolf dog pens, each of which were an acre or so in size.  

 

 

As we started out, we heard the sounds of wolf howls coming from all around us. 

 
 The wolf dogs vary from very friendly to shy to wary. Each has a sad story
of how they came to reside at the refuge. They live in packs ranging from 2 to 6 or so, with an alpha at the top. There were a couple of single wolf dogs that either hadn’t found a group they felt comfortable with, or were new and getting acclimated. 

 Fred came over and brought some treats to get a few of the dogs out from hiding.

As we wandered around, Dan let us know which of the wolf dogs were
friendly and loved attention. Here’s a sweet one:

 Dan is a terrific guide. Many of the Wolf dogs were excited to see him,
even the nervous ones that guests were told to avoid:

Some of the wolf dogs were so happy to have visitors they leaned against the fence to be patted:

These animals are so beautiful, and their stories so heartbreaking,
you can’t visit without wanting to do something to help Fred and the Loki
crew.

They really need funding, and you can go to the website and get
a great t-shirt or book bag, or just donate whatever you can.
There’s also a wish-list for things they need.

If you live in NH, or plan a trip to visit, they have fence raising parties the 2nd Saturday of every month.

 I can’t say enough about what a wonderful thing the Loki crew are doing.
I can see why the people who came to visit and got involved ended up
doing so.  Some even stayed.

 

I suppose everyone who draws has a speciality; you know,something that comes easy.  I’m best at living things and pretty miserable at machinery. But I’m willing to admit that I find drawing feet no fun at all and the end result rarely pleases me.So look at this!

Isabella is so darn skillful that she actually set this cartoon at floor level! See that perfect, little step that  earplug girl is taking?! I just had to share because…I’m envious.

I know, everyone makes mistakes. Even Sandra, once in a while. But it’s still distressing to find that after all the layers of the writing process [see my previous post] mistakes can still occur.When I checked the recent Apartment 3-G Sunday panels there they were, two glaring mistakes!  Somehow I managed to switch the caption boxes??

Great! It reads as if hours passed before Tommie bothered to answer Margo’s simple question!! But that wasn’t the only stumble I made. It took a remark by Magada to make me realize that Margo was channeling Snuffy Smith when she said, “Hope you weren’t waiting dinner for [me.]

It’s not as crazy as it sounds . Along with artist, John Rose, and writer,Mike Marland,I’ve been writing for Barney Google And Snuffy Smith since 2001.The characters from Hootin’ Holler have a distinctive way of speaking and when I’m in full Snuffy-mode I’ve been known to answer my phone with a “Howdy!”  It appears that’s exactly what happened to Margo and so confused our commenting friend, Magada . Now here’s how Snuffy might have used that phrase.

Sounds perfectly normal when he says it, right?  Okay, maybe not hilarious but normal. Even 3-G’s Ruby could have spoken that phrase[ with a "ya'll" thrown in] and it would have made sense, but not Margo! She’s usually not even polite; what was I thinking?! I don’t have the answer so I’m just going to blame the voices in my head.

Three years ago I was given the job of writer for Apartment 3-G. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had and I love it! [If you've never heard of Apt.3-G go to King Features and read a bit of its history.] Basically it’s a “soap opera” strip about three young women seeking their fortune in New York City: Margo, the brunette diva, Tommie, the earnest redhead and Lu Ann, the innocent blonde.

So how do you write a strip that someone else draws? I was unsure but I knew the previous writer had simply typed up scripts with stage directions. It sounded simple but I knew it would never work for me. So I’m going to show you my process. Although, honestly, I could talk about these “girls” until your ears fell off; I’m going to restrain myself and stick to the topic.

Every week I  write six dailies and a Sunday re-cap  and it all begins in my cheap, spiral notebook. The first draft is over-written on purpose; I need to know everything the characters are thinking and would like to say if they had unlimited space.

The next re-write is a winnowing process and I can’t do it well without allowing some time to lapse between drafts. On Tuesday morning Monday’s clumsy and/or redundant phrases will stick out like a sore thumb. That draft also goes into the notebook and steeps overnight.  With any luck at all it will be tea by the next morning.

The third draft is where things get serious. It looks like this.

If there’s a fourth re-write it involves white-out and a copier. At this point the roughs go to bed for a couple of days. In the meantime I type up the script and tuck it in for a nap in the 3-G 2009 folder.

Lastly, I proof read everything one more time and send them all off to the artist.

And, almost immediately, it begins all over again. That part looks like this.

And on and on. “Suddenly,” as we say in the continuity biz, “six weeks later …”

Apartment 3-G week 5-18 09 published and polished.

But by this time I’ve moved on. Why you wouldn’t believe what’s happening NOW?!! And you can’t drag it out of me. Go ahead, try. Please?

Hi, my name is Laura Sanchez, Im 17 years old and  I’m a senior at Hastings High School. Drawing is one my favorite things to do. I always try to make my drawings better each day by trying new techniques. So I’m doing my senior internship with Isabella Bannerman.  I hope I can learn something with her. YAY!!!

A few months ago, I joined an art group in Rochester, NH, called Art Esprit which is based in artstream Gallery (small “a” in artstream!), a very classy gallery. The members of Art Esprit are artists and poets. Here’s a link, so you can see for yourselves: 

This one’s to Art Esprit:   http://artesprit.org/

This one is to artstream:  http://artstreamstudios.com/

Rochester used to be famous for shoe manufacturing and artstream wanted to celebrate this history with giant shoe sculptures. The shoes would be sponsored by local businesses and then installed around town for the summer. And every sculpture would have its own poem created by an Art Esprit poet member. A great idea, right? My husband, John, the editor of the paper based in Rochester, the famous Rochester Times (particularly famous for John’s Police Log:  http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090507/GJCOMMUNITY04/705069754/-1/ROCNEWS )
showed his support in his unique way : http://www.stephaniepiro.com/fc312.htm

 So, I happened to attend a meeting at artstream and said “wouldn’t it be fun if one of the sculptures was a giant stiletto ?” They said, “will you paint it?” and I said “Of course”. Plus, I would get my very own poet, Matt Jasper, brilliant poet and renaissance man who is also one of my favorite people.

The shoes were created by Adam Pearson, sculptor par excellence , who single- handedly sculpted 11 giant shoes from recycled materials. Not any of those cookie cutter fiber glass sculptures you see everywhere. These are one of a kind works of art!

Most of the artists worked on their shoes in a big empty room belonging to a local bank, but as my time is limited,  a giant stiletto was delivered to  our house.

 The sight of this enormous high heel taking up the whole living room was pretty daunting. What to do? I had done some sketches.

But normally I work within an 8 x 10 size.

After staring at it from all angles, I started sketching in paint. I didn’t want to do the background first, as I needed to think about what I was doing on white space: Here’s the front:

  

and the back:

It was very intimidating. Mistakes were wiped off many, many times. The beauty of acrylic paint! This took hours and hours. Then, the next step, painting the figures.  

 

This all took several days. Then, I had to paint in the background. My original concept was a red background, but after more walking round it and staring, I decided on a cerulean blue with yellow inside the base and underneath:

 

and here are some more views:

 

 

 Finally, I was finished:

 

(ignore messy house due to great excuse of giant shoe in living room!)

In conjunction with the shoes, all the Art Esprit artists created shoe art that is exhibited in the Rochester Library:
http://www.rpl.lib.nh.us/programs/artexhibit/art200905/art200905.html

Then, the shoe had to be picked up to be exhibited at artstream for the special sponsor’s sneak preview. All the artists and poets had to paint a pair of shoes to wear to the event. These are mine:

 

It was sad to let go after our month or so of bonding.
Adam and Matt arrived to pick it up. Here they debated as to the best way to take it out. One of the shoe’s component’s is concrete.

 

 A decision is reached:

Cut to the Sponsor’s Preview. Many yummy snacks were served.
Here, shoe and I are reunited:

 

June 6th, all the shoes will be finished and in their special places around town. There will be a brochure with a map of all the locales. I’ll post a follow up with photos of all the shoes in June.

And remember, they ARE for sale. The money raised by the sales will go to art student scholarships. So, if you’d love a giant shoe of your very own, contact Susan or Mary Jo at artstream!

 

Our cartooning girlfriend Sandra Bell Lundy (also a King Features artist!) did some amazing promotional work for the Canadian Breast Cancer Awareness blog called Thingamaboob. Sandra is a wonderful person and terrific cartoonist and this was just fantastic and important work, so I thought I’d mention it here. Here is the link:

http://www.thingamaboob.ca/?utm_source=PassItOnEmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thingamaboob