Happy 15th Anniversary SPEED BUMP!

Dave Coverly celebrates 15 years of drawing his SPEED BUMP newspaper cartoon panel. How? By hanging a gallery show of his originals at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art. Mark Wedel writes an article"Special to the Kalamazoo Gaett [sic]:"

In May, he won the Oscar of the comics world, the National Cartoonist's Society Reuben Cartoonist of the Year award, an honor previously bestowed upon the likes of Charles Schultz [sic], Gary Trudeau [sic], Gary Larson and Scott Adams.

He avoids reading others' comics, "because once I see a joke I can never use it," Coverly said. But he does love to inspect the original art of other cartoonists, "seeing how the lines work. Because if you see a comic strip in print, as it's printed in the paper, it loses a lot because it's shrunk down, details are lost, nuances are lost."

His originals are "at least twice as big as you see them in the paper," with pen work that's more labor intensive than most comics. "It's a style I came up with a long time ago, and now I'm stuck with it. There are days when I wish it was a simpler, quicker style."

Hat tip to Journalista!

Photo of Dave Coverly accepting the Reuben nicked from Tom Richmond's blog! Thanks, Tom!

And shame on the Kalamazoo Gaette for all the typos.