What's up with the editorials and miscellaneous section?
Sometimes, other student cartoonists would fail to submit on time for print, and I would put a filler strip in its place; this often included editorial cartoons as well. For April 1, the cartoonists would switch strips for the day. And in late May 1999, Odyssey of the Mind finals took place on campus and I created cartoons for their newspaper.
Is everything you've done while at The Daily Beacon posted here?
Well...I'm confident all the Fall/Spring Spritz comics are accounted for. I think the editorial and filler for Fall/Spring are as well, except four dates in Spring 2000. While I posted the Summer comics I have, I can't guarantee all are posted.
Why are the comics a box and then a rectangle?
The size available varied over semesters, based on how many/few other comics there were. It was first a square, then expanded to a giant block for filler, and finally another one-shot artist was found, and the space was cut in half to a rectangle.
Why do the squares/rectangles look so awkward?
Yeah, I'm now realizing how bad I was at measuring and drawing boxes. Also, I've recently scanned in the original proofs and may not have lined them up exactly. If time permits, I may go back and fix the most awkward.
Did Spritz win any prizes?
Besides the Beacon's Most Dependle Cartoonist and Cartoonist of the Year awards, I got honorable mention in the Columbia Scholastic Press Collegiate Circle - third honorable mention in 1999 and first honorable mention in 2000. The biggest rush, though, was hearing people talk about it or having cartoons on their bulletin boards. Some cartoons I thought were complete crap people loved, and some I thought were awesome got next to no feedback. It's hard to predict what people will like.
Did you do anything else at The Daily Beacon besides cartooning?
I started off as a copy editor and then switched to editorial production assistant after some training, where I scanned and adjusted photos and cartoons and pasted page proofs up by learning QuarkXpress and Adobe Photoshop. Then became a graphic design editor, which meant I got to help the editor-in-chief design the pages and be in charge and work long hours. After a semester of that, I became a senior production editor. What does working in production have to do with cartooning? Because I elected to work over the summer, when most cartoonists are on break, I asked the guy in charge if it was OK to do a low-risk cartoon, and Spritz was born.
Did you do any earlier cartooning?
I got my first big gig drawing cartoons for my middle school newspaper, The Anchor, and then later for my high school newspaper, The Crow's Nest, where I also worked as an editor, my first experience with graphic design.
Is there a compilation of the best Spritz strips available?
Even though I was a biology major, a Spritz anthology was my senior honors project. The honors professor loved it, and someone told me he used it as an example to future classes! If you want a copy, click on the image above!
What is Spritz?
It's a one-shot comic strip I drew that ran in a university newspaper.I got the name looking at a spritzer bottle when told I needed a name for my strip. I got the comic ideas from life experience, mostly - pop culture, roommate goings-on, classes, stray conversations...
Where and when was Spritz published?
Spritz was published from Summer semester 1998 through Summer semester 2000 in The Daily Beacon, an undergraduate college newspaper at the University of Tennessee.
Why did you stop?
It's a student paper, and I graduated May 2000.
How many comics are there?
By semester, there are College (29+16+33+29) + Dated (20+14+9+22) + General (26+37+31+43) + Misc. (13+7+4+13) = 346 total on this site.
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