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"Thank you so much for your comix. They arrived Friday and Andrew has been devouring them." Brooke, mother |
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Archive for the ‘Author’s Purpose’ Category
I Dream of Sparky
Written on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 [permanent link]
I’ve been blessed to meet most of my cartooning heroes in the past 20 years, but I never got to meet Charles “Sparky” Schulz.
Until two nights ago. I had a dream that I found him — he was undercover, hiding from his worldwide fame as the creator of “Peanuts.” He was a schoolbus driver for elementary kids! Somehow I had reason to get on his bus (though my two sons are well out of elementary school now, I may have been there mentally because that’s still my target audience for my comix) and I easily recognized him under his old guy felt cap. He looked like a kindly grandpa and was very quiet — even as he asked me to not reveal his secret. Of course I promised I would not.
It was a great dream. It made me very happy to make that simple connection, standing on the steps of that bus. The day outside the bus was sunny and warm — were we in California, where Schulz the Quiet Minnesotan had found a place to draw his magic? Or had he moved to my town, Williamsburg, like so many other retirees? My dreams are always based in reality — I’m never flying, never shooting through space talking to aliens. I’m chatting with Charlie Brown’s dad!!
A 42-year-old cartoonist dreaming about Charles Schulz is nothing remarkable — my generation of cartoonists grew up chasing his example. I and many of my peers started drawing by copying the Charlie Brown and Snoopy strips we read in the newspaper. I recreated a bunch of them line-for-line and mailed them to Schulz, and some nice secretary mailed me back the form letter you see above. And it was one of the best moments of my life.
Thank goodness Sparky paid for that secretary to crank out those form letters. That simple piece of paper inspired me to keep going, to keep practicing, to believe that my dream of finding a job as a cartoonist could be real. I’ve had plenty of inspirations from many sources to be an Artist, but Schulz was the shining example that you could get a JOB as a CARTOONIST and maybe conquer the world.
And here he was in my dream, giving up the world to live a simple life caretaking children. Which is what he had already done for decades with his cartooning.
From one of those kids, Thanks, Sparky!
Tags: Bentley Boyd, cartooning, Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, elementary school, Peanuts, Snoopy
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OK, Twitter too!
Written on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 [permanent link]Woah, there are a lot of librarians on Twitter!!! And plenty of other cool people, too. So now ChesterComix will be a Tweet you can follow as I hack my way through history.
I remember hearing about Twitter for the first time on an NPR talkshow in 2007. The host kept reading sample Tweets and then asking the founder, “But WHY do I care that Jamie just ate a taco?!?!” I asked the same question. I love Facebook so much that I thought it and this public website blog would keep my update bases covered. Who would care if I ate a taco?!?!
But Twitter is really connecting a lot of interesting people. And it seems a great Do-It-Yourself way to send a short press release. And my business is all about Do-It-Yourself tech. So I’ve added my voice to one of the most insistent pieces of the Web 2.0 cloud of information.
I hope it’s not too boring for you to hear about when I’m researching just how to draw an 1890s farmhouse in Idaho . . .
Check it out: http://twitter.com/ChesterComix
Tags: Bentley Boyd, Chester Comix, Chester the Crab, educational comics, graphic novels, history comics, Twitter
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Homeschool All-Stars cover
Written on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 [permanent link]
I’m in the homestretch for the homeschooler book! I’m hoping to get it to the printers this week. One of my favorite parts of making a new book is drawing the cover, which is a great moment to try to draw all the inside contents together.
This cover is a tribute to the Justice League of America comix I grew up on. Every year there would be a 2-issue crossover story featuring a whole pack of heroes, so their busts would appear around the edges of the cover to promote the story. To do an homage to that kind of kitchen-sink cover was a fun way for me to get out front more of the one-page bios. (I’m hoping this book will also sell at gift shops in the various museums dedicated to these folks.)
Unfortunately, this stage of the creative process is also the hardest for me emotionally. It’s where I don’t feel talented at ALL! Near the end I get really frustrated as I pull back and see the difference between what I have in my head and what appears on the page. (This used to happen even near the end of much shorter projects, such as the daily black and white political cartoon I drew from 1995 to 1999.) So I’m diving back in and trying to sharpen things up in these last few days — kind of a marathon runner’s last gasp push to cross the finish line strong!
Tags: Bentley Boyd, biography, Chester Comix, George Patton, graphic novel, history, homeschool, Teddy Roosevelt
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