King Cat Comes to Classical

Photos by Zachary "The King" Culp

On Monday, May 16^th Classical’s junior class had a very special visitor, the

 renowned comic artist and graphic novelist, John Porcellino. Porcellino's

 self-published, photocopied, and mostly autobiographical series King-Cat

 Comics is among the best-known and longest-running mini-comics

 produced today, which he  began as a teenager and which  is still going

 strong today. Porcellino's work consists of very simple line drawings,

 usually without any attempts at shading or anatomical realism, which he

 explains as being fundamental to his vision as, “there is nowhere to hide.”

Content-wise Porcellino's work has evolved considerably over the years:

 through the mid-'90s his comics were much more angry and humorous, with

a punk rock sensibility, but mixed in with these stories there were always

 more quiet, melancholy or philosophical stories, and as the years went on

 these stories increasingly took over the book. Porcellino developed a strong

 interest in zen, and he began creating very zen-like stories reflecting on the

 transient nature of life and sometimes recounting tales of various zen

 masters, or illustrating ancient zen koans. According to cartoonist Chris

 Ware, "John Porcellino's comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the

 feeling of simply being alive."

In 2007, Porcellino published Thoreau at Walden which is a poetic

 expression of the great philosopher’s experience and ideals. On Monday,

Porcellino presented a slide show of important passages from his book, and

 explained the creative process that he went through. Following his

 presentation to an audience of English, Art and History classes, Porcellino

 answered a number of student questions on the topics of the complexity of

 the artistic process, the importance of transcendentalism, and how to distill

 great thoughts into a few seemingly simple lines.

Students from Mr. McQueen's and Ms. Hourihan's English classes and Ms. Klibansky's Art classes were invited to the Auditorium for the Lecture/Discussion with King Cat.

This is an example of another fine educational opportunity provided at Classical HS.