Carter Family Comics: Don't Forget This Blog!

America Salutes the Carter Family

2011-12-03T01:43:00.000-08:00

A Northwest musician named Markly Morrison contacted me a while back about doing the cover art for his Carter Family tribute album, America Salutes the Carter Family. I'm excited to announce that it's been released! And, yes, I drew the cover art. And my collaborator Frank Young kindly colored that art...

You can sample the album and order a copy by clicking here.

The album is a collection of Carter Family songs as sung by northwest bands, encountered and recorded by Markly. You can read more about it at the link above.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit Rita Forrester and the Carter Family Fold. Rita, a grand-daughter of Sara and A.P. Carter, suffered a horribly tragic house fire two years ago. It took the life of her husband, Bob Forrester.

We Made It--Thanks to You!!!

2011-10-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Wow! We raised $8523.00 in our Kickstarter campaign!

This show of support means the world to David and I! We can't throw a party for the 150 folks who became supporters of our Kickstarter campaign... so how about a couple new color pages?

This notable page introduces the adult Maybelle to the world of the Carter Family-as-musicians! The fella with the fiddle is Poor Valley postman, Price Owens.

This page shows Sara and A.P. going to their first, abortive recording session, for Brunswick Records' mobile unit in 1925. They travel by horse-cart to nearby Kingsport, which was already an industrial center of the area.

We hope you enjoy this new sneak peek at our work-in-progress! We'll be hard at work on the completion of this book--now we can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to the drawin' board (and colorin' computer)!

Dear Friends--You ROCK!

2011-09-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

David and I have just learned that we've not only reached our Kickstarter goal of $5,000--we've exceeded it!

We could not be more moved and grateful for the terrific outreach of support for DON'T FORGET THIS SONG. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you!

To celebrate, here's a couple of recent pages of finished colored artwork. (No dialogue yet, but the images are mighty nice to look at!)

First is a page from Chapter 8, in which Maybelle's guitar genius absolutely flusters Price Owens, the fiddle-playing postman who sometimes jammed with A.P. and Sara, in those gentle days before recording fame...

Here is a page from Chapter 5, showing the aftermath of the wedding of A.P. and Sara, and their travels to their new home in Poor Valley. Sara comments as she places her Autoharp on the bureau, "There... now it feels like home."

We hope you enjoy seeing these finished pages. We're working hard to finish the book this year. Your overwhelming show of support has us both really jazzed! Thanks again...

Help Kickstart the Carter Family Graphic Novel!

2011-09-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

David and I have launched a campaign on kickstarter.com, to help us out as we work full-time-plus to complete this elaborate full-color graphic novel! Click HERE to check out our Kickstarter campaign!

There's a five-minute video about DON'T FORGET THIS SONG and its history. It was beautifully directed, and assembled in the Blender 3D graphics program by James Gill (who is my talented improv partner on THE JIM & FRANK PODCAST, which you can sample at Jim's link above).

Thanks for taking a look--and if you can help us out, thanks times ten!

Here's another look at some of our finished full-color artwork from DON'T FORGET THIS SONG. Kickstarter "backers" will get an exclusive online look at our book over the next month.

This Kickstarter campaign ends on October 10, 2011--so be sure to visit the Kickstarter link today!

Coloring the Carters: An Epic Scene of Celebration

2011-08-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

David and I are turning out finished pages of Don't Forget This Song as fast as we can. In my role of colorist, I seldom get off easy. David's ink artwork is remarkably intricate, and has much to keep the observer's gaze affixed. You're invited to explore every nook and cranny of his artwork.

All of those nooks and crannies need to be colored. The good news: I enjoy coloring. It is satisfying to see ideas I've been carrying around in my head suddenly made literal. We've spent a long time living with these pages in their rough form. Seeing the inked line artwork for the first time is always a delight to me.

Here is one of the most detailed and epic pages of the book (so far). Apologies for the lack of dialogue. The text is written. I don't lay it in until we've assembled the layout in InDesign.

This page depicts the celebration at the wedding of A.P. and Sara Carter. As the newlyweds waltz to the accompaniment of a Virginia string band (joined by their friends Buff and Mae, who are just rehearsing for their own wedding day), friends and family of the gifted couple comment on the scene.

The dialogue is amusing, and shows a variety of reactions to the unique personalities of A.P. and Sara.

David designed this intricate page, and, as you can see, the placement of the figures took a lot of thought and care. When the page was given to me to color, I went through a similar process. I had made a color rough, with felt markers, on the pencil thumbnail sketch of the page, back in 2009.

The page went through much refinement since then. My color guide was merely a suggestion of what would go where. It was a challenge to distribute the limited palette of our color scheme throughout a scene of over 40 figures. I had to be careful to vary the colors, and not to run the same colors too close together.

Thanks to the versatility of Photoshop, I'm able to change colors, de-saturate them, and tighten up my work after I've laid the basic "coats" down on the digital page. There sometimes seems to be no end of fussing, fiddling and fine-tuning that I do to these pages. This one, in particular, required a great deal of the Three Fs!

The bottom row of panels was something of a relief, after having spent hours laying in colors on that huge top panel. Large medium-shots of the characters offered a bit of a break, in comparison to the tiny spots of color demanded by the large main scene.

I'm happy with the overall results, and I hope you'll enjoy taking a gander at this page. It's a real show-stopper.

Hot Off The Drawing Board: A Haunting Panel

2011-07-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

David is hard at work on finished artwork for Don't Forget This Song. This panel, from the second chapter of the book, leapt out at me as I scanned the artwork today. The unusual angle creates a haunting mood, which is supported by the lush woods that surround the simple cabin, as young A.P. Carter approaches on horseback.

I can't wait to get started coloring these new pages, but I had to share this panel with you hot off the drawing board. It's a beaut!

And Now For Something Completely Different: Our Oregon Trail Graphic Novel!

2011-07-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hi folks... while we were in legal purgatory over the use of song lyrics in DON'T FORGET THIS SONG (a chess-game of attrition that we ultimately lost), David and I were not goofing off. We decided to tackle a smaller (i.e., non-color) graphic novel. We're pleased to finally announce it here. (I would have posted this earlier, had I not been stricken with appendicitis, from which I'm still recovering.)

This is a page from local publisher Sasquatch Press' Fall 2011 catalog for our book, Oregon Trail: The Road of Destiny. The cover they chose is a curious hybrid of a rejected earlier illustration and their overall design for the cover. Here's what the real cover looks like:

I'm amused to be listed as "co-creator of Comics Journal." I was the managing editor of the magazine, 20 years ago, but there had been over 140 issues before I put in my stint. I'm sure this will cause some amusing questions in interviews!

David and I are really happy with this book. We both strove to keep its story vivid, real and humane. We both did a great deal of visual and factual research for the project. When I wrote the script, I concentrated on the down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood reality of what this trip must have been like for those who took it.

David outdid himself on the artwork. He brought all the humanity of the story front and center, and helped broaden the book's emotional range. There are some genuinely funny moments--and some heart-breaking pitfalls--throughout the book. Everything David put into this project was graceful, assured and sympathetic.

We're back at work on Don't Forget This Song, and hope to FINALLY have the book finished this year. The Road to Destiny will end up being our first published graphic novel. We often referred to it as "our little B-movie" while we worked on it. We couldn't dazzle the reader with fancy full color. Our hook had to be in our story and our characters.

This book is at the printers, and should be released around the end of August, 2011. You can see the ISBN number on the catalog page. Check in with amazon.com as this month comes to a close.

Here are four random pages from the book, so that you can have a preview of David's superb work:

We'll post updates as we learn of the book's availability. Now, back to our full-color "A-picture..."

Johnny Cash and the Popemobile

2011-04-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

Recently I (David) was in Portland for the Stumptown Comics Fest, and was lucky enough to meet and have lunch with documentary filmmaker and all-around nice person, Beth Harrington. You may be familiar with her excellent film about the women of rockabilly, Welcome to the Club. Beth is currently at work on a documentary about the Carter Family! As you might imagine, we had a lot to talk about, especially our love of the Carters' music.

She interviewed me for her Winding Stream blog, and in return allowed me to interview her...

What is the name of your project?

The film is called The Winding Stream and its subtitle is “The Carters, the Cashes and the Course of Country Music.”

How long have you been working on it?

I first had the idea for the film in early 2001. I’d just finished a film about women rockabilly singers and Rosanne Cash had narrated it. It went really well and Rosanne seemed very happy with the association. I’d been thinking of asking Rosanne if she’d introduce me to family members and participate in a film about the Carters and Cashes. And just as I was about to ask her, she emailed me and said she’d been down at the Carter Fold in Virginia with her father and June and the whole time she was there she was thinking, “Beth should be here making a film about this.” And I said, “Funny you should mention it…”

So I started doing development work, researching the subject, applying for grants and the like. But we didn’t actually start shooting until 2003. So this is either the 10^th year of the film if you count pre-production or the 8^th year if you go from when we started shooting. But either way it’s been a long time. Funding’s been the big hurdle. And remains so. But we’ve gotten an amazing amount of work done considering how little money we’ve had to work with. People have been very generous with their time and talent in this project. And we’re grateful for grants we’ve received from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Faerie Godmother Fund. And our recent Kickstarter campaign really put us back into action again. So that’s been great.

So, just what is it about the Carter Family?

For me, it’s about two things:

1) The incredible canon of music they preserved and developed and interpreted, a huge piece of our cultural heritage. Sara’s voice, Maybelle’s innovative guitar work, A.P.’s obsessive song collecting and arranging. Where would we be without these three and their contribution to American music?

2) The human drama of one family that threads itself through most of the last century of American music. The Carters (and their progeny) really are a winding stream flowing through all sorts of genres. I mean, you have Beck doing Carter music and you have Elvis doing Carter music and you have Flatt and Scruggs doing Carter music and you have Joan Baez doing Carter music and you have Those Darlins doing Carter music. Amazing appeal.

Frank and I have spent our time sitting in a little room for much of our production process. I’m envious that you get to go out and see places and meet people. Do you have an anecdote or two you can share from the making of your film?

To this day, the biggest thrill of the film was meeting and interviewing Johnny Cash. He was incredibly kind to us and happy to talk about June and her family. Of course, this was also a difficult time for him. June had died only a few months earlier and he was very ill himself. He died only a few weeks later in fact. But he was very engaged and funny and intense, too.

He came into the living room where we’d set up via an elevator that had been added to their home. So it was the size of a phone booth and it came down from the corner of the ceiling into the living room. John Carter Cash had warned me about this (our camera was set-up under it!) I guess there’d been mishaps before where things got crushed.

Anyway, at the appointed time, Johnny Cash comes down, seemingly from the heavens! And he’s in a phone booth that is opaque at the bottom and has a painted folk art picture of June on the side. And he’s waving at us as he comes down. And my crew and I are just gleeful! It’s Johnny Cash! It’s Johnny Cash! And he’s laughing and we’re laughing and it’s just great.

He gave us a tremendous interview and after he’s done he shakes hands with all of us and then says, “Well, gonna go back into the Popemobile now.” And he gets back in and ascends into heaven. Or at least the third story of their house. And as a former Catholic school girl I couldn’t resist. I made the sign of the cross in the manner of a pope as the Man in Black disappears above our heads. And the last thing I saw was him reacting, throwing back his head laughing and slapping his knee. It was a great moment.

Another great moment in the film was spending time with Ms. Janette Carter. What an amazing woman. Such strength of character and such vision. To hear her talk about her father, A.P. Carter and the love and admiration she had for him. When A.P. tells her “Janette, I want you to carry on the music” and she says “Daddy, I will try.” Well, she didn’t just try. She decided the fulfillment of that promise was to build a music venue and have live traditional music every Saturday night for decades! A.P. could never have imagined such dedication. I was blown away by this lady.

Do you have a favorite Carter Family song?

Well, I do love “The Winding Stream” and especially since we shot a really nice version of Rosanne Cash performing it for the film. But I’m also partial to “Diamond in the Rough.” Also “Anchored in Love.” And then there’s….ok, I’ll stop now.

Another Chapter in Our Efforts: Sara and A. P. Carter Meet

2011-03-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Here is the third chapter of "Don't Forget This Song," in living color. In this chapter, our two main characters, A.P. Carter and Sara Dougherty (soon to become Mrs. Carter) have their first meeting. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pages. We hope you enjoy this further glimpse into our project...

Some New Pages To Share, Pt. 1: the birth of Gladys

2011-03-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

We are delighted, after a long period of struggle, to be back on track with our graphic novel project. In this and future posts, we'll share new work with you.

Here is a self-contained one-page chapter that chronicles an important day in the history of the Carter Family. We hope you enjoy it. There will be more soon!

Click to enlarge and view in a new window...

Happy New Year, Folks! We're Back At Work...

2011-01-18T10:11:00.000-08:00

It's been ages since our last post here. 2010 was a tough year for the DON'T FORGET THIS SONG project. After numerous attempts to negotiate with Peermusic for lyrics usage, we finally opted not to include significant quotes from the Carter Family's songs.

The history of A. P. Carter's songs is complex and tangled. Scholars and fans quibble over who exactly owns what (or who should own what). Ralph Peer's original copyrights of 1927-1941, some of which have been proven patently false, still hold, and there's nothing we can do about that, except to move on.

This was a tough call, and it required an extensive re-tooling of our script. But the book is fine without the lengthy lyrics quotes.

We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but the book is in production again. Once we've gotten a chunk of new work finished, we'll post some samples here. Thanks for not forgetting us--and we admit it has been a long, long time!

We're Still Alive and Kicking!

2010-03-31T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

Long time, no update. We've been bogged down in legal negotiations with Peermusic. The process of obtaining the rights to quote from Carter Family song lyrics has been a lengthy one, fraught with delays galore.

We've been revising the book, with some invaluable informational help from Rita Forrester and Flo Wolfe. I think our book will have some historical "scoops" that haven't appeared elsewhere!

The book is looking good, overall. Once we've cleared up all the legal roadblocks, and feel we can proceed without worry or question, we'll be back on track. The delays have been frustrating, but in that time, we've been able to make the project better and stronger than it was before.

We hope to have more updates here, as this project is once again among the living. Thanks for your patience and for your continued interest...

Benefit Concert in Hiltons, VA, Jan 3

2009-12-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

A benefit concert for the Forrester Family will take place on January 3 at the Carter Family Fold. Click here for details. As you may have seen in the previous post, the Forresters lost everything in a tragic house fire almost two weeks ago.

Last February, Rita was interviewed for an oral history project by Southern Foodways. To learn more about the Carter Family's love of music (and good cooking), watch a video of the interview here. Look to the sidebar for related interviews on food and music.

Heart-breaking news of tragic fire at Carter family member's home

2009-12-09T15:47:00.000-08:00

Our hearts go out to Rita Forrester, who lost her home and her husband Bob in a tragic home fire that struck on December 7th.

Rita has been a kind and generous voice of help and information as David and I have worked on Don't Forget This Song. We have recently been working with her on corrections to our manuscript.

She has offered many helpful insights and corrections to some long-standing misinformation about the Carter Family's story. We're thankful for the gift of her insight and knowledge. Our book would, literally, not be the same without her kind-spirited input.

For news of the fire, read THIS ARTICLE.

A relief fund has been set up for Mrs. Forrester and her family. Details about that can be found HERE.

An updated version of the news story, with a video, can be found HERE.

It is heartening to see all the people who have offered help for the Forrester family in these dark hours.

If you can help Rita and her family with a donation, there is information on where you can contribute.

We wish Rita all the love and support in the world during this tragic time.

our opening page in color

2009-10-08T12:37:00.001-07:00

Hi folks...

Long time, no post. We're working away on our book. We got our deadline extended. This graphic novel is requiring a lot of time and energy! We want it to be as good as possible. We hope it will prove worth the wait.

Here is a colored (but dialogue-less) version of the opening page of the book. (We're awaiting the arrival of a custom-made computer font based on David's lettering style. Once we get that, and have it installed, we can begin to type in the final dialogue.)

I hope the lack of dialogue isn't disconcerting. We tried to suggest some of the coloring techniques of the very early newspaper comics. It appears to us that they were colored using water color washes, which were interpreted by the engravers for the four-color printing process.

Comics were printed in flat colors from the start--especially in small-town newspapers, whose engravers could not equal the masterful work of those in the employ of the Chicago Tribune or the New York World or Herald-Tribune.

We have tried to evoke this delicate yet complex early color process here. Our goal is not to imitate the old ways--just to suggest them, and to incorporate aspects of them into our 21st-century efforts.

We hope you enjoy this sneak preview. We're going to do our best to post here at least once a week from now on with more preview pages, art samples, photos, etc. We hope to see you here again very soon!

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge it...

Art in Progress

2009-09-19T00:22:00.000-07:00

Here is the first panel of the chapter wherein AP Carter meets Sara Dougherty for the first time.

Mike Seeger: 1933-2009

2009-08-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of musician and folklorist Mike Seeger. Seeger died at his home in Virginia on Friday, August 7th.

Without Mike Seeger's love of old-time music, and his great efforts to chronicle its songs and musicians, a book project such as ours might not even exist.

We had the great honor of speaking with Seeger twice in conjunction with Don't Forget This Song. It was a genuine pleasure to speak with him about the Carter Family and their musical importance.

Seeger (he insisted that I call him Mike) spoke eloquently and emotionally about the musical contributions of Sara, Maybelle and A.P. in our interviews. His comments helped David and I both to better understand the innovations the Carters brought to the country music songform.

70-plus years later, it's easy to take their music for granted--it feels as though the haunting sounds they made have always existed. But recorded country music before the arrival of the Carters was a much different entity.

Just as A.P. Carter helped define the forms of the country song, with his skillful editing of older folk and parlor songs, and his arrangements of longer ballad pieces to fit the 3.5 minute playing time of a 78 RPM recording, Sara and Maybelle brought constant musical innovations in the way they played their instruments.

Maybelle, in particular, continued to expand the possibilities of the humble guitar as an expressive, vital musical instrument as she performed on the 300+ recordings made by the original Carter Family.

From her very basic backings on the six 1927 Bristol recordings to her development of "the Carter scratch," the introduction of influences from blues, Hawaiian, Hispanic and other diverse musics, and her continual growth as a performer, Maybelle was country music's original envelope-pusher.

Talking with Mike helped bring this aspect of the Carter Family front and center. It was a great gift to have these long conversations with him.

Via his group, the New Lost City Ramblers, and via his tireless exploration of traditional music and its performers, Seeger renewed interest in old-time music, while keeping it alive and well to a modern audience.

He kept these passions alive well into the 21st century. His 2007 CD, Early Southern Guitar Sounds, is a remarkable collection of traditional tunes, played on 25 different vintage stringed instruments. If you aren't familiar with Seeger's music, this CD might prove a good starting point.

If you'd like to learn more about Mike Seeger's life and his accomplishments as a musician and folklorist, Wikipedia has a brief but solid entry on him here. Several obituaries are linked within the Wikipedia piece.

Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to speak with us about the Carter Family. You will be missed by many.

A Quartet of Full-Color Teasers!

2009-08-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

David and I are working hard on the considerable task of creating the finished color artwork for DON'T FORGET THIS SONG.

We did some selected tiers at the request of the folks at Abrams. They'll be featured in an upcoming color catalog.

We'd like to share these pieces with you now...

This first one is from the second chapter of the book. You can compare this colored, inked version with the earlier pencilled "take" of this tier of two panels...

Next is a scene from the third chapter, right after A.P. has met the love of his life, Sara Dougherty, for the first time...

Now, from chapter eight, a teen-aged Maybelle wows 'em with her guitar heroics...

And, for our final sample today, an emotional moment from Chapter 14, in which all the Carters gather to see and hear their very first record release, "The Wandering Boy" c/w "The Poor Orphan Child." Shellac-ophiles will notice that we used an accurate 1927 Victor Records stock sleeve for the Carters' copy of this important record.

We'll post more sequences from the book in days to come. We hope you've enjoyed these sneak previews.

The Cover Story, pt. 2

2009-07-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

Here's Part 2 of the DON'T FORGET THIS SONG cover story...

Neil Egan, our super art director on DFTS, liked some aspects of the "tall, skinny picture" design I'd cobbled together.

After a productive conference call with David and I, Neil sent us a quick sketch of his idea. In the image below, you see six stages of a promising new cover direction:

1) his original quick-sketch

2) a subsequent sketch, after a subsequent conversation, in which he suggested a larger, broader image, with decorative icons and a border-frame, a la Depression-era sheet music

3) another sketch by Neil Egan, as a refinement of the ideas in sketch 2

4) partly by David, partly by me, this was our response to Neil's ideas... we repurposed the Carters-On-The-Car image, as some folks had expressed a liking for this drawing

5) David's refinement of our collaborative effort

6) Neil's visual notes, following yet another phone chat, over David's refined sketch

Neil and Charlie encouraged us to try new directions, while we nursed this promising design through various changes.

Here are two wild-card designs I put together. First is a design inspired by some of Frank King's elegant GASOLINE ALLEY storybooks from the late 1920s.

This got a good initial reaction, but was set on the sidelines because it looked too modern-day.

Around this time, I had a long phone conversation with Art Spiegelman. He had seen DFTS on Charlie's desk at Abrams' New York City offices, and seen some of the discussions on the cover design.

Art generously spent two hours talking about covers and cover design with me. I wish I'd recorded that conversation for future reference!

The gist of Spiegelman's comments and insights was that the cover has to really sell the heart and soul of the book. He expressed the importance of making an emotional connection to the potential reader/buyer. The main image on the cover might best convey the promise of drama, and of something compelling.

He suggested that we take the most dramatic moment in the book and portray it on the cover. Alas, the Carters' story has a lot of intense emotional drama, but none of it is of the screaming match/thrown crockery/drunken spree variety that some later country music biographies might contain.

He also challenged us to get asymmetrical with our design. Our previous designs had tended to center everything. He suggested that an offbeat, asymmetrical design might further leap off the shelves and connect with the reader.

Spiegelman's conversation left me in a new frame of mind about our cover approach. I conveyed the essence of the talk to David, as best I could...

Then, after another study of old sheet music, and with the intent to commit asymmetry, I pieced this "what the?" cover concept together.

This design reflects another item from my chat with Art... that we might consider another title. We toyed with DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH for a couple of weeks. This would still make a good alternate title.

After a discussion with our agent, Bob Mecoy, who helped us choose DON'T FORGET THIS SONG, David and I decided that we liked that title the best. While the song it references isn't one of the Carter Family's "greatest hits," it conveys the essence of A.P. Carter's goals as a musician and song-preserver.

This cover approach proved too much off the beaten path for Charlie or Neil. Just in case it interests anyone, "THE CARTER FAMILY" banner was pieced together from hand lettering on a 1931 song-sheet for the pop hit I'M SORRY I LOST YOU. I had to invent missing letters from the ones in the song's title.

Finally, David did it. He collated good ideas from many of our designs, gave them a fresh angle, and created this impressive sketch.

David and I had a conversation on how to depict the Carters on the cover. There had to be a way to convey the drama of their story, without depicting one specific scene.

We wanted to suggest the discord in A.P. and Sara's marriage, despite their love for each other, and their connection as musicians. We also wanted to depict Maybelle as the "rock of Gibraltar" of the Carters. By living a more stable and calm life, and giving her all to her pivotal role as the Carters' lead guitarist, Maybelle was a patient, tolerant foundation for the group.

David nailed it. Charlie and Neil agreed.

We discussed the cover again with Neil, and made some refinements to this solid design scheme.

David rendered the cover portrait in ink and wash, and the other cover elements in pen and ink.

We had our cover!

We hope you've enjoyed this survey of our many cover design attempts. Sometimes it seemed like we'd never get a for-real cover design. It was worth all the trial and error. We couldn't have done it without the feedback and insight of all the folks we've mentioned in these posts. Our sincere thanks to each and every person who helped us get on the right path!

Yesterday Was Sara Carter's Birthday...

2009-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

... and Jeff Overturf, via his very enjoyable blog, posted about it H E R E...

It's a great post; please visit his blog and enjoy it too!

The Cover Story--from first roughs to final design (pt. 1)

2009-07-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

BIG NEWS: We have created a cover design that got the thumbs-up from our editor, art director, and an imposing "cover committee" at Abrams Books!

The colors aren't finalized yet, but we've been given the blessings of our editor to unveil it here to the world...

David and I have been through many design schemes in an attempt to get a cover that's aesthetically pleasing and commercially appealing. In the publishing world, you often CAN judge a book by its cover. The cover has to somehow get across the essence of the book.

At a glance, it must suggest to the casual browser that this is IT--this is a book he or she must buy!

The art of cover design walks a thin line--between hucksterism and artistry, between commerce and creativity. The best covers achieve both goals, without one overpowering the other.

I hope we've gotten in the ballpark with this approved design.

We'd like to share with you some of our early cover schemes we came up with. This will take more than one post, but we hope you find it of interest.

Our first "cover" was a promotional piece David penned for our literary agent, Bob Mecoy, back when the book was still being shopped around. Bob now owns the original art to this piece. It's an image of the Carters sitting on the bumper of a car. You can find it HERE.

First, here is a selection of off-the-cuff thumbnail designs, from last fall. They're by David (left side) and myself (right side). These were among our first rough concepts of how the cover might look with a '30s flavor, bordering on Art Deco...

Later in 2008, David worked up our first developed concept for the cover. Our concept was to have a portrait of the three Carters, with their instruments--a very simple scene. David came up with an alternate that showed a background of trees.

These are his development sketches of this first cover design:

From these sketches, David worked up some color images of both styles...

These are nice drawings, but we felt that, ultimately, this approach didn't "sell" the story or reveal much about the characters.

David came up with this intriguing "autoharp" design as another possible approach....

Inspired by sheet music of the Depression era, I attempted a color rough with an tall, thin vertical area for the portrait of the Carters...

This design refers to the color palette of our first "cover," which was in the first Carter Family story that appeared in KRAMER'S ERGOT in 2002. That image was based on a 1930s Carter Family songbook published by Southern Music.

It worked as an image printed inside a book. As a front cover, David and I both felt it wasn't right to use--it was someone else's design.

Our editor really liked the color palette of this cover--the autumnal hues of brown and gold-orange. Those colors seem to suit the Carters. It's possible that they may end up in the final cover palette of the accepted design.

David's next design strongly incorporated certain visual symbols from the Carter Family story. This was also inspired by period sheet music. These colorful pieces are often beautifully designed, with great type treatment and use of hand-drawn fonts.

Typically, one image from a song would appear on the cover. In both pop and country songs, the image of the "cabin in the cotton" was ever-present on these vintage covers. As well, images of flowers and trees are quite common.

These images were germane to the Carters' story. In this concept, we see A.P. Carter's birth cabin, the apple tree A.P. planted on the day he met Sara Dougherty, and some wildwood flowers...

This design combined many of the visual motifs that would end up in the final version. It still seemed not exactly "there." We had some good conversations with our editor, Charlie Kochman, and our art director, Neil Egan, about how to best utilize these narrative images.

David and I both knew a good design lurked within all these possibilities. The challenge was to get the right blend of these elements into one appealing image. Some trial and error--including a couple of out-of-left-field, "what the heck?" designs by myself, had to happen first.

As well, I had a long, rewarding conversation with Art Spiegelman about the cover... details about that and other design attempts in our next exciting chapter!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Me (David) in the Studio

2009-07-10T00:18:00.001-07:00

The esteemed illustrator, Sarah McIntyre, recently visited Seattle from her home in London, and came by the studio where Frank and I are working on Don't Forget This Song. Here is a photo of me that Sarah took (Frank had already left for the day).

Frank and I have been busy with cover design, coloring and inking (though I've been neglecting the inking of late). We'll have more to show and talk about very soon...

Page One

2009-06-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

Big News: Frank and I have completed the rough draft of the entire book. We are beginning the inking and coloring phase of production!

On Friday (6/12/09) I worked on preparing page one to be inked. The sheet you see with the blueline art which has some penciling on top of it is a portion of page one. Up above it is a vintage photo of the Carter and Bays families gathered together ca. 1900. I am using the photo as reference when I draw AP's parents and relatives, many of whom will appear in this brief opening scene of the book.

Carter Family 101

2009-05-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

This 10 minute clip from a BBC documentary does an excellent job of summing up the story of the Carter Family and the lasting influence they have had. I believe the title of the program was "Lost Highway".

The group shown performing live is The Whites. You have probably heard their redition of "Keep on the Sunny Side" which is on the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou".

The group who appears in the recreation of the Bristol Sessions is the cast from a musical called "Keep on the Sunny Side" which I hope to be able to see one day.

My favorite part of this clip are Carter Family home movies from what looks like the late 1950's.

Mother Maybelle Carter: Celebrating Her Centennial

2009-05-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Maybelle Addington Carter. We wanted to mark this historic occasion on our blog. Maybelle is the anchor of the Carter Family's music. Without the vigor, inventiveness and passion of her guitar playing, and her vocal harmonies, the music of the Carters, while still outstanding, wouldn't have seemed quite complete.

Of the Carter Family's three members, Maybelle seems to me the most relaxed and assured. I'm impressed by how dedicated she was to her family and to her music. As well, it's remarkable how focused she remained throughout her entire musical career--but especially during the dramatic era of the original Carter Family.

Maybelle's marriage to A.P.'s brother Ezra (Eck) was much more stable than the heart-breaking relationship between A.P. and Sara Carter. While A.P. and Sara struggled, both emotionally and financially, Maybelle and Eck seemed to be blessed with a far happier and more peaceful existence. This contrast in the married lives of the Carters is among the most dramatic aspects of their story.

As Sara's friend and relative, Maybelle certainly was privy to the ups and downs of her colleagues' marriage and musical partnership. I'm glad that Sara had such a true friend and soul-mate in her life. Maybelle was a constant and stable influnece for Sara.

Sara and Maybelle meshed remarkably as musicians, throughout their lives. The interplay of their voices and their instruments can be hypnotic. In the superb remasterings of their Victor material by Richard Nevins, on the big, handsome Bear Family box set (and, in pirated form, on the JSP collections), their contributions to the Carter sound are stunningly revealed.

A recent discussion with Mike Seeger reminded me of the extraordinary style of their vocal harmonies. [Sorry for the "music talk" here, if it's all Greek to you.] They sometimes sing in sunny thirds--the most common and simple harmonies found in country music. But they often take surprising turns. At their most adventurous, they utilize seconds, fourths, fifths, sevenths and unison singing--often shifting from mode to mode within a verse or chorus of a song.

In layman's terms, Sara and Maybelle weren't afraid to go to unusual places with their singing. As we know the Carter Family was a well-rehearsed unit, these complex and advanced harmonic touches weren't just improvised in the studio. They might have realized that this was a way to keep their music fresh and exciting, even as their recorded sound settled into a reliable formula.

You may have read my earlier post on my "top ten" favorite Maybelle guitar riffs. If not, please search for that post. It would fit into this piece fairly well.

Maybelle expressed herself divinely through her guitar and voice. I feel that she must have been able to channel all the emotions around her and transform it into the music she played. Emotions seem to flow through her fingertips in her eloquent performances.

Speaking of those hands, here is a photograph from Eric Schaal's 1941 LIFE magazine session. We see Maybelle has a capo on her guitar. This device, colloquially referred to as a "cheater" by country musicians, enabled her to play in a wider range of musical keys--those optimal for Sara's vocal range--while staying in familiar, easier-to-navigate chord shapes.

If only these photographs had appeared in the December 8, 1941 issue of LIFE, as originally planned! Schaal's images are the best photographs ever taken of the original Carter Family. Here is another Schaal shot I really like. Maybelle's facial expression makes it seem that she really enjoyed her role in the Carters:

It's also Mother's Day--how appropriate! And I've saved the best for last. Here's a sketch of Maybelle by David. Enjoy!

Please, take some time today to listen to her music. Be it the classic Carter Family material, her 1960s LPs with Sara Carter, or the more pop-orientated Carter Sisters & Mother Maybelle sides (hard to find these days!), Maybelle's music will brighten your day and make the world around you a better place to be.

Happy Mother Maybelle's Day to you all!

A Sample Chapter from DON'T FORGET THIS SONG

2009-03-31T13:09:00.001-07:00

We're currently at work on the final third of the rough draft of our graphic novel. Currently, David is translating the quick sketches of our thumbnail drawings to more fully realized pencil drawings.

As each page of pencil art is completed, I scan it into our computer. In PhotoShop, I type in dialogue.

Don't worry--the finished version will NOT use the Comics Sans font! We picked this font simply because it's easy to read, and somewhat approximates the feel of handwritten text. It's a handy way to see if dialogue works, or needs either expansion or reduction.

The first two "acts" are dialogued and penciled. They have been thought and re-thought. Sequences that once seemed likely to be in the book have been removed, while new material, based on information we've found through recent research, has found its way into the story.

We will likely make more changes, as new information comes our way. I've done some phone interviews with various friends, associates and members of the present-day Carter family. It is a pleasant experience to talk to these kind folks, and each interview has yielded some precious new pieces of information. We're grateful for the opportunity to learn something new from our interviewees.

With the blessing of our editor, Charles Kochman, we're happy to present you with a little sample of the book. This is the second chapter of the first act of the book.

This sequence takes place before A.P. Carter meets his future wife, Sara Doughtery. It's a sort of origin story for A.P. the song-hunter.

David evokes a strong sense of the passage of time in his pencil artwork.

We both felt this sequence well represents the early section of the book. We hope you'll enjoy seeing it.

Roughing out the book

2009-03-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

Work continues on the rough draft of the book. We've completed Act Two, and only Act Three remains before we begin the finished art.

I've recently been using the light table to make revisions to Act Two (click on the photos to see them at full size):

After I finish the art, I hand it to Frank who scans it in to Photoshop and types words into the balloons:

Our editor has given us the OK to show some of our roughs, so in the next post we'll finally be able to show you a little bit of what we've been working on...

Roughs

2009-01-07T13:48:00.001-08:00

Frank and I are currently drawing and writing rough drafts for every page in the book. This is a page in-progress from an early chapter in the book.

Our DFTS Workspace

2008-12-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Here is the first of what we hope will be a regular series of photo-features of our studio. This is where we're working on Don't Forget This Song. Due to the snow, it's been hard to make the cross-town trip to get there.

I don't think it will snow again 'til Sunday, so it looks like we'll get one more full day of work in today...

First, here's the exterior of the building. Your basic Generic Workspace, it's located right off busy Aurora Avenue. It's easy to get to, and accessible by three different bus lines:

This is a shot of a cool old sign one block from our space. There are many curious artifacts in this neighborhood. We'll show you more of them.

This sign appears to be at least 35 years old. It's just paint on wood. All the white paint has been eroded by the wet, wet Northwest winters. I'm amazed the wood hasn't rotted off...

Our studio space is surprisingly quiet, given that it's right off roaring Aurora Avenue. We can see Mount Rainier from our windows. It's difficult to get a really good photo of this natural wonder, given the glare of the windows, etc., but here is a sample of the ever-changing vista...

Here are three shots of the studio, right after we moved our things in, and sans either of us:

The DFTS studio can boast some pieces of comix history. We have two Celebrity Lightboxes. Mine was built by underground comix legend Jay Lynch, in the '70s, I think. It was given to me by his wife, Carole, 16 years ago...

David is the proud possessor of an ex-Lloyd Dangle lightbox. This fancy item folds out into a handy lightbox-slash-easel. David has drawn many of our comprehensive roughs on this lightbox.

Speaking of David, here he is, seated at the gargantuan drafting table that his very kind neighbors donated to our project.

Another view of the drafting table, with drawings and some of our rough thumbnail pages attached:

Here's David, again: same table, same time. He's working on some of the rough thumbnails.

Here's me at work. I always look grumpy when I'm focused on my work. I think it's because of my far-sightedness. I have to really concentrate to hold my focus on close-up things. I should get reading glasses!

Do I look less grumpy from behind? We've since reconfigured our studio that this table faces the window.

As said, we'll post more on-site pix in the days to come. We hope you've enjoyed this modest glimpse into our new workspace!

Maybelle's Guitar: 10 Favorite Riffs

2008-12-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

Sorry not to have posted on here in awhile...

We've been hard at work on the book. Thumbnails are completed, and David has begun to render publication-size comprehensive roughs. I'm taking those and writing for-real dialogue.

It's nice to stop for a moment and consider the music that inspired us both to take on this creative project.

As much as the trio's haunting vocal blend, it's the lively, innovative guitar-work of Maybelle that gets me everytime I listen to some Carter Family favorites.

I've tried to decode some of Maybelle's oft-complex "Carter scratch" guitar lines. Some of them remain off-bounds to me. I can do a pretty mean "Cannonball," "Wildwood Flower" and "Jimmy Brown, the Newsboy," plus a couple others.

There are others that I expect I'll be trying for the rest of my days. How did Maybelle do it? Her harmonies and fretwork remain as fresh and challenging today as they must have sounded 70-ish years ago.

As a fan of Top Ten lists, I thought I'd compile my Maybelle Top Ten:

In no particular order...

John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man: A dynamic, vibrant guitar figure, with a great "high lonesome," highly modal harmonic structure, gives this Carter Family classic an immense urgency. This was the recording that really hooked me, all those years ago...

Wildwood Flower: A no-brainer. Amongst the most recognizable guitar figures of the 20th century, this elegant musical expression will continue to thrive well after you and I are long gone. I'm also fond of Chet Atkins' harmonic reimagining of the tune, which he recorded on Christmas Eve, 1953.

You Are My Flower: Maybelle at her most exotic and far-reaching. This 1938 recording must have been a real mind-blower for country musicians of the day. It still seems to reach out into the twilight zone in its manic mixture of string-band music and Latin sounds.

Hello Stranger: Maybelle most likely learned this piece from the Carters' friend and inspiration, Lesley Riddle. Riddle either wrote the song or, like A.P. so often did, cobbled it together from foraged bits and pieces. Maybelle shows a real feeling for the blues in her emotive, relaxed picking. There are times when this is my favorite CF side of them all.

If One Won't, Another Will: I will go to my grave trying to figure this #$%)@)#>": guitar line out! I think that Sara contributes something, harmonically, to this guitar figure. If not, then Maybelle apparently grew a third arm for this 1932 session. This is the most modal and adventurous of Maybelle's CF outings. The song is also quite haunting, and an under-rated piece in the CF canon.

The Cannon-ball: One of the loveliest and most enduring of the Carters' classic recordings, this cherished tune blends Maybelle's passionate, delicate and evocative guitarwork with a beautiful solo vocal by A.P. Carter. I am also fond of the 1930s re-recordings in which Sara and Maybelle share harmony vocals.

Forsaken Love: Another oft-overlooked gem in the CF catalog. Maybelle's strong guitar line bolsters this tragic lost-love plaint. I like how her picking coalesces with Sara's vocals.

Foggy Mountain Top/Sweet Fern: Twin contenders in the Maybelle slide-guitar canon. Her quirky take on Hawaiian and blues slide guitar styles really brought something new to the Carters' recordings.

I like both performances equally. In a pinch, I'd admit a preference for "Sweet Fern," as the eccentricity of Maybelle's guitaristry abets the weirdness of the song itself.

Her slide technique contributes greatly to the atmosphere of "Foggy Mountain Top."

Lonesome Homesick Blues: Maybelle also wrote this 1941 song, from the Carters' final studio recording session. She tears it up on the fretboard here. That last session is a real stunner--especially when heard via Rich Nevins' amazingly good remastering on the Bear Family box set In The Shadow of Clinch Mountain. For a low-cost option, there's also JSP Records' bootleg of the Bear Family set, in two five-CD volumes.

However you hear it, that final RCA session is one of the Carters' best. From a biographer's POV, I'm delighted that they quite literally went out on their highest note. The entire session harkens back, in both performance and material, to their Bristol sessions, and to the pivotal 1928 session that produced "Wildwood Flower."

I've left out many other great Maybelle moments... they're waiting on the Carters' recordings for you and I to enjoy.

Jimmie Rodgers Visits

2008-11-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

This is a comics page I created in collaboration with Frank Young as part of our book proposal package for the graphic novel. The text comes from one of the actual recordings the Carter Family made with Jimmie Rodgers. It's a recording I never tire of listening to.

When Frank and I were given our page count by Abrams, we realized a lot of what we'd planned would have to be cut. The "Jimmie Rodgers Visits the Carter Family" adaptation was sadly removed from the outline to strengthen the story and keep the plot flowing right along. You won't see it in the book, but it may make an appearance later on...

Don't Forget To Vote!

2008-11-04T07:02:00.001-08:00

Today is a crucial day in American history. I urge you to take action and be part of this important moment.

Election 2008 Voting Information

Today, November 4th, is Election Day! Remember to vote—not just for Barack Obama, but for Congressional, state, and local candidates as well.

Where and when do I vote?

Find your polling place, voting times, and other important information by checking out these sites and the hotline below. These resources are good, but not perfect. To be doubly sure, you can also contact your local elections office.

Obama's VoteForChange site: voteforchange.com

League of Women Voters' site: vote411.org/pollfinder.php

Obama's voter hotline: 877-US4-OBAMA (877-874-6226)

What should I do before I go?

After you've entered your address on either Vote For Change or Vote411, read the voting instructions and special rules for your state.
Voting ID laws vary from state to state, but if you have ID, bring it.
Check out all the voting myths and misinformation to look out for: http://truth.voteforchange.com/

What if something goes wrong?

Not on the voter list? Make sure you're at the right polling place, then demand a provisional ballot.

If you're voting on an electronic machine with a paper record, verify that the record is accurate.

Need legal help? Call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

If you encounter a problem, try to videotape the situation and submit it to VideoTheVote.org

Sara and Maybelle on film

2008-10-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

It is unfortunate that a performance of the original Carter Family was never filmed. Maybelle and Sara made a few TV appearances in the 1960's, forty years after they'd first recorded in 1927. My favorite clip from that time is this impromptu performance, maybe the closest we'll get to seeing the original Carters in concert:

Poor Valley

2008-09-30T02:06:00.001-07:00

The Carter Family comes from an area in SW Virginia called "Poor Valley". I was surprised to learn that there is also a "Rich Valley," where the soil is better for farming and people are generally more affluent.

One of the original concepts Frank and I had for this book was to show some of the events taking place in a comic strip called "Poor Valley" that would be based on the classic newspaper strip "Gasoline Alley". Though our art will definitely be influenced by "Gasoline Alley" (among other things), we have recently decided not to use a "Poor Valley" logo in the book as it would impede the narrative flow. But you can see it right here, right now, in this art sample we created during the initial planning process.

From Words To Pictures: The Process Begins

2008-09-28T09:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd lead off today's post with this stunning detail from a piece of art David did for our book proposal. I think it helped seal the deal. David's sense of humanity in his figures always moves and impresses me. His figures--and even his landscapes--have that breath of life to them; that something extra that creates an instant engagement with the observer.

I'm braggin' on you, David.

We spent the last workweek breaking down our outline of Act One of the graphic novel.

To start the process, via Photoshop, we created a template for doing "thumbnail" roughs. One trip to Kinko's later, we had a nice pile of printed pages with miniature comics page layouts, ready to go. Just give us a #2 pencil and we're in business!

We sit on opposite sides of a long table, with our library of reference books-- and an electric pencil-sharpener--close at hand. Quietly, with an occasional glance across the table, we translate our densely-worded outline into workable visuals.

The thumbnailing process lets us know if our ideas work, or if they need more (or less) to them.

For me, doing the thumbnails is a way to warm up to drawing again.
I have chosen to focus mostly on writing in the past 15 years. What little drawing I have done has been mostly doodling or sketchbook material.

These thumbnails are rough-and-ready drawings. Their goal is to account for what will embody each panel of each page. They're often almost stick-figures. Yet these little drawings can be surprisingly rich.

Many of David's thumbnails are things of beauty. I have seen sequences of our book suddenly come to life in his evocative sketches. It's exhiliarating to realize that, little by little, this book is becoming real and certain.

I have newfound respect for the common #2 pencil. My first thumbnails were done with the Papermate SmartWriter 0.7 mm mechanical pencil. Its soft leads are extremely smeary. I'm left-handed, and hold a pencil in an eccentric way, so it's impossible not to smudge the soot-like leads of these pencils.

I turned to one of David's humble OfficeMax #2s, and the smudge factor decreased dramatically. The lead is just right.

One more note: it amazes me how quickly a day zooms by when we're doing these thumbnails. I think that's a sign that I like what I'm doing! I feel grateful to the universe that we're embarked on this project.

A.P. meets Sara

2008-09-19T00:36:00.001-07:00

The Carter Family really begins when A.P. Carter falls in love with Sara Dougherty. He was out selling fruit trees in SW Virginia and came across Sara singing the song "Engine 143." It's been said that he could hear her voice before he even entered the yard of the house in which she was singing. He spent a year courting her, and in 1915 they were married. Sara was 16 years old.

This is one of the samples Frank and I worked up for "Don't Forget This Song;" a depiction of A.P. hearing Sara's voice for the first time.

Book Making

2008-09-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

So this past week, Frank and I continued work refining our outline of the book, and thumnailing certain sequences to see how they might work out visually. I brought a camera in on Friday because I was making a photo diary of my day, and we each took some shots of ourselves at work.

How I Discovered The Carter Family

2008-09-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

Many people who know the work of my collaborator, David Lasky, may not recognize my name. It doesn't help that I have a rather common monicker. There are a lot of Frank Youngs in this world.

This particular Frank Young is proud to be the co-creator of this graphic novel. I have been an admirer of the Carter Family's music since the year 1984.

Along the way, I've been the editor of The Comics Journal, had hundreds of articles published in newspapers, magazines and literary journals; I've edited for newspapers and magazines as well.

More recently, I wrote several installments of Justin Green's late, lamented "Musical Legends" strip, from the equally moribund Pulse! magazine. (They're collected in the Last Gasp trade paperback that gathers Green's first-rate work on the strip.)

I have also been a writer and editor for Dana Countryman's Cool 'n' Strange Music! magazine (where I interviewed guitar wiz Les Paul), and I've sold gags to Topps Chewing Gum's iconic "Wacky Packages" trading cards.

As well, I've written several kids' non-fiction books, been in an instrumental band called the New Albanian Riots (check out our MySpace page!), and written a couple of yet-unpublished novels and some yet-unproduced screenplays.

Like David, I live in Seattle, Washington. I moved here to work for Fantagraphics in July, 1991. I must like it here; I haven't moved since.

Back in '84, I lived in Tallahassee, Florida. I wrote full-time for a long-gone "alternative" weekday paper called The Florida Flambeau. That paper was my training ground as a writer. I probably got most of the bad writing out of my system in the 11 years I worked for the "Flam." I was 17 when I first wrote for the paper, in 1980.

In 1984, my friend Michael Ogden first brought the Carter Family's music to my attention. I was on the verge of a discovery of country music, from the 1920s to the mid-1960s. Prior listening obsessions--Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, in my high-school years--had prepared my ears to travel a bit further back in time.

Mike Ogden had a cassette of a German RCA International collection of Carter Family music. Imaginatively titled 20 of the Best (Catalog #:NL 89369), this album, in cassette form, made a huge impression on me.

The "Bristol Sessions" recordings were avoided. Otherwise, this LP hit the high spots of the Carters' 1928-1934 Victor recordings. Injudicious "room tone" fake reverb had been added to the original recordings. Otherwise, they had no overdubs; nor were they abhorrently remixed in fake "stereo" (the fluorescent light of recorded sound).

This music, at first, struck me as even rougher than Bob Dylan's first recordings. (Dylan's 1961 debut disc was my prior standard-bearer of rustic-type music.) It was something of a shock at first. I couldn't believe that a recording as raw and rural as "Little Darling Pal Of Mine" could have ever existed. (I had, obviously, not yet heard the music of Charlie Patton.)

The songs hooked me first. "John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man" reminded me of Woody Guthrie's "Tom Joad" (for obvious reasons; Guthrie helped himself to "Hardy"'s melody for his Steinbeck-influenced epic). "Lonesome Pine Special," "I Never Will Marry," "Lonesome Valley," "The Church in the Wildwood," "Lulu Walls," "Kitty Waltz," "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy" and "Wildwood Flower" also grabbed me.

In time, the performances began to break through, as I acclimated to them. Sara Carter's voice, with its harsh regional pronounciations, revealed itself to be a vessel of passion and intensity. The quavering tones of A.P. Carter fascinated me. It reminded me of the quirks of character actors from the early talkie movies.

Maybelle's guitar playing sealed the deal. I had just begun play the guitar at that time. I was capable of no more than rudimentary chordal strums. Maybelle's conflation of lead and rhythm guitar parts fascinated me, as it has many other young musicians.

After several years of bedroom woodshedding, I was finally able to decode and learn a few Maybelle guitar lines. To this day, I still can play a mean "Wildwood Flower," "Cannonball," "John Hardy" and "Jimmy Brown."

In 1986, I finally found a vinyl copy of the 20 of the Best LP. Vinyl Fever, the local record store of choice, had a copy that a Flambeau music critic had special-ordered but neglected. I spotted it behind the counter and asked if it were for sale. The clerk was disgusted enough with the writer, and his massive "hold pile," that he gladly sold it to me.

Soon, I dug up some of the handful of other Carter Family LPs that were available. There wasn't much on the market then. Some of it was cassette-only. Some of that, in turn, had been murdalized by fake-stereo conversion.

I wanted it all. A pair of LPs from the ACM (Anthology of Country Music) label introduced me to some of the Carters' superb Depression-era discs. As of yet, I knew almost nothing about the Carters. Songs such as "Lonesome For You," "March Winds Gonna Blow My Blues Away" and "One Little Word" only added to my fascination with their music.

"One Little Word" struck a frisson of childhood memory. My grandmother often sang that song to me in my very early years.

She was born in Louisiana in 1901, and worked as a schoolteacher in the Appalachian region in the late 1920s. Of course, she would have heard this music. I also recall her singing "Keep On The Sunny Side."

Through "One Little Word," I felt an immediate connection to the Carters and their region. It really struck me that this song had lingered in my grandmother's memory, and that she had sung it to me as a kind of lullaby. A curious choice for a soothing song--yet it worked.

That I lived in the Deep South--in an area that still retained strong traces of the 1920s and '30s--helped me acclimate to the Carter Family's music. It seemed to come out of the architecture, out of the woods and the sky and the old roads.

As I got to know it better, the Carters' music became a kind of map to the old South, to the last traces of it that remained. Those final lingering strands are all gone now. I'm glad I became aware of them while they could still be glimpsed.

As David and I begin our hard work on Don't Forget This Song, the richness and vibrance of the Carter Family's music continues to inspire me. I hope we can do their story justice. The narrative of their lives and career is as fascinating as their best music. I am honored to be a part of bringing this story to the medium of the graphic novel.

Welcome

2008-09-04T13:08:00.001-07:00

Frank Young and I are proud to announce that we have begun work on "Don't Forget This Song," a graphic novel that tells the story of country music's first family, The Carter Family. We first came up with the idea of making a c0mic about the Carters back in 2002, and created a "pilot episode" which appeared in the anthology Kramers Ergot (No. 4). We had hoped a publisher would ask us to make more Carter Family comics. A few comic book publishers did express interest, but shied away from the cost of color printing.

I went back to college to study graphic design in 2003 and 2004, then fell into a bread delivery job. It seemed the Carter Family idea was destined to be yet another interesting "could have been but wasn't."

Jump to early 2007, and my visit to a cold and snowy New York City. My cartoonist peers were all talking "book deals" and "agents." I felt like I'd been living in a cave. I began to ask myself why I didn't have an agent.

I began to think about the Carter Family project again, and devoted the rest of the year to finding an agent and creating a book proposal. Fortunately, Frank Young was still willing and able to collaborate on the book. With the guidance of agent Bob Mecoy, we got a few good reactions from editors and finally a "yes" from Abrams. I'm thrilled to be working on a project for the publisher of "The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics," an essential book for anyone who loves comics.

Check back in at this blog to read anecdotes about the Carters and other musicians, posted by Frank and myself, and follow the progress we're making on "Don't Forget This Song." We'll be hard at work for the next 10 months...