Big Points in White River Junction

If the old expression about rain and showers holds true, I’ve just survived a short burst of a blizzard. A few deadlines decided to clump together, first the months-in-the-making relaunch of one of my first big website projects, topshelfcomix.com, then the day following it was flying to Vermont to visit the Center for Cartoon Studies.

The new Top Shelf site brings together what I’ve learned in a decade of building sites. It’s framed & brought to life by a series of great backgrounds by many fine cartoonists, including Grant Reynolds, Aaron Renier, Jeremy Tinder, Elio, Jeffrey Brown, and more to come soon. It’s also the first site I’ve done with a specific mobile version. Everything was rewritten from scratch, including a much-improved ts2.0 comics reading experience, sliding the nav out of view and offering ajaxtastic page navigation (i.e. not having to reload the entire page when you click next/prev). Also: buttery-smooth cart and one page checkout experience, magic search-as-you-type on the top of every page, cover & page previews brought into the 21st century, and, of course, lean and clean markup that delivers fast and breastfeeds Google.

The day before I flew out to Vermont, I managed to make live the new Top Shelf site, screenprint the covers and print the innards and assemble 20 Piecemeals, clean up the filthy mess that 2 months of focused work does to an apartment, pack, and, oh — prepare a 2-hour presentation to relay my influences, how I became a cartoonist, my “body of work,” my illustration projects, my webdesign, and my photography. Ok, I fib a bit, I just started that presentation, but what I did get done on it is my favorite part:

Alec braved a non-metaphorical blizzard to pick me up in Manchester, New Hampshire. We caught up on gossip on the drive to CCS while rain moved in to replace snow with slush.

Soon after arriving, we joined Dennis and Robyn for a dinner at The Orient, which if I’m not mistaken, had Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Korean food scattered about. Soup? Wonton, Miso, Egg drop, Vegetarian hot-sour soup, Bean curd & vegetable soup, Shredded pork with sausage cabbage soup, Chicken rice or noodle soup, Seafood hot sour soup, Shrimp, scallop, crab meat, tofu, snow pea, carrot, celery in spicy soup, or Tom yum kung. This place has fucking everything! I went for the Tangerine Chicken. I’d really love to taste some food directly in China. I’m dying to know if the homogenous American offerings represent Chinese cuisine at all.

At this point I was about 2 days sleep-deprived, and it was a bit of a blur after that until my head hit the pillow. I managed to coax myself into sleep knowing I had at least 4 hours to prepare my barely incubated presentation the next day.

I’ve never been even close to a fan of speaking in public. Stepping in front of a crowd to perform was only a thrill back when breakdancing on the fishgut foggy Newport bayfront in the ’80s. It was still slightly fresh & somewhat wicked in the early ’90s in my MC Hammer pants, choreographing “Street Dance” with my brother and a stage full of kids wearing pants made by mom for Kidstuff in front of my ENTIRE KNOWN COMMUNITY. Joy! It started losing the charm when I played a bum and preacher in a presentation of Threepenny Opera, in front a similar crowd on a small island, Orcas. I do enjoy live entertainment, folks who have the sacks to step up and clown around for the enjoyment of others. I guess I’m just rusty in playing that role.

That longwinded preface ignored, I actually enjoyed talking to folks about comics. I’ve long wondered about pursuing the terrifying concept of being a teacher. I feel like I was lucky in my brief schooling, having met a number of bizarre and influential teachers. As nerve-wracking as it is to perform dance or comedy or acting to a crowd, try facing a room full of surly 6th graders. Gives me the shivers.

Thankfully these were folks in their mid-20s to 30s, so I could relay what I discovered to be my canon of comics about me failing with the girls, making up fake ads, and slowly learning to draw the perfect boob. I put my gum on the table. I had long, pregnant pauses for dramatic effect. And for some reason I started clapping every time everyone else did. Total pro. Hero. Torchbearer.

After sweating what’s sure to be nightmare fodder for a few years, we hit the Star Wars pinball game in a strangely spacious and vacant pool hall. I slowly picked up on moves and tried not to smash the machine every time Annoying Boy Anakin told me what to do or Jah-Jah-Giggles made any sound whatsoever.

Then we hit the T2 machine, which had the distinct advantage of The Governator barking at you instead of Anakin. “BIG POINTS,” “GET OUT,” “HURRY UP,” Arnie monotoned.

The next day I spoke about webdesign to a healthy roomful of optional-class seniors. In retrospect Alec had a great idea of what I should have done: have everyone show me their sites and I could offer one thing to do to improve it, and explain the means to do that. Genius. Instead I just repeated “Firebug” and “Muffin” for an hour.

Then: more pinball. Soup. Pinball. Meet up and draw Steve Bissette.

More pinball, a tour of CCS and town, then trek up the hill to the bowling alley for yes, more pinball. It was a definite theme on the visit, and one that I happily embraced. I spent one of my best summers ever mastering Twilight Zone with a gaggle of friends, getting hammered in a laundromat.

I did my best to get kicked out of the alley while drunken candlestick bowling, but no luck.

Casey

The next day Alec and I hoofed it over the river (and state line) to Shyrl’s Diner, offering the unique experience of being greasy spoon cheap with actually tasty eats and real maple syrup, all for the price of riding the bus in Chicago a few times.

A mere 9 hours of airport hassles and 5 miles of walking later, I returned triumphantly to my prized cat herd.

All told, count me impressed. I could see how people get sucked in for a few years of cartooning heaven. WRJ’s a quaint little town with just enough of everything to keep you satiated. The real enticer to me was stories of swimming in the river and playing soccer in the summer. I could go for some of that activity after too many stagnant years in the city.