Lynn Johnston has “produced one of the best comic strips ever,” gushed Evan Panton, the Cleveland Elementary kid with a penchant for the classic funnies, including For Better or For Worse.
Well, that flattery was enough to prompt Johnston to pay it forward by offering Panton private cartooning lessons. To say the budding artist was thrilled would be an understatement.
On the first day of summer break Panton turned up at Johnston’s studio in the Keith-Lynn area for his cartoon class.
North Vancouver’s North Shore News goes along with preteen Evan Panton for a cartooning lesson from the famed and talented Lynn Johnston.
“It’s no mystery – it’s all brushes and paints and pencils,” [Lynn] says.
The cardinal rule of cartooning is to write the script first – “even though it’s not as much fun” as drawing, attests Johnston.
Three weeks earlier the North Shore News had featured Evan in a story about the young cartoonist, who was already developing preferences for the tools of the trade:
“I usually don’t colour my comics yet because I like how clean black and white looks,” explains Panton. “Using felt pens can sometimes smudge a good comic. Pencil crayons work but they don’t give a solid colour like in published strips.”
A sample of Evan’s handiwork below.
That kid’s got talent (Lynn Johnston is pretty good too)!