Vermont Has a Cartoon Laureate; Everyone Else is Comic Sans

March 31, 2020 2:46 PM

On Thursday, West Townshend, Vermont resident Rick Veitch will be appointed Vermont’s fourth cartoonist laureate. Vermont is the only state that regularly appoints a cartoonist laureate. The title is granted every three years at an awards ceremony attended by the congressional delegation at the Vermont State House in Montpelier. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the recognition will instead be via a live stream. There are plans to hold an event for Rick in the (hopefully) near future.

The laurels have traditionally been passed via a joint cartoon, naturally. Burlington's James Kolchalka, the state's first cartoonist laureate and creator of American Elf, passed to Brookfield resident — and well-known contributor to The New Yorker — Ed Koren. Ed next passed to current cartoonist laureate Alison Bechdel, MacArthur Genuis grant recipient, and creator of the comic Dykes to Watch Out For — where the Bechdel Test originated in 1985. Alison, who lives in Bolton, has in turn passed the laurels to Rick.

As of this posting, Dykes To Watch Out For's website is showing as "suspended".

posted by terrapin (11 comments total)

I was lucky enough to receive this hand-drawn sketch from Ed Koren as a thank you for helping him get fiber optic internet — and I cherish it.
posted by terrapin at 2:48 PM on March 31, 2020 [2 favorites]

Meant to include this article, The Toon State: Cartoonists Find Sanctuary in Vermont.
posted by terrapin at 2:49 PM on March 31, 2020

Excellent!
posted by doctornemo at 2:51 PM on March 31, 2020

Good post title
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:51 PM on March 31, 2020 [7 favorites]

I am very glad to learn about this thing. (The general thing of Vermont Cartoonist Laureates and the specific thing of Rick Veitch.) I'm kind of wanting to go look up the educational graphic novels he's been doing.

I am also glad to learn that Alison Bechdel is the current Cartoonist Laureate! She's so great. I did not know she had that honor (nor that she was in Vermont now).

(I, too, applaud the post title.)

Thanks for sharing this, terrapin!
posted by kristi at 2:57 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]

Congratulations to Rick Veitch, whose work I enjoy (e.g. on some ABC books), and whose surname I tend to confuse with Adrian Veidt's surname, to considerable effect.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 3:00 PM on March 31, 2020

Are there swamps in Vermont? Seriously, when I hear the name "Rick Veitch" my mind automatically jumps to Swamp Thing where he was as well known for his writing as he was for his art.

This sounds like a really nice honour. Good for him.
posted by sardonyx at 3:50 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm so happy Kolchalka was honored this way, I love everything he does.
posted by vrakatar at 5:46 PM on March 31, 2020

There's an entire generation of indie comic artist that I know by name and style because when I was all of 9 years old Eastman and Laird handed the reins of the monthly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics to some really talented people. I was nine! I had no business knowing who Rick Veitch and Richard Corben and Michael Zulli were but that's who I was reading. So good on ya, Rick Veitch.
posted by thecjm at 9:44 PM on March 31, 2020

Veitch worked on The River storyline, and the follow up, Sons of the Silent Age, which, if you haven’t read it, was amazing. As silly as it sounds, the overarching story is set during the turtles retreat from having been soundly beaten in New York. Splinter is trying to teach the turtles meditation techniques, but Raphael is flailing and can’t focus, and the other turtles essentially give him a code red type punishment, trying to beat him into doing better. It’s pretty brutal, and involves them holding Raph down and putting a leech on him, as he’s terrified of leeches.

So, SPOILERS for a comic that’s 30 years old.


Comix logic follows, as the leech sucks the mutagen out of Raphael, and he begins reverting to the little turtle from the pet store, in a slow, painful to read sort of Flowers for Algernon sort of way.

After the story ends, and the status quo returns, there’s a stand alone story of the turtles, April, and Casey rafting down the river. One night, while they are camped, a mermaid/fish woman comes out of the river, clearly I’ll and dying, and while they try to rescue her, four fish-men come out of the river, assume she’s being attacked, and they fight. During the fight, April has some sort of realization from the fish woman that they are a race that predated European settlers, but they’ve largely died off, and the woman is the last female of her species, meaning there will be no more.

There is a stunning panel where, as she’s processing this, Raphael looks back at her furious. There is no text, but the art makes it clear that this is something that has been weighing on Raphael for who-knows-how-long, and he’s saying, “now do you understand?” with his glare.

It stunned me, and made me rethink what I believed comics were capable of. I have no idea if it’s available anywhere, but if you have the chance, you should definitely read it.

And, if you get the chance, the Michael Zulli run of TMNT is an astounding elseworlds style four issue story. The art is impeccable, because Zulli, and the story is almost entirely unrelated to the comics aside from four mutant turtles, their mutant rat leader, and the the Shredder.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:51 PM on March 31, 2020 [1 favorite]

TIL Rick Veitch != Tom Veitch

Hmm, their Wikipedia pages suggest that brothers Rick and Tom were born on May 7, 1951 and September 26, 1951. That seems...unlikely, even in a "large Catholic family", and it doesn't square with Rick's description of Tom as his "oldest brother".

...and now I'm a Veitch Truther. Sigh.
posted by The Tensor at 10:45 AM on April 1, 2020