My Life in Comics (part 1?)

Recently, the Center for Cartoon Studies invited me to talk to a class about my career in comics. I put together a little presentation that wound up taking more than hour to present (oops) and rather than let all that prep work go to waste, here's a portion of my talk!

I have been making comics for almost 30 years, 22 of them professionally.

The Sunday Funnies was my introduction to comics, especially the stunning work of Calvin and Hobbes. My dad, too, had several hardcover book collections of comics on his bookshelf that I’d also pour over religiously.

One of those books was the Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, an anthology of Sunday comics from around the first half of the 20th century. It had examples of really creative, visually groundbreaking comics that differed a lot from modern day newspaper strips, like Little Nemo in Slumber Land and political cartoons from the 1890s.

Some of those books on my dad's shelf were actually way too adult for me at that age, like Robert Crumb's work and Titters, but they taught me that people could see sex and “female issues” as irreverent, ridiculous things. I would secretly read through these books until feeling too scandalized and then shove them back into their place on the bookshelf in shame and offense. ...Only to pull them back again later and repeat the cycle. I was repelled and drawn at the same time to these cheeky depictions of bodies and sex.

While my parents grocery shopped, I would park myself in the magazine section and read comics, especially the many Archie* lines, Sonic the Hedgehog, Barbie and the Disney Adventures Magazine. It had a really good comic section that, yes, featured Disney™ character material, but it also included a bunch of weird indie comics like Bone and Nervous Rex. Back in the 90s, the first issue of Bone was colorized and serialized in Disney Adventures in several page snippets, and at the end of the run it concluded with a note from the editor** saying 'If you want to read the rest of this comic, go check it out from your comic book store!' 

That was the reason I went into a comic shop for the first time as an adolescent, I wanted the next issue of Bone. 

*(My very first published work was fanart of Aunt Zelda, printed in Sabrina the Teenage Witch #3 in 1997, which was a tie-in to capitalize on the new TV show starring Melissa Joan Hart.)

**(That editor being Heidi McDonald, whose credit preceded the comic section each month. I remember making a note of it because it stood out to me, as a pre-pubescent girl, that here was a woman's name working with comics, and I hadn't noticed that elsewhere.)

We got the internet in 1995 when I was twelve years old. This was dial-up internet through a modem, so you’d have to unplug the phone and grit your teeth through that off-key squeal to get online. (Only the Modem Generation understands that hit of serotonin from hearing that beautiful mechanical grind.)

There were only a handful of webcomics back then, and for the most part they were emulating black and white newspaper strips, like Kevin and Kell, Bruno, Helen: Sweetheart of the Internet, and Sluggy Freelance. A notable exception was Argon Zark by Charlie Parker, which was not only in full color but was very actively playing with what a comic page could do and how it could uniquely interact with the reader on a web page. 

In high school, I was a member of an art and animation forum run by a college student*.  As an aside: A shit ton of today’s Big Deal established industry professionals in comics and animation originally met on that one amateur board. Future Academy Award winning animated filmmakers, cartoonists that went on to become New York Times bestsellers, people who are legit successful and famous in the arts- we originally met online as teens to twenty-somethings in a Gargoyles fan forum and now it’s like, "haha, remember when we all had acne and teenage LiveJournal drama?"

*(That college student, Aimee (then Major) Steinberger, went on to work for a variety of shows and studios you've definitely heard of, and even Assistant Directed on Futurama.)

Making comics and art has always been my way of processing my world, but it was also primarily a social thing for me at that point. It’s how I got validation, how I made friends, and how my friends and I engaged with each other.

(Comic that Vera Brosgol and I co-drew, when we met for the first time in New York City in 2002 as high schoolers, with a tiny cameo of Ben Wilgus in the hobbits panel)

Making comics and art with my friends was my entire world back then.

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Cuttin' this post here! Maybe I'll do a part two that goes into the formation of Pants Press, minicomics, and getting my first professional gigs, but don't hold your breath cos this shit already took forever to compile.

EDIT 3/2/2025:

Read Part Two