Today we’d like to introduce you to Douglas Laubacher.
Hi Douglas, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m a working cartoonist from Ohio. I’m a little different than most cartoonists because I teach cartoon art classes. About 9 years ago, I wandered over to my local library in Minerva, OH, while my car was getting an oil change across town. I had my portfolio on a small tablet computer I happened to have with me, and I showed it to one of the librarians, who was an old family friend and an artist herself. She asked if I would be interested in leading a cartooning program for the library, and that was that. I did that a couple times, and then through them, word of mouth spread to other libraries. After doing that for a couple years, I realized how much I enjoyed it and wanted to make it a bigger part of my life. Since then, I’ve taught in art centers, museums, colleges, churches, and community centers.
I’ve been teaching longer than I’ve had a comic strip. My comic “Unbound” runs in a small handful of weekly papers in Tuscarawas, Stark, and Carroll Counties. It’s been running for about 6 years now. Since I started this thing by going into libraries to teach cartooning, naturally, my comic strip is about a bunch of animals that run a library. It’s like a playground. The library as a backdrop is the perfect excuse to draw about whatever I want on any given week.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth? What’s smooth?
But in all seriousness, covid was such a weird thing to go through. I know some artists who had some of their best years during all that, but it forced me to stop what I was doing and severely reevaluate everything. I’m already pretty self-reflective, so it was excruciating. Thank god the comic strip kept running. I’m so grateful. That kept me grounded.
Not nearly as difficult, but perhaps just as nebulous was my time immediately out of college. Wanting to do your own thing with art firmly plants you in the “starving artist” camp. I washed a lot of dishes and even worked on oil rigs. I’ve worked plenty of odd jobs. I actually like working other jobs because in a sense they keep you from being isolated from “real” people. But I have so much I want to draw now; anything that pulls me away from the drawing table makes me frustrated.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My weekly comic strip Unbound follows Leaf and Galley, two bird librarians who deal with the day-to-day minutia of running their small, local library for a wacky cast of animals. It deals with a wide range of topics and is sorta written so a second grader could get it, but if you’re an adult with any connection to their local library, you’ll get it too.
I’m an old-school comic strip cartoonist in a sense. I can draw digitally, but I love pen and ink too much. Inking is my favorite part of the process. And I love having tangible, original art. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong time.
I think what I’m most proud of is getting my comics displayed in local libraries. I remember getting to see what original comic art looked like for the first time as a kid, and I hope it demystifies the process and inspires future cartoonists.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
Even though I’m primarily known for drawing this local comic strip, at the core, that means I’m a pen and ink illustrator. A few years back, I drew children’s menus for the restaurant I was working at, Grinders. That’s the kind of thing I love to illustrate outside the strip. I would love more of that. I remember years ago being in an airport and seeing an information kiosk for kids that were just becoming of reading age. It was entirely skinned in cartoon illustrations. I stopped, stared (I probably looked insane), and I said to myself, “I want to be able to do something like that.”
Aside from hiring me to draw cartoons for your business, people can support me by sharing my work on social media. Even though I’ve had this little career in real life, it’s never really translated into much success on social media. I’m pretty sure my grandma would be better at the social media game than I am. So, it really does help.
I also have a couple book collections of my comic strips! Those are available on my website shop.
Contact Info:
- Website: INKWiTs.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duggler657/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inkwits/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/iNKWiTs
- Other: https://inkwits.bigcartel.com/
