About Shane Morgan

Comics and cartoons played a big role in my life growing up. As an introvert and a bit of a loner, there was something about the daily comics and Saturday morning cartoons that really captured my attention and sparked my creative self. I loved how simple yet expressive they could be transporting you to other worlds, outer space or even alternate realities. For me it was simply magical.

Fortunately I wasn’t alone with this in my family. My mom and Nana were both big fans of comics and the newspaper funnies. In fact, with us living in Canada and my Nana in the US, they each used to cut out the best funnies from the newspapers at the end of each week and mail them to each other. So I got to read funnies from our local papers as well as the Seattle papers. What a lucky kid!

To top it all off, both of them would also buy Comic Books of there favourites like: The Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, BC, The Farside and more. Each one was an endless fascination for me and by Kindergarten, I dreamed of becoming a Cartoonist.

It wasn’t long before I started copying these comics. The BC Comic shown on this page was a tracing I did from the newspaper for Papa for Fathers Day. I am guessing I was around 11 or 12 at the time. The Book Report I did in grade 6, also about age 12, was hilarious because I copied all of the cover illustrations, but only wrote short answers (sometimes one word!) and 1 double sided page about the book itself. My summary of the 80 page, heavily illustrated book I had read?

To quote myself:

“I thought the illustrations were exilent. I liked the part where flyball found the plants that moved.”

Yes, my spelling was atrocious and all of my focus was on the pictures. I got an A for the illustrations, but a C overall. That’s kind of how school went for me. A’s in Art and Band. C’s in everything else.

I did end up going to art school after high school for 2 years and changed my first and last name along the way. I also entered into the world of Commercial Art in sign painting and the Advertising Industry. But for one reason or another I had abandoned my pursuit of cartoons and eventually doing art for a living.

Today, I work full time as an Elevator Technician and am on call 24/7. I’ve been at it for over 15 years and this is how I have been supporting my family. Life is good. Really good. But there’s always been a sore spot for me - abandoning the idea of making a living as a cartoonist or at least publishing a comic strip of my own.

I don’t know if I’ll ever replace this income with my cartoon art before I retire, but I can’t keep it inside anymore and not at least put it out there into the world. Today, that’s means online and thankfully there are many places to publish your comic and many fans interested in viewing a good comic.

So, I hope you enjoy what I do. I create it in the little spare time I have before work, on lunch breaks and after work in the evenings. I am finding it challenging as well as super fun and rewarding!

Sincerely,

Shane Morgan