Book Hoarder

+ recent comics workshops, goodbye to The Nib, and more

I don’t tend to bring as many large, expensive, deluxe-edition, art object graphic novels into the home as I used to. If anything, I use my local library more than ever. This doesn’t mean there aren’t stacks of books all over my house, there are, but there are less than there used to be. Our basement came out nice as well!

Cartooning Workshops and Author Visits

It’s almost the end of the school year, and I’ve been busy with a number of comics-making workshops and assembly presentations. Here are a few recent photos.

Comics Workshop at Bradley Beach Elementary

This is a photo of me explaining the importance of using the word DUNP! in a basketball comic…

Comics Workshop at Sayreville Middle School

Cartooning Assembly at Midtown Community Elementary School

Cartooning Assembly at Neptune Middle School

My comics-making workshops are different from my large assemblies. They are an opportunity for smaller groups of students to have the opportunity to write and draw their own comics, with lots of one-on-one instruction and feedback from me. I’ve put together workbooks filled with cartooning exercises that I guide the children through. A big thing that I try to impress upon kids when I work with them, is that it doesn’t matter how “good” you can draw when you’re making comics.

Drawing and Cartooning aren’t the same thing. Cartooning is about conveying information using the language of comics. What you have to focus on is learning how to tell a story clearly that your reader can understand. Drawing is different. You learn to draw in a style that makes you happy as you spend time becoming the kind of cartoonist you want to be. But if you’re capable of making pictures as good as the ones seen in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, then you’re capable of making comics.

I’m scheduling events for the 2023-2024 academic year now. I would love to do more in-school workshops with smaller groups of students. If you’d be interested in setting something up, please contact me through my website, or just email me directly.

Farewell to The Nib

I was saddened to see yesterday that long-running comics website The Nib is ceasing operations this Summer. This was a site that would publish a variety of comics on a daily basis, introducing the world to a number of fantastic cartoonists, and, importantly, paying them properly for their efforts. That was a rarity in the days when it launched (and unfortunately, with the site shutting down, it’s become just that little bit more rare once again), and speaking personally, helped me better see the value in my own work.

I’ve been lucky enough over the years to write a number of cartoon essays for The Nib, a few of which ended up being some fairly big-deal pieces for me. My work at the site was nominated for multiple Eisners (this one and this one) and Ignatz Awards (this one), as well as shortlisted for the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize (this one).

That comic in particular, Longstreet Farm, is one of my better short-form efforts, and I often think about how I never would have been able to otherwise create a piece like this without the financial compensation and reputable publishing platform that The Nib was providing. If that site had never existed, I never would have been able to come up with a comic like this, and I’m really proud of this comic! I don’t like thinking about now, with more and more outlets to house them disappearing, there are a lot of great comics and cartoon essays that will now never get made.

I’d like to say thank you to my long-time editors at The Nib, Matt Bors and Eleri Harris, as well as all of the other smart and talented people working there, for all the effort you put into creating a high quality daily website, and for taking cartooning so seriously all these years.

‘Zine Club

Just one last thing, I want to share the cover to the next FUN-TIME ‘zine that I’ve been working on. You can follow me on Instagram to read many of the comics that are going to fill this issue, and join my ‘Zine Club on Patreon, or become a paid-subscriber to this Substack, to receive print copies of this and all future ‘zines in the mail as I produce them.

Thanks again for reading along!

Mike