City of Boulder, CO Creative Neighborhoods Projects, 23 Jun 2021

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From YouTube: Artist Interview: Will Betke-Brunswick

Description

When zine festivals cancelled due to the pandemic, Will (cartoonist and zine-maker) decided to create a diary of comics chronicling the quarantine. The project brings humor and humility to hyperlocal experiences of those living near 13th St and High St in Central Boulder. Neighbors will receive a hand-drawn copy of the completed zine. Creative Neighborhoods: COVID-19 Work Projects was launched by the Office of Arts + Culture and Create Boulder: https://boulderarts.org/public-art/creative-neighborhoods/covid-19-work-projects/

A

uh My name is, will becky brunswick and I use they them and he him pronouns, and I am a cartoonist in boulder. um I am also a mfa student um at the california college for the arts, low residency mfa in comics program, so I'm like work on like longer comics and graphic novels, but then also I just make shorter cartoons and scenes that I sell at scene fests and fairs around the country.

A

um So I had three shows scheduled for this spring. um One was the denver small press fest, which has been rescheduled, but I'm. I hope that it still happens, but I don't know um and then also the denver zine fest, um which has been canceled until 2021 and then also the um vancouver comic arts festival in vancouver british columbia, um and that was also cancelled. um So those are my like three big comic shows, so they were um places where I would have sold comics and scenes and- and they didn't happen yeah.

A

I just sort of um finished it up yesterday, so I made a zine that was eight pages. So a zine is like a um mini comic book or well. You can make scenes from whatever you want with whatever you want in them. um It's a very diy kind of art form, but I make them with comics. So mine had like eight comics in it.

A

It was eight pages long and I um uh made it drawing it like first by hand and then on my ipad and then um I printed them out and um bundled them up and mailed them off at the post office in boulder yesterday to my neighbors, so my scene was about.

A

I just had comics from like little moments in um life in quarantine, so um like snapshots of like starting a garden and then having it, get snowed on when we had those two big snowstorms in april and then um about like running and living on the boulder boulder route and going for runs and about um like the um trips outside and getting all ready in your protective gear.

A

So just sort of like little snap shot comics they're diary comics, which is like another whole genre of comics, where people write like personal comics about their life, so um they're they're, like both humorous, but also just sort of like a little snapshot portrayal of what my existence is in quarantine. And so then I mailed them to um like my 25 closest neighbors. I live on the corner of two streets so like 10 down one street and 10 down the other street.

A

So um hopefully they will people will enjoy them and then put them in the recycling or save them or do whatever they want with them, but hope to like connect. My neighborhood and sort of introduce myself to my neighbors or or just share some art with them or have people just take a moment to pause and like laugh at these little silly comics that are like hyper specific to where we live the neighborhood around casey middle school. So we're like across the across broadway from the mapleton hill area.

A

um I really enjoyed it. It was. It was a lot of fun to make the comics and and the comics are sort of like uh I. I hope what I'll get out of it is more connection to my neighborhoods or or my neighbors, and that they'll also get more connection to me um like I've gotten to see my neighbors more, and I mean in the course of the quarantine I've actually introduced myself to like other people who share a building with me. So that's been really a connective time.