Art & Comics by Katherine Roy

Honk and Wave for Slate Magazine!

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:10:38 +0000

Just went live! An article in comics on what it’s like to campaign for governor in Vermont, by myself and James Sturm for Slate Magazine. James and I followed Matt Dunne on his last day on the campaign trail on Monday, August 23rd, from 5:30 am until about 9:30pm. All day Tuesday was spent working on compiling the piece: James wrote the story, I did the drawings, and together with Keny Widjaja we completed all the production and color completed by early Wednesday morning (today). I loved doing the work and hope to get to do more projects like it in the future.

Democratic Gubernatorial Primary Campaign

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:33:03 +0000

James Sturm and I covered one day’s worth of Vermont’s Democratic Gubernatorial Primary campaigning with Matt Dunne as cartoonist reporters for Slate Magazine! Keep an eye out for our final comic to be published on Wednesday on the events of today. Good luck to Matt Dunne and to the other four candidates going head to head tomorrow on the final countdown to election. And remember Vermont: GET OUT AND VOTE IN YOUR PRIMARY!

On the road, a misty beautiful morning on 89 North:

Matt Dunne and Ward, planning our next stop after a diner crawl outside of Burlington, VT around 10:15 am:

James and I in the backseat of the Dunne-mobile, covering the story for Slate:

Many thanks to the Dunne campaign for letting us joining the day’s events!

Construction

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:29:07 +0000

Sorry for the delay in posts folks– I’ve got some work to do on my site to fix some Comic Press glitches, and need to archive my Hieroglyph story to make way for new work. I also am considering moving my art and illustration work to another site under katherineroy.com, and making this a caterpillar only/ kids only site. Anybody have thoughts on this? Thanks for your patience! I should be up and running with new work by next week.

Cartoon College glimpse at the San Diego Comic-Con!

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:13:34 +0000

This weekend at the San Diego Comic-Con, James Sturm and Scott McCloud will be holding a panel discussion called “A Center of Cartoon Studies Conversation: Understanding, Making, and Teaching Comics.” As part of their chat James is planning to show a recent cut of Josh Melrod and Tara Wray’s Cartoon College, a documentary about CCS, and I had the honor of doing the opening titles for this showing of the film! I had never drawn for film titles before, but Josh and Tara were great to work with and bounce ideas off of, and we’re very happy with the end result!! If you can make it, you can find the panel on Friday at 4pm in Room 7AB. Have fun!

For more information about Cartoon College or Josh and Tara, visit their website, their myspace page, or watch the trailer on The Beat!

Hieroglyph Page 19

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:10:58 +0000

Last Pages…

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:10:09 +0000

This week concludes (for now) my preview of Hieroglyph! Thanks for reading everyone! I’ve been getting in some work I’m happy with on the new prologue and chapter 1. I’m very excited to see where this all goes. New work to be posted next week!

Hieroglyph Page 18

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:14:13 +0000

Hieroglyph Page 17

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:30:00 +0000

Sooooo hot!!

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:49:05 +0000

Sorry for the delay in posts this week, folks! Our apartment is too warm to use my computer, so I’ve been delinquent this week about checking email and updating my site. I’m busy working away on an independent picture book project, along with my graphic novel and another Caterpillar Tale in the concept stages. White River Junction is lazy in the summer heat, but as beautiful as ever. I hope to get to go swimming sometime this weekend. More soon!

Hieroglyph Page 16

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:43:54 +0000

Sorry this is late folks! I’ll post page 17 tomorrow.

Hieroglyph Page 15

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:10:33 +0000

Sorry this is late! Two more weeks of installments for this story section, folks.

Art Spiegelman at CCS!

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:10:29 +0000

Last week we had the honor of meeting Art Spiegelman at The Center for Cartoon Studies! He happened to be in the area and offered to meet with students and hold an informal discussion about his work, his career, and his experience with comics publishing. He was funny and charming, and, to our amusement and awe, chain smoked through his entire lecture. I can’t even remember the last time I saw someone smoke indoors in a public space.

Hieroglyph Page 14

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:58:59 +0000

Hieroglyph Page 13

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:31:16 +0000

How to talk to your plants (and other stories)

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:11:05 +0000

A couple of days ago I decided to buy some valerian root extract for the first time. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, from the 4:30 sunrise and the stress of my to-do list, and I thought that making tea with valerian at night might help. The plant also grows naturally in our front yard, but after some internet research I wasn’t sure that it could be consumed raw.

So I went and asked at the Coop. “In herbalism, you’re supposed to ask the plant if it’s safe to eat,” said one of the natural medicine specialists. “Have you asked the plant?” I checked her expression and saw that she was being serious. “How does the plant answer?” I asked. “I guess you just get a feeling,” she said. Having never had a conversion with a plant before, I wasn’t sure that I was qualified to risk my digestive health on my cross-species linguistic skills, so I went ahead and bought the extract anyway.

But, as strange as it sounds to ask a plant a question, I think stories work in a similar way. My husband, Tim Stout, has been coaching me on stories and how they work, and there seems to be a parallel strategy: ask the story what it wants, and listen to its answer. And the story will start to talk to you. I’ve had several false starts with this next section of Hieroglyph, which has been very frustrating, but I know the solution isn’t too far away. It’s a matter of clearing my head enough to listen. And who knows! Maybe I’ll hear something new from my story today. And if not, there’s a plant in the front yard who’s probably feeling neglected. I should go out at chat at my next 4:30am wake-up.

Hieroglyph Page 12

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:47:54 +0000

Hieroglyph Page 11

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:35:39 +0000

The building of the Nilo-O-Meter, and the subsequent discovery of the circumference of the Earth, was the most fascinating component of the crocodile temple at Kom Ombo. It’s easy to marginalize the Egyptian culture into a sideshow of mummies and sphinxes, but this, here… what a magnificent example of our curiosity and ingenuity as a civilization, and as a species, over 3,000 years ago. We have come so far, and yet I suspect that we are much the same as ever.

I hope that the chapter of Hieroglyph that I’m working on now can explore this further. I’m having my own creative war right now, but I suspect the solution isn’t too far away.

Hieroglyph Page 10

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:00:38 +0000

This week has kept me busy with graphic design work, a few self-promotion tasks, and a new caterpillar story for Boston Inbound’s upcoming comics anthology. Theme? Food! What a great subject.

Enjoy Hieroglyph! Next page will be posted on Thursday!

Crazy (good) week!

admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:00:18 +0000

What a week! Full days spent working on Hieroglyph chapter one, punctuated by freelance work and taxes (yes, we’re still trying to get things squared away with our renter’s rebate– may it be over soon…), and Tim was away in NYC meeting editors and doing informational interviews. Everything is going well, but we find ourselves very busy. Today it’s time to catch up and get a little work done, and clean up our much neglected living room.

Some week highlights:

On Thursday I had the privilege to be the in-house documentary cartoonist for the Vermont Arts Council Annual Meeting at the State House in Montpelier, VT. I drew everyone I could, as fast as I could, and then my drawings were displayed during the reception. I had so much fun!

And yesterday, Saturday, Tim and I drove down to the Eric Carle Museum to visit the “Celebrating Dogs in Picture Books” event, attend Jules Feiffer’s talk, and meet Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth and long time friend of Jules’. I was SO excited to meet Norton and take a photo with the two of them. Their book has meant so much to me both as a kid and as an adult, and was a strong inspiration for my interest in picture books and cartooning to begin with. Their only other book together, The Odious Ogre, comes out this Fall. From my sneak preview the book looks just beautiful. I’ll be first in line!

Hieroglyph Page 9

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:59:51 +0000

Hieroglyph Page 8

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:30:56 +0000

Posts should continue to happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the month. Enjoy!

June (thus far!)

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:57:37 +0000

After taking a month off from writing and drawing to complete my MFA and a trip home to see family, getting back into my work groove has proved to be a lot more difficult than I expected. Chapter 1 of Hieroglyph had me stumped for several days, whispering convincing threats that the No Talent Police would be knocking on my door momentarily. Though that didn’t happen, I DID get pulled over for the first time for having an expired registration sticker. “Golly gee, officer! This is my first time being pulled over!” Imagine the doctor and Main Street from the film State and Main, add a police uniform and a little note pad, and you will have an image of the smiling gentleman who gave me a warning ticket. All he needed was a bow tie. Golly, it would have been great if he’d had a bow tie.

Things are finally moving on Hieroglyph, though I’m not convinced the momentum will last for long. Making a book is a puzzle that needs constant attention. It’s so satisfying when something works! and so crushing when a lead goes nowhere. But little by little I know I’ll figure it out. And if not, and the No Talent Police come to get me, my only wish is for them to be wearing bow ties.

Hieroglyph Page 7

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:11:55 +0000

Pages 8 & 9 on Tuesday and Thursday next week. Have a great weekend all!

Hieroglyph Page 6

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:26:31 +0000

Sorry that this is a day late, folks! I didn’t have access to the internet yesterday, so for this week I’ll post Wednesday and Friday. Enjoy!

Slate.com Magazine published my work!

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:50:49 +0000

Two months ago, The Center for Cartoon Studies founder James Sturm decided to take a four month break from the internet and write about his experience offline by publishing on Slate.com (don’t worry, the irony of keeping a blog about being offline isn’t lost on him either). Last month he asked CCS students to contribute comics about their relationship with the internet, and last week I was featured! Check it out at Slate.com

Hieroglyph Page 5

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:45:41 +0000

This is the last page of repeated work from my roughs stage, posted through the spring months. Never before seen pages starting next week!!

Hieroglyph Page 4

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:17:41 +0000

Hieroglyph is up!

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:59:18 +0000

After two years of labor and hundreds of pages, my time as a student at The Center for Cartoon Studies has drawn to a close. I can’t believe how fast it has gone! The transition into life as an alumni will be a little terrifying but very exciting, and I am looking forward to whatever lies ahead.

In the meantime I thought I would share with you my final thesis project, tentatively entitled Hieroglyph, a graphic novel about an American artist traveling through Egypt. Part travelogue and part creative non-fiction, the story is based on sketches, drawings, notes, and comics from my 16-day tour of Egypt in January 2010. As part of my graduate thesis at The Center for Cartoon Studies I wrote the skeleton for the full graphic novel (about 100 pages in length) and completed a 19-page sample chapter that falls in the middle of the book. I plan to spend the summer working on bringing the writing and drawings to a more finished level so that I can more seriously explore publishing options this Fall. I’m very excited about this direction for my work; the challenges of this project have already pushed me harder and faster than anything before it, and I am excited to continue this process of creative discovery!

These drawings were done in pencil with layered watercolor beneath the line work in Photoshop. It’s been a very satisfying way to work, allowing me to maintain the immediacy of the line and adjust/redo the color as necessary.

Hieroglyph Page 3

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:45:49 +0000

Hieroglyph Page 2

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 13:30:20 +0000