When Childhood Dreams Come True

I found this picture of me taken of me when I was 8 years old and I love it. I was already drawing, and somewhere in the Adirondacks, my favorite place on Earth. I wasn’t quite into comics and comics strips yet—that would come a few years later. But my eight year old self would be pretty impressed with some of the things I’ve pulled off recently.

Next week will be the National Cartoonists Society annual conference and Rueben Awards in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio. At the conference I’ll get to hang out with some old friends and hopefully mingle with some comics greats like Jim Davis and Cathy Guisewhite. Lord knows what I’ll see to these people if I get to run into them.

I’ll also be attending the Rueben Awards, a black tie event that is essentially the Academy awards for the industry. And yes, it’s black tie, so I rented a tux and invited my wife to come along because how often to you get to go to such things?

Finally, on Saturday morning I’ll be signing books at a kids’ cartoonists showcase with a bunch of other creators. The big draw will be presentations by the liked of Raina Telgemeier, Dav Pilkey, Jamar Nicholas, Maria Scrivan, and Jim Benton that are sure to draw hordes of kids. I’ll be there signing books and doing sketches and maybe a few other things.

This is all to say that my younger self, who would harbor dreams of having his own comic book or comic strip, would have found this all very exciting, regardless of the twisted path it took to get here. I chickened out on the idea out of fear (and perhaps wisely so; I might be living in poverty today) but eventually, young David, I got there.

Finally a tip of the hat to my friend Wes Molebash (who’ll be joining me at NCS) for the release of his newest book in the Travis Daventhorpe series, Travis Daventhorpe Gets A Life. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m sure it’s as funny and profound as the first two. He’s off to new adventures without Travis, and I wish him luck on his new adventure.

Finally, just for fun, here’s some raccoons I drew to help out a friend who is working on a card game.