Why comic strips? Why did I get into that format? I always loved the newspaper comics and even cut out and collected quite a few as a child (newsprint does not age well). I just never had any interest in drawing them for some reason. As a kid I grew up with comic books. That was my first love. Action and adventure I guess. Comic books were what I wanted to write and draw when I grew up. Sooner if possible. I’ll write more about comic books later. Growing up too.

I have had a lot of adventures along the way. Many jobs. And varied. I was thinking about the mutiverse long before pop culture made it a thing. Had I stayed on any one course my life would be drastically different than it turned out or would have turned out choosing any of the many paths I had before me at the times. I often wondered about what meeting those other versions of me would be like. What if I had signed those papers to join the armed forces? What if I had pursued that vet tech degree? What if I took that offer to apprentice with a farrier? What if I had gotten my CDL and continued operating heavy machinery? Who would those people be now? As it is, choices and circumstances landed me here. No regrets. Just speculation.

On one of these potential timelines I worked for a zoo. I started off walking ponies until I was hired onto the zookeeping staff. After a while of that I transitioned to the maintenance department. The place was run by the county government so the benefits were good and the pay was fair with regular increases. Unfortunately, being a county facility meant we were subject to the politics and budget cuts that eventually led to my lay off after a few years there. I sure did like working there so I was a bit mad about it when it happened. I get mad about a lot of stuff. I refuse to let myself get sad and depressed. I get angry about it. That fire is good for forging art.

I also went to the bookstores a lot. Around this time I was in the local Borders and found Lee Nordlings YOUR CAREER IN COMICS on a shelf. It was ten bucks. I bought it. I still have the receipt in the book. It was January 2, 2003.

I was going to write a proper review of this book but decided to just write about its influence on me. I plan to reread it and maybe then I will ammend this. For now, in short, this book got me to start studying strips that I liked, looked up new ones (and old ones (other rants on all that later)), and I decided to try my hand at it.

The comic strip is a daily format. I could do that, right? I could maintain writing and drawing one strip a day, I think. This was not a vast departure from the page a day average from most comic book artists. I was laid off and looking for work so I had the time between job searching. So I went into it acting like it was a real job. Get myself on a schedule and crank out one strip a day and see where it went. That is how my BEDLAM strip was conceived. I had the zoo thing and anger and now a format to plug it all into. A true experiment all the way around. I guess, in a way, the state of PA was paying me to be a comic strip artist, via unemployment. Unintentionally.

One difficulty was doing the best work I could in that alotted time. One strip a day? Some of those early strips are not very good. I cringe but I post them for posterity anyway. Other difficulties existed. I plan on expounding on my comics eventually.

Getting back to Lee Nordling’s YOUR CAREER IN THE COMICS. This book became my guidebook. My roadmap on this particular journey. It breaks down the art and business of comic strips using quotes and excerpts from working professionals. Making it an easy and credible read.

What the book has going against it is the business itself. The information in the book is not dated. That is still relevant. Unless you are a digital artist. Yet I think much of this probably still applies. It was the business that had changed. Newspapers have been reducing budgets for comics, reducing the sizes of the comics and their pages to almost unreadable sizes, totally robbing the reader of some great art. Some newspapers have eliminated features altogether, some going digital, etc.

Finding representation / syndication had gotten much more difficult for the artist as that market shrank. It is not dead. Just smaller. I am of course talking about the newspaper feature. There is a whole world of online stuff I have yet to fully grasp.

In conclusion: Great book, highly reccommended and a valued addition to MY library. This book was one of two or three great influences that took me into the comic strip realm.

Also: The contact info on the photocopies of my strips behind the book in the image is no longer valid. I sure wish I could get back into that old email though.