Draw Yourself

A "Wreck this Journal" assignment

Crayola Marker

Early Publication

The image above is the first drawing I had published. Before you judge it too severely, keep in mind that I was in sixth grade! Back in the days before copiers, schools used ditto machines. The ditto machine (or spirit duplicator) used two-ply "ditto masters". The first sheet could be typed, drawn or written on. The second sheet was coated with a layer of colored wax. Writing on the first sheet created a mirror image on the back of it. The first sheet was fastened on the drum and copies could be printed -- in our school, usually in blue. I remember getting those worksheets hot of the presses and taking a deep whiff of the rapturously fragrant aromatic ink. Maybe that explains a lot.


Well, suffice it to say, children weren't usually allowed to write or draw on ditto masters. One day in sixth grade, a teacher put one of those masters on my desk and asked me to design a cover for the Spring Concert Program. I didn't really cut loose too much because I was afraid of messing it up. I can remember being thrilled to see a stack of the programs and knowing that my drawing was on every one of them! And then, looking out at the sea of faces at the concert and seeing that everyone in the audience had my drawing in their hands. This could be where I got bit by the publishing bug. The only other thing I remember about the night is that we sang "Blowing in the Wind" by Bob Dylan.

Anyway, as teachers, I think we should take the opportunity to use the work of budding artists, rather than take the easy way out and grab a clip art image. It takes just a little bit more time, but we can provide publication opportunities to the future writers and illustrators in our care.

Biff!

Crayola Marker Sketch 1/8/09

The site of an erupting volcano has got to be the worst place to have a super-villain smackdown.

Dreaming

This sketch is meant to illustrate what it's like to dream. Is it just me, or do all kind of random things get mixed together in dreams?

Comics Go to War

Some people think comics are just for kids. Others think that comics for adults is a relatively new thing. When I researched the history of comics for my master's research project, I learned that they were quite popular with men in the armed services during World War II. It was said that they were “passed from man to man until there is nothing left of them” (Zorbaugh, page 198). The New York Times reported that during wartime, one of every four magazines shipped to troops overseas was a comic book (Wright, 2001). I just recently saw these photos online, and wished that I had found them when I was working on my research project In Defense of Comics.

Wright, Gary. (1979). “The comic book – a forgotten medium in the classroom.” Reading Teacher 33(2). Pgs. 158-161.

Zorbaugh, Harvey (1944). The comics – there they stand! Journal of Educational Sociology 18 (4). Pp. 196-203.

I Wonder

I created this quick one page comic and made copies to handout at a teacher inservice I was presenting a while back. It was our first activity -- an icebreaker. My goal was to get teachers thinking about how it can be so easy to want to just approach our classes with an objective and try to yank them out of where there thoughts currently are. Even teachers sometimes have their minds on other things! Are there some times when we can make good use of what our students are obsessing about as a writing or drawing prompt?

The World's Fastest Cartoonist -- Sergio Aragones

When I was a kid, my parents encouraged us to read and pursue our own interests. One way they did that is by providing lots of reading material -- even "fun" reading like comics and humor magazines. They weren't stingy when it came to stuff like that and I think that's why we all became readers.

I liked comics, of course, and I also enjoyed reading books made by cartoonists. My favorite cartoonist was Sergio Aragones. He's the artist who drew (among other things) the Mad Marginals. If you've ever looked at Mad magazine, there's little tiny spot cartoons in the margins. The great Sergio Aragones has contributed cartoons for every issue of Mad since his debut in 1963, except for one issue. The post office actually lost the artwork Aragones created for that issue. As he approaches his 45th year anniversary of working for them, that's quite a record!

As a kid, I looked forward to seeing his work in every issue of Mad, but imagine my delight when I discovered paperback collections of his work in book stores! I liked how he always drew himself in a self deprecating way.

I had all of the books shown above and more -- and I still have a few of them!

When my older sisters were little, my dad actually took an old chicken coop and remodeled it to make a "play house". There was even electric lights and outlets in there. When my younger brother and I came along, we took it over, and re-enacted many western movies there. When we outgrew that it became my summer studio. I'd sit at a desk and make copies from the Aragones books -- one after another. Then one day I discovered, I could just think of something and draw it. It even looked a little like how Sergio would have drawn it! To this day, I think I see his influence in my cartoons, although I'm not as fast as he is!

One day I in the late 70s I was passing a comics rack and stopped dead in my tracks -- I discovered that there was a new comic book called Groo -- drawn entirely by Aragones! Groo was a spoof of the Conan and Sword & Sorcery comics. I collected that comic for several years. I really liked how he took a character type that was supposed to be super-heroic and made him goofy.

At 70, Sergio is still very prolific. He's had a prodigious career that includes virtually every major cartoon award—he’s received a National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award, multiple Eisner Awards and is a member of the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. In a recent article, Aragonés revealed his indefatigable optimism. "I love what I do. It's like doing it for the first time every time I do it."