“I have known writers at this dangerous and tricky age to phone their homes from their offices, or their offices from their homes, ask for themselves in a low tone, and then, having fortunately discovered they were “out,” to collapse in hard-breathing relief. This is particularly true of writers of light pieces running from a thousand to two thousand words.”
James Thurber
My Life and Hard Times
Preface to a Life
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Posted by Jim
Click image to enlarge. This cartoon tip originally appeared in the January-February 2016 issue of The Cartoon!st, the newsletter of the National Cartoonists Society. All series images and texts are copyright © 2016 by the artist.
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Posted by Jim
When Bob Weber, creator of the classic comic strip “Moose Miller” (re-titled “Moose & Molly” since 1998), visited Baltimore about ten years ago, he called and invited me to dine with him at the Denny’s
out on Ritchie Highway. Bob, born and raised in South Baltimore, has for many years lived in Westport, Connecticut. We hadn’t talked for at least ten years, hadn’t seen each other for over twenty, but I wasn’t surprised to hear from him. You see, Bob sort of owes me—or at least I think he thinks he does.
Our connection goes back to June 27, 1986, when I wrote the following note to the Features Editor of the Baltimore Sunday Sun: “I’m a big fan of comic strips—have been all my life—and I especially love some that appear daily in the Evening Sun: “Peanuts,” “Andy Capp,” “B.C.,” and, more recently, “Zippy,” “Calvin & Hobbes,” and “Moose Miller.” However, it’s very disappointing to follow these features each day of the week and then not be able to enjoy them in color on Sunday. I refer to “Calvin & Hobbes” and “Moose,” my two very special favorites, which have so far been missing from the Sunday pages. Can this situation be corrected?”
That was the first of several letters I wrote, over the span of a few years, to insure that “Moose Miller” got some respect in the Sunday comics section, and to help see to it that the feature was reinstated once it had been dropped from the funny pages altogether—which, if memory serves, happened three times, with the third strike turning out to be terminal. Sadly, “Moose” has not run in Bob Weber’s hometown paper since about 1995.
During the period I was able to help keep “Moose Miller” in Baltimore. My reasoning emphasized the local angle, the fact that the characters referred often to Baltimore landmarks such as “Sparrows Point Shipyards” “Curtis Bay” and “Pratt Street,” and used the names of local people in the balloons, mine included. Here’s a memory jogger for Balti-morons, as we like to call ourselves. In the strip below “Bill Buxton” refers to the Baltimore Sun fishing writer Bill Burton; “Vince Baggy” was the beloved local sports columnist Vince Bagli; and announcer Stu Kerr plays himself, a real announcer for a real local TV station; and me, Jim Sizemore. Along with Vince Baggy I’m the “written by” guy. For some reason Bob didn’t, or couldn’t, come up with nicknames for Stu Kerr and me. (There are also three names in the strips I was unable to I.D. (If you know them, let me know.)
But I believe the strongest points I made in favor of the strip were aesthetic and social. The gag writing is excellent, words and images working together to create the humor, a characteristic always present in the best comics. The visual appeal of “Moose” is the result of strong composition and the use of simple shapes to define human and animal characters, places, and things, as in the “Nancy,” “Henry,” and “Snuffy Smith” mold, all of which, like “Moose Miller,” read well visually when reproduced at very small sizes. That’s important these days with the shrinking space given to comics features. The strip above is an excellent example of Bob’s astute way with dramatic visual composition—it couldn’t be simpler, or bolder, or better.
In my opinion “Moose Miller” was (and is, since it’s still running) a unique work at once fluid, funny and very lively—and it’s an example of very good graphic design. And finally, the strip has social value. It may be the only remaining syndicated comic strip that depicts the day-to-day humorous conflicts of working class family life. These are simple comic characters but they have real lives and real jobs. Well, except for Moose—but at least he makes an effort to find work, he just can’t seem to hold on to it when he does get it.
The way I see it, Bob repaid my small efforts on behalf of “Moose Miller” many times over with his friendship — intermittent but always fun — plus the pleasure the feature gave me when it ran locally and I could read it every day, including Sunday. (Not to mention the sliver of immortality having my name appear in it from time to time.) Bob, being a humble South Baltimore guy, doesn’t realize I’d happily settle for that. Well, a bit more than that. I would like Bob to show up in Baltimore more often so we can stroll around the old neighborhood and gab about the misty days of yesteryear. But it’s O.K. with me if he never again feels he has to spend big bucks on me at fancy restaurants. After all, guys like us have simple tastes.
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Posted by Jim
Until I came upon the Bill Watterson essay, below, I had planned to write one myself about the brilliant George Herriman comic strip, Krazy Kat. But I now know I can’t compete, so I’ve decided to filch the whole thing and present it to you here as-is. (Hope they don’t sue me.) P. S. Get The Komplete Kolor Krazy Kat book (see link below) and view the amazing — and oh so juicy — drawings of George Herriman in all their graphic glory. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, folks — and more’s the pity.
From the introduction to The Komplete Kolor Krazy Kat…
A Few Thoughts on Krazy Kat
by BILL WATTERSON
As a cartoonist, I read Krazy Kat with awe and wonder. Krazy Kat is such a pure and completely realized personal vision that the strip’s inner mechanism is ultimately as unknowable as George Herriman. Nevertheless, I marvel at how this fanciful world could be so forcefully imagined and brought to paper with such immediacy. THIS is how good a comic strip can be.
Interestingly, Krazy Kat gains its momentum less from the personalities of its characters than from their obsessions. Ignatz Mouse demonstrates his contempt for Krazy by throwing bricks at her; Krazy reinterprets the bricks as signs of love; and Offissa Pupp is obliged by duty (and regard for Krazy) to thwart and punish Ignatz’s “sin,” thereby interefering with a process that’s satisfying to everyone for all the wrong reasons. Some 30 years of strips were wrung out of that amalgam of cross-purposes. The action can be read as a metaphor for love or politics, or just enjoyed for its lunatic inner logic and physical comedy.
Despite the predictability of the characters’ proclivities, the the strip never sinks into formula or routine. Often the actual brick tossing is only anticipated. The simple plot is endlessly renewed through constant innovation, pace manipulations, unexpected results, and most of all, the quiet charm of each story’s presentation. The magic of the strip is not so much in what it says, but in how it says it. It’s a more subtle kind of cartooning than we have today.
To the bewilderment of many readers, there are few endings in Krazy Kat that qualify as “punchlines.” Instead, it’s the temperament of the writing and drawing throughout the strip that is the joke. If you don’t think it’s funny that a strip should have an intermission drawing, or that a character would refer to his tail as a “caudal appendage,” you’re reading the wrong strip, and it’s your loss.
Quirky, individual, and uncompromised, Krazy Kat is one of the very few comic strips that takes full advantage of its medium. There are some things a comic strip can do that no other medium, not even animation, can touch, and Krazy Kat is a virtual essay on comic strip essence.
In their headlong rush for the “gag,” most cartoonists run right past the countless treasures Herriman uncovered simply by taking his time to explore the freedom of his medium. The self-consciously baroque narrations and monologues (“From the kwaint konfines of the kalabozo del kondado de Kokonino — Officer ‘Pup’ gives answer”) show that words can be funny in themselves, just as drawings can. The sky turns from black to white to zigzags and plaids simply because, in a comic strip, it CAN. No other cartoonist ever approached his blank sheet of paper with so much affection for all its possibilities.
The scratchy drawings delight me no end. They have the honesty and directness of sketches. So many of today’s strips are slick and polished, the inevitable result of assistants trying to develop a mechanical style that can be continued indefinitely. The drawings in Krazy Kat are whimsical, idiosyncratic, and filled with personality. The bold design of the Sunday strips neatly compliments the flat expanses of color or black, and the wonderful hatching brings character to the otherwise posterish approach.
Nothing in Krazy Kat had a supporting role, least of all the Arizona desert setting. Mountains are striped. Mesas are spotted. Trees grow in pots. The horizon is a low wall that characters climb over. Panels are framed by theater curtains and stage spotlights. Monument Valley monoliths are drawn to look more like their names. The moon is a melon wedge, suspended upside down. And virtually every panel features a different landscape, even if the characters don’t move. The land is more than a backdrop. It is a character in the story, and the strip is “about” that landscape as much as it is about the animals who populate it.
As the artwork is poetic, so is the writing. With the possible exception of Pogo, no other strip derives so much of its charm from its verbiage. Krazy Kat‘s unique “texture” comes in large part through the conglomeration of peculiar spellings and punctuations, dialects, interminglings of Spanish, phonetic renderings, and alliterations. Krazy Kat‘s Coconino County not only had a look; it had a sound as well. Slightly foreign, but uncontrived, it was an extraordinary and full world.
Darn few comic strips challenge their readers anymore. The comics have become big business, and they play it safe. They shamelessly pander to the results of reader surveys, and are produced by virtual factories, ready-made for the inevitable t-shirts, dolls, greeting cards, and television specials. Licensing is where the money is, and we seem to have forgotten that a comic strip can be something more than a launchpad for a glut of derivative products. When the comic strip is not exploited, the medium can be a vehicle for beautiful artwork and serious, intelligent expression.
Krazy Kat was drawn well over half a century ago, and yet it’s a much more sophisticated use of the comic strip medium than anything we cartoonists are doing today. Of course, a 1930s Sunday Krazy filled the entire newspaper page, whereas editors today usually cram at least four strips in the same amount of space. This reduction of size greatly limits what can be drawn and written and still remain legible, and it goes a long way toward explaining the comics’ devolution.
Even so, the whiteness of paper is still vast, uncharted territory, ripe for exploration. There are plenty of exotic lands for a cartoonist to map, if he or she will leave the well-worn paths and strike off for the wilds of the imagination. Krazy Kat is like no other comic strip before or after it. We are richer for Herriman’s integrity and vision.
Krazy Kat was not very successful as a commercial venture, but it was something better. It was art.
Bill Watterson is the creator of Calvin & Hobbes.
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Posted by Jim
By Jacquie Roland
Today, for some reason, I decided to redo my mailbox. (As if I don’t have enough other stuff to do.) However . . . When I came in to get out of the heat and have a cool drink, my phone rang. Not unusual. Except that I couldn’t find it. I could hear it, but . . . Well, as it turns out—in a fit of artistic madness—I had epoxied my live phone into the assemblage. (The old phone had dropped out of sight behind my work table.) And now my good Ma Bell is glued into the sculpture. Forever. *sigh* I guess it will just have to keep ringing until the battery wears out.
This post was adapted from an e-mail I received yesterday from my friend Jacquie, who, as you can see, keeps very VERY busy in upstate New York. This 3-D doodle was too good—and the story of its creation ‘way too funny—to keep to myself. Click images for larger views.
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Posted by Jim
If you’re an artist, or have ever tried to become one, you know that the part of the human body hardest to draw is the hand. You can always spot an artist-wannabe when they present “finished art” wherein the hands of the people are hidden in some way—either in pockets, behind backs, under the table, etc., etc. A confident artist, on the other hand (sorry, couldn’t resist it), doesn’t hide hands because he or she has, to at least some degree, mastered their depiction. Actually, the skillful artist loves to draw hands because they know that after the human face, hands are the most expressive parts of the body, especially when it comes to gestures. On the other other hand, some newbie artists give up the game in frustration once they discover the difficulty of drawing hands. Many of those creative folks become photographers instead—as did Yours Truly, at least for a time. Or they try their own hands at cartooning (ditto), where the graphic standards are much lower, especially these days. (See my own limited efforts on this blog, and the many crudely drawn “Post Modern” gag examples in the New Yorker. BTW, the term “Post Modern,” as I understand how it applies to cartooning, means crudely drawn on purpose. The idea is to make an up to date graphic statement “against” professional slickness. Meanwhile, I’ve spent many years trying to become professionally slick. It’s all very confusing.)
Copyright © 2009 Jim Sizemore.
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Posted by Jim
How To Draw A “Gag” Cartoon
When meeting someone for the first time I’ve noticed that a quick way to dampen—or drown—any hope of a conversation is to answer their question, “What do you do?” by admitting that I’m a cartoonist. Blurting it out that way is usually followed by deep silence, or at most a single comment such as, “Gee, I’ve never met one of those before.” Most folks do not have a followup when they hear what I do. Occasionally, though, they ask questions such as “How do you get your ideas?” or “Which comes first, the caption or the drawing?” or “How long does it take to draw a cartoon?” Kids, I have found, get right to the point—they want to know: “How much money to you make for a cartoon?”
Even when I’m with someone who has known me for years, talking about the uncommon thing I do for a living can be awkward for both parties. For example, each year when I go for my eye exam the doctor asks, after checking my folder for clues as to my interests, “Still drawing your little cartoons?” I answer in the affirmative even while being slightly offended by the rote way he asks. Then the good doc changes the subject by telling me a story I’ve heard many times before about his experiences as a Flight Surgeon in the U.S. Air Force, and I’m relieved to not have to talk about my trade.
The fact is, I do like to talk about what I do with people who are sincerely interested, so I’ve decided to use this post to answer some of the questions people might want to know about the craft of gag cartooning, things they can use to help them come up with queries of their own the next time they run into a cartoonist at a cocktail party on in a redneck bar.
So, using the gag cartoon I did just last week, here is a short primer on how I approach my “little” craft.
1. Rough Sketch
This is an example of a first attempt to get the idea down, the so-called “thinking with a pencil” phase. These days I do all my hand-drawing, start to finish, in blue pencil on 9″ X 12″ tracing paper. And if there’s a caption, I’m still rewriting it, too.
2. Second Draft & Shading Test
After tracing over the first draft to clean it up a bit, I like to play around with possible shading ideas. And I’m still fiddling with the caption.
3. Inked Line Draft
Using another sheet of tracing paper, I ink the lines I want to have in the final art. (Sometimes I don’t use ink at all and settle for the pencil lines.) I can afford to be pretty sloppy at this point because I know everything I do is subject to change later on in the process, after I’ve scanned the image.
4. Inked & Shaded Draft
Still using my trusty blue pencil, and the second draft as a guide, I shade in the areas selected. Now I’m ready to scan the image into Photoshop.
5. Comprehensive Draft
Once I have a high resolution copy in my computer, I switch from color mode to gray scale and adjust the “levels”—the value scale from white to black—keeping as many of the grays as possible. Then it’s just a matter of making scores of small and large adjustments to come to a satisfactory final image, hopefully one that retains the feeling of being completely hand-drawn. I call this combination of hand and computer work “pencil painting.” Then I add the final version of the caption, upload the image to CartoonStock.com in London, and post a copy here on DoodleMeister. (You may want to compare the comprehensive draft above with the final art, below.)
6. Final Art
If you have questions about my gag cartooning process, or about cartooning in general, add a comment below. I’ll be happy to answer even if I have to make something up. (The original March 6 post featuring this cartoon may be seen directly below.)
Copyright © 2009 Jim Sizemore.
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Posted by Jim
For many years I’ve known Jacquie Roland as artist, actress, federal government coworker, cartoonist, playwright, professional clown, writer, etc., etc. I now learn she’s also a “Ringer.” In a short essay below, the clever Ms. Roland explains.
By Jacquie Roland
I’m a “RINGER”. For those unfamiliar with the term, a RINGER is a (huge) fan of the J.R.R. Tolkien saga THE LORD OF THE RINGS. (LOTR). I’ve been reading, and re-reading the books since I was introduced to them in the 1960’s, by an office buddy in the federal government. I like to start each new year with a read, but this year, instead, I reached for my extended dvd’s of the marvelous epic directed by Peter Jackson.
I started 2009, (which due to the state of things promises to be a rather tough year all around) completely immersed in a world of Hobbits, Wizards, Elves and the men of Middle Earth. It was totally satisfying. My affection for, and involvement with, the characters imagined by Professor Tolkien has actually grown over the years, not lessened. Admittedly, this year I have had some help. In February of 2008, I joined a group of like-minded people on the internet, called THE FELLOWSHIP OF MIDDLE EARTH, The Unofficial Site of The LOTR Fan Club Community. This was/is my first foray into the vast resources of the Internet. I have been welcomed into the Fellowship, which is very family friendly, by an amazing group of people, most of whom I know only by their avatars. We share a real love for the books, and now the movies. My avatar is that of one of the Ring-wraiths, or fallen kings of men. Although the Ring-wraith character is male, by adding the “wife” I made it my own.
So the Ringwraith-Wife was born. RWW for short. The photo above is a self portrait I took of RWW in the backyard of ‘her’ new home. People who know me, and remember the Halloween parties that Bernie Wrightson gave in the seventies & eighties in upstate NY, will recognize RWW as an adaptation of another character I dressed as… The Vampire Bride. (Admittedly, I’m also a Halloween junkie, and costume freak.)
When I ‘became’ RWW, I started thinking about LOTR on a daily basis, rather than as my annual enjoyable pastime. Because of this, I’ve begun to integrate LOTR into my daily life… really. Almost to the point of WWGD. (What would Gandalf Do) Even to me, it’s a little spooky. But it sure is fun. In May, I felt confident enough to start an online comic, titled RINGER. Due to other real life considerations, I had stopped cartooning years ago, and I missed it. RINGER ‘publishes’ four cartoons a week, all a parody of LOTR and it’s characters. Because it’s on the Internet, I get instant feedback on the weekly gags… I found out quickly what works, and what doesn’t, and just as quickly I adjust. What started out as a small pleasantry, has now become quite a bit more. I fully intend to try for a book sometime this year. (My only cartoon book so far, I Drive People Crazy, Too, was about Pac-Man… I got the biggest kick when another author asked to include my book in her Pac-Man collectible tome… if for no other reason than instead of being thought of as an antique, I’m now officially a collectible.) As a Ringer, I still have friends who marvel at my fascination with LOTR, the books, the movies… and let’s not forget my semi-obsession with the movie’s stars!
My personal favorite, of the actors, from the beginning, has been Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. -Sigh!- Other Ringer friends are quite enamored with Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas, Elijah Wood as Frodo, and Sean Bean as Boromir. Heroes, all. Nowadays, we need our heroes. (Can you say… OBAMA ? …I hope… I hope… I hope.)
Anyway, all I’m trying to point out here, if my little ramble has a point, is that nothing you do is wasted. It’s all grist for your mill. A book someone casually handed me 40 (!) years ago, has all but taken over my present life… and in such a good way. So if someone tells you that whatever you happen to be doing at the moment… reading a book, painting, writing a play, watching a movie, or simply daydreaming… is a waste of time… know in your heart that it isn’t… one of these days your ‘diversion’ could just end up being the next chapter in your own book.
As for the Ringwraith – Wife photo, my “hobby” used to be taking self portraits… always in costume, with interesting props. I put my camera on a tripod, hit the self timer, and run like the devil to get in place. I lost my favorite set of photos in a move… In them, I dressed as Esmeralda, had made a soft sculpture of Quasimodo, and positioned myself & “Quasi ” on the steps of a gorgeous downtown stone church. When I clicked the timer I ran and wrapped myself in this huge hawser, and laid on the stone steps at “Quasi’s” feet. I called the best photo from that set “She Gave Me Water.” One of these days I hope to redo the “Quasi” series. (Of course, if I don’t get a move on the new photos will be titled “He Gave Her Walker.”) I also have a few humorous LOTR characters, and setups, in mind as well. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are only so many hours in a day.
For now, my character ‘RingWraith Wife’ will have to do… and my cartoons, of course. And the paintings, and plays… Ain’t life grand? But still, this year, already… something’s missing. Before too long I’m going to have to pull my crusty old LOTR volumes down from the shelves. Even with the movies… I miss the books… and you know what they say… “Real Ringers Read The Books.” (They do… they do… they do.) Damn you, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Copyright © 2009 Jacquie Roland.
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Posted by Jim
A comment I received in response to my post of 1/19/09 (to read it, scroll down a bit to “Today’s Haiku,” the one with the fly) essentially asks the question that I’ve used as the title of this post. Here’s the reader’s comment: “I thought a haiku was . . . a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons. I like the poem though.”
My reply was: “I think you’re right . . . the 5-7-5, 17 syllable style is classic Japanese haiku. But I also seem to remember that the American version(s) is (or can be) more lax when it comes to structure. (It took a lot of effort for me to just get the 17 syllable part.) I’d be interested to know what others have to say.”
I am interested in the thoughts of others about haiku form, Japanese or English, which is why I decided to cobble together an expanded version of my comment. My hope is that this post will provoke even more discussion of the ancient, profound—and often humorous—Japanese art form. My knowledge of haiku, 
such as it is, comes from these two books: “The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa,” Edited by Robert Hass; and “Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku,” Edited by Bruce Ross. I quote from both in this post. By reproducing some of my under-linings from the books, I attempt to share my understanding of what, in its various forms, haiku is. First up, from the introduction to “The Essential Haiku,” a book that has as its focus the classic Japanese haiku of three masters, Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa, which begins:
“It is a truism of Japanese literary criticism that the three men represent three types of the poet—Basho the ascetic and seeker, Buson the artist, Issa the humanist—and their differences are clear at a glance when you read them. “Here is a fall poem that has Basho’s poignant calm and spiritual restlessness:
Deep autumn—
my neighbor,
how does he live, I wonder?
“And this winter poem was Buson’s painterly mix of precision and strangeness:
Tethered horse;
snow
in both stirrups.
“And here is a summer poem of Issa’s, with its pathos and humor:
Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
Casually.”
Note that in translation not one of these poems retain the suggested five-seven-five, seventeen syllable form. Even so, all still manage to express their observations of life and nature beautifully. Also note the use of humor, as in the Issa haiku where he speaks to his resident house spiders. As a cartoonist, I find the use of humor especially appealing. I’m also impressed by the skillful economy of expression inherent in haiku generally. Here’s an edited quote from the book about haiku form:
“The hokku, as it was called in Basho’s time, emerged almost accidentally, from the practice of linked verse. It was, from the beginning, very attentive to time and place. It tended to begin with a theme from classical poetry . . . that was associated with a season of the year. It then added an image that seemed to penetrate to the essence of the classical theme. The spirit of haiku required that the language be kept plain. . . . It also demanded accurate and original images, drawn mostly from common life.”
Classic haiku also has as a crucial element the insistence of a specific time, place—and, especially—a season, without which a haiku was thought to be incomplete: “In Basho’s poem . . . the phrase . . . ‘deep autumn’ or ‘autumn deepens’ is traditional and had accumulated resonance’s and associations from earlier poetry as well as from the Japanese way of thinking about time and change. So does the reference to snow . . . which can also mean ‘snowfall’ in Buson’s poems . . . The practice was sufficiently codified and there was even a rule that the seasonal reference should always appear either in the first or third unit of the three phrase poem.”
The Robert Hass introduction also offers insight into the ways Japanese and English poetry spring from their respective cultures, especially from the very different religious points of view:
“If the first level of haiku is its location in nature, its second is almost always some implicit Buddhist reflection on nature. One of the striking differences between Christian and Buddhist thought is that in the Christian sense of things, nature is fallen, and in the Buddhist sense it isn’t. Another is that, because there is no creator-being in Buddhist cosmology, there is no higher plan of meaning to which nature refers. At the core of Buddhist metaphysics are three ideas about natural things: that they are transient; that they are contingent; and that they suffer. Though the melancholy of autumn is as traditional an experience in European poetry as it is Japanese, it is not fundamentally assimilated into the European system of thought. English poets had a word for these feelings, they called them ‘moods.’ When Wordsworth or Keats writes about being ‘in pensive or in wayward mood,’ you know that they’re doing one of the jobs of the artist, trying to assimilate psychological states for which the official culture didn’t have a language. Basho’s Japan did. The old Japanese phrase that sums up the transience of things, ‘swirling petals, falling leaves,’ was a religious thought . . . the silence of haiku, its wordlessness, also has its roots in Buddhist culture, especially in Zen. . . . Zen provided people training in how to stand aside and leave the meaning-making activity of the ego to its own devices.”
His purpose in editing the book, Robert Hass says, was to give a fuller sense of the haiku form to readers in English, as well as some sense of the variety and intensity of the experience this art can deliver. He ends his introduction with these words: “Perhaps the best way to get into (haiku), after one has familiarized oneself with the symbolism of the seasons and the Japanese habit of mind, is to read them as plainly and literally as possible.”
I’ve selected the following quotations from Bruce Ross’ introduction to “Haiku Moment” to contrast classic Japanese haiku and the adaptations of the form we English speakers have attempted. 
I’ll begin and end with structural differences:
“A haiku in Japanese is extremely short so that it is recited in one breath. Since an average syllable in English is much shorter . . . modern haiku in English generally range from twelve to fourteen syllables, although many haiku poets try to maintain a five-seven-five syllable count. Some Modern English haiku use the three-liner vertical column arrangement, but horizontal one-liners, two-liners, and four-liners occur, with the horizontal three-liner short-long-short construction the most common one. English haiku tends also to lack some of the sound color of their Japanese counterparts because the prevalence of vowels in Japanese words and the frequent use of assonance, alliteration, and other sound values in Japanese haiku have not been sufficiently recognized by the non-Japanese world as indigenous to the haiku form.
“Japanese haiku also uses kireji (‘cutting words’), particles of language that indicated a pause or a stop. Kireji usually separate discrete image clusters and often coincide with the short-long-short line breaks in haiku. English haiku normally uses punctuation marks in much the same way. Traditional Japanese haiku also includes either a kigo (‘season word’) or a kidai (‘seasonal topic’). These words as one, two, or even three images provide the emotional focus in a haiku . . . . Modern English haiku is . . . not formally dependent upon a standardized season word . . . . The Japanese nature image conveys real experience . . . The Japanese image also occurs in the present tense, highlighting haiku’s emphasis upon real lived experience.”
In my own attempts to write haiku I like to adhere, as much as possible, to the use of nature images and the structural devices of the Japanese tradition, but without being locked into them, or blocked by the formal rigidity. Based on the English haiku I’ve read, as well as many comments in “Haiku Moment,” it seems that when it comes to composing haiku, almost anything goes.
This essay has been a very limited examination of the haiku form. If you’d like a more detailed answer to the question “What Is Haiku?” please read the suggested books. In the meantime, you may also want to type “haiku” into the little search window at the top right of this page.
Copyright © 2009 Jim Sizemore.
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Posted by Jim
Doodlemeister's Weblog 
Famous Artists Schools
May 7, 2010On July 29, 2009 I did a post titled “Cartooning Lessons,” in which I described my experiences as a Famous Artists Schools correspondent student back in the early 1960s. The post featured my first FAS cartooning instructor, Randall Enos, who is now a famous illustrator and cartoonist himself. Somehow, Mr. Enos came across my little blog memoir, liked it, and in a comment suggested that I—but wait, let’s let him explain what happened next in his own words, which I copied from his blog post. If you’d like to check out the original Enos post, here’s the link: http://www.drawger.com/bigfoot/?article_id=9751
“Between 1956 and 1964 I worked at The Famous Artists Schools in the correspondence art school. I worked on the Cartoon Course. We would get a student’s assignment and put overlays on it and point out various “trouble” spots and sometimes re-draw the whole situation and then send a letter to accompany the crit. The letters were standard form letters (after all everybody would make the same “mistakes”) but we would “personalize” the letter by inserting certain words that applied specifically to the student’s particular picture. We had lessons on inking, heads, action etc.. There were 4 or 5 of us doing the lessons and we would bounce the student around between us so he or she would have the advantage of more than one point of view. I was the youngest, being hired at the ripeness of twenty years. The others were pretty much retired guys in their 60’s having had careers in the field. One of them had and continued to draw Popeye, another had worked on the Lone Ranger, another on Katzenjammer Kids, another on Captain Marvel Jr. and Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang and Playboy girlie cartoons etc..
“So . . . the other day I’m surfing the web and I come across a blog called “Doodlemeister”. The fellow that runs it named Jim Sizemore had a post where he, in great detail, described critiques of mine he had received when he was an FAS student. It was a trip down memory lane alright. He complained that I had always given him high grades and flattery when he really wanted tough criticism. He pointed out that my overlay comments were a little more to the point than my letters (form letters). I made a comment on his blog post and invited him, if he wished, to send me an assignment NOW and I would give him a free crit. He was 25 then and is in his 70’s now as I am. I promised him, in addition, that this time I definitely would not give him a good grade. Here then is my crit of his “assignment” because he took me up on it.” (Click images for larger views.)
The one disagreement I have with Mr. Enos’ critique is not visual but verbal—his suggested caption, making it about the mythical memory powers of elephants instead of cross-species relationships. In the writing process I considered the memory angle but quickly rejected it as too much the cliché. I think the relationship idea is the more original—and funnier—choice.
Mr. Enos ended his blog post with these kind—and much too generous—words: “Y’know, the more I look at it . . . the more I like his cartoon better than mine.”
Copyright © 2010 Jim Sizemore.