Ted Stearn: A Tribute

Image: Ted Stearn "Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville"- Fantagraphics

The fall of 2001 was my first quarter as a graduate student at SCAD for an MFA in Sequential Art. I voluntarily signed up to take a basic 200 level introductory studio course in “Cartooning.” It didn’t count credit-wise toward the degree, I was a decade older than my classmates, and already had many years of print experience and several published volumes of collected work. So the question “Why the hell are you taking this class” would often get asked, and my honest answer was, well duh… “Because I’ve never taken one.” I still to this day struggle to describe how weird and wonderful it felt to finally, for the first time ever in my artistic life, be able to put a panel or a strip up on the wall, and – ironically enough – have it be taken seriously for once, to get an actual critique from peers and professionals… to have it be legit, to have it count.

Ted Stearn was the teacher for that class, and he pushed me in ways that frustrated and sometimes really pissed me off at first: he zoomed in on exactly what my weak spots were, and then made me work even harder on them. One example was specifically limiting my classwork to non-verbal panels, as he thought I used too many words. This had the effect not only of being more judicious in using text, and it also led to the pursuit of classic vaudevillian performances for the art of pantomime.

And then there was the unrelenting stress from the normal courseload of assigned work, and dealing with constant feelings of inadequacy and intimidation when compared to the skills of everybody else. The volume of output was overwhelming at times, the pressure + pace was hard and fast - nothing was ever easy for me at that school, and nobody in our program slacked off when it came to producing the required work. It paid off: I learned a lot, got better, and grew as an artist.

After the MFA, and upon return to Alaska, I achieved my dream job in the recurring opportunity to teach many of my very own classes in Cartooning. Every single one, in some way, to some degree, was and continues to be influenced by Ted’s example on the other side of the drafting table. Whether as a specific assignment or having high expectations, a lot stemmed from those first seeds he had a big part in planting.

All of my students at several points throughout each cartooning class (even in Beginning Drawing) will see some specific examples of his work in creating characters, in page design, and inking techniques with a rich range of textures. Even though my own evolving version of “Cartooning” is an ever-melting pot of influences and ideas culled from many sources, he first put a window on the door, because I was studying not just craft and technique, but observing how and what to teach.

Because of that foundational experience, I truly believe in how important it is to simply give people the time + space to draw comics, to validate their expressions of creativity and to be that person who says “That counts.”

Thanks Ted.

"Timelessly cartoonish and yet grounded in social ills and modern atrocities... the series feels like being caught in a nightmare that compels you to laugh out loud." - The Comics Journal

"He was the real deal, a cartoonist’s cartoonist" - Fantagraphics

Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville (Fuzz & Pluck 2)

Update: I was comics editor at The District, the SCAD student newspaper, and took it from the occasional one or two weekly panels of work to fully two-and-a-half pages of regular features. We even started "Boundary," a special stand-alone quarterly comics issue, and in the winter quarter of 2003 I ran this full-page piece, resurrected and reprinted here by permission from its creator, Jason Axtel. It features Norris Hall, which housed the SEQA department at the time, a few students including a cameo from your truly, and the best depiction of Ted ever.