Garfield creator and Ball State alumnus Jim Davis will deliver his second lecture of the 2016-17 academic year tonight.
In addition to his lectures, Davis has taught two master classes and will teach two more this semester.
“It was a ball. The subject matter was great fun," Davis said. “We laughed a lot.”
Last semester, the subject of the classes was "Draw Funny."
“It was pretty much a two-hour laugh fest every time we had a class, so that was just nuts,” he said. “That was easy. That wasn’t teaching, that was just going for a really good time for a couple of hours and I think everybody picked up some nice hints.”
Davis thinks the almost 50 students he taught between the two classes got some hints but also understood more about animation and how to communicate graphically.
“I put everyone to work right away,” he said. “I set a lot of examples about some of the tricks we use to make the characters really look funny with exaggeration and squashing and stretching the characters and things like that.”
Due to the internet, pictures and visual representation are rising, and Davis’ classes are all about drawing.
Davis was amazed at the skilled illustrations he saw last semester. While he has never taught in a formal setting before his two classes at Ball State, three of his grandkids come to his house for a one-hour drawing lesson every week.
The subject of this semester’s master classes will be storytelling, or linear narrative, which involves putting pictures together to tell a story.
“When I was an art major, we dressed in dark clothes, we sat under the coat racks and ate our little lunches and stuff and pretty much kept to ourselves,” Davis said. “I think today, the art majors are more social and by in large more well-rounded in their interests.”
For his past and next lecture, Davis consulted the School of Art to decide on what topic to lecture about and what topics would help the students. He said it has been great fun preparing for his next lecture, which will include old videos, images and lots of stories.
Tonight, Davis will speak about "The Business of Garfield."
“We talk about the art … but really nobody addresses the business of doing the art and making a living, so I said cool, I’ll do that,” Davis said.
The talk will go over things like copyright, trademarks and why these things are so important to working artists.
“Kids these days will create wonderful stories, characters, music, all kinds of things and pretty much turn them loose on the internet for everybody to use, meaning they don’t get to earn a living at their craft,” Davis said. “I think the arts are going to take a more important role in commerce even in the years to come because of the internet.”
He will also go through the history of the business that he has been in for 37 years and reflect on what right and wrong decisions were made as well as the philosophies of doing business that the company still uses.
Davis also has a perspective on the unique perspective of doing business in the Midwest.
“[Last semester] I could tell that people were really following along because I was talking about stories and cartooning and stuff I love. I sensed that people enjoyed it,” Davis said. “People know what athletes do for a living, you see what other people do and how they do it on TV but few people know how cartoonists work and what motivates them, so it was fun to get to show that,” Davis said.
During his lectures, Davis likes to have fun with the audience and show them what it’s really like to be a cartoonist. His lecture tonight will be open to the public and will begin at 7 p.m. in Sursa Performance Hall.
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