So, with my anxiety up, I decided to do something for myself—I started making a comic strip. I wanted to do it all analog. No computers, except to scan. Just pencils, brushes, ink, and paper—imperfections and all. I had no set goal in mind. I wasn’t looking to shop it around or even post it online. I thought about that wonderful quote by Vonnegut where he said, “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”

I’ve got to say, it’s worked for me. Not always. I’m still stressed and angry, and frustrated, but when I’m in the act of making, I feel better. It’s healthier than drugs. At the point of writing this I have 80 strips fully drawn up. I won’t say they’re great or earth-shattering, but what I will say is I’ve been getting better. I’ve been enjoying doing this just for myself. And then something struck me.

I was thinking about how when I was young, reading Peanuts gave me such a calm feeling. The strips were never laugh-out-loud works, but there was a peaceful, comfortable quality to them. Like old friends who you knew were like you and you could relate. So, I thought maybe I could help others with their anxiety with this little escape. It’s named, appropriately, “Lost Souls.”

So, starting April 6, I’ll be posting 3 strips a week. I don’t think it’ll change the world, but I hope it gives you a moment of peace in this otherwise horrible time. Maybe that’s what I can do to help.

Meanwhile, I collected my old strip I did a while ago and here is a link to download and read to forget about the world for a bit: Misery Loves Sherman

10. Wizard of Id. As a kid, I got a bunch of comic strip book collections and I just loved the defined characters and quirky art by Brant Parker. Frammin at the jim jam, frippin on the krotz. Side note: I have an original of this strip

9. Wallace the Brave. A newer strip, but I love the characters and, again, the quirky art. I relate most to Spud, but Wallace is a breath of fresh air. I love how Wil Henry keeps the strip located in Rhode Island. Go seek it out. I also own a couple of original strips.

8. Barnaby. A strip most people won’t remember. Created by Crockett Johnson of Harold and the Purple Crayon books. It was weird and the art was very simple and stylized. Also, it gives an insight to what it was like during World War 2.

7. Cul de Sac. A delightfully weird strip. The use of the mundane to excavate humor is joyous in this strip. Again, I relate to Peter, the quiet, anxious boy. I have an original hanging above my computer. Richard Thompson was an artistic master.

6. Krazy Kat. George Herriman created what could be defined as the perfect comic strip. Definitely of its time, it makes reading difficult, but the art is chunky and the landscapes minimally stunning. Must reading for cartoonists.

5. Pogo. Like Krazy Kat, Pogo is of its time. The strip is dense in words and art. A former animator, Walt Kelly really showed off with the art, but the language makes it tough to read. The inking alone is a master’s class and the lettering is an art to itself. I own a couple of originals.

4. The Far Side. Now we reach the contemporary strips to my youth. The art and writing match so strongly, one without the other wouldn’t work. So out there and so minimalist in the art by Gary Larson, you can’t mistake it for any other comic.

3. Bloom County. This one hit me right as I started my teens. It had that sarcastic anti-establishment attitude that I was feeling. Definitely of it’s time, it’s the first strip to make me laugh out loud. I got to meet Berkeley Breathed in person and I own an original.

2. Calvin and Hobbes. Again, this one hit me at the right time and if you look at my art, I’m heavily influenced by Bill Watterson’s work. The art alone is amazing, but the creativity and limits-pushing writing send this one into the stratosphere.

1. Peanuts. Of course. As a scared, shy kid, I grew up with Peanuts Pocket Books. I related to the characters and the minimalist art. Again, you’ll see Charles Schulz’s influence on my art. Whenever I’m scared or anxious, I take out a Peanuts collection. For my money, the 60s were peak Peanuts. The sarcasm and cruelty, but also sadness and hope made the decade of his work genius. I own an original and I love it.

Honorary Mentions.

B.C. Very simple, but the characters were kinda interesting.

Garfield. The art got very polished, but I prefer the chunkier earlier work.

Dennis the Menace. Hank Ketcham was a great draftsman. The art did it for me.

Zits. Jim Borgman’s art is really just something to enjoy. I own an original.

Mutts. Wonderful art. I own an original.

Hagar the Horrible. I always like the art. Just a nice looking strip.

Beetle Baily. Interesting characters, but a bit sexist at times. Even as a kid it made me feel uncomfortable.

Robot Man. A wonderfully quirky strip born out of a licensing deal.

Rose is Rose. Very saccharine sweet, but the use of angles in the art made it interesting.

Doonesbury. As a kid, the politics went over my head. At some point Trudeau leveled up his art and it looked great.

Funky Winkerbean. As a kid, it was a strip I’d read in pocket books, but it never really reached that top level of interest for me.

Broom Hilda. Wonderfully cartoony art. While it wasn’t a staple of my youth, I loved it when I saw it. I own an original.

For Better or Worse. Very much a soap opera of the lives of a family. I enjoyed it when I read it, buying the books, but it never clicked with me.

I mentioned that I got into lettering kind of accidentally. But once in, I soon got married, bought a house and had kids. My focus was on making money which is the furthest thing from where I wanted to be. I grew up wanting to be a cartoonist. When I was offered a job lettering, I convinced myself it was a way station until I could get my art career going. Plus, I was in good company. Charles Schulz had lettered comics before he started Peanuts. I was doing it to learn a new craft that would help my comics. I did learn the craft, but soon I had no time to devote to my comics career. One would say, “What career?”

I was lamenting that to my friend Erik Larsen, who offered to kickstart my comics-making career by giving me 2 pages a month in his comic to do my own thing. It made no money, but it got me drawing again on a steady basis. Soon after, I got a job drawing single panel cartoons for the Complete Idiots Guide books while also lettering. That was a crash course in cartooning. I was writing and drawing cartoons about Ancient Egypt one week and computer programming the next. It was steady work and my skills improved exponentially.

Then, as my comic in Erik’s book, called Desperate Times, continued, I submitted it to comic strip syndicates and Amy Lago at United said she really liked the strip and we worked towards making it their next strip offering. It wound up not happening, which was heart-breaking.

At the time, the writing was on the wall. Newspapers were dying, comic strips weren’t making much money and a whole new crop of cartoonists were making what was called webcomics. Instead of newspapers, they’d offer their strips on their website. So, I decided I just wanted to do a strip for me. I didn’t expect to make money, and boy, I didn’t. It lasted over 2 years and had moderate success…meaning a few hundred people read it. But, I got better by doing a daily strip.

I did a book for Marvel called Franklin Richards, a book called Cow Boy, and then Brad Meltzer asked if I’d do a line of children’s books with him. And as I’ve just finished drawing our 40^th book of the main series, I realize that all that work has gotten me better. I know it’s kinda obvious, but when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t realize it. By no means am I saying I’m great by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve improved. I love what I’m doing and I think it comes through in the work.

That said, I missed just drawing for myself. As a kid, I never felt happier than when I was in my room just drawing for the love of it. I loved trying to learn how to ink with a brush, work on improving my character design and style. I would use real pens, pencils, and brushes. Real paper. And make mistakes that couldn’t be fixed with command-z.

So, in between books and other projects, I’ve secretly been writing and drawing a strip for myself. I have about 8 weeks done and I don’t know if I’m going to post them. I may. They might not be any good, but I’m doing the strip for a number of reasons. First, I love the meditative quality of the writing and drawing. My anxiety drops, I don’t doom scroll, and I feel better in general. Second, I love the “happy accidents” as Bob Ross calls them. I like not trying to be perfect. Maybe the jokes aren’t great, maybe I didn’t draw something exactly as I wanted, but that’s okay. I feel like I’m learning to improve again.

Third, I mostly work digitally these days—it goes faster, it’s easy to make corrections, and doesn’t require scanning. So, to just slow down and draw and write has really been a joy.

Finally, I don’t have to change anything I don’t want to. I live in a world where my co-creators will ask for changes, editors and publishers will have me make changes, designers will have me make changes. Now, that’s part of the process of the business and I don’t really mind, but I get to do this one thing for me. No one can ask for changes and if it’s not good, so what? I’m doing it for me.

So, get off the grid and do something just for yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the candy. I just found no joy in dressing up in a costume. For some, Halloween is the greatest holiday. Even as adults, they dress in costume. Not me.

When I go to comic book conventions, costumes, or “cosplay”, are ubiquitous. People love it and I do not fault anyone for enjoying the things they love. Some folks just love embodying the character they’re dressed up. They stay in character and sometimes, I think, others actually believe they are those characters.

Case in point. A number of years ago, I was lettering a new series based on Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. The entire creative team was pulled together for a panel at the New York Comic Con. In the green room, we got to hang out and chat with the man himself before we went on stage. The room held somewhere around 4 thousand people, so the guy from the convention who was guiding us said they had security for us, just in case.

Before we walked up on stage, our security showed up—a bunch of guys in Star Wars stormtrooper costumes. That was our security. One of us, perhaps Stephen himself, chuckled and remarked that they did realize that these people are just dressing up as stormtroopers, right? These guys were probably just 7-11 employees…not exactly high end security.

Once on stage, the troopers came out and stood in a line in front of the stage. They were really distracting, so Stephen asked if they would just leave. Which they did and we, really just Stephen, answered questions and we survived.

Another time, I was at the San Diego Comic Book Convention. It was lunchtime, and my buddy, Erik Larsen, wanted ribs from a place in the Gaslamp District called Dick’s Last Resort. The theme of the restaurant is that the staff act like, well, dicks. They are rude and insulting. We’re comic book people, so we’re used to it.

Our lunch had arrived and we dug in when a group of Klingons walk in. These guys were in full costumes and stayed totally in character. The staff were in character as well and began mocking the Klingons, who, in turn, started threatening them. Back and forth they went as the entire restaurant stopped to watch this stage play. More staff showed up as we stared in mid bite waiting to see how this would resolve.

Their voices really started getting louder and louder. “Look at you idiots dressed up! Get a life!” “You insult our honor and you shall pay!” One Klingon got into a staffer’s face as he screamed at him. Spit and insults flying. It looked like they were about to come to blows, when…

In walk a troop of stormtroopers who proceeded to break up the fight. The Klingons were taken to their seats and the rest of the restaurant patrons went back to their meals never knowing if this was all a set-up or just the nature of comic book conventions and cosplay.

Either way, maybe 7-11 Stormtroopers do know how to handle security.

These days there is a strip called Wallace the Brave that I love. It’s got a unique voice that’s silly, kind, and bizarre at times. You should really check it out.

But, in between, I discovered another unique and brilliant strip called “Cul de Sac” by Richard Thompson. Again, it had it’s own voice and look. It has this sketchy, dashed-off quality to it and I love it. I didn’t know much about Richard, but over the years Iearned he had so many styles of art. He drew hilarious spot illustrations, a delightfully bizarre feature in the Washington Post called “Richard’s Poor Almanac” as well as being a breathtaking caricaturist. In short, the man was a genius.

Back in the day, as happened, we followed each other on Twitter (when it wasn’t a cesspool) and would go back and forth once in a while. He even recommended I go to the National Gallery when I was visiting Washington D.C. But, we never met in person or had an actual conversation. A real regret, because, as we discovered, he had Parkinson’s Disease and first his career ended, then we lost the man. Way too young. But I made it a point to find and pick up as many books by him as I could find.

If you want to learn about the man, The Art of Richard Thompson is a fabulous book showcasing his art and accompanied by interviews. And, for those who might like an idea about his life and work in video form, you can watch THIS video.

Finally, it took a while, but I was able to find and purchase an original. It currently hangs right above my computer so I can look at it every day. It focuses on my favorite character, Petey, a neurotic and anxious boy. Also, it references Lord of the Rings.

You can find the Cul de Sac strips and Richard’s Poor Almanac on Go Comics and also, if you’re inclined, donate to Team Cul de Sac, which raises money to go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation (another hero of mine) and help find a cure for that horrible disease.

I hope more people learn of Richard’s work and keep it alive!

Also, how often should I be posting. I’m not posting every day, but once a week? Is that enough?

Anyway, to add a little to this ask from you, here’s some recent watercolors I’ve done. Enjoy!

The thought being, that if I used the same tools, I would be just as good as my idols. But, in every interview I read or book on the subject, the specifics were rather vague. I can’t tell you how many times an artist would say, “It’s not the tools. Use what you’re comfortable with and keep practicing.” When you’re young, you just need any information to get you moving. So in the thought of paying it forward…and since every time I post a drawing, someone asks…here are my tools.

(Just be warned that they constantly change and what I use today might be gone tomorrow in favor of something else.)

WRITING

Simple. I use spiral bound college ruled notebook paper and a Paper Mate felt tip pen. I love the feel of the pen on the paper. I tend to sit in a comfy chair in my studio, drink a cup of coffee and get the mind rolling.

PENCILING

I use a Ticonderoga blue pencil and sometimes if I’m on the road, I use these Graphgear mechanical pencils. One has blue lead, the other HB. And in the case of the HB, I also have a kneaded eraser.

INKING

Here’s where it varies due to time, line quality or sometime just what I feel like.

Most of the time I use a Kuretake #13 brush pen. I use a refillable cartridge that I put Higgins Black Magic ink in.

Next is the Kuretake HIKKEI! SIGN PEN EXTRA FINE Brush Pen. It’s stiffer, but has a little line weight change depending on pressure. I think it may be discontinued because it’s out of stock everywhere.

For fine lines, I use either the Tombow Fudenosuke Fude Brush Pen Hard or the Zebra Pen Zensations Brush Pen, Brush Tip.

Then I have a Pentel brush pen that I use for filling in blacks.

All are water-resistant because I also use them for water colors.

Finally I use a Pentel Presto white-out pen and a Zig brush pen to white out stuff. The Zig can be quite frustrating when not used for a while. The brush gets dried out and the white-out globs out making a mess. Use with care.

PAPER

For straight illustration, I use Strathmore 500 series premium vellum bristol board. It’s just the best. I love the texture, the way it takes all different kind of pen and brush lines well.

For watercolors, I use Strathmore 500 series premium hot press watercolor paper. The hot press is smoother than the the cold press. I always feel like I’m inking on a topographical map with cold press. I also use Holbein artist’s watercolors from tubes. I’m still trying to improve my watercolors. I’m still stumbling in the dark. I use assorted watercolor brushes. I can’t seem to settle on one type or size.

SKETCHBOOK

I use an Illo sketchbook and I use all the tools I mentioned above.

DIGITAL

My process for drawing on a computer is pretty much the same as analog. I draw on a Cintiq Pro 24 P tablet. I use Clip Studio Paint. I will pencil with a pencil tool on a layer, ink with a brush that I made in the program on a second layer and I also color on there as well. I have a bunch of textures and paint brushes I use for that, but mostly I select a section, and fill it with a color. I’m simple. I then export a final file as a tiff and convert it to CMYK in Photoshop.

And, that’s about it. But now I find myself saying that most annoying statement I heard when I was starting out; it’s not the tools, it’s the artist. It all comes down to passion, dedication and purposeful practice. For young (or not so young) cartoonists, I hope this gives a little insight into my process and for non-artists, I hope you look at this as a peek behind the curtain where a grumpy old man pulls all the levers.

If you look back at my previous covers, I wanted images that looked different from other picture books and ones that would grab the eye.

So, I figured some people might like a behind-the-scenes tour of the making of the cover to my latest book, The Imaginoodles.

As with every book, it starts out with design sketches I send off to my wonderful editor, Lauri, and the talented designer, Jason. In these, again, I wanted to try something different.

Each of them was a moment from the book, but with all my previous cover being heavily white, I want to change it up and have a largely black cover. I also wanted the title really large and be a focal point. We all agreed on the first cover but maybe not with a black background, so I worked it up. That included doing the title myself, as I’ve done in the past.

Based on the idea of imagination, I wanted a very different kind of logo.

And, then I did up the cover itself. It’s a point in the story where a giant squid attacks our band of Imaginoodles. And this is how it turned out.

We also thought it would be cool if the tentacles extended to the back cover, so I did this.

And then we all felt like it wasn’t right. Jason suggested a couple things. More of a focus on the characters and a more simplified logo. He grabbed a couple of images from the interiors, put them together to indicate what he was thinking and I took that prompt and did a revised sketch.

It seemed to work. So, I finished up that idea and we got what is now the cover of the book.

The thing I’ve discovered after doing this a while is don’t just settle on your first idea. Picture books may seem simple, but it’s a lot of work to make things look simple.

I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy of THE IMAGINOODLES for the little ones in your life!