Feature image: CXC discussion: Re-Ignition: The Craft of Rebellion – A Conversation with Ronald Wimberly (middle) and James Spooner (right) moderated by CM Williams (left). Also the th(ink) is from Keith Knight- whose talk I will unpack later, I think!
On Sunday at the end of Cartoon Crossroads (CXC), I went to a talk moderated by CM Williams between Ronald Wimberly and James Spooner. Wimberly is the cartoonist behind Gratuitous Ninja, an endless scroll comic and the comics paper LAAB, and Spooner talked about his recent autobio comic High Desert relating how he discovered Punk music (and culture) as a refuge in his young adulthood. (As moderator Williams didn’t talk about his work, but I definitely would have liked to hear more about his Hyperallergic cartoons).
Wimberly and Spooner both spoke to some extent about the FORM of comics that I think is useful to consider when deciding to make comics. Spooner whose recent comic is his first foray into the medium, related the process of making his graphic memoir to building a movie storyboard. After writing everything out, he just jumped into the process of illustrating his script and kind of figured it out as he went along- while Wimberly embraced more experimental forms of comics like the endless scroll or adopting the tabloid newspaper as a primary medium. I generally preferred Wimberly’s investment in form – both digital and in print-yet both methods were rooted, at their core, in storytelling.
I was glad to get to chat with Wimberly afterwards about his residency at the Columbus Museum of Art in the gallery where his work was displayed. I really loved the ambition of printing an endless scroll comic as a massive accordion book that he funded via Kickstarter as well as the social mission of LAAB to investigate issues of identity like race, class, and gender through comics and the tabloid press.
In the earlier talk, he had brought up a disambiguation between the terms cartoonist, comics artist, and illustrator to map out how each, to him, functioned differently. He defined the cartoonist as “a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images)” -(a definition which is backed up by Wikipedia because that’s what he changed it to!). And I think I can subscribe to this definition.
One thing among many that I enjoyed about at CXC was in how it forced me to think a lot about my own identity as a cartoonist. Unlike C2E2 or other comics conventions, I really appreciated the expo’s emphasis on cartooning as the core of the celebration. It wasn’t like in the other conventions that emphasize the pop culture consumer fandom that arises out of popular comics and culture, but was more artist centered- more cartoonist centered.
Even though I have been cartooning for a while (Wahoo, for Dragon and Goat’s 20th anniversary this year!), I have spent a lot of time calling myself an ‘artist,’ rather than a ‘cartoonist.’ In art circles (especially in art schools two decades ago), cartoons were looked down upon. Sure everyone did them but the expectation was that you grew out of them and did more serious things. While I don’t regret studying painting, I definitely found my voice more in comics than in painting alone.
Yet even as I accept being a ‘cartoonist,’ I still find myself asking if I belong? The National Cartoonists Society used to qualify membership by one’s income- making a living by one’s cartoons. So if I don’t have a syndicated comic strip or a series of books that gets in every Barnes and Noble around the country- am I still a cartoonist? Since most newspapers are collapsing and continuing to dump comics artists and who knows how long Barnes and Nobles will be around- I think defining a cartoonist less by how their work gets out and more by the work they’re doing, is definitely the way to go.
While I may not be “Living by the pen,” my choice to be a professor (which I’m pretty luck that I’ve been able to do) is what allows me to keep telling the stories I want. It may slow down my production since a lot of my time is devoted to the classroom, but I’m not beholden to editors cutting out parts of my books, publishers pressing with insane deadlines, or really having to worry about making something that will sell. Instead I get to work on books that go for something more than feeding the beast of Capitalism, while still also having a decent pension…
Of all the cartoonists I heard talking about their careers and projects at CXC and beyond, pretty much all of them are looking beyond traditional media and outlets for their work. Whether it’s doing college talks, developing video games, or pitching TV shows to Netflix, they’re not just limited to scribbling their ways into meals. The cartoonist of today has to hustle to get their stories out there. For me to be a cartoonist you’re not making money by your pictures alone- but making money to make your pictures- to tell your stories. So I think if I can keep doing that, I’ll keep calling myself a cartoonist.
Now to get back to some drawing…okay, realistically, a little grading then some drawing…