Cartoonists in THE HIPPO

Heidi Masak of the New Hampshire Weekly newspaper THE HIPPO interviews New Hampshire cartoonists in its cover story this issue (with cover art by yours truly). The free weekly will be hitting the streets of Manchester and Nashua this day. Here are some of the names and a quote from the article:

Allison Barrows (comic strip PRETEENA 2001-08)

Barrows said her parents were art teachers. “So I don’t know if I really had much of a choice” about being an artist, she said. But “I love to write as much as I love to draw, maybe even more,” she said. For her, creating comics seemed like the perfect place.

Mike Lynch (magazine cartoonist)

“I try to stay away from, certainly, overly familiar cartoons — the dumb secretary and dopey boss — and try to be more clever. Because your editors have seen all that and they’re looking for something fresh,” Lynch said.

Mike Marland (editorial cartoons for the Concord Monitor; gag writer for SNUFFY SMITH)

“When I sit down and write, I usually think about what happened to me this week, then kinda scramble it around and turn it upside,” to put it in a strip, Marland said.

Stephanie Piro (SIX CHIX, FAIR GAME comic strips & "Strip T's" t-shirts & more)

Piro started submitting work to magazines and publishers in the late 1970s but got “very positive rejections.” There weren’t a lot of female cartoonists then, and even now it’s mainly a white, male profession, although that’s changing some with the popularity of graphic novels, she said.

Scott Wegener (co-creator comic book series ATOMIC ROBO)

Wegener said comic books are a medium he’s always felt an interest in. With a low budget, you can tell any story. It’s like being your own Hollywood studio for a fraction of the cost, he said.

Marek Bennett (creator of small press comic MIMI'S DOUGHNUTS and teacher)

Creating comics engages a number of different aspects of intelligence and uses a variety of approaches to creativity, which is ideal for school settings, Bennett said.

Peter Noonan (THE HIPPO's resident cartoonist)

“It’s very difficult to be intelligent and timely and funny all at the same time. I think if you get all three of those, you have the Holy Grail of cartooning,” Noonan said.

Above: Mike Lynch cover art to this week's HIPPO. My thanks to readers who guessed which one of the three "typical New Hampshire cartoonist" scene sketches best exemplified same (see the October 22, 2008 blog entry). The image that was picked was the third one.