I learned how to draw comics from library books. Old tomes like Jack Markow's Cartoonist's and Gag Writer's Handbook might explain to render art twice up and use a number 2 brush and ink so the photostat camera could recognize it. By the time I finally assimilated this knowledge picked up piecemeal over the course of many years, photostats were replaced by TIFs from scanners and everyone began drawing same size using colored pencils. In an attempt to avoid being a casualty of mere history, alongside my published work I inadvertently created this four panel strip:
In a sense, this was my true unmediated expression--pure, deeply personal. There was no attempt at composition, containment lines, language... If it resembled stabs in the dark or the frustration with the humidity of the day, it did not trouble me or cause me to reflect on its implications. Perhaps it was an attempt to chase my own ambulance--in recognition of the unplanned obsolescence on both sides of my drawing table.
