animation, comics, exhibits, events, etc!

Every Wednesday, Jared Gniewek discusses what feeds his fires as an author of comics, screenplays and radio dramas.

by Jared Gniewek

So you’re planning your big vacation overseas and you can’t wait to see all that England has to offer the discerning world traveler. You’ve booked your tickets for The Mousetrap and purchased your poncho for the rain during your open-top bus tour. You’ve read the guide books and even figured out where Watership Down is. Only one question remains though… What about the comics? How are the shops in London? And is there an arts institution over there that simultaneously informs one of the publishing history of UK comics, a history of the medium itself, and showcases a national treasure of a cartoonist?

Having recently returned from just such a trip, I have answers.

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Every Wednesday, Jared Gniewek discusses what feeds his fires as an author of comics, screenplays and radio dramas.

by Jared Gniewek

When I was a small boy I lived in a small city called Clinton, Iowa.  It lies just north of the Quad Cities, and has an incredible public swimming pool. We lived about a stone’s throw from the Mississippi River and in my mind (ala Woody Allen in Annie Hall living directly under the roller coaster) the mighty river flowed through the alley directly behind our house. As a fourth grader there,  I had a ritual.  Every Tuesday after brawling in the schoolyard I would walk the five or six blocks of tree-lined streets to the local Library. The children’s section was where I first discovered many of my passions: Time-Life books on the supernatural, UFOs, cryptozoology, Grimm’s fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Andrew Lang’s colored Fairy Books, Bullfinch’s Mythology, L. Frank Baum, and photo-picture book adaptations of cheesy monster movies.

It was as though they had a section in the card catalogue entitled “Jared’s Brain”. I’m not sure where that would lie in the Dewey Decimal System but the numbers would probably all add up to AWESOME!

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