Free Friday Thursday: Guest Blog - Happy Birthday Sketch!

Hello! We now interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this Guest Blog by “the Wifey,” in honor of Falendor’s Cartoonist, the one and only, Sketch!!

The artwork you’re seeing in this blog is mostly by Sketch but also, my take on black line drawings that I dug out of Sketch’s trash! The characters are his from a comic strip called, Small Town Values - based on our family living in a small town in western Wisconsin, and I threw in some creativity and color and surprised him with each of these. There are a few more, the ones shown here are two of my favorites. 

We both like Doctor Who so, for his 40th Birthday, I ‘found’ these two characters (him and I) from different cartoons and then managed to draw a TARDIS and combined them into this Birthday surprise. For those of you unfamiliar with the TARDIS, it’s a time-traveling machine that is bigger on the inside. I put in a few key moments I knew Sketch would like to attend on the ‘travel plans’ card.

Being this cartoonist’s muse blows my mind sometimes. Helping him flesh out an idea or be the backboard during some idea generating is a privilege. I also get to be the ‘red pen’ … the baddy proofreader that comes out and crushes the creativity; correcting spelling and grammar … when he lets me in. I am not perfect and sometimes the red pen spills out into a conversation between him and I and no eraser can take away the words once they have left my ‘pen.’ Speaking to this creative, who takes my words literally, with my red pen never ends in a constructive way and can sometimes swipe the creativity out for days. I recently said to him, “you sure are talking about Falendor a lot, does it have to be in every conversation?” Kathunk! Silence, as his heart fell out onto the floor. His muse just told him to shut off this world he has been growing in his brain for over 15 years because she wanted more variety in his conversations. Ugghh. Where’s my eraser?? I couldn’t take those words back, they were written in permanent ink, stamped on his heart, brain, thoughts, flowing out of his pen … from that moment on. Not my best moment, even the proofreader gets it way wrong. Time and further conversations heal the wound but the scar? The scar remains. Why am I telling you about this sensitive subject shared between this cartoonist and his ‘muse’? Because I want you all to know that Sketch, the cartoonist, storyteller, father of Falendor, perseveres even when his support system is acting up. He continues to show up and get things done even when he’s not feeling up to it. Why? Because he has to. He is the most organized artist I have ever encountered. He draws everyday; the story continues in his brain no matter what else is happening. The Falendor characters demand his attention and if he tries to take a little time off, eventually you will find him grabbing a napkin or a scrap piece of paper to draw on - they need to come out.

He has talked about his drawing books in previous blogs - these are easy to carry, an outlet when a thought pops into his brain and, I guard them with my life. I am so proud of all he has accomplished and while that selfish red pen may eek out in the future, I will never not be amazed at all of the world’s, games, characters and voices he has created in the 26 years we have been together, including his and my world together. I love you Mr. G! Happy Birthday.

The Wifey, the muse, the proofreader and your biggest fan!

Shannon

This cartoon says, “If Mom asks what we did all day, we didn’t play any video games or watch any Westerns … Got it?” These characters are our son, Chip or better known as Max in the cartoon strip, Sketch and our dog, Buck. I drew game controllers and taped black string to them for cords; the picture of John Wayne was cut out of a magazine and I taped it to a yellow paper to look like a picture frame; colored pencils are some of my favorites to add color and shading to his black and white cartoons.

She made her mark today, now you go make yours.

Have a great day!!

To see more FREE cartoons click here.