This afternoon, I ran a free cartooning class for the younger set at the Worcester Art Museum. It was held in the same room that I used to take classes in.
“Forget everything you learned.” These are the most influential words any teacher ever gave to me throughout my educational path. They were uttered by Mark Lynch when I was a teen and showed him I was reading a how-to-draw book. And those animation and comics classes of his at the Worcester Art Museum—they were the brightest spots in my teen life. I looked forward to them more than anything.
Here I am with Mark and the book that recounts that moment and those classes. Mark has had me on his radio show every single year since my first book published in 2001.
Please give this year’s episode a listen. Mark knows my work better than just about anyone on this planet. Link available in the comments section.
My old elementary school was long ago torn down, so I worked with the librarians at the Worcester Historical Museum to find some photos for visual reference for HEY, KIDDO.
And look what I uncovered—the room where it happened. It’s here that third-grade me watched visiting author Jack Gantos talk about writing.
That thing when you’re a high school English teacher and you’ve volunteered to be the faculty advisor for the school newspaper and you’re presented with this scrawny, geeky ninth grader who is utterly unhappy but loves to draw, so you reach out to him and hire him as the newspaper’s cartoonist and that position helps him thrive and jump starts his self esteem. And then, a few decades later, that kid, now a forty-year-old man, turns up on your doorstep with a graphic memoir that details those very moments and includes those very cartoons drawn for the school newspaper. And on top of that, the book has been longlisted for a National Book Award.
Mrs. Casey will surely be correcting this run-on sentence in her mind, but I just can’t contain my enthusiasm for this profound moment.
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