Cartoonist draws from outdoors

September 8, 2006

By JOEL DAVIDSON

Frontiersman

WASILLA - Lying in bed, somewhere between the foggy realm of dream and consciousness, images of brown bears wearing boxer shorts and mountain goats afraid of heights drift into Chad Carpenter's mind.

Other times, the 39-year-old father of three might envision redneck bees flying into a trailer-house beehive or ground squirrels at a social gathering.

These thoughts color the subconscious mind of Alaska's most famous cartoonist and creator of the Tundra comic strip.

&#8220I get in that zone, where I'm half asleep and I have to try and stay there,” he explained Thursday, during an interview at his Wasilla home. &#8220Once I'm in that zone, where I'm just barely there, I have to think about something like a rabbit on a bicycle.”

Often, the ideas go nowhere, Carpenter admitted, but he tries to stay in the zone for as long as possible.

&#8220It's scary sometimes,” he said. &#8220It's always been hard - it's never been easy for me.”

Carpenter said he feels blessed when the morning coalesces into a decent

cartoon.

There's always the danger, however, that he might fall asleep or the phone might ring and whisk him from his comic visions.

&#8220If the phone rings or if one of the kids yells, then it's over,” he said.

The veteran cartoonist has been at this professionally for 15 years now, but this summer his career reached a new level.

Since March, the number of newspapers running Carpenter's daily comic strip jumped from roughly 10 to more than 60.

Many more are expected to join before the end of the year.

Most of the new outlets are newspapers in Canada and the Lower 48. Carpenter said he hopes to have 100 outlets before the year is out.

He said he finally made a smart move and hired someone to travel Canada and the United States pushing his cartoons to editors. So far, the strips are receiving favorable marks.

Married with three kids, Carpenter said he does most of his work at the kitchen table. When the kids come home from school, he retreats back to the bed, where he draws the furry images, rounded humans and bony-legged moose that populate his cartoons.

From the beginning, Carpenter has stuck with an outdoor and animal theme.

&#8220I draw what I know, and I grew up in Alaska,” he said. &#8220I wanted to come up with something we all had in common, and that is living here in nature and hunting and fishing.”

Besides, it's easy to make fun of people in the woods, Carpenter said.

&#8220People are out of their element out there, so there's lots of material,” he said.

And then there's scenes of human-like animals squabbling over who gets to eat the best parts of a fresh road kill.

Carpenter admits he still has a kid's sensibilities when it comes to comedy, but it's something that resonates with many fellow Alaskans, as well as a growing number of Outsiders. This year, Carpenter will finish his 11th comic book.

He doesn't like to philosophize about what his cartoons might mean in the larger cosmos, but he has noticed that most comedy - including his own - has an element of misfortune, even cruelty.

&#8220That's the way humor is,” he explained as he pointed to several examples from his own comics. &#8220This guy here is going to be eaten by a shark, and this bear, here, is peeing in the water and this bear doesn't know it.

&#8220It's not just my books, it's just the way it is. You see it in The Three Stooges, when they get hit in the head with a ladder. What is it about human nature that makes that so funny?”

Carpenter said he feels blessed to be able to sit around and brainstorm comedic scenarios for a living, but he does not see it as a special gift, reserved for only a few.

Mostly, it's life circumstance that allow him to create funny scenes, he said.

&#8220I really believe that if you took just about anyone off the street and said, ‘OK, you can sit in this office for eight hours and work in a cubicle with a boss and all that, or you have to come up with one cartoon idea in that eight hours and draw it,' then most people would choose to do the cartoon,” he said. &#8220Anybody could do it if they had eight hours.”

Carpenter said he wants to keep drawing cartoons till he's old and gray, he just hopes someday it won't be necessary to pay the bills.

&#8220I'd like to get to the point where I don't have to do cartoons, but I still do,” he said. &#8220So far, I haven't made enough money, so I'll still be doing this for a while longer.”

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266 or joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.