ABP editorial: Words with Lincoln Peirce

Lincoln Peirce is the creator of my favorite newspaper comic strip Big Nate. The comic centers around a sixth grade boy named Nate Wright, an aspiring cartoonist with a wonderfully inflated sense of self importance. How could I not love that? Anyhoo, Big Nate is distributed to newspapers across the country and it can be seen on www.comics.com and www.unitedfeatures.com. Peirce has also delivered a few smatterings of his delightful humor to Cartoon Network. Recently, I had the pleasure of corresponding with Mr. Peirce and he has generously shared with all of us a nice fresh slice of his beautiful mind. Enjoy.

Tommy: What was your childhood like?

Lincoln: My childhood was, for the most part,
 crushingly normal.  I grew up in a
college town in New Hampshire and was involved 
in the sorts of activities that almost 
all my peers were -- youth sports, 
watching TV, and riding 
our Schwinn stingrays around town, hoping 
that something exciting was about 
to happen. Of course, nothing exciting 
ever happened.

Tommy: Why cartoons of all things?

Lincoln: Why not?  People are essentially 
powerless when it comes to deciding 
what obsesses them; it's written into our DNA 
somehow.  So it's not a case 
of my setting out to become a cartoonist. 
 I was just responding in a 
positive way to the cartoons and comics I was 
aware of as a child.  What makes me 
feel very fortunate is that I've found a way to 
turn my boyhood obsessions 
into a viable career.  Even if something fascinates
 you as a kid, there are no
guarantees you'll be able to make a living at it.
 So I'm very lucky in that way.
 
Tommy: What other art forms do you partake in?

Lincoln: Does mowing my lawn count?  I try to do it
 very neatly.  Actually, I 
try to always have another project or two going in
 addition to my comic strip.
Right now I'm working on a 7-minute animated short
 called "Super John 
Doe Junior" which will air on Nickelodeon. 
 It's part of a series of shorts
commissioned by Frederator called "Random Cartoons."

I also have other interests which, though not 
directly involved with my
cartooning work, still have a connection to art. 
 For example, I host a
weekly radio show devoted to vintage country music
 on a local station.  
I've done that for about 8 years now.

Tommy: What influences your work?

Lincoln: Everything influences your work.  You get
 ideas from observing family
members, friends, news and entertainment on television,
 etc. etc.  For 
me, though, the #1 driving force behind my comics
 is my memory -- 
specifically, my memory of childhood events. 
 Frequently I'll remember something or
someone from middle school, for example, and I'll 
subsequently turn it 
into a storyline in "Big Nate."

Tommy: Tell me a real life story that's somehow 
related to making you into the 
man you are today.

Lincoln: When I was very young, I was playing in 
our basement with my brother 
and some friends.  One of the older boys was drawing
 something on a sheet 
of paper, and when he showed it to us, it was a 
picture of a big green 
foot. He said, "it's a picture of the jolly green 
giant, but he's too big to 
fit on the page."  For some reason, all of us found
 this uproariously 
funny. For me, it was the first time I had witnessed
 firsthand someone 
combining drawing and joke-telling into something
 new. I was fascinated.

I also remember, after I'd learned to read, I was
 reading the Sunday 
comics one day.  In "Beetle Bailey", the character
 Sarge was shouting at 
Beetle and all sorts of odd symbols were coming out
 of his mouth.  I asked my dad 
what it meant and he explained that those sorts of
 symbols were like 
cartoonists' "code" for bad language.  Once again I
 was completely fascinated.  
Events like this led me to begin reading all the
 comics I could, most often
"Peanuts" re-print books, and set me on the path to 
becoming a cartoonist myself.
 
Tommy: Big Nate is my favorite comic strip, tell me 
about its initial creation 
and how it became syndicated.

Lincoln: I had been submitting comics to all the 
major syndicates for quite 
awhile without any success.  None of the ideas were
 very interesting -- a 
comic strip set in a health club, a comic strip 
featuring a guy and his pet 
rat, a comic strip set in a seedy hotel, etc. etc. 
 Finally it occurred to me 
that the comics I enjoyed drawing the most were the
 ones I made for family 
and friends -- comics that were inspired by my
 memories of childhood, and 
the cast of real-life characters who lived on our
 street.  So I submitted
something called "Neighborhood Comix", which was a 
strip featuring a 
big ensemble cast of kids and which was inspired by
 memories from my own past.

"Neighborhood Comix" was rejected just like all
 my other submissions, 
but this time I got some very positive constructive
 criticism from Sarah
Gillespie, who would eventually become my first 
editor at United Media.  
She suggested that I re-work the concept but 
focus on one major character.
There was a character named Nate in 
"Neighborhood Comix" who, at that 
time, was sort of a good-natured, pudgy kid.  
I chose him as the character to 
put at the center of the revised strip. 
 What followed over the course of 
the next several months was a give-and-take
 between me 
and Sarah. I'd send 
in a new batch of stuff, she'd send me back 
some suggestions, etc. Eventually I renamed
 the strip "Creative Wrighting", 
and then later "Big Nate."

Tommy:  What was your inspiration for 
the The Brothers Pistov?

Lincoln: Frankly, I just thought of the name, 
and it struck me as funny. So 
then I created these two feuding Russian dogs 
to go with the name of the show.

Tommy:  What was the Big Nate 
Chess Tournament like?

Lincoln: That was quite a few years ago now, but it 
was a lot of fun.  There were quite a few kids there
, all of them chess whizzes... And they all 
assumed that, because I'd written some jokes about
 chess in "Big Nate", I must 
be a chess player myself!  And nothing could be
 further from the truth.  
I've probably played chess 6 times in my entire 
life.  Anyway, I'm very 
grateful to David Mehler of the U.S. Chess Center 
for proposing such an event.  
I don't do as many strips about chess now; 
I think I pretty much 
exhausted the chess jokes. 

Tommy: Tell me about your creative process, 
how do you go about the seemingly daunting 
task of creating a daily comic strip for Nate?

Lincoln: Everyone goes about it differently.  I know 
some cartoonists who walk around with a notepad, and 
if/when they see something amusing happen at the 
gas station or the supermarket, they'll scribble it 
down on their notepad for future reference.  That 
approach has never worked for me.  In my case, 
the only thing that works is to go into my office
 (I have a small room here 
at home that I use for work), shut the door, and
 try to think up funny
situations.  Usually I start by imagining Nate in 
different settings.  
If I think up a promising situation (for example:
  Nate goes on a field trip 
to an aquarium), then usually I'll be able to start
 imagining dialogue 
between Nate and other characters.  Most often I
 think up the punchline first.  
Then I construct the strip backwards, writing the
 dialogue that leads up to 
the punchline.  After that, drawing the strip is 
easy.  That's the easiest 
part of the process.  It's the writing that's
 the challenge.

Tommy:  What would you like to see happen in your
 future?

Lincoln: Personally, I'd like my two children to
 grow up as happy, healthy 
adults. Professionally, I'd simply like to
 continue doing what I'm doing as 
long as I'm able. 

Tommy: There it is, friends. Lincoln Peirce. An
 excellent, excellent artist. 
Thank you, sir. And, thank you all for reading.
 And, if you can find it, check out 
the book Add More Babes. You'll thank yourself.
 Big time. Yes! Lincoln Peirce wrote
to me. I am a big, big man! I am awesome! 
I can roar, like a puma.