Eddie Campbell’s “Honeybee” comics from his wonderful book, The Fate of the Artist:

James Kochalka gets away with a tribute to his wife that if I drew it of mine would get me killed:

David Heatley chronicles the seasons of love:

And Lynda Barry draws her family:

Sappy, I know, but sometimes I am.

I keep thinking about Seth’s equation of poetry + graphic design = comics, and it keeps making more and more sense to me. In his recent Inkstuds interview, David Heatley talked a little bit about how getting into graphic design influenced his comics work:

Robin McConnell: You’re also a graphic designer, but you utilize your cartooning within your graphic design work.

David Heatley: I guess I’d say I’m mostly an illustrator…I’ve done graphic design work as my job for 7 or 8 years, but it’s always been sort of a day job. What I’ve learned their I’ve actually put more into my comics, rather than the other way around. I’ve learned what good clean design looks like, about the hierarchy of information, using symbols, typography…all those kinds of things I’ve put over into my comics toolbox….While in art school I worked in my first design shop, and probably learned as much there as I did in school. At the time I hated computers, I hated ads, I thought everything was corporate BS and I didn’t want anything to do with it., My boss really spun my head around. He showed me old logos from the fifties, and I would copy those in my sketchbook. He showed me the constructivist posters, and he opened this whole world of design up to me that I never really knew about. Most of the time I find myself in bookstores gravitating to the design section and graphic arts more than fine arts, so [working in that design shop] was pretty seminal.

Inkstuds » Interview with David Heatley

As a cartoonist, one advantage you have over prose writers is that after you publish your book, you can sell your original artwork in a gallery show for hundreds of dollars. This works out great financially for the artists, and at the same time works out great for the fans.

David Heatley recently posted an awesome concept diagram of a multi-media show he has in mind to do for his upcoming memoir:

Heatley’s memoir seems particularly suited to this kind of presentation — dig the home videos his father singing.

So anyways: sell your originals. Although few prose writers have taken advantage of the business model, I can see it working, especially for people who write first drafts in longhand. (Lynda Barry sells pages of her original calligraphic manuscript for Cruddy at very reasonable prices over ebay.) Who would mind this hanging on your wall?

I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to buy my original artwork, but you never know. I better start working bigger…on better paper!