Teen artist finds comic relief
Photo illustration by Chris Richards / Staff
Eleanor Davis defends against a rampaging alter ego in this comic self-portrait.
Kino School senior uses writing, drawing talents to produce her own comic - 'Tip Top'
By Angela Soto
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
When Eleanor Davis, was a kid, she used to read her mom and dad's comic books. Her favorites were "Little Lulu" and "Popeye."
Today Davis, 18, produces a comic magazine called "Tip Top," and sells it for a dollar.
"I
can draw and I love to write," the Kino School senior says. "So I
decided to put the two together and out came a comic book.''
She
has produced 20, which consist of autobiographical stories, topics she
finds important or, sometimes, she includes other students' work. The
magazine is distributed worldwide.
"Friends
of friends have heard about it and write to me for a subscription," she
says. "It goes as far as New York, Oregon, Mexico and Czechoslovakia."
"She's a wonderful artist," says Mari Elena Eyler, her Spanish teacher. "I am so proud of who she is and what she is doing."
Some
of the work is hard to understand, Davis admits. For example, she drew
a self-portrait of her trampling a city and people running from her.
One
page with eight panels takes two hours to draw. After she draws the
panels in pencil, she goes over it with ink to make the reproduction
better. She cuts and pastes the panels so they copy in the right order,
and about 30 hours later she has a 16-page magazine.
Last year, Davis went to Japan as an exchange student.
"It
was the first art class I ever took. It was painful," she said. "They
have you draw a part of a figure for eight hours. It took me half that
time to draw it and the rest of the time I was so bored."
But
Japan was a great experience. Davis is fluent in Japanese and learned
to appreciate such little things as riding her bike to school.
"In
Japan, kids aren't allowed to drive," she said. "America is such a car
culture." She bikes 18 miles to and from school, because she wants to
live in a beautiful place and save it.
Davis plans to attend Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia and major in sequential art - comic-strip art.
She
puts words on paper with a personal vision. The characters are real, so
when you meet Davis, you'll realize that what comes through on a panel
is her life.
To get a mail subscription to Tip Top, send $1.50 to Tip Top, P.O. Box 42765, Tucson, AZ 85733-2765.
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