What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?
I do a webcomic called Axel and Alex that runs twice weekly (Sundays and Wednesdays) on my facebook page. It follows the exploits of an 8 year old boy (Alex) and his mail-order robot (Axel). I refer to it as a comic strip in comic book format. The strips are mostly done-in-one like a newspaper strip, but are formatted like a comic book page.
I still work the old school way. I enjoy the feel of putting pencil to paper and creating something I can hold in my hand. I pencil with a mechanical pencil that I've had for twenty years (nicknamed Ol' Red), and ink with Staedtler pigment liner pens and good old Sharpies for filling in blacks. I find pens much easier to control than brushes and nibs.
When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?
I was born in the sixties at the old Washington Sanitarium (now Washington Adventist Hospital).
Why are you in Washington now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?
I grew up just outside DC in Wheaton, MD. In the late seventies my parents moved us to Mount Airy, MD (just over the Montgomery County line in southern Frederick County) where I remain to this day with my wife Janet, and kids Amanda and Zach.
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
Other than a few high school and community college classes, which taught me little about cartooning, I'm self-taught. Beyond the odd how-to book, my cartooning education comes from a lifetime of reading comic books and comic strips.
Who are your influences?
My influences date back to reading Peanuts, B.C., Beetle Bailey, and Calvin and Hobbes in the newspaper, to Don Martin's work in MAD magazine, to Stan Lee and collaborators Jack Kirby, John Romita, and John Buscema at Marvel Comics. I remember drawing a Peanuts strip that was hung in the hallway in my elementary school. My first experience with showing my art in public. More recently, I've discovered the work of Richard Thompson and Cul de Sac, and fallen head over heels in love with Alice and Petey. I've just finished the piece for Team Cul de Sac. My father suffers from Parkinson's so it's an honor to be a part of this project to raise funds to fight the disease.
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
My only regret, if you can call it that, would be dropping out of cartooning for about eight years following high school. I sometimes wonder if things would have been different if I'd continued to draw during that period. All in all though, no regrets.
I was born in the sixties at the old Washington Sanitarium (now Washington Adventist Hospital).
Why are you in Washington now? What neighborhood or area do you live in?
I grew up just outside DC in Wheaton, MD. In the late seventies my parents moved us to Mount Airy, MD (just over the Montgomery County line in southern Frederick County) where I remain to this day with my wife Janet, and kids Amanda and Zach.
What is your training and/or education in cartooning?
Other than a few high school and community college classes, which taught me little about cartooning, I'm self-taught. Beyond the odd how-to book, my cartooning education comes from a lifetime of reading comic books and comic strips.
Who are your influences?
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| Cul de Sac interpreted by Flippo for Parkinson's fundraising |
If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?
My only regret, if you can call it that, would be dropping out of cartooning for about eight years following high school. I sometimes wonder if things would have been different if I'd continued to draw during that period. All in all though, no regrets.
What work are you best-known for?If I'm known at all it's probably for Axel and Alex, which has been around in one form or another for almost twenty years. I also worked for a few years on an autobiographical humor comic called FL!PPED.
What work are you most proud of?
I'm most proud of the fact that I've been married for almost 29 years and raised two great kids. Cartooning-wise, I proud that I've stuck with Axel and Alex, albeit in different forms, for most of my cartooning career. I love those guys. They feel like part of me after all this time.
In the future I'd like to continue working on my strip and hopefully continue to grow my audience. At this point I really have no aspirations to work on characters that I didn't create or own. I'm enjoying the freedom I have doing my own stuff, and have plans to take Axel and Alex to new places.
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