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We love ourselves some “Get Fuzzy” comics–but when we tire of ye old cat-eat-dog slapstick, our eyes divert to the smart political commentary of “Candorville.” Obscure comic blog “Panels and Pixels” recently interviewed Darrin Bell, the Berkeley alumnus and cartoonist responsible for The Daily Californian’s favorite comic strip fixture. If you didn’t know, the strip is nationally syndicated and is quite a favorite in the Bay Area, where San Francisco Chronicle readers banded together to keep it in the paper.
Oh, and did we mention that Bell got his start at the Daily Cal?
I started writing for the Daily Californian — UC Berk(e)ley’s daily college paper. I was excited about it. I was interviewing people like the governor of California, our local congressman, Senator Boxer. I wrote articles and at the same time I had these cartoons that I was drawing in my spare time. I just dumped them on the paper and told them run whenever they feel like.
When my articles ran I asked my friends what they thought. None of them had read any of the articles but everybody had read my cartoons and loved them. So after a few months of that I figured maybe my future lies in that direction.
…
Candorville grew out of those cartoons that I did. At the time it was called Lamont Brown. It was an autobiographical strip. It gave me an outlet to vent my frustrations about college life. After I graduated from college it gave me an outlet for other things.
Check out the full interview for more about Bell’s politics, influences (he draws inspiration from sitcoms), experience as a black cartoonist and his thoughts on the state of newspaper comics. Yay for successful alumni!
Image Source: Glynnis Ritchie under Creative Commons
Graphic Lit: An interview with Darrin Bell [Panels and Pixels]
Candorville by Darrin Bell [Web site]
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