In 2008, the Regina Public Library commissioned four local artists and/or graphic designers to work on a comic book celebrating the library’s centennial. This project included myself, Jonah McFadzean (my brother), Allan Dotson, and Raul Viceral.
Each person was given a photograph from a different point in the library’s history. We were asked to respond to the photo any way we wished for ten pages– fact or fiction, we could write and draw pretty much whatever we wanted.
This is the photo I was given
I should mention at this point that the RPL is particularly fantastic when it comes to comics. Their ever-growing collection of comic books, graphic novels, zines, and related ephemera is very impressive, and the collection rotates between the branches on a regular basis. Every time I go there I find something cool, be it Chris Ware’s sketchbook, Joe Matt’s Spent, a Krazy Kat collection, Watchmen, Sandman, or just some regular super-hero and Archie comics.
They have also offered a lot comics-related programming, including manga clubs and comic jams. Not to mention the fact that the Dunlop Art Gallery (which physically exists within the Central and Sherwood branches of the RPL), has brought in exhibitions like Comic Craze.
Anyway, enough shameless praise for the RPL, I don’t want it to go to their collective heads and have them go all apathetic on me.
Back to the project. The book was titled Four Tall Tales: A Graphic History of the Regina Public Library. It was also one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve worked on.
It took about a full day's work to ink the first panel
Cartooning is a skill that requires a lot of patience, practice, and knowledge. It might seem simple to just draw some funny pictures in little boxes to those who have never tried, but for any artist worth his/her weight in ink, the process requires constantly navigating dozens of questions about composition, balance, timing, perspective, style, and more. Every time I work on a comic I learn a little bit more about the medium, which makes me feel like I’m getting a little bit closer to being a ‘for-reals’ cartoonist.
But, as many artists know, the people paying the bills frequently believe that they know more than the artist. For example I was once hired to do some ‘cartoony’ illustrations and had the following conversation:
Bill-payer: “Yeah, you made this character look really angry in this drawing. It’s good, but why did you scribble above his head like that?”
Dakota: “It’s a cartoon symbol for anger. You know, like he’s sizzling, or blowing steam off.”
Bill-payer: “Hmm. Yeah. Well, I don’t like it. Get rid of it.”
Fortunately, the RPL and the Dunlop gave the artists a lot of freedom in this project. I can’t speak for the other artists, but this made me feel like they trusted us a to do a good job, and so I wanted to do a great job for them. I did tons of research, trying to come up with an interesting story. In the end, I probably worked full-time on the comic for about a month.
But more on that in a future post, where I will show some more images from the comic, as well as some insight into the terrifying moral controversy caused by one li’l panel!
Four Tall Tales is available at the RPL now, selling for $15. It’s beautifully printed, and it contains very diverse work.