FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010
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Winner honed her craft at college paper
walch from C1
these supportive parents? “Well, my dad used to be an architect, so I inher- ited from him writing in block capital letters,” Walch said wryly. “And my mom, I recently found drawings of hers [from when] she was a teenager: They’re really good re-creations of the ‘Peanuts’ characters.” (Mark Anthony Walch is now a software executive; Sharon Murphy Walch is a technology teacher at Rockledge Elementary in Woodbridge.) Walch’s dad fostered her interest in comics in the first place, in an oddly comic way. He noticed she loved “Pea- nuts,” and when she was old enough, he introduced her to the more complex strips. “When I turned 14, my dad was like,
CARTOONS COURTESY OF OLIVIA WALCH META IS BETTER: The characters in Olivia Walch’s “Imogen Quest” seem to be deconstructing the accepted notions of a comic strip even as they are populating one. The Next Great Cartoonist winner from C1
Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee, “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau, Stephan Pastis (“Pearls Before Swine”), Darrin Bell (“Candorville”), Hilary Price (“Rhymes With Orange”), Signe Wilkin- son (“Family Tree”), Richard Thompson (“Cul de Sac”), Lalo Alcaraz (“La Cuc- aracha”) and The Post’s Tom Toles. The final five emerged from 500 sub- missions. Four of them are from the Washington area; the other is from New York. They are: Daniel Boris, a 45-year-old online- education artist from Leesburg. His strip, “Hoxwinder Hall,” centers on a boy and his wisecracking pet gator. Bob Erskine, a 58-year-old painter and illustrator from Silver Spring. His comic, “Real Time,” features pithy pen- and-ink gag cartoons. (A number of the judges particularly liked his cartoon of a man on a park bench quipping: “Sure, I’d read the paper online, if I didn’t need the home delivery bags.”) Thomas Mullany, a 50-year-old grad- uate of the Corcoran School of Art and a Washington, Va., resident. His single- panel “Forever Endeavor” offers line drawings that deliver quick-hit gags. Zachary Snyder, a 22-year-old electri- cal engineering student from New York. He started his strip, “Stupid Inventor,” about an oft-thwarted scientist, as a bi- weekly webcomic. The Post held the contest both as an
invitation to rising and undiscovered tal- ent, and as an affirmation of the popu- larity of the newspaper’s print and on- line comics. “Cartoons and comic strips have had a
central role in The Post’s history and suc- cess, especially in print, and have a fiercely devoted audience,” says Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti. “ ‘Amer- ica’s Next Great Cartoonist’ was not only an opportunity to discover and showcase new talent, but also use the inherent ad- vantages of the digital world to make it a fun contest that our readers can have a say in along the way.” The modern American comic strip was fully born by 1897, the same year Mark Twain famously said reports of his death were “greatly exaggerated” — and in re- cent years, reports of the comic strip’s impending death have been greatly exag- gerated. Even in tough economic times for syn-
dicated comics and newspapers, mil- lions of readers decline to surrender their daily funnies fix. Like vinyl and roadside diners, comics give off the glow of nostalgic warmth and a sense of en- during Americana — qualities whose worth, on an ever-shifting pop culture landscape, aren’t easily exaggerated. “It’s heartening to see how many peo-
ple . . . are fascinated by the comic-strip medium,” says Amy Lago, a judge in the contest and comics editor for The Wash- ington Post Writers Group, which will re- view the finalist strips for possible syn- dication. Lago says she was also heartened by the high quality of some of the entries. “While anyone who’s a comics fan could spot the finalists’ influences, it was re- freshing to see how they stood upon the shoulders of giants and managed to see farther,” says Lago, who has edited such strips as “Peanuts,” “Pickles,” “Dilbert” and “Opus.”
alized, the best paced, and the funniest, with the most compelling characters and the best use of sequential art. Other than that, it doesn’t have much going for it.”
Replied the flattered and flabbergast-
ed Thompson: “As for Gene Weingarten’s comments, I think etiquette demands I send that guy a fruit basket, or, at the very least, offer to rotate his tires.” Another middle-aged hopeful, 54- year-old Joe Sutliff of Centreville, was thrilled when his strip, “Big Daddy,” was named a top-10 finalist. “When you do this kind of work, affirmation is very im- portant, no matter how much experi- ence you have.” The public didn’t vote either Thomp- son or Sutliff into the final five. Yet for both entrants, positive results were forthcoming. After he was named a finalist, Thomp-
son got more good news: Last month, he made his debut as a paid artist in a na- tional publication, when his gag-cartoon submission was accepted by no less than the New Yorker magazine. And Sutliff, a stay-at-home dad, was
contacted by Lago, who, intrigued, want- ed to see more samples. “Hopefully that will turn into an op-
JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POST
MOVING UP:Walch, a rising senior at William and Mary, soon turns 21. The pros spoke highly of the submis-
sion by Mark Thompson of Leesburg, whose “Odd Bluff Inn” strip was one of the 10 finalists. By making the finals, Thompson, 50, received feedback from top cartoonists. Trudeau said “Odd Bluff Inn” was the “only strip that really clicked for me.” Stan Lee wrote: “I think this has great
potential because it’s an original theme,” and Jerry Scott, creator of “Zits” and “Baby Blues,” praised Thompson’s dia- logue, drawing and comic premise. And Post columnist and “Barney &
Clyde” cartoonist Gene Weingarten de- clared: “This is my choice for the winner, but only because it’s got the best concept and is the best drawn, the most fully re-
portunity,” Sutliff says. “I’m incredibly optimistic about the future of news- papers, magazines and publications in general. As the medium changes and ev- erything switches to iPads and Kindles and other things that haven’t been in- vented yet, it will all be about content, not production costs. “And what does everybody — at least
everybody I know — turn to first? The comics!”
cavnam@washpost.com
‘You ever read “Doonesbury”? Oh, in- cidentally, I used to get his mail all the time.’ ”
Seems when he was a younger man,
Mark Walch lived down the street in Connecticut from “Doonesbury” cre- ator Garry Trudeau. Somehow Tru- deau’s mail would get delivered to Walch. How could Mr. Walch have known, though, that several decades hence, his only daughter would be voted the win- ner of “America’s Next Great Cartoon- ist” contest — and that one of the celeb- rity judges would be Trudeau himself? “Imogen Quest” won raves from some other top names in the industry: “Olivia’s panel is really current and
smart,” wrote critiquer Jerry Scott, the Reuben-winning creator of both “Zits” and “Baby Blues.” “Her ideas are fresh and funny, and the drawings are consis- tent and likable. I’d like to know how she got to be this good at such an early age!” Judge Hilary Price, the “Rhymes With
Orange” creator who in the ’90s became the youngest woman in syndicated car- tooning, said: “I get that lovely surprise when the strip takes me off the beaten path of my usual thinking. I look for- ward to seeing her name in ink!” And “Pearls Before Swine” creator Stephan Pastis wrote: “There’s a clev- erness and originality to it that just jumps off the page. . . . Very smart hu- mor that is brave enough to be deadpan and not telegraph jokes.” It was Pastis’s praise that elevated
Walch’s “coolness” quotient within her own home. “My brother, Henry, who’s 15, has all his books,” she says. “That’s the one that got him really, really excit- ed.”
Walch says her cartooning has grown immeasurably while she has provided the student newspaper with three to five illustrations and campus-politics cartoons weekly — “depending on how angry the opinion editor is that week” — though there’s no pay involved. “I do it all for the love and admiration of the Flat Hat staff,” she says. It’s also at the Flat Hat that Walch has learned the power of critics. “I have one online commenter: ‘Ilya,’ ” Walch says. “Ilya always disagrees with me. No mat- ter what my cartoon is about, Ilya, my anonymous nemesis, will be against me.” Walch has also developed pet theo- ries about writing for comics. “I try to be as original as possible. You can spend hours on a great idea and think it’s the best idea ever — and if somebody has done something even remotely similar, it’s like you’re discredited.” About writing comics, Walch also
notes: “There’s something uplifting that sticks with me when it veers in a direc- tion you don’t expect. . . . It’s the new- ness I like, even more than something that’s just laugh-out-loud funny.” So where did “Imogen Quest” come
from? “It’s the name of a character in the works of Evelyn Waugh that’s now in the public domain,” she says. So there, sitting in Oxford’s Waugh Room, reading his works with Evelyn’s own visage glowering down from a gi- ant canvas, Walch found the final touch of inspiration.
Since it was Dad who delivered word of the contest from home, does she per- haps owe him a little thank-you? “Are you kidding?” Walch said. “He’s so supportive, by the time I get home, he’ll probably have a big sign on the front lawn: ‘Olivia Walch: America’s Next Great Cartoonist!!!’ ” The readers, it turns out, agree.
cavnam@washpost.com
AS SHE SEES IT:Walch figures out what the natural punch line of her cartoon might be, then veers in another direction.
Michael Cavna writes The Washington Post’s comics culture blog Comic Riffs.
Movie reviews Turn to Weekend for reviews of all the movies opening today, including:
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Inception
A heady thriller of mind games and mystery. W25 (BBB1
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