Cartoons & Comics by Adam Whittier

Another cartoon for Cape Cod Bay Watch (November 2014).

Entergy is the vast utility which operates Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, MA. Pilgrim's design is the exact same as the infamous Fukushima plant, and being near open water, it's vulnerable to many of the same hazards. This cartoon is poking fun at a plan that Entergy thought up, to pump water to their spent fuel rods in the event of a system failure. It's silly because the plan likely wouldn't work in stormy weather, which is also the time when there might be some sort of failure (the two sort of go hand-in-hand). This flyer was passed out at a community meeting on the same subject in Plymouth.

Not the Bees! (October 2014.)

This is based on a true story. (And apparently, I'm NOT allergic to bees. Which is a good thing, because the folks in the Emergency Room told me that the yellow jackets here in Washington are especially potent.)

Also, apparently, I have no idea how to spell Sacagawea.

The Nostalgic GPS (September 2014.)

Protect My Public Media Illustration. (August 2014.)

Some time ago I entered a tote-bag illustration contest. The theme we were supposed to get across was, as you may have guessed, protecting public media (NPR, PBS, etc.). My design didn't win, which means I can share it now! I colored it for the contest but prefer the B&W version, so I'm including them both here.

Cartoons for Cape Cod Bay Watch. (July 2014.)

I recently did some cartoons for Cape Cod Bay Watch, a non-profit organization based in Plymouth, MA. They do some great work, protecting the environment of southeastern Massachusetts and particularly Cape Cod Bay. My cartoons were addressing a recent scheme by Entergy, owner of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. You can see one of the cartoons on their website here.

Illustration for Kearsarge Magazine. (June 2014.)

I did a full-page drawing for Kearsarge Magazine's summer issue. They have exclusive rights to use it right now, but you can see it on their very own site, here!

Snake Rapunzel Now Available to Purchase! (May 2014.)

I've been hard at work for months now on a small storybook for kids, Snake Rapunzel. It's 62 pages of copy with 27 pen-and-ink drawings interspersed throughout--I've leaked two of them here, along with the cover.

If you'd like to have this book for your very own, you can buy it right here on Amazon. It's $7.95, and makes the perfect gift for your favorite discerning child. I would recommend it for ages 10-14.

First 7 Pages of Phoenix: the Ford Pinto Story AVAILABLE HERE (May 2014).

I just went to the Bookbuilders of Boston 57th Annual Book Show, which was a lot of fun. Phoenix didn't win any category awards, but it was on display among a few other small-press books. It's also in this year's catalogue, which is beautifully done.

Last November, Robert Clough of The Comics Journal was kind enough to review Phoenix on his blog, High-Low Comics. Also reviewed in the same post were Josh Kramer, Emi Gennis, and Andy Warner. He'd declared the month of November as "Thirty Days of CCS," which was very generous of him.

If you'd like a copy of the book for your very own, Phoenix is available through several distribution sites. Here is the direct link to it on Amazon; try there first! Some other distributors include Barnes & Noble, NACSCORP, and Espresso Book Machine.

Harvard Medical Student Review (March 2014).

I just did a cartoon for the newly-unveiled Harvard Medical Student Review. It's a review journal written and curated by Harvard MD candidates, and they wanted some "outsiders" to generate New Yorker-esque cartoons for them. So, there you go.

I haven't posted much in the past few months. It's not that I haven't been doing any work--I've done LOTS, actually--but most of what I'm up to I can't post. I have contracts with most of my freelance work, and a common stipulation is that "they" have the exclusive right to show it around for a set amount of time.

Coffee Dime Bags (February 2014).

Many months ago I drew the above graphic for a friend of mine. His latest Internet venture is CoffeeDimeBags.com, which sells an ultra-concentrated, extra-jittery type of coffee to people who want that sort of thing. The website is up and running now, so I thought I'd spread the word!

Toby Gets a Lift wins 2ND Place!

A few months ago I drew and submitted a video as part of the New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities's "Count Me In" contest. The video's purpose is to promote the idea of inclusion; i.e. helping disabled people to be included in community activities. I had a good time doing it, and the Council recently informed me that I'd placed in the contest. You can learn more about the NHDDC at http://www.nhddc.org/.
I must thank my old friend Abe Shklar, for it was he who let me know of the contest's existence. He was also good enough to let me use his music in the video. You can learn more about him here: http://abes.bandcamp.com/album/lilaham

New Hampshire Blues (November 2013).

Ayn Rand-isms (Late October 2013).

How Great Inventions Came to Be (October 2013).

SPX 2014!

Here's a photo from SPX. I'm the one in the tie, and my table-mate Dan Rinylo is the one in the glasses. I made a stand for my books out of a drill press and some license plates, and it was well-recieved (as far as I could tell).

A representative from the Library of Congress stopped by and purchased a copy of Phoenix, to be part of their "Small Press Expo Collection." I'm flattered that they liked my book enough to choose it, and I'm glad that it will be part of the Library now. Hopefully more people will be able to learn about the Ford Pinto in this way.

Yes! The PHOENIX will be DEBUTING at SPX! If you're there, stop by and say "Howdy-Do" to Dan Rinylo and I as we hawk our wares!

I've been going back-and-forth most of the summer with Charlie Clark, of Charlie Clark Books, LLC. He's a book designer who has provided much-needed assistance with the project; namely, in transitioning Phoenix from a self-printed, hand-made book into a volume that can be efficiently purchased.
We decided to use the print-on-demand (POD) model, mostly for its ease of use. One can order a copy of the book easily and relatively cheaply, and he won't have to wait for me to fill out orders and drive to the post office. It's true that paper weight, binding technique, and other elements are severely restricted by POD. Nevertheless, one of my goals in this project was to educate people; and in order to be educated, they must have easy access to the material. So, everyone who wants to buy a book can get one, and everyone who wants to buy an e-book can go to hell.

Muffy the Railroader (June 2013).

ALL NEW! Important Update (June 2013).

I thought I should mention that I PASSED my CCS Thesis Review meeting! The committee (CCS faculty Sarah Stewart Taylor, Jon Chad, and Steve Bissette) all really enjoyed my books, and I passed with flying colors. It's a tremendous load off of my shoulders.

Also, I'm currently working to release a version of Phoenix: the Ford Pinto Story as a print-on-demand book. The goal is to have it ready in time for the Small Press Expo this September, which sounds easy right now. But if I've learned anything, it's that COMICS take TIME...and PRODUCTION takes even MORE TIME. Hopefully it will all go well!

Infinite Corpse Project (May 2013).

Aaron Renier (my CCS thesis advisor), R. Sikoryak, and some others put together an online collaborative comics project! It's a chain comic featuring about 250 cartoonists--and I got to be one of 'em! You can see my comic here, or just visit the main page. It's a lot of fun, and if you have a favorite cartoonist, he or she is probably a part of this!

Project Update (May 2013).

It's been a while since I last updated this site, and for that I apologize. But in that time, I've gotten a great deal of work finished, which I've been waiting to share. Most importantly, my Thesis Project for the Center for Cartoon Studies is now done!

The Barny Vaq Chronicles is 74 pages long, and contains Part I and Part II. I'm not sure how much of this will ever by printed "for real," but I had a lot of fun drawing it, and I certainly plan to continue it in the future.
I'd kind of like to focus on it page-by-page, and do shorter stories and strops that work tangentially, but still contribute to the overall narrative. There's so much I want to do with this story, and I'm not sure that the graphic novel-esque format currently being used is the best form. We'll see.

My other thesis project is Phoenix: the Ford Pinto Story. The images above and below are the front and rear covers, respectively. This was a very different project from the BVC, largely because it's a single, self-contained work. It's quite nice to be "done" with something!
Phoenix is 32 pages of comics, with some additional pages for documentation. I did a great deal of research while working on this project, so I had to cite all of the sources I used, as well as explain my reasons for including them.
Maybe I'll post some interior pages from both projects at a later time...