We are thankful to everyone who have been fans and are newly discovering Dragon and Goat in our last 20 years as an all original comic. So thanks! We hope you have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy feasting on whatever tasty vittles you typically feast upon this time of year.
These are a few throwback strips from Dragon and Goat’s early days in the papers where Dragon agrees on a bet to get their Thanksgiving turkey from a tofurkey farm.
It’s one of the mini-stories included in the latest Dragon and Goat book MAGIC MOUNTAIN where you’ll see Dragon and Goat not just venturing to a magic mountain to resurrect a unicorn fur coat- but in a few other adventures from back in the day.
This weekend (from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) any Dragon and Goat book order of the MAGIC MOUNTAIN will come with a hand-drawn Dragon and Goat drawing (up to the first 30 orders!). We just got the batch of books in and will be sending them out (and the other pre-orders) next week!
Don’t forget to add any other Dragon and Goat books or enamel pins you might need to have them by Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, Ōmisoka, Saturnalia- or whatever Winter Solstice oriented extravaganza that drives your shopping this time of year.
These comics were originally printed in black and white as strips and are now available in full color- fully remastered as full page comics in this newest D&G anthology. It will be the LAST anthology of the ole Dragon and Goat strips as we prep for the next D&G graphic novel!
Thanks again for following along for the adventure!
One of the thing I try to impress upon students in my Humanities classes is the importance of making a mark. It undergirds the assignments I have them do- whether creative or writing or both- that they should care about the marks they putting down in drawings or words. Even if they’re not the most eloquent or polished- our marks share are presence at a particular place and time and not only record our being somewhere but are a place where we actually are being. With this in mind when we look at an artist’s work, we have the opportunity to see their marks and trace their presence, allowing us to connect with another being even over thousands of years.
Feature image: CXC discussion: Re-Ignition: The Craft of Rebellion – A Conversation with Ronald Wimberly (middle) and James Spooner (right) moderated by CM Williams (left). Also the th(ink) is from Keith Knight- whose talk I will unpack later, I think!
On Sunday at the end of Cartoon Crossroads (CXC), I went to a talk moderated by CM Williams between Ronald Wimberly and James Spooner. Wimberly is the cartoonist behind Gratuitous Ninja, an endless scroll comic and the comics paper LAAB, and Spooner talked about his recent autobio comic High Desert relating how he discovered Punk music (and culture) as a refuge in his young adulthood. (As moderator Williams didn’t talk about his work, but I definitely would have liked to hear more about his Hyperallergic cartoons).
A page from LAAB by Ronald Wimberly at the Columbus Museum of Art.
Wimberly and Spooner both spoke to some extent about the FORM of comics that I think is useful to consider when deciding to make comics. Spooner whose recent comic is his first foray into the medium, related the process of making his graphic memoir to building a movie storyboard. After writing everything out, he just jumped into the process of illustrating his script and kind of figured it out as he went along- while Wimberly embraced more experimental forms of comics like the endless scroll or adopting the tabloid newspaper as a primary medium. I generally preferred Wimberly’s investment in form – both digital and in print-yet both methods were rooted, at their core, in storytelling.
A spread from LAAB a comics newspaper created by Ronald Wimberly at Columbus Museum of Art.
I was glad to get to chat with Wimberly afterwards about his residency at the Columbus Museum of Art in the gallery where his work was displayed. I really loved the ambition of printing an endless scroll comic as a massive accordion book that he funded via Kickstarter as well as the social mission of LAAB to investigate issues of identity like race, class, and gender through comics and the tabloid press.
In the earlier talk, he had brought up a disambiguation between the terms cartoonist, comics artist, and illustrator to map out how each, to him, functioned differently. He defined the cartoonist as “a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images)” -(a definition which is backed up by Wikipedia because that’s what he changed it to!). And I think I can subscribe to this definition.
One thing among many that I enjoyed about at CXC was in how it forced me to think a lot about my own identity as a cartoonist. Unlike C2E2 or other comics conventions, I really appreciated the expo’s emphasis on cartooning as the core of the celebration. It wasn’t like in the other conventions that emphasize the pop culture consumer fandom that arises out of popular comics and culture, but was more artist centered- more cartoonist centered.
Even though I have been cartooning for a while (Wahoo, for Dragon and Goat’s 20th anniversary this year!), I have spent a lot of time calling myself an ‘artist,’ rather than a ‘cartoonist.’ In art circles (especially in art schools two decades ago), cartoons were looked down upon. Sure everyone did them but the expectation was that you grew out of them and did more serious things. While I don’t regret studying painting, I definitely found my voice more in comics than in painting alone.
Yet even as I accept being a ‘cartoonist,’ I still find myself asking if I belong? The National Cartoonists Society used to qualify membership by one’s income- making a living by one’s cartoons. So if I don’t have a syndicated comic strip or a series of books that gets in every Barnes and Noble around the country- am I still a cartoonist? Since most newspapers are collapsing and continuing to dump comics artists and who knows how long Barnes and Nobles will be around- I think defining a cartoonist less by how their work gets out and more by the work they’re doing, is definitely the way to go.
While I may not be “Living by the pen,” my choice to be a professor (which I’m pretty luck that I’ve been able to do) is what allows me to keep telling the stories I want. It may slow down my production since a lot of my time is devoted to the classroom, but I’m not beholden to editors cutting out parts of my books, publishers pressing with insane deadlines, or really having to worry about making something that will sell. Instead I get to work on books that go for something more than feeding the beast of Capitalism, while still also having a decent pension…
Of all the cartoonists I heard talking about their careers and projects at CXC and beyond, pretty much all of them are looking beyond traditional media and outlets for their work. Whether it’s doing college talks, developing video games, or pitching TV shows to Netflix, they’re not just limited to scribbling their ways into meals. The cartoonist of today has to hustle to get their stories out there. For me to be a cartoonist you’re not making money by your pictures alone- but making money to make your pictures- to tell your stories. So I think if I can keep doing that, I’ll keep calling myself a cartoonist.
Now to get back to some drawing…okay, realistically, a little grading then some drawing…
I just got back from a weekend in Columbus, OH, having a table at the Cartoon Crossroads (CXC) Expo, meeting great cartoonists, seeing some fantastic talks on cartooning and comics, as well as get my books to new readers.
This was my first show back after the pandemic first began, and while I was a little rusty at setting up (it’s been about 2-3 years), I got into the swing of things pretty quickly and was happy to discover that people at CXC weren’t just fans of pop culture but clearly avid readers and supporters of cartoons as art and books.
I enjoyed getting to know Maria Scrivan, cartoonist of the comic strip Half Full and her Scholastic Nat graphic novel series, while tabling next to her on Saturday, and we traded books before she took off for home, and Cora now loves them.
She and I talked about the grind of daily cartooning which she’s been doing for the past 10 years. I never did it as intensely as her (I had weekends off), but I definitely don’t miss the constant looming deadlines from when I did Dragon and Goat daily for about 6 years. I do miss the daily ritual of crafting little stories and also how it forced me to really pay attention to everything around me. The creative monster has to be fed way more when it’s needing to churn out something hilarious so frequently, so I’d always be on the lookout for things to steal from my life and experiences.
Yet I made the choice to not really pursue syndication for Dragon and Goat largely because I didn’t see much of a future in newspapers nor did I want to change the weird stuff I was doing with D&G to fit what editors wanted. I saw more interesting options in the comic book as a literary/art form- and I just frankly love books more. Plus, with independent publishing- I get to make the books and projects I want- even if getting them out there is a bit more of a slog!
It’s been a while since we’ve 1) ventured to a con and 2) put out a new book. And this weekend Dragon, Goat, and I will be heading to Columbus, OH for the Cartoon Crossroads Festival (CXC) that is put on by The Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
I had hoped to actually have copies of the newest Dragon and Goat book Magic Mountain available (more info on the book soon!)…but supply chains and worker shortages and late-stage capitalism, etc. etc…. SO! We’ll instead be taking pre-orders for the new book as well as selling some of our other fantastical books at the festival Saturday and Sunday.
I’ll have a table set up in the Expo at table 35, so if you’re in the area be sure to stop by.
The 2022 CXC Expo takes place on Saturday, October 8 from 11 AM to 5 PM, and on Sunday, October 9 from 1 to 5 PM. The Expo is on the second floor of the Columbus Metropolitan Library – Main Library, 96 S Grant Ave in downtown Columbus.
And if you can’t make it, don’t worry! I’ll post later on how to get in your pre-order for the newest Dragon and Goat book: Magic Mountain.
Really excited to celebrate our kiddo’s latest birthday! This year she wanted a DRAGON theme, so, of course, I went nuts. Every year I make her a tee-shirt, and for this year’s I put her on an Aquamarine Dragon (with Sparrow Goldfinch’s sword).
She also got a new wooden castle that we stocked with the Dragon Knights- an exclusive women’s brigade (of customized Playmobil figures) who protect and take care of an Aquamerina, a gem dragon. Sure it’s a little much- but we’ve been pretty cooped since the start of the pandemic launched the weekend of her birthday, oh, so many years ago, so…
Well, this morning we woke to a dead battery, having left the the back light on our Subaru on all night (after yesterday’s hike in the St Mihiel Woods in Tinley Park). So while we waited on AAA to jump us, the kiddo and I got to read Dragon and Goat’s Pi-Rat Island before she headed to school. It’s hard to believe the book came out 12 years ago- it’s almost a teenager!
So don’t forget to get out your copy for a read this lovely Pi-Day-and if you don’t have a copy order one for next year- so you don’t miss the Math-e-magics! Find out more in our shop: https://dragonandgoat.com/?product=pi-rat-island
Xin Nian Kuai Le! Sin Jia Yoo Ee Sin Nee Huad Chai! Saehae bok mani badeuseyo! Chúc mừng năm mới! Happy Lunar New Year!
We’re really hoping the Year of the Tiger bodes well for this year! This past year has been a BEAST on top of the year before… and while I know we’re all tired stay strong, help people when you can, and ask when you need help yourself! So take a little moment to relax, color this coloring sheet from Dragon and Goat- and keep ridin’ the TIGER!
I’m very excited to announce the release (finally!) of Drawing on the Past, Vol. 2 that features essays on comics that “seek to examine the many ways in which history worldwide has been explored and (re)represented through comics and how history is a complex construction of imagination, reality, and manipulation.”
A chapter from my comic Beyond Paper Walls was selected for the collection along with other great written essays on comics and comics studies.
Published by the University Press of Mississippi and edited by Dorian L. Alexander, Michael Goodrum, and Philip Smith, the 2 books are a great way to dig into some of the research surrounding the field of comics exploring “questions of diversity and relationality, addressing differences between nations and the cultural, historical, and economic threads that bind them together, however loosely, and however much those bonds might chafe.”
I’m particularly glad to have my work included since I think it’s pretty important that in the field of comics studies- the form of comics be used to investigate and research our past and carve out paths into the future!
(and if you want to pick up a copy of Beyond Paper Walls just hop over to our D&G Shop!)
