Dear Students,

I was a kid growing up in a troubled household. We didn’t have books in the house but we did have the daily paper and I remember picking out Family Circus before I could really read.

There was something about the life on the other side of that circle that looked pretty good.  For kids like me there was a map and a compass hidden in Family Circus. The parents in that comic strip really loved their children. Their home was stable. It put that image in my head and I kept it.

I’d always heard that great art will cause people to burst into tears but the only time it ever happened to me was when I was introduced to Bil Keane’s son, Jeff.  As soon as I shook his hand I just started bawling my face off because I realized  I had climbed through the circle.

And how I did it was by making pictures and writing stories. To me the Family Circus has always been my wished for family. My soul family in the image world.

That’s why if you say a word against Family Circus to me if I’ve had a few drinks I will slug you so hard.

You have heard me talk about the importance of comics for kids, and the kind of unexpected and sometimes lifesaving difference they can make— for me it was the comic “Family Circus”. 

I’ve seen that world through my side of the circle for over 50 years. This weekend at the 71st annual National Cartoonist’s Society Conference, I found out that Jeff Keane inked me into life INSIDE that circle.

SEE ABOVE!!!

COMICS ARE MIRACULOUS!!! They are  IMMUNE SYSTEMS! They are TRANSPORT SYSTEMS!!!  They are TIME TRAVELING DEVICES!!

Jeff asked a friend of mine why I was so in love with Family Circus.

He said,“It’s not a ‘cool’ comic strip.

Dearest Jeffy K,

Know this: Love is ALWAYS cool.

XOX

Cousin Lynda B.

READ MORE FAMILY CIRCUS HERE!

Dear Classmates

Here is what I am listening do while I am doing my homework.

Llama llama, can you dig it?

Sincerely,

Hot Stuff the Little Devil

More Homework Music for my Classmates

thenearsightedmonkey:

Wouldn’t you really rather be drawing comics?

KICKASS SUMMER INTENSIVE COMICS CLASS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Drawing-based method of academic inquiry and research for non-artists and artists alike.  Perfect for those who are working on any kind of academic paper or research, especially for those who are feeling stuck and dispirited.  There is another way of going about this thing we call inquiry.  If you want to find out what it is…..

Sign up for

Making Comics, Art 448

May 15- June 11

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Instructor:  Dr. Ebony Flowers

(Her comics-based dissertation made history at the UW-Madison)

Endorsed and strongly recommended by Cartoonist and Professor, Lynda Barry

(Who is actually taking this class as a student this session)

Comic by Lynda Barry

Dearest Making Comics Students,

This is the song that I will always think of as “our song”.

Play it and re-live Spring Semester, 2017!

Our time in the Comics Room!

University of Wisconsin-Madison!

Love!

Prof FKA Mandrake AKA Lynda Barry

Dear Students,

My hope is that you will show someone how to do some of the things we did together this semester.

Here are some people who worked hard and in the end were confined to a space under a freeway overpass to bloom.

This happens!

It also happens that when it stops raining, ALL OF THESE COLORS AND SONGS AND DANCES are going to come unraveling back into the streets.

Let your hand and pen and paper and ink come back out into the sun.

Sincerely,

Prof FKA Mandrake

Dear Making Comics Students,

ALL y’all’s work is READY to pick up in the Comics Room.  It’s been the most beautiful experience going through your compbooks and binders and final ‘zines. What an astonishing semester.

Watch this video.  HERE are your comics, walking among the parts of you that are not your comics, walking through the days when you DON’T make comics, imagine how hard that is for them and their feathers and beads and singing selves and dancing selves to not warrant your attention, to be asked to get to the back of the line AGAIN.  Your images have had a reliable portal to your daily world and a parade route and cohorts all semester.
Imagine them as feathered and beaded as this.  Now imagine them having to stay in a basement until “you” (what ever THAT means) decide you ‘feel like’ making a picture, or writing a story, or making a comic.

NO WONDER they don’t want to talk to you at first!

If you’ve been away from your work for awhile, remember it’s going to take three DAYS AND NIGHTS of trying to find a way back in before you are able to. 

But know that the part of you that has been stuck inside is working just as hard for three days to find you— it’s a miner caught in your collapse, hoping you notice. AND!

IT HEARS YOU KNOCKING AND CALLING and it is trying to find a way up through the paper and down through your pen to let you know its alive…

AS TO LONELINESS AND UNCERTAINTY…

It is part of the deal.  And part of a certain kind of person’s (CARTOONIST!) nature.  Yet, when you make a comic, that vehicle that transports images to others and even yourself– well,

You can see it —-it’s RIGHT HERE in this video.

NOTICE how happy we are to be with our cohorts.  That is what I remember most about our classes together this semester. The genuine goodwill and hilarity and warmth that was right there the moment we started passing our attendance cards around in the morning.  This odd way for our cartoonists selves to greet each of us and the love and generosity you all showed each other to your inside parading through that membrane portal that is paper and ink to the outside.

When you quit drawing, your comics-self is stuck under the freeway overpass waiting in the rain. Don’t let it stay there! It will wait for you faithfully no matter how long it takes, but what a sad place to be! After so much work and aliveness! To have to stay under a freeway overpass because of psychological rain and some crazy amnesia about all this can bring you..

SEE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQyFWd7jUcw

REMEMBER! When you bring out your pen and your compbook the sun is out my beloved students! DRAW and WRITE and Come out from under that freeway overpass!   Parade your comics. Show people how to make comics!

Step One Make a squiggle

Step Two Turn it into a monster.

Step Three, Write about what you are worried about most right now in a single sentence beside the monster

Step Four: Draw a word balloon around the sentence and have the monster staying it.

I am SO sentimental for you all right now, sitting in my PAJAMAS with A BEER at my KITCHEN COUNTER and sending love to each and every one of you.

Prof FKA Mandrake

Weekly comic fromclassmate, Marceline. Earth name: Hallie Funk
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Making Comics 2

“Young, Bi and Confused” by MC2 classmate, Marceline. Earth name: Hallie Funk.

What to sing while you RESIST

Which ungovernable bitch (WUB) put this on the jukebox?

WE WANNA BUY YOU A DRINK!

Dear MC1 Students,

My guess is you can tell who drew this even without seeing his name. His style was there from the very first day, even though he didn’t have a drawing practice when he started the class.  The vibrant line and composition that was so characteristic of his work was right there on the very first day.

And this was true for the whole class.

Remember your drawing is always wanting to happen, and always hoping you’ll give it some time, enough time for it to reveal itself to you and to the people around you.

I can’t tell you how rich I felt when I picked up your new comics on Mondays. It was the most wonderful thing to read them.

WAH! I miss you!

Prof. FKA Mandrake.

Dear MC1 Students,

Here are some of your attendance cards from our first day of class. You had to do four self-portraits, spending just three minutes on each one.  In the first one you drew yourself in the style of Ivan Brunetti, in the second one you drew yourself turning a little bit into an animal, the third, a little bit into a fruit or vegetable (no bananas. Only I can be the banana) and the last one was to draw yourself turning a little bit into a monster.

I love to look at these pictures, drawn when we were stills strangers to each other, before we knew how to recognize each other’s drawings based on line alone.

Prof FKA Mandrake

Dear Making Comics Students,

Some Pictures from our first week together.  Missing in individual photos are Carmen SanDiego, Noqi, Ash, and Tank Girl. But they are here in my heart.

Prof FKA Mandrake