Cartoonist begins new comic in Sun

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This article was published 24/02/2018 (2790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Stack Catz’ journey is over, but that doesn’t mean Curt Shoultz’s time producing full-page weekly comic strips in The Brandon Sun is over.

Far from it, with the local cartoonist developing a new comic series called Brandoon, which explores a fictional world those in the Wheat City might recognize.

Even beyond its title reading one letter off from Brandon, several landmarks pay homage to Shoultz’s home community, such as Circus Planes High School (Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School).

“It’s a work of fiction, he said. “No resemblance to persons living or dead is intended or should be inferred, however …”

A cartoonist whose career redirected toward education in recent years, Shoultz carries a long history in the comic business, including stints with DC in the ’90s, during which he inked books such as Hawkman and Deathstroke.

Last September, his latest project, Stack Catz, began its weekly full-page colour run in The Brandon Sun, which capped off with its 25th chapter last week.

The series followed a squad of cats protecting the Brandoon Moon newspaper’s archives from rats, jumping in and out of classic comics as they were chased through their existential world.

During their travels, they adopted the artistic stylings of various newspaper comic artists in what Shoultz considers a “love letter” to those who came before.

These first six months of producing a weekly comic strip served as a learning experience, Shoultz said, adding that with hindsight 20/20, he has been able to rejig the 25 pages of comic into a 76-page graphic novel that he has compiled in a downloadable format online at sellfy.com/p/42z5/, where it’s available for 99 cents.

Reflecting on the six-month run, he said that it ended up reading a lot clearer as a graphic novel than a weekly comic, particularly given how complex the story got at times.

Moving into Brandoon, he said that the new strip would consist of one self-contained story each week, thereby relying less on readers’ memory of past comics in order to keep up.

Brandoon will follow a list of characters as they make their way through Brandoon, have adventures and learn life lessons.

The first comic, printed in today’s edition of The Brandon Sun, is made up of four pages of comic book content, an admittedly ambitious approach that Shoultz said he hopes to maintain.

Where he prepared Stack Catz several weeks in advance, he is only a week ahead with Brandoon at this point, which he said is both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, it adds some pressure in meeting deadlines, but on the other hand it allows him to remain more up to date on current events.

“It’s a chance to look at media; to do satire the way Li’l Abner did, or political commentary nowhere near as good as what Pogo did, but that kind of thing,” he said, referencing classic comic strips he holds in high regard.

While Stack Catz was a love letter to these classic comic creators, Brandoon is a love letter to Brandon, Shoultz’s home for 43 years, which he said has proven itself to be a “friendly, open, supportive place,” adding; “It’s almost an anti-internet … It’s given me a good feeling for a really long time.”

Shoultz will be meeting with comic fans at Eye Opener Books (314 10th St.) on April 14, from noon to 3 p.m., during which he’ll be giving away printed-off pages of the Stack Catz cover, signing things and creating small drawings for those who stop by the local comic shop.

With Brandoon a few weeks in by that point, he said that he looks forward to what people have to say about his latest creation.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB