and a cup of black coffee. By 7:00, I’m ready to begin the work day. I usually begin the week writing new material. Sometimes I can come up with a week’s worth of new material in a couple of days. Other times, I may be writing up to the very end. When I have enough good ideas written for the week, I’ll sit down and start penciling up roughs. At this stage I’m just using a handful of PaperMate Classic #2 pencils and a sheet of Bienfang plate finish bristol. I can usually pencil up an idea in 30 minutes. After I have all of my strips penciled, I ink them with a #2 sable brush and Speedball ink. The lettering is done with a #3 Rapidograph pen. Inking and lettering a strip takes me 45-60 minutes to complete. When I’m through, I erase the pencil lines and scan the strip into Photoshop. I then transfer it to my wife Anne’s computer so she can color it. Finally, they’re stuffed and e-mailed to Reed Brennan Media for final production and distribution. If I can, I’ll take a day off before starting the process all over again.
My days are also filled with non-comic strip work, so the amount of time I spend on the strip depends on what else I have to get done. Dinner time with the kids is a must. I also try to make the early evening hours family time. I’ll usually return to the drawing board for a few more hours of work after my youngest daughter is in bed. I make it a rule to quit working on the strip by 11:00 p.m., whether I’ve met my deadline or not. I almost always end my day reading the Wall Street Journal on the iPad and scanning magazines for entertaining articles. Sometimes we’ll pop in a movie if we’re not too tired. Being a cartoonist is a 7 day a week job, and I love it.”
When I have time off, I like to sail up and down the Lake Michigan coastline or work in the garden, which this year grew mostly weeds and a couple of pathetic looking tomato plants.
