Onward's story head Kelsey Mann really loves his job at Pixar

by Mike Rhode with Alexandra Bowman

Kelsey Mann loves his job. He emphatically made that point several times when speaking to an audience at George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. The head of story for Pixar’s new animated movie Onward was in Washington last week to promote the movie and talk to students (and a few local cartoonists) about it. After his presentation, I got to speak with him for several additional minutes and ask some questions which follow at the end of this story.

His voice rasping from previous interviews and class presentations, Mann spoke to students for an hour about his career and his work in shepherding the development of Onward’s story. Two young elves, Ian and his older brother Barley Lightfoot, lost their father before they formed any memories of him, but a magic spell promised to bring him back to them for twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, the immature magic of Ian only brings back part of their father – from the waist down. The movie becomes a quest to reunite him with his whole body and his family before the day runs out. 

As the head of story, Mann was involved from the beginning of the project, one of the few people who were with the movie from beginning to end. However, his journey to working at Pixar took quite a few detours. He grew up in Minnesota, majored in illustration in college and started working in animation. He began in Minneapolis in a small studio and got to wear many hats. He applied to Pixar and moved to Los Angeles around 2000, but they turned him down. “I knew that was where I wanted to be, so I worked in small studios doing Flash animation for the internet. While I was doing that during the day, I would take night classes in illustration. I finally got my big break and became a story artist.” After working in various places, he was with Cartoon Network for five years, but moved to the San Francisco area to work at Lucasfilm including on Clone Wars in the Star Wars universe. Nine years after first applying, he finally got a job with Pixar.

Photo by Bruce Guthrie

“Monsters University was my first film that I worked on.  I had worked on Newt for six months, but they ended up shelving it. I became the story supervisor on Monsters University, very quickly moving up the story ranks, which blew my mind because it had been so hard to even be a story artist at the studio. I never thought that I would ever have this job.” After directing a short, Party Central, also in the Monsters world, he worked on the story for The Good Dinosaur. Wrapping up his career overview, Mann said, “I’m the story supervisor on Onward, and I’m here to answer ‘What does the story department do?’ I’m going to answer it very specifically because each director works differently.”

Dan Scanlon, director of Monsters University and Onward

“One of the unique things [about this film]? I was there from day one,” He showed a picture of director Dan Scanlon, producer Kori Rae, and himself, the three of them recreating the jobs they had on Monsters University. They began working on Onward on September 17, 2013. Mann left to work on The Good Dinosaur, but stayed in touch with Scanlon once a week while the project was in development. When asked if the director put together his team of people including the story boarders and the animators, Mann says of Pixar, “The director and the producer pick the associate producer, but there’s an interview process to make sure that it’s a fair process. It’s an open call.” The director works with the head of each department to build the movie’s team.

For the three people at the beginning, Mann, Rae and Scanlon, the movie began “in a blank empty story room with intimidating white walls and blank boards.” The story team uses index cards with ideas written on them, “trying to fill the walls with something to react to…Working out possible beats of the story from the beginning to the end of the movie. “ Scanlon was both a writer and the director on the film, and other people were added to the team to work on the script. “A lot of people think we just get the script as story artists, and we just go and draw it, but there’s a lot of working in the story room with the writer and director, helping to shape the story that we have to do.”

The story artists gather in a room Mann called the Fish Bowl (because it looked out onto the atrium of the building). Mann pointed out a unique physical feature of creating Onward, something he had started on The Good Dinosaur. “I had noticed how the smaller the studio was, the more interaction we had because we all sat in one room. The bigger the studio got, the more people went into their offices and didn’t talk to each other. Something about that felt wrong to me, especially with the story team where the collaboration is so key to the films we make at Pixar.” He noted that the team worked in the collaborative room, received their handouts, and made their pitches for the storyboard animation they created. A smaller group would work in the story room more directly on the script. “Once we had the beats of what we needed to happen, then Dan and Jason [Headley, the other writer] would go off and make a pass at the script.” The small group would then mark it up, “literally page by page.”

“Whenever Dan felt the scene was ready to go, we would hand it out for story art,” Mann said. The story team working under him were the first people to read the words, “trying to absorb the scene that they’re eventually going to storyboard.” Meanwhile Mann and the story manager spend a lot of time organizing the work.  “I’m a creative filmmaker, but a lot of my job is organization. I need to know what everyone is doing.” At this point, Mann showed a complex weekly chart of how scenes are assigned and when the animator will create a first pass and ‘pitch’ their suggested art for the scene.

Mann has everyone do that pitch in one room and at one time, noting “It’s great that I can show Dan a chunk of the movie, not just a slice.” He continued, “Once the artist has read the script, and figured out a plan and gotten it done, then we all gather in that fish bowl. Everyone is welcome at any time and we do all of our handouts in the fish bowl. On some shows, artists get handed a scene and they are the only ones present. We wanted to make sure everyone was present for all the handouts so they knew what their colleagues were doing.” Scanlon would read the scene out loud, as the reading is recorded, so the artists can refer back to his comments and voice. At times, the director would act out the motions he saw the characters doing. The scene that Scanlon described was the two characters looking across a gaping bottomless chasm, with a drawbridge on the far side. Mann would return to this example again and again to show how the scene evolved.  

photo by Bruce Guthrie

As he showed a drawing of a story artist with ideas popping in around his head, Mann asked, “What goes on inside the head of a story artist? We think of a lot of different things. We thing of cinematography, writing, acting, character, staging, editing, humor, design, composition and hovering above everything, is the deadline. And the other thing all artists think about every single day is what to have for lunch.” Artists may work differently and Mann doesn’t impose a format for the preliminary story. Some work on paper, some on Post-it notes, some do digital sketches on an iPad and some people work immediately on the Cintiq. In addition to Photoshop, the software used at Pixar is an internal program called Pitch Doctor which lets storyboards be altered in real time.

“Collaboration is so key to the stories we make at Pixar,” he feels, and the fish bowl is the closest animators can get to being on a set of a film. The story team ended up doing 97, 759 storyboards for Onward. When an artist has a scene ready to pitch, the story team gathers in the fish bowl and the animator performs the script and sound effects as the storyboard animation projects so everyone can see it. Mann demonstrated the boards for the bottomless chasm, and people clapped for his performance, which did put me into the movie. He noted that, “It is tradition to have applause at the end of a pitch. There’s a bit of performance here. Hopefully, you’ve forgotten about me and you’re not looking at me. You’re looking at the movie and that’s our whole job - to road test the movie and see if it’s working or not. And that’s before Dan starts.”

The process becomes iterative at this point with the scene possibly being redrawn, artists being ‘scratch’ voice actors, and then the entire scene with temporary sound, scratch voices, temporary sound effects and basic art screened several times until the story works. Eventually the animated storyboards for the whole movie are strung together into a basic preliminary version of the movie. Parallel with the story development is some visual development, but throughout this time, the characters and backgrounds aren’t finalized and the animators aren’t working on it. “It’s not until about screening four until animators start building the characters in 3-D.” Onward had eight internal screenings, once every three months, throughout its development. “We’ll watch in the theater. Screening is a big day and we fill the audience with people who are on the crew and people who are working on other movies, because we want a fresh perspective.” When the movie is getting closer to a final vision, it’s seen by the Brain Trust, the creative leaders of the company, and studio head Pete Docter, who get together and make suggestions about the version they’ve just seen. “It’s all just advice. What’s great about the Brain Trust is that we don’t have to blindly do what they tell us to do. If they presented a solution, isn’t doesn’t mean we have to do that solution. They’re trying to solve a problem so we want to identify the problem they’re talking about. We’re only there for two hours and we can’t solve everything in that meeting.” For weeks after the meeting, emailed comments come in to one of the writers, who reads and aggregates the suggestions, and then the story team starts all over again. Responding to a question about  storyboard artists working with the final animators, Mann noted “The movie is really made in the in the last year or year and a half of the process, and we’re on this thing for six or seven years. Most of the story artists, when the movie begins to get made, aren’t on the show anymore.  We’re trying to get more overlap with the story team and different departments. Layout is the next department after us. They’re the first ones who take our storyboarded scene and start to put it in a 3-D environment and start to block it out.” Mann tried to get the story people work with the layout people to solve potential problems as they arose.

The audience gathers for a group shot (photo by Bruce Guthrie)

“Pixar isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty damn great. I’m so thrilled for this movie to come out. It’s been since 2013 and I’m dying for you guys to see it. We’re really proud of it and we tried to make a really funny movie that was really entertaining, but had something to say.” Ending his talk, Mann gave the audience a basic lesson in how to draw the older brother Barley, and then broke for questions from the audience.  His presentation was thoroughly enjoyable, and probably convinced several of the students that they wouldn’t want to work anywhere but Pixar.

ComicsDC’s Mike Rhode and The Hilltop Show’s Alexandra Bowman were given an opportunity to speak directly with Mann after his public talk.  

AB: What does it mean to be head of story at Pixar?

KM: It’s a big job. I’m on the movie for a very long time, so it’s a commitment. With this one, I was involved from the very beginning and went all the way to being at the final mix review at Skywalker Sound. At any point, we can improve the story, or break it. I worked together with [director] Dan [Scanlon] on Monsters University and was the story supervisor on that, so we have a long history. My primary job is to oversee the story artists through the storyboarding process, which is us taking the written strip and visualizing it. We’re the first ones to draw the movie and we draw the blueprint of the film and road test, for lack of a better word. Until we’re happy with it and it gets approved and goes into production.

MR: Is this a traditional role, or is it evolving as more animation is being done?

KM: It’s been around for a very long time. Maybe the duties are evolving over the year. It changes from director to director.  I worked with Peter Sohn on The Good Dinosaur, and there’s some similarities but there’s some differences. It depends on the director and what they need from their head of story.

MR: How did you personally get the job? You’ve alluded to your organization skills.

KM: I’m my known for charting. People will say, “Kelsey with his beautiful minding of things…” I’m a visual person so I’m always drawing things out on the whiteboard. I do it because it’s how I think, but also do that so everyone’s on the same page. If I draw something in front of everybody, it’s really clear. The first time I did the job was on Monsters University. We had a different director at the time, and Dan was the head of story. I was a story artist at the time and we got along really well. He didn’t even know me, he just brought me on, and we got along instantly. I think he likes working with me because I keep an optimistic attitude. I want to be accountable, loyal and if I say I’m going to do something, I follow through with it.

AB: What do you think separates Pixar from other animation studios?

KM: There’s so much good stuff being created these days. It’s not only movies, but it’s television, streaming … so much great stuff is being created now. I think what probably sets us apart is how the directors are asked to tell something personal. Something that’s really meaningful to them. This film is pretty darn personal because it’s about Dan and not knowing his father. Dan’s dad passed away when he was six months old so he has no memory of his father. He has an older brother, three years older, and Bill doesn’t remember their father either. Dan thought about how that’s shaped him, and what he’s learned about who he is, and thought ‘What if there’s a character that had a similar experience? And what if that character had an opportunity to spend one day with the person they had lost? I would want that.’ And that’s where this came from.

MR: It seems like Disney mostly adopts existing stories where Pixar tells stories from scratch and that seems to be one of the differences between the studios. Would you say that people gravitate to one studio or the other because of the types of source material?

KM: Pixar never will buy a property and make a movie from it. It’s a director-driven studio so it always comes from the director and what they want to say.

photo by Bruce Guthrie

AB: What are Pixar’s primary goals going forward? Or your goals? What do you think is the impact of your work on audiences in today’s world?

KM: We always want to make our movies. What we want to do in the future is to entertain the audience. We want to make a fun entertaining movie. We want it to have a heart and a reason why we’re making it, and about being alive. That usually comes from a really hard question that maybe the director can’t even answer themselves. Another thing we really want to do is surprise the audience. There’s a lot of [films] out there, and we don’t want to repeat ourselves. Pete Docter calls it ‘something unexpected.’

MR: The movie seems to have a curious parallel to Coco where a young boy is searching for his father. Did that ever come up?

KM: No. We hadn’t thought about that too much. We go to each other’s screenings to make sure we’re not repeating each other, but that was never a concern. I don’t remember the Brain Trust saying anything. I do remember early scenes of Toy Story 4 opening with a unicorn flying, and I was like, “Wait a minute. That’s what we’re doing.” They went away from that though.

AB: Do you have words of career advice for students who attend liberal arts schools like Georgetown or schools that don’t’ focus on art?

photo by Bruce Guthrie

KM: I always tell people it takes three things to get a job at Pixar. The first is passion. You have to love the heck out of this. Love movies and have a really deep, deep passion. Don’t tell any of my bosses, but I would do this job for free because I love it that much. That kind of passion. That leads me to the second thing – hard work. It takes a lot of hard work. I worked really hard. It took me nearly ten years after my first rejection letter from Pixar. But that hard work was a little easier because I was so passionate. A lot of times the hard work cuts people out because they really don’t have the passion for it. The last thing is luck. It takes a bit of luck and timing. You have to be prepared for when lightning strikes. You have to have your portfolio ready.

MR: Following up on the hard work thing for this particular movie, as head of story, how many hours per day are you working at the height of the storyboarding process?

KM: It’s a lot. My days are really full. They start at nine and they end at six. That’s a standard day. We always work through lunch. Dan would rather work at lunch than stay late, and I agree with that. I want to drive home and kiss my kids goodnight. If I have to put in extra hours, I do it in the morning because no one is around. I’ll go in early, but I try to stick to those hours. We’ll do the occasional Saturday every once in a while, right before a screening. Every three months, we’ll do a Saturday, but it’s only 10am to 1pm.  Not that terrible. At the past studios I worked at, you’re pulling pretty late nights but Pixar cares about your health and the longevity of your career so they don’t want to injure you. Other places… they didn’t care so much.

AB: How did John Lasseter’s departure affect you and the company?

KM: Wow. That was an interesting time not only in the world, but at Pixar. It was definitely a change because John did a lot for the studio. I wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for what he and everybody else did at the studio. I’m really proud of Pete Docter… we’re both Minnesota boys. I grew up in a town near him and he stepped up to be our chief creative officer. He’s really great, because he’s sharing. The amount of weight he has to carry leading this studio creatively is too much for one person. Pete says, “I don’t want to handle all of this. Take a little of this weight,” and I’ve seen Dan step up and be a leader not just on this movie, but in the studio. It’s an exciting time.

AB: There hasn’t been a Pixar Bronze age. You haven’t had your Black Cauldron moment.

KM: Yeah, I don’t want to have that moment.

MR: We were wondering what happens when a project gets shelved.

KM: Newt was weird, because that’s when I started at the studio and I didn’t know the difference between something going great and something not. All of a sudden, they shelved it, and I was like, “That’s a thing? We’re done? That’s it?” It’s typically after a screening that they’ll make a call on it and they called us all in a room and said they decided to shelve the project. It’s a hard thing. Part of working in story is being a problem solver, and I think of it as a Rubik’s cube that you’re trying to solve.  Then you’re told to put that cube down. And then it’s on the shelf and you have to walk away and be okay with it.

AB: Did the shelving of the project have anything to do with Rio and the similar premise?

KM: No, not from my knowledge. Again I was early in my career there so I wasn’t privy to conversations behind closed doors, but the story wasn’t working. It wasn’t because of any other projects. It’s always hard. In any creative endeavor, when you try to invent something, something always pop up. Maybe it’s a new Netflix show with the same idea as yours. It’s amazing how that happens. You just have to say, “I’m going to keep going forward and I’m going to do the best that I can.”

MR: When something is shelved, do you ever resurrect any part of it for a later movie? Did anything you had done for a previous movie that didn’t make it end up in Onward?

KM: I can’t think of anything that came from another property. On Monsters University, sometimes we’d resurrect old gags from Monsters, Inc. There are so many great ideas that get cut, not because they’re not great ideas, but because they’re not right for the story. Part of my job as head of story is to oversee all the ancillary material and so I just have this card catalog in my head of all these cut ideas. I’m busting them out constantly when they are doing a novel that’s a side story or an activity book.

AB: In a themed movie like Monsters University with its college theme or Onward with its medieval theme, how do you draw the line with a reference, or obvious gag, or a trope, or an homage?

KM: What was interesting about this film is that there’s a lot of fantasy out there. We wanted to make sure that the movie is appealing not only to the people who really know fantasy but also to the people who could care less about it. That’s what we want the film to hit. I think about that in casting the crew. I make sure I have people that could care less about fantasy, and then I put in people who love the stuff. Austin Madison and Louise Smythe were our two fantasy experts on the story team. I helped organize a group of us that we affectionately called The Fellowship. It was a collection of people, not just in story but in all departments, that really knew their fantasy. Across different aspects – some people knew novels, some people knew movies, some people knew role-playing games. We always had this group so when Dan had a question about fantasy and needed an idea, or a name, or something, he would say, “Take that to the Fellowship. See what they think.”

MR: I saw one press piece on Yahoo where an article was about a character referring to her lesbian daughter. Was that part of a story conference from when you were working on it, or did someone come in and say we’d like an LGBTQ+ reference?

KM: Lena Waithe plays (Officer Spector) the character that you’re referring to. Those two characters are police officers and were originally male when we boarded them. We want to make sure it’s a diverse cast, not only in male to female ratio, as balanced as we can make it, but also in diversity. Diversity is really huge. Noah Klocek is the production designer and his team did so much work to make sure all the species were as diverse as they could be and the casting was that way too. We knew that this movie, a fantasy film told in a modern setting, and we wanted to make sure it reflected the modern world. That’s a diverse world. That was an idea that came up later and we didn’t want to make a big deal about it. We wanted to have one tiny little line and just reflect the way our world really is.

I'd like to thank GWU's Naomi Rothwell and Kirk Kristlibas and my friend photographer Bruce Guthrie for making it possible for Alexandra and me to attend this talk and meet Mr. Mann afterwards. I'd also like to thank Mr. Mann who was extraordinarily gracious and forthcoming at the end of a long day.

Meet a Local Cartoonist: A Chat with Alexandra Bowman

by Mike Rhode

My friend Bruce Guthrie recently attended a political cartooning event at Georgetown University featuring Matt Wuerker and KAL, which I had to skip due to a scheduling conflict. Afterwards, he made a point of introducing me via email to Alexandra Bowman, the student political cartoonist who organized it. In keeping with our attempts to learn more about local cartoonists, I asked if she would answer our usual interview questions.  Alexandra did so directly upon finishing her final exams, and I think you'll all be impressed by her answers.


1. What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I am a political cartoonist, children's book illustrator, and fine artist. The menu of galleries on my website is a bit unwieldy at this point.

I served as the Editorial Political Cartoonist for "The Hoya," the Georgetown University newspaper of record. I left this past fall to start my own political comedy show at Georgetown, "The Hilltop Show"--I create hand-drawn and digital graphics for the show. I was also recently hired as the Editorial Political Cartoonist for Our Daily Planet, a climate news outlet with a readership of 13,000 (my first cartoon was published here), as well as the Georgetown Review, an independent news source on campus.

I also have illustrated three children's books and do freelance work and commissions. My work has been published by BBC News, BBC Books, Penguin House UK, Puffin Books.

I serve as the Live Political Cartoonist for the Georgetown Institute of Politics for Public Service (GU Politics). My first event was this past September's MSNBC Climate Forum; I created cartoons and life drawings of candidates, including Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, throughout the two-day event. I also do freelance artwork for GU Politics. All my live cartoons, as well as my past work for "The Hoya" and other political pieces, can be found here.

2. How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

I am partial to drawing/sketching my political cartoons and illustrations in pencil, inking, and coloring with alcohol markers and colored pencils. I'm becoming increasingly fond of coloring via Photoshop, as it's much faster and I don't have to wait three days for the Copic ink to come off my hands.

When making fine art, I enjoy using mechanical pencils for detail work. Oil paint and colored pencils are helpful for creating broad swathes of color.

3. When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

I was born in March 2000 in Sierra Vista, AZ. Yeah, I really haven't been around that long.

4. Why are you in Washington now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?

As a current Georgetown undergraduate student, I am currently based in DC. I live in Kennedy Hall at Georgetown, which has only about half the leaks and rodent sightings as the other dorms. When I'm not fending off rat attacks, I live about 30-40 minutes from Washington D.C. in Fairfax, VA.

5. What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

I took AP Studio Art in high school, and took an Oil Painting class last year at Georgetown. I've had a few extracurricular art classes here and there. My mom is an artist: she ensured that I always had access to art supplies and art books, and took me to museums on almost a weekly basis as a kid. I have also spent years teaching myself to draw. Every break from school invites the existential question of "how many coffee table-sized Art-Of-The-Movie books should I bring home?"

6. Who are your influences?

While teaching myself over the years, I have devoured art books and classically-illustrated children's books, particularly animation concept art books and anthropomorphic animal stories. Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Byron Howard, Jin Kim, Shiyoon Kim, Cory Loftis, Jim Davis, Christopher Hart, the illustrators of the Geronimo Stilton books (whose pseudonyms on the copyright pages have been tragically unhelpful), and Trina Schart Hyman. From a young age, I have been particularly enchanted by illustrations of anthropomorphic animals, especially those with a semi-realistic tone (e.g. the work of Beatrix Potter, Disney's Robin Hood, Zootopia, Aesop's fables illustrations, etc.).

Beatrix Potter and Jim Davis were my earliest influences. Whenever I draw an animal or a chubby character, its arms and paws/hands are (unintentionally) posed exactly like Garfield's. I drew Garfield all over my notebook and test margins in the fifth and sixth grades. And when I saw "The Hobbit:" when I was 12 (on December 22, 2012; yeah, I know), I became engrossed with Tolkien and Bilbo Baggins. I received a Bilbo Baggins bobblehead for Christmas three days later, and I decided to draw it that evening. I proceeded to cover my seventh and eighth-grade planners with drawings of Bilbo, and that doodle instinct has not since abated.

I've only begun to get into political cartooning recently, but I have long adored the work of the Washington Post's Ann Telnaes, Politico's Matt Wuerker, and The Economist's Kevin Kallaugher. I actually helped plan a GU Politics/Hilltop Show event this month hosting Mr. Wuerker and Mr. Kallaugher on campus; I delivered the event's opening remarks and introduced the cartoonists.

Vincent Van Gogh, Albrecht Durer, and Leonardo da Vinci are some of the biggest influences of my fine art.

7. If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

I don't think I've been drawing professionally long enough to have had any major slip-ups or regrets. I think.

I am, however, at the stage (the "Early Life" section on Wikipedia?) that I will look back on in 5-10 years and wistfully think "If I had only known/done X at that time!" Advice from more experienced cartoonists is always much appreciated!

8. What work are you best-known for?

Live political cartooning at the Climate Forum was a pivotal moment in my artistic "career" (I'm 19, I squirm when I use that word). Since coming to Georgetown, I have immersed myself in political cartooning for multiple publications. I think if you were to ask someone who has a second-degree connection to me (socially or on LinkedIn) what I tend to draw, they'd mention "the girl who draws political cartoons and foxes and John Oliver and had that massive display in the library coffee shop once."


As mentioned, I was also recently hired as the Editorial Political Cartoonist for Our Daily Planet, a climate news outlet that John Kerry apparently reads every morning.

On a fun note, one of my drawings of the Fourth Doctor and K-9 was published by BBC Books and Puffin Books/Penguin Random House in an international anthology for sale in Barnes and Noble.

9. What work are you most proud of?

I'm particularly proud of my recent political cartoons, as I'm excited to have ventured into a field of art that I believe has more of a tangible positive impact on the world. I believe that political satire is one of the most effective means of reaching those who would not otherwise engage with the news in politics, as young people and the politically uninitiated are much more likely to engage with informational media if it is presented in an entertaining package.

10. What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I would like to be a broadcast journalist, news anchor, or political comedy talk show host. Writing for the latter would be an ideal intermediary position. I really admire how Jake Tapper has been able to tactfully combine his interests in strict news reporting and political cartooning by hosting both "The Lead" and his "State of the Cartoonion" segment.

I would also love to direct films for Pixar.

In the case of either life path, I would like to use my career to create meaningful media and/or entertainment, particularly for young people.

11. What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

I'm blessed that I rarely have to deal with writer's/artist's block. Keeping a notebook and writing down ideas whenever they occur to me helps keep creative blockage at bay.

Watching a 2-D Disney movie or watching late-night comedy never fails to offer heaps of inspiration.

12. What do you think will be the future of your field?

I hope that illustrators and filmmakers who intend to create meaningful, character-building animated films for children enter the field of animation. I admire how Pete Docter has imbued the films he has worked on/directed (i.e. Wall-E) with his Christian faith.

I believe the future of political cartooning may lie with animated political shows, such as Stephen Colbert's underrated animated series "Our Cartoon President." The show has been more or less panned by critics, but each show is essentially a 30-minute moving political cartoon and deserves credit for being more or less the first of its kind.

13. What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Awesome Con, or others? Any comments about attending them?

Being a Georgetown student with newfound access to DC has given me a new perspective on the sheer quantity of phenomenal cons available to me. I'm eager to continue learning about new cons to visit, particularly those that focus on film-making and illustration

For a number of years I have attended AwesomeCon, where I have met Wallace Shawn, Cary Elwes, Chris Sarandon, Adam West, Burt Ward, and David Tennant. I met David Tennant while dressed as the Tenth Doctor; I gave him a drawing of Ten meeting Scrooge McDuck, which David said "was the pinnacle of all his work." I continue to share this story with my Uber drivers.

14. What's your favorite thing about DC?

Coming to Georgetown, I was concerned that DC did not have the media and/or entertainment presence of New York or Los Angeles. However, perhaps partially due to my interests changing since arriving on campus a year and a half ago, I'm realizing that DC's political focus makes it a media hotspot particularly well-suited to my own interest in politics. DC being where the action is in terms of current global chaos is also a plus.

15. Least favorite?

See previous sentence.

16. What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

#ripnewseum.

17. How about a favorite local restaurant?

My favorite restaurant of all time is Filomena in Georgetown. I am comforted knowing that my culinary tastes have been validated by Bono and Harrison Ford.

18. Do you have a website or blog?

My work can be found on alexandrabowmanart.com and on Instagram (@alexandrabowmanart). I also tweet about illustration and current events under the handle @scripta_bene. I have a Facebook page for my work, which sends me notifications two or three times daily saying "Your followers have not seen a post from you in months." It's linked here if you're still interested.

Meet a Local Book Designer: A Chat with Barbara Sutliff

by Mike Rhode

Barbara Sutliff is a book and magazine designer and art director  who recently worked on an editorial cartoon book for the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC). On a tip from her husband, cartoonist Joe Sutliff, Barbara and I got together for an informal email interview.

I heard that local editorial cartoonist Matt Wueker was doing a book for a Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum exhibit in Columbus, OH? They have an editorial cartoon show that's only up for another month. Is that what it's for?

Yes it is based on the show, the AAEC has their conference there this coming weekend. The AAEC will have the book for sale. It was a very small print run for the conference, and the association plans to show it to some of the large book publishers that will be there in hopes of interesting them in publishing it on a larger scale, perhaps even an expanded version.

What's the title, and who's the author?

The title is Front Lines: Political Cartooning and the Battle for Freedom of Speech by The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. This is similar to the title of the exhibition, which was Front Line: Editorial Cartoonists and the First Amendment.

The editor of the book is Matt Wuerker, award winning political cartoonist from Politico and former president of the AAEC, and a friend of ours (Joe and I).

Back and front covers

How did you get involved? What did you do for them?

Matt saw Joe at an event and mentioned the project and asked whether I might be interested in designing the book. We talked and I was very excited to work on such a fun and important project. Matt was terrific to work with. After hearing his ideas for the look of the book, we talked  back and forth as I showed different options for the chapter design treatments, Once chosen, it was a really smooth collaboration—Matt was just finishing up getting the essays edited and finalized, while collecting hi-res versions of the many cartoons that he was organizing to go with each chapter/essay. 

Liz Donnelly drawing and table of contents

In the meantime I roughed out the book to get a firmer idea on page count for each chapter and for the overall book, including many cartoons chosen to go with each chapter. As I have designed and produced hundreds of publications over the years—this project was a great fit—Matt and I had a smooth back and forth with emails including pdfs of pages with notes attached with my questions, suggestions as well as his corrections, answers and suggestions. We also had periodic phone calls to go over the status chapter by chapter. I worked in InDesign and sent pdf proofs which as I mentioned, we added electronic sticky notes to for specific questions and to provide me with credit info for each piece etc. When everything was approved I made hi-res print quality pdfs for the printer. Matt already had this idea in mind for the cover—he provided my with his mockup in InDesign which I tweaked (I am a stickler when it comes to kerning and typography and Matt was thrilled with that attention to detail on my part!) It was a great experience, I loved designing and producing the book. Matt just told me he is putting a printed copy in the mail for me and I am so glad to hear that he is very happy with the printed edition.

How many images are in the book? Is everything from the exhibit in it? Was there anything tricky or difficult about the layout?

Pillars by Jimmy Margulies. August 16, 2018 from the exhibit

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I counted 100 cartoons in the book not counting Matt’s cover cartoon. It also has essays by Joel Pett, Lucy Caswell, Roslyn Mazer, Rob Rogers, Ann Telnaes and Matt. 

I didn’t know whether the book included everything from the exhibit, since I didn't see the show, but Matt says, "No....  And many of the cartoons in the book are not in the show. It's by no means a catalog of the show.  We just used that as a jumping off point.”

The tricky thing for me was incorporating many horizontal cartoons into the design without having the option of going across the gutter of a perfect bound book like I might when designing with photographs, which can have impact across a spread—but obviously that doesn’t work with cartoons with words. I created a grid with an appropriate width for type, on a square page which allowed for a narrow outside column to be used for pull quotes and to have the flexibility to use the full width including the narrow column for cartoons to jut out beyond the type column. It works as many of the cartoons are horizontal and allows for variety in the design of each spread with varying sized art along with the text and pull quotes drawing the reader to important ideas from the chapter and that act as design elements on the page as well. I guess the other tricky thing that comes to mind is that the chapters were mostly cartoons with an essay flowing through them as opposed to a text-heavy book punctuated by spot illustrations. So the challenge was to keep the continuity of the words flowing around the cartoons which meant jumping the words around a spread or two of just art so that the cartoons and words complemented one another.

Barbara Sutliff is available for full-time or freelance work. Contact her via https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarasutliff/

Meet a Local Comics Writer: A Chat with Emily Whitten

by Mike Rhode

Emily Whitten is a long-time comics journalist who's just made the jump to writing comics herself. Her new book, The Underfoot, co-written with Ben Fisher and drawn by Michelle Nguyen came out yesterday in comic book stores and will be for sale more widely in two weeks. Emily answered our usual questions, with a few additional ones specific to her new book.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

 I am co-creator and co-writer of The Underfoot, a new original graphic novel series about intelligent hamsters surviving in a post-apocalyptic world full of danger and mysteries, but also friendships and fun. The series is published by Lion Forge Comics, and Book 1, The Underfoot: The Mighty Deep, is out April 10 in comics shops, and comes out from Amazon and all other sellers on April 23. The Underfoot: The Mighty Deep focuses on the Hamster Aquatic Mercenaries (H.A.M.) and their quest to aid their badger allies in saving their homes. (More on that below!)


I've also written several parody/commentary webcomics for the likes of MTV.com and Reelz.com – "Deadpool Presents the Oscars" was particularly fun to write. (Fun facts: I wrote an entire column advocating for Ryan Reynolds to play Deadpool over on Reelz way back in 2010, and had Deadpool taking out Green Lantern with a headshot in a webcomic in 2011. You're welcome, Deadpool 1 & 2 movies.)

In addition, I'm a genre entertainment journalist, and regularly cover comics and genre-related news and convention panels, as well as interviewing other creators and moderating convention panels, which I really enjoy. My journalistic work is featured on ComicMix.com, Movers & Shakers Unlimited, The Fantastic Forum radio show, The CCC Podcast, The Great Geek Refuge, and the Made of Fail podcast.

How do you do it? As you're a writer, do you do a full script? Longhand, computer, or some combination?

Primarily on the computer and phone. I adore track changes in Word,particularly for collaborating; and the phone is great both for drafting script bits during my commutes, and for the many, many
messages that my Underfoot co-creators and I send back and forth. For both The Underfoot and my webcomics, the format is a full script. For The Underfoot, we tend to get very specific in some descriptions, as that comic is grounded in real-world science, nature, and location references, and those details matter. But even with detailed scripts, I do love seeing what new twists artists bring to the process, and the artists I've worked with consistently surprise and delight me with their creativity and talent. They make anything I can imagine look even better.

How did the three of you begin working together?

The short version is that I had a Twitter account where I was tweeting as my hamster Izzy, and at that time I reviewed a miniseries comic of  Ben Fisher's called Splitsville, which I really enjoyed. Ben found my hamster account and started writing back to Izzy as another hamster. Eventually we had some actual human being conversations as well (haha) and realized we should really write a book about all the ideas we were having about hamsters, adventures, and weird science. At the time when we needed to find an artist, Ben suggested Michelle Nguyen, who he'd worked with on the Grumpy Cat and Pokey comics. Her art works really well with our book, and thus, the creative team solidified.

Shout-outs also to Thom Zahler, who's an established comics creator in his own right and also is our letterer for the book. Michelle's partner Adrian Ricker assisted with the color flatting process, and illustrator Eric Orchard created our world and burrow maps. It's a great team, and made better as well by the editors and team at Lion Forge.

When you were writing it with Ben Fisher, how did the process work?

Ben and I bounce a lot of ideas off of each other. We then do rough story and character arcs, tighter detailed outlines, and full scripts. There are several stages of editing after that to get the scripts just right. There's a lot of text, call, and email traffic involved.

And then what did you give Michelle Nguyen to work from? A full script?

Michelle gets a full script, and we try also provide resource and photo references for anything very specific we are asking of her. Of course, some of the things we ask for have no known references, so I know that's part of Michelle's adventure in illustrating The Underfoot.

How did you decide to move from writing about comics to making them?

I like to write, period, and I like writing about creators and creative properties I enjoy or admire. I like that so much that I'm still trying to make time for it amidst the launch of The Underfoot.
But I've also written creatively for much of my life, in poetry, short fiction, and webcomics, so that creative process isn't new to me. Regarding a long-form larger comics work, I hadn't quite hit on an
idea that drove me to complete it at a particular point before The Underfoot. It can also be daunting to create such a vast world and set of works as we are crafting with The Underfoot, especially on your own. But working with Ben makes it super fun, and that's honestly what caused the jump – having a creative partner who feeds on my excitement about the ideas and gives me that excitement right back. Adding Michelle to the mix just made it even better. I am very fortunate to have found these collaborative teammates to work with.

I see you set the book in DC. Why did you use DC? Are you the only DC-area person on the team?

I'm the only D.C. local, and a lot of the local details come from what interests me about this city. D.C. is perfect for the origin story we are telling about the hamsters, and my experience living in this government town for sixteen years provides me with some strange local references to draw on. There were discussions early on about where to set the book – but after we had a few ideas that would only  work in this area, it just evolved into the setting it has now. That's not to say we may not explore other locations in the future, of course.

This is book 1 - how many books are planned?

We are working with Lion Forge on a trilogy, and Book 2 is already in the works. We have enough story ideas for several more books after that, though, so we hope people support and enjoy the first books of The Underfoot series enough that we can keep on making them!

Ok, back to your biography, when (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

I'm a child of the '80s, born right here in Washington, D.C.

Why are you in the Washington area now?

I went to law school at The George Washington University, and have been working as an attorney in the area ever since.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

I have no formal training in cartooning, but a heck of a lot of training and practice in writing. I've been writing (and reading, voraciously) ever since I can remember. I believe that all education, training, and life experience, even if it's in other areas, can add to a creator's work. Experiences like being Co-Editor-in-Chief of the high school literary magazine, in which my poetry and short fiction as also published; completing a degree in journalism but also taking a creative writing class simply because I had the opportunity to (thank you, broad and flexible curriculum of Indiana University Bloomington); and being trained as a legal writer and taking a few of the odder and more fun class offerings in my third year (Law and Literature was well worth it) gave me a flexibility with and understanding of different styles of writing that I really value. Over the years my blogging, parody Deadpool writing, journalistic work, legal writing, and other types of creative work have all been training.

When it came to writing scripts, I started doing it, as I start doing much of the work I most value, for the fun of it. It's a joy to me that others then wanted to publish what I wrote or collaborated on. I continue to learn and get my training on the job – which is another common thread in my life's work. I'm very much a person who values education but loves learning by trying, experimenting, and doing.

Who are your influences?

In the comics realm, early influences include Superman, the X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Batman. In law school I got seriously deep into Deadpool, and overall these days I'm a big Marvel fan, but will never give up my Superman love, and also have a big squishy soft spot for Harley Quinn. V for Vendetta is an excellent book, Maus is heartbreaking, Spy vs. Spy makes me inexplicably happy, and Calvin & Hobbes makes me happy in ways I wholly understand. Hark! A Vagrant makes me smile and learn, Heart & Brain is so very me, Sarah's Scribbles I'm guessing we can all identify with now and again, Catana Comics is adorable, and I've just recently discovered the endearing Strange Planet. Wait – I think I have digressed into simply, "What comics do you like to read?" Sorry!

Actually, I can never tell what's going to influence me, so let's just keep rolling on things I like to read. In prose literature, I treasure classics. Favorites include A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, As I Lay Dying, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet and Macbeth, Heart of Darkness, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, Candide, Things Fall Apart, The Little Prince, Cold Sassy Tree, The Color Purple, and the Austins and the Brontes. I'm a big sci-fi and fantasy fan – Terry Pratchett is notoriously one of my diehard favorites, and also Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, Philip K. Dick, Diana Wynn Jones, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Richard Adams, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stephen R. Lawhead, Mary Stewart, Peter S. Beagle, Jim Butcher, Elizabeth Moon, C.S. Lewis, Douglas Adams, and Kurt Vonnegut. I'm a big Sherlockian nerd and a reader of Arthurian and Welsh legends; and the People series of books by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear are fascinating re-imaginings of Native American life. Favorite poets include T.S. Eliot, Maya Angelou, Henrik Ibsen, Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, e e cummings, John Donne, Lewis Carroll, and William Carlos Williams; and in political science we should all read Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and marvel at his predictive abilities.

I know as soon as this interview is published I will remember a million more creative works I have loved. I send my gratitude out to all of them for making me who I am today. I hope to meet many new creative works as I continue my life. They will undoubtedly all influence me somehow.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

I wouldn't change anything big – but I might go back in time every now and again and remind myself that sometimes even I, a person who always likes to have several projects going at once, can spread my time and energy too thin! …But honestly, I am who I am and past me probably wouldn't listen to future me, anyway.

What work are you best-known for?

Hopefully, The Underfoot soon! I'm currently most known for my genre journalism work.

What work are you most proud of?

I'm definitely most proud of The Underfoot. With Ben Fisher, Michelle Nguyen, and others, we have created a complex world, seven years in the making, of which the 160-page The Mighty Deep is only the beginning. We are constantly developing our larger story, adding new things for readers to discover, and finding out more about our characters. It's a ton of fun and The Mighty Deep came together beautifully with Michelle's expressive art.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I have a Superman story in my head that I think would be challenging but amazing to write. I've had a lot of practice unofficially writing Deadpool purely for my own fun and would get a big kick out of trying it for Marvel sometime. I've got another couple of original comic book story ideas waiting in the wings for when time allows. And I've got a couple or so prose novel ideas and short story ideas I'd love to find the time to finish. We'll see what happens next!

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

I find that creating with my hands gives me a good break from creating with my words, so crafting is nice, and I also like building those Metal Earth models. Also, research. I love learning weird new facts through research.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

Assuming that means comics, people keep trying to predict it and I'm not sure we've quite got it yet. It isn't fully digital, because some of us just like holding books. It isn't just books, because hey, digital is handy. It isn't just motion comics, or webcomic apps… I like to think the future holds a lot of what the past has – experimentation, storytelling in different ways, and stretching the medium when needed to express what you need to.

What local cons do you attend? The Small Press Expo, Awesome Con or others? Any comments about attending them?

I've attended Awesome Con since the beginning, as press, con staff, panelist, and con moderator. It's a great con that grows every year. I like their balance of comics, celebrities, and pop culture, and their emphasis on science content. I've only gotten to go to SPX once, but enjoyed wandering its offerings. And Baltimore Comic Con is the nearest con that remains primarily focused on comics themselves. It's a favorite of mine.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

I just visited the Tidal Basin during peak cherry blossom time, and despite the crowds, it really is beautiful. I love the free museums, the European style of the city, the history, and the great opportunities for enjoying the arts and various types of cuisine and culture.

Least favorite?

The traffic? Probably the traffic.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

Air and Space, Natural History, and American History are my favorite classic Smithsonian museums – but the American Indian and African American museums are two somewhat more recent additions that I think are also really great. I love Teddy Roosevelt Island and the FDR Memorial; but also just the Mall in general, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the WWII Memorial…I mean, there are so many to see. It's hard not to include them all.

How about a favorite local restaurant?

Shout-outs to Ragtime, Ireland's Four Courts, and Bayou Bakery, in all of which I have written parts of The Underfoot and other things. Wilson Hardware is another favorite. I could probably keep going… There are also a ton of places in D.C., Shirlington, Alexandria, etc. that are great, and always new places to try.

Do you have a website or blog?

I've had several sites and blogs over the years. It's a work in progress, but currently I'm building https://www.theemilyesse.com/, and intend to archive or link all of my work on various other sites
there. You can find a fair amount of my journalism at ComicMix here: https://www.comicmix.com//author/emily-whitten/. Lion Forge has a page for The Underfoot:
https://www.lionforge.com/the-underfoot-volume1/

Here also are other selected pre-launch Underfoot interviews:

SYFY Wire Live Stage (video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPlWc5Juwcs&feature=youtu.be&t=3368&fbclid=IwAR3PBz-d81Y4p7M06VInJX5VQuQ7K9-e-IAWTiqXsJuEKHXzPgJAxSnocdw

Westfield Comics Blog (interview):
https://westfieldcomics.com/blog/interviews-and-columns/interview-ben-fisher-emily-s-whitten-michelle-nguyen-on-lion-forges-the-underfoot/

Great Geek Refuge (podcast):
https://www.greatgeekrefuge.com/ggr-pirate-radio//the-diner-with-emily-whitten

The Comics Culture Cosplay Podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/joshua-winchester/the-ccc-podcast-march-30-2019

Pop Culture Squad (interview):
https://popculturesquad.com/2019/04/03/spotlight-interview-with-the-creators-of-the-underfoot-emily-whitten-ben-fisher-and-michelle-nguyen/