After spending several days at CAMP mining difficult life moments to make our comics, we all needed something a little bit lighter with which to end the week. Gabrielle had us draw names to be randomly assigned to pairs to create a jam comic together – and she drew my name as her drawing partner. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to draw with one of my favorite cartoonists and also super anxious about it – the pressure! By the time we reached our second page, though, we had settled into working together and it started to be really fun… as in “snorts of laughter” fun.

Though I had read about jam comics in the past, this was my first extended experience with making them. For those of you who are new to this term, a jam comic is like a drawing version of improv. One of us would draw (in pencil) between one and three panels before passing the page to the other person to continue the story on the same sheet of paper. We did not discuss our ideas in advance and there was no plan or structure in place. Once a page was full, we would start on another one – and in this manner we ended up filling five pages! After the pencils were done, we alternated inking the pages to try and give the final comic a more intentional and coherent look. This meant we each got a chance to ink both our own penciled panels and some by the other person. I had never inked over someone else’s pencils before and I really enjoyed it – I found it a surprisingly effective way to ‘feel’ how someone else makes comics. The first page feels the least solid/coherent to me because it took us a page to get a feel for working together as we draw in pretty different styles. By the second page, though, we had a much clearer understanding of how each other worked and the story began to take on a life of its own.

I found the whole process absolutely delightful – there is a very specific kind of joy to drawing an image and passing it on, giddily waiting to hear the other person giggle or laugh. Fatigue finally got the best of us, but we were both a little sad to have to bring the story of King Earl and the Lizard Lady to such an abrupt end…