Drawing to an end From trains to comics Comics are magic Tyrant to teacher Industry or art?
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By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: May 20, 2007
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – In early 2005, James Sturm looked out the window of his studio in downtown White River Junction and saw opportunity where others saw an ancient, vacant department store.
Two years later, Sturm is graduating a class of 18 from that storefront, which has been since renovated into the Center for Cartoon Studies, a two-year college dedicated to the art of cartooning and graphic novels.
Sturm, the cartoonist behind the graphic novel, "The Golem's Mighty Swing," about a Jewish baseball team in the 1920s, was looking for teaching opportunities, but instead decided to embark on his dream to found a comics college.
"I always wanted to start a school, but I thought I would wait until I was a wise old master," Sturm joked. "And then I realized I may never become that wise old master, so I decided to do it now."
The two-year college trains students in the art of cartooning – including the storytelling techniques behind comics, the history of the medium, how to navigate through the industry and, most importantly, how to draw comics.
"A lot of art schools have de-emphasized the fundamental skills in favor of more abstract, post-modern art," said Jon-Mikel Gates, a cartoonist from Olympia, Wash., who graduated Saturday. "We learned instead how to develop our art skills, in addition to learning about the ins and outs of the industry."
Several high-profile cartoonists have been drawn to the school either as faculty or advisors, including Vermont cartoonist and publisher Stephen Bissette, "From Hell" co-creator Eddie Campbell and Massachusetts publisher Denis Kitchen.
"The list of faculty and advisers certainly was an appeal," said artist Colleen Frakes, who is also from Olympia and graduated Saturday. "It was an amazing experience to suddenly be working with and learning from the people whose comics I've admired and read."
White River Junction is known as the rail town that time forgot.
The village's claim to fame dates back to 1847 when the first rail lines were constructed. Over the next several decades, those lines extended north to Burlington and south to Windsor, making White River one of the most important rail road junctions in northern New England.
Today many things about the town haven't changed. The rail lines, though not as crucial for transportation as they once were in the town's heyday, still cut through the downtown, and a row of venerable 19th century brick buildings line Main Street.
"I like the scale of the town," said Sturm. "It feels like a town that has been through a lot and bears its scars proudly."
The community has seen an artistic resurgence in recent years. It's now home to the Tip Top Building, a renovated 45,000 square foot space that houses a bakery and artist studios. The Main Street Museum has become a regional attraction for its eclectic modern culture art and the Northern Stage theater group hosts productions at the historic Briggs Opera House, a 245-seat theater downtown.
CCS and its students fit right in with White River Junction's resurgence, according to Lorie Hirshfield, the director of planning for the town of Hartford. The town helped Sturm acquire funding two years ago to start the school.
"The students, who all come here with different backgrounds, ages and from all over the country, have been so great," Hirshfield said. "We are very pleased that this has been so successful and they are coming in at a time when the whole area is on an upswing."
Students said they were initially concerned that the local population wouldn't understand them. And while many report that the town has been very welcoming, some students feel there aren't enough recreational opportunities for younger people in White River.
"Everything is closed on Mondays and the downtown pretty much shuts down at 9 p.m.," said Frakes. "Still, that means there are fewer distractions for making comics."
More than 150 people crammed into the downtown opera house Saturday afternoon to watch the 18 cartoonists graduate.
Commencement speaker Patrick McDonnell, the creator of the newspaper strip, "Mutts," delighted the crowd with tales of his friendship with the late "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz and his early efforts to get published, which led to a surprise gig with The New York Times' Sunday magazine.
McDonnell said now is the ideal time to become a cartoonist, because major book publishers are picking up graphic novels and the movie industry looks to the medium for inspiration.
The Center for Cartoon Studies is part of that upward movement, he said, because it is an "institution that recognizes the accession of comics as a legitimate art form."
"Art is magic," McDonnell said. "And one of its most powerful spells is to heal."
Graduate Ross Studlar channeled inspiration from Spider-Man's refrain that with "great power comes great responsibility" as he spoke to his class Saturday.
"The people graduating here have great powers: Super powers," he said. "Ours is the power of the medium, of the art and the word."
Alexis Frederick-Frost, a CCS graduate from nearby Lebanon, N.H., received a coveted Xeric Grant to publish his comic, "La Primavera," last year.
"The grant covered my publishing costs," he said. "That was a huge help for me."
Frederick-Frost said he has a summer internship at Drawn & Quarterly, the famous Montreal independent comic publisher. After that, he hopes to make a living as an illustrator and graphic designer.
Robyn Chapman, a New York City cartoonist who came to CCS as a faculty member and its first fellow, said the growth in the students' work has been inspiring. Small class sizes, talented faculty, intense drawing sessions and good-natured competition between the students leads to a dramatic growth in skills, she said.
"As an artist, I'm inspired by them," Chapman said. "I ask myself, 'How did these guys get better than me?'"
Bissette seems like the perfect teacher for CCS. He made his name as the artist on writer Alan Moore's "Swamp Thing" run for DC Comics in the 1980s before launching his own dinosaur comic "Tyrant" and famous horror anthology "Taboo."
In 1978, Bissette was among the first graduates from the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey, the country's first school devoted to the craft.
Bissette first met Sturm at a comics conference in the 1990s. When they were reintroduced at a conference in Bennington in early 2005, Bissette had been retired from the comics industry for six years and was spending his time writing about film and giving lectures and art lessons at schools.
"I had a lot of faith in James' vision," he said. "I think I knew from the first moment we walked into that empty storefront that James was truly inspired and this wasn't just a pipedream. He was making this reality."
The comics work resulting from the CCS class runs the gamut from short, comic strip-style art to ambitious graphic novels that "will take (the students) three to five years to complete," Bissette said.
"Doing the evaluations this week it became clear … that the students have made leaps and bounds in terms of their art," he said. "And several of them are embarking on some remarkable work."
The gender breakdown of the first graduating class is also impressive. The students are evenly divided between males and females – a welcome shift in a medium that is typically male-dominated.
The second class, however, only has two women, Bissette said.
"I've been told that the new students coming in this year are the flip of that," he said. "Any perceptions we had of comics are thrown out the window with this school."
Making a living as a cartoonist may be difficult for many CCS students.
Bissette said the new generation of cartoonists faces a far different industry than he did 25 years ago, though one aspect hasn't changed: They will still need to pay attention to contracts that could jeopardize their intellectual property rights.
But they also face more opportunities now that major book publishers have started graphic novel lines and Web comics have become a popular, and for some, sustainable way of making a living and getting art out to the public.
"It's a whole new kettle of fish out there," Bissette said. "Working for a book publisher can be a lot more progressive compared to the comics industry, although they still need to be aware that unethical behavior occurs."
CCS also prepares students for professional illustration, desktop publishing and Web design, said Sturm.
The question about whether the students can establish careers as cartoonists strikes at the age-old conflict between art and commerce, he added.
"I think the students came here because they wanted to create art," Sturm explained. "That's how you get by in this world. We create art because that's just what we do."
Jeff Mason, the publisher of Florida-based Alternative Comics, said comic companies will probably take a special interest in CCS students based on its high-profile faculty and advisers. The work coming out of the school is also very strong, he added.
But the name of the school alone won't get students published. Mason said he recommends that graduates "continue to work and to draw every day" and to reach out to publishers and others in the field at comic conventions, such as New York City's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival next month.
"They need to go out there and connect with the publishers," Mason said. "And they should study the work the publishers put out too. I can't remember how many times an artist has pitched me a superhero book, when that is far from the kind of work we put out."
Frakes, who has been working at a local ceramic studio while attending CCS, said most industry professionals tell cartoonists to "keep their day jobs." And that is because many of them, including Mason who practices criminal law when he is not running the publishing company, keep their day jobs too.
"I'm not too concerned with making a living cartooning," Frakes said. "I just want to continue having a creative life."
Contact Daniel Barlow at Daniel.Barlow@rutlandherald.com.
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