SDG, the Cartoon Critic: A brief introduction

[in pursuit of quick wins]

This is not a Cartoon Critic! This is a character called The Professor from my Simon & Schuster days (see below), here in the guise of a film director. He’s holding movie storyboards—not comic-book pages. But he’s from my cartooning past, and he’s at least sufficiently suggestive of a Cartoon Critic for the current purpose. (P.S. If you can guess the movie depicted in the storyboards, you will know about when I was doing this work!)

Long before I went back to school for theology … well, I went back to school for theology! (The second time was for diaconal formation. The first time was because when we were newlyweds Suz said to me, “You love teaching, and you love your faith. You might want to be a theology teacher.” It look me 30 years, but I finally got there!)

Before that, though, I originally studied cartooning at the School of Visual Arts. The degree was a BFA in Media Arts—I took classes in illustration and graphic design, as well as some film classes, which have served me well in my life as a film critic—but I was a cartooning major. I studied under legends like Will Eisner and Gene Colan, and it was amazing, and to this day I treasure those experiences, even though cartooning wound up playing a smaller role in my professional life than I once hoped. (Among other things, for a few years I did cartoon illustrations for educational books while working at a Simon & Schuster imprint—like The Professor, a mascot for a series of ESL textbooks. Good times, but life ultimately took me in other directions.)

These days I generally use my art skills purely recreationally—like the cartoon of Jesus and a camel that I drew for my recent post on whether Jesus thought camels were funny. (If that’s theology, theology is winning!) In between, though, was a time, long ago, when Suz and I would read the Sunday funnies (back when print newspapers were a thing in our lives), and sometimes my old lessons would come back to me, and I would say things like “You know, this panel would work better if the layout were flopped” or “This caption is unnecessary and even detracts from the joke.” And Suz would reply, “You should save these and teach a course at SVA” or “You should save these and do a book.” (She was probably right, again, but that time I didn’t listen.)

Eventually, I did start jotting down some critical thoughts (positive/appreciative as well as negative/constructive!) on certain comic strips: thoughts I hoped might be of interest to a general audience. I never actually thought seriously about making a book (I always assumed the legal-rights hassle would be prohibitive) or teaching a course (I suppose I would have needed a more successful cartooning career myself to land a teaching position). But I enjoyed the process of analysis and commentary too much to just let it all vanish forever.

Anyway, here we are—and I think the time is right to begin sharing some of those thoughts with you. Installments to begin following immediately, starting with a Halloween monster–themed installment of Gary Larson’s The Far Side!