Introduction By Denis Kitchen

(Currently out of print)

As one of the world's foremost authorities on the book's title subject, I have been asked by the publisher to prepare this introduction. I already wrote the introduction to the best-selling preceding volume, which covers Alexa Kitchen's formative pre-school summer vacation and kindergarten art period. This 2nd volume covers a decidedly more mature creative epoch, as she faces and enters first grade.

I'm a cartoonist too, though the bulk of my professional life has been spent (or misspent) as a publisher, agent or book packager. My own worthy comic book pages and covers might fill a 150-page book. Early into kindergarten my thirty-two pound daughter had already far outpaced me. And this volume alone contains 250 pages. In defense of my own paltry output, there are good reasons. Like most comic book professionals, I first have to think a while about a page. I first write a basic script. I do rough thumbnail sketches next, then pencil each panel fairly tightly. I do lettering and rule borders with a nib pen, and ink the pencilled under drawings with a #3 Winsor-Newton sable brush. And, though the technique is virtually obsolete, I often like to add "zipatone" gray textures, surgically executing the applications with an X-acto knife. When I'm really cooking I can complete a single comic book page in two solid days of focused labor. Alexa whips out pages in as little as five or ten minutes. She labors as long as a half-hour on some. I greatly resent this. She clearly comes from the Sergio Aragones school of prolific cartooning: she draws instantly and without hesitation.

I spent decades discovering, nurturing and publishing comic artists, and I've had the pleasure of working with many of the field's top talents. But that professional experience doesn't make it any easier to objectively separate my trained editor's eye from my instinctive father's eye. I'm in love with Alexa's work, as I am in love with her. I realized that something out of the ordinary was going on when visiting professionals began to do double takes of her creations. I was in the middle of a conversation with Will Eisner in our home last year when Alexa interrupted and handed him some of her new pages. Will was at first mildly annoyed but kindly looked at the material. He smiled and said, "Did your father help you with these?" She responded, "No!" with clear indignation. Will was quite skeptical till I assured him I had not touched her pages. (In fact, I'm not even allowed to look at her pages until they are finished.) At that point the inventor of the graphic novel interrupted our previous conversation for something he found far more interesting: her. He studied her comics intently. After she meandered into another room, Will shook his head, declared her development and storytelling techniques remarkable, and insisted that I keep him apprised of her progress. Since Will doesn't praise falsely, even cute little girls, I realized my own observations were not as clouded by a father's natural pride as I suspected.

Other visiting professionals, including Mark Schultz, Howard Cruse, Jay Kennedy (King Features) and Jay Lynch, have met Alexa and encouraged her work. Some have even jammed with her. She no doubt thinks there are a disproportionate number of cartoonists in the population. Original comic art hangs on our walls, and books of cartoons are well represented in our home library. Her main cartooning influences thus far are John Stanley's Little Lulu (I'm pleased) and Jim Davis' Garfield (I say nothing). I have even been honored as the namesake of a Garfield-like cat. But despite her present voluminous output of comic pages (many thousands), she has well-rounded interests. She reads lots of "regular" books (including a particular fondness for atlases), devours children's magazines, watches a variety of videos and DVDs, runs around the yard collecting specimens for her microscope, and she plays with kids who don't have a clue who Hergé and Ernie Bushmiller are.

The last thing Alexa's mother Stacey and I want to be are "stage parents." She's a little kid and we want her to enjoy being a little kid. At the same time this kid is clearly passionate about cartooning. She also has a distinct entrepreneurial instinct. Like many children, she frequently constructs "shops" and "restaurants" selling "products" for invisible or play money. We fully realize that she may decide tomorrow to be a ballerina, a scientist or veterinarian. Whether she wants to be a cartoonist or something less fun and prestigious, like President of the United States, will be entirely up to her and a majority of registered voters. In the interim, she loves creating cartoons, and being able to sell copies of real books like the one you hold translates to real trips to Toys 'R Us or a good bookstore, and that beats the heck out of invisible money.

While it lasts I certainly don't mind having a fellow artist running around the house. Over the years I've learned to interact, for better or worse, with countless professional cartoonists. By their very nature such artists are an unruly and idiosyncratic breed. I've had my share of disagreements with some, been forced to cancel or delay projects and on occasion even had to enforce penalty clauses. But until now I've never been able to send one to bed early without dessert.

ALEXA KITCHEN: The Early Years, Volume 2 (Age 6) is © 2002, 2003 by Alexa Kitchen.
Introduction © 2004 by Denis Kitchen. Published by D.K..P. Co, LLC, Box 2250, Amherst MA 01004-2250.
1st printing June 2004 Special thanks to Chris Peters at Paradise Copying in Northampton.