a laureate and some evidence

February 9th, 2011

My esteemed colleague James Kochalka has been named Vermont’s first Cartoonist Laureate!

He draws the wonderful diary comic American Elf, among innumerable other things—go to his site for links to his music, kids’ books, t-shirts, and god knows what else. Here’s a short article about him on the Center for Cartoon Studies’ website—CCS thought the whole laureate thing up, I guess, and got the governor behind it. Apparently Alaska also has a cartoonist laureate, but Vermont is the second state to appoint one. God, I love Vermont. And I love James’s work. His diary comics are little perfect visual/verbal haikus carved from the dross of everyday life. He will be a most stellar ambassador of comics.

On another note…

Here’s my office floor in front of my desk in November 0f 2006. The wheels of my desk chair had worn and splintered the plywood so badly that I put duct tape down to minimize the ongoing damage.

Then in July of 2008 I repainted my office before I settled down to work on my new book in earnest.

I took up the duct tape and patched the deeply scarred plywood with a can or two of Plastic Wood before painting it green. It didn’t look too terrible.

See how pretty the freshly painted floor was?

Anyhow, after I got the joint repainted, I rearranged my desk so that my chair was in a different spot, where the plywood was intact and glossy with pea green paint.

Here is that spot today, two and a half years later:

I was supposed to turn my “new book” in to the publisher over a year ago, but I’m still working on it. My progress has been elusive and for the most part invisible. So I find this clear visual evidence of my effort somewhat comforting.