Portrait of the artist

[scarfman]

Since I've been doing more blogging than I expected (yes, really), I suppose an introductory post comprised of bits of biography is in order.

By day I'm a mild-mannered staff assistant for a major Jesuit university school of nursing. In real life I'm a student of the screen adventure hero as the contemporary manifestation of the fireside folklore hero of all of human history up till now. I have a wife, a grown stepdaughter, a grown stepson, a stepdaughter-in-law, a stepgrandson, and a step-stepgrandson.

In 1971 I got hooked on Star Trek twenty minutes before my mother did. She went on to write the story that appeared first in the first New Voyages collection. She also wrote the mainstream novel Bernadette Black which, when I first read it during my youth spent aspiring to a screen acting career, prompted me to phone her and tell her I'd make a movie of it someday. In the late 80s when she completed her magnum opus cycle of Star Trek stories, I had an Amiga 500 and an animation program, and I did make a movie of that.

In the early 70s philfoglio's Star Trek fanzine work was among the formative influences on my cartoons. In the middle 80s I became Phil's roommate while we both were writers and performers for the sf comedy troupe Moebius Theatre. In the late 80s I married a woman whose first husband had also been an ex-roommate of Phil. We celebrated eighteen years last October, however, so Kaja is S.O.L.

In 1975 a tornado destroyed my junior high school. At the end of a string of related events, I started drawing a cartoon every day in April 1976. Though I continued to aspire to screen acting for five or ten more years, part of my motivation at the time was, "If I were to become a syndicated cartoonist, this will have been good practice." The result was I've drawn a cartoon a day since 1976 (with the occasional hiatus).

All I've really wanted since I was sixteen was to draw a cartoon every day and have it read by people all over the world.

I have that now.

I. Have. All I ever really wanted.

Comments

[larksilver.livejournal.com]

woohoo! You're the coolest, and you seem smart enough to know how fortunate you are for your personal successes. But AKOTAS isn't successful from luck; you've worked hard, and it shows. You probably work just as hard on the personal stuff - you strike me as the consistent type, and girls like that in our significant others.


"I. Have. All I ever really wanted."

I'm torn between admiring you for this, watching to see when you ascend to the Higher Plane from inner bliss, and feeling horribly jealous (mixed with guilt for this jealousy, of course). But the admiration wins. Really! I love to see someone doing well, and happy. Always. Also - and I don't get to say this often anymore - you make me feel so young. I was born in 1971. (cough)

[angryricecooker.livejournal.com]

I actually hosted a webcomics panel that included Phil about six months ago. Webcomics be a small world.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

"I. Have. All I ever really wanted."

Wow. Blessings on you and your family.

Your self-portrait has acquired some white hair since the last time I saw you.

With me, it's in the beard mostly, but I'm not a good enough cartoonist to draw that.

[scarfman]

Yeah, mine started at the temples, like any comics hero - those being the days when I was still my own central character. 'Course, that was fifteen years ago now, and the white's progessed some.