In 2019, in Seattle, I shared a table at a library conference with one of my heroes, the great Ivan Brunetti. He was there to promote his TOON book Comics Easy as ABC. I was there to promote Snails Are Just My Speed.
Fantagraphics invited Ivan and me to an after party at a taproom miles from the Convention Center. We said we’d never find the place. Tom Kacyzynski of Uncivilized Books offered to drive us. Great! Tom had flown to Seattle from Minneapolis on a red-eye flight and was beyond exhausted. Beneath the Seattle Convention Center is a warren of subterranean parking lots extending for blocks. Tom could not recall where he had parked. I asked him if he remembered taking a left or right turn into the lot. He thought left, maybe. I asked what the car looked like. He thought it was a white compact. He pressed the button on his fob and we clambered over diagonal barriers from one parking level to the next. At one point Ivan was astride a steel barrier and said, “You go. Just leave me.” Ivan may have been kidding, but we refused to leave him in the catacombs.
Tom kept clicking the key fob and we thought could hear the car beeping back. Eventually we found the rental car. It was little and white.
When we got to the party there were a half dozen artists sitting on a stage with a microphone. The moderator asked the speakers, “Is there any sort of comics you don’t like? The response, “Anything by old white guys!” was met with approving laughter. So for me, the party was less fun than finding the car.
I am doing a presentation for the Pennsylvania Art Educators Association on the best books to teach the art of creating comics. Ivan’s Comics Easy as ABC is, in my opinion, the best book to teach elementary schoolers how to make comics. Full disclosure, I contributed a drawing to this book.
His Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice is geared for adults and published by Yale University Press. In it Ivan insists that the lessons be done in the precise order that are presented in the book. I told Ivan I thought that was a bit bossy. He said that rule was meant for college students and that as a professional I was permitted to skip around.
He has a new kids’ book, Shapes and Shapes, coming in October from TOON Books.
The FREE Cartoonist Certificate
This summer Ivan posted a somewhat curmudgeonly, yet wonderful screed on instagram. He was frustrated by aspiring cartoonists sending him comics and asking for feedback. (He made an exception for students enrolled in his class at Columbia College Chicago.) I suggested making an auto-reply to send corespondents, – a Cartoonist Certificate. I was thinking of the certificates bestowed by the Wizard of OZ. I am delighted to report he ran with my suggestion. See Below…
FROM IVANBRUNETTI.COM: “Today, the Curia shares one of the Foundation’s most recent pro bono efforts to bolster the confidence of aspiring cartoonists everywhere: The Cartoonist Certificate.
These certificates have been consecrated by Mr. Brunetti himself and thus are to be considered Holy Writ. Like an indulgence. They can be dowloaded as a high-resolution PDF file . Simply fill in your name and date the document, and you are now a cartoonist. Mr. Brunetti blesses you.
We simply ask that you make a serious commitment to the venerable and timeless Art of Cartooning before downloading this sacred and legally/morally binding document. The certificate merely takes your internal dedication and gives it an external form, one that can easily be resized to accommodate your printing and framing needs. Go forth and draw. Don’t ask Mr. Brunetti for feedback, as you no longer need it. You are very welcome.“
Illustration Concentration 