‘Punch’ comics draw ‘buggy’ at Boxcar

Slideshows revealing a conversation between two friends at a restaurant rolled from a projector as banjo and ukulele theme music played in the background. 

This reading was determined to be different than all the others.

The Punchbuggy Tour, featuring three independent comic book artists, stopped at Boxcar Books on Saturday as part of their two-week journey.

“It’s a poorly concealed excuse to drive around the country,” Ken Dahl, a cartoonist, said. “We’re all part of the same cartoonist club and all jobless enough to go on tour.”

Dahl’s graphic novel “Monsters” is about a man diagnosed with herpes who spends his entire day worrying about it. 

“It’s a barely fictionalized version of possibly true events,” Dahl said.

Each of the three artists on the tour recently released a new book, Steven Stothard, event organizer of Boxcar Books, said.

Stothard said he works for the publishing company that printed their books, and the artists requested stopping in Bloomington as part of the tour.

“We have comic book readings every now and again,” he said. “Boxcar Books operates as a space for things to happen.”

Before the reading, Dahl introduced the three artists, telling the small audience it has been a weird tour so far. The artists did not know how to entertain their listeners, so they brought in the banjo and ukulele as theme music, he said.

“I personally don’t think book readings are fun,” he said. “They’re quiet and kind of awkward. We found ways to amuse ourselves.”

Graduate student Tom Wisdom said he had never attended a comic reading before. He said he had planned on coming, but the deal was sealed when he heard on the radio that there would be a banjo.

“Live multimedia is a great idea,” he said. “They are improvising as they go. They dealt with setbacks by making a thing that is awesome.”

Cartoonist Liz Baillie read excerpts from her graphic novels “My Brain Hurts”  and “Freewheel: Chapter 2.” The excerpt from “Freewheel” is the story of a young girl who stumbled upon a “magical enclave of hobos.”

“I always drew,” Baillie said. “I like telling stories, so naturally comic writing fit. I tried film and writing, but comics fit best.”

Dahl said Baillie shares a studio with the third cartoonist, MK Reed.

Reed said she has been drawing comics for eight or nine years, after a friend gave her a comic book when she asked for a reading recommendation. “Cross Country” was her first popular book, she said.

The tour has about a week left, Baillie said, and will end in their hometown, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dahl said so far Bloomington has gathered the largest audience of the tour, three times larger than other crowds. The publishing company did not publicize the tour, he said, but the flyers that Stothard placed around Bloomington helped advertise the event.

Sophomore Mikel Kjell said he went into the store a few days before and heard about the reading. Kjell said he likes meeting comic book authors and seeing where they get their ideas.

“I like finding out about the intentions of their art,” he said. “At a reading they can explain an idea on why they did this or why they did that.”