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Meet the Instructors:
Guy Gilchrist (Founder and Instructor)
Guy Gilchrist has been an artist and writer of world renown for over two decades. As the writer and illustrator of children's books, his work has won international acclaim and multiple awards. The National Cartoonists Society has nominated Guy for the prestigious Reuben Award in the Best Book Illustrator category three years in a row.
Guy won the award in both 1998 and 1999. As the syndicated cartoonist of Nancy®, Your Angels Speak, Night Lights & Pillow Fights, Mudpie, Screams, The Poetry Guy, The Muppets and The Rock Channel, his work has been shown in both newspapers and museums worldwide, and is permanently enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Guy is a member of the National Cartoonists Society, Artists & Writers, and on the Board of Directors of the Newspaper Features Council.
Michael Ledrich (Instructor)
Michael's homepage and examples of his work are HERE.
 I am currently Teaching painting here at the Academy and working as a freelance Illustrator. In the past I have done product packaging for the dog toy company “Bone Rocket” and promotional posters for the Hudson Valley River Pool Organization. Most recently I have worked for Author Kimberly Johnson and Pentland Publishing N.C on my first children’s book entitled “A day with grandma”.
Raised with my family in Poughkeepsie N.Y I now reside in Simsbury C.T with my fiancé Lisa Sullo. In the spring of 2005 I graduated from the University of Hartford with a BFA in Illustration and I was honored to have won the phone book competition senior year. I am now working on my Masters in Illustration degree @ UHA. I hope to teach college level courses in the future.
George Sellas (Instructor)
George's Anime & Manga Class description and examples of his work are HERE.
 George's first published work came at the age of three. It was a black and
white drawing of a rabbit with a very large head and a Charlie Chaplin-esque
moustache. Don't ask him why the rabbit had a moustache because to this day he
has no idea.
Despite the fact that without his glasses he could only see about four inches in
front of his face, he continued drawing
throughout his childhood and into adulthood. As a child his favorite subjects
were the action-adventure and sci-fi
cartoon characters of the 1980s and his tastes have shifted surprisingly little
in the intervening years. He now enjoys
illustrating scenes from classic adventure fiction and sci-fi novels such as
"The Lost World" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
(As seen at www.georgesellas.com)
George pursued a degree in illustration at Paier College of Art in Connecticut
where he studied under some of the finest
oil painters since the days of the old masters. He quickly learned, however,
that oils were not his strong suit, so he
decided to stick with pencil and pen combined with digital media, which is much
cleaner and far less smelly than
vats of turpentine and linseed oil.
He still gets a huge kick out of being able to create something from nothing and
he hopes that will never change. George contributed to the critically acclaimed instructional book, "HOW TO DRAW THOSE BODACIOUS BAD GIRLS OF COMICS" by Mike Gold and Frank McLaughlin, with his own section on how to draw Manga and Anime. The GGCA is lucky and proud to have George as an Instructor.
Kayleigh Uzdarwin (Councelor and Animation Instructor)
Kayleigh enjoys teaching students how to draw and animate at Guy Gilchrist's Cartoon Summer Camp. Kayleigh's natural talent quickly brought her from student to councelor as she prepares herself for animation school.
Akino Fukawa (Instructor)
Hi, my name is Akino Fukawa. I am a camp councilor who teaches Crafts, Anime, Painting, and Animation with George and Kayleigh. i have been taking Guy's figure drawing classes to build up my college portfolio.
Richard Doak (Apprentice and Assistant Instructor)
 Hi, my name is Richard Doak. I am a graduate of Holyoke Community College With an associate’s degree in visual arts. I will be in the apprentice program until the end of March, and will be returning as a councilor in the summer camp program. Under the instruction of Guy and George I am learning both traditional and digital art techniques. With these skills I will build up a portfolio as I begin my career as a Professional Artist. I’m also having a lot of fun assisting in the after school classes.
Mike Valentine (Advisor & Travelling Professional)
 Mike Valentine, a full time Caricaturist and Illustrator has been entertaining millions since 1975. His commissioned work hangs in corporate and private collections all over the world. From Disneyworld Orlando, to Conventions, to parties, Tradeshows, newspapers and magazines, Mike knows how to create caricatures that sell, and delight. Also a well established cartoonist, Mike's worked in comic books, syndicated cartoons and magazines. "The Flintstones" and other Hanna-Barbera characters, along with his art for Disney are among his most famous works.
Mr. Valentine hosts his own Cable TV Show, "How To Cartoon", and teaches cartooning classes in 8 Connecticut Schools, besides his "Travelling Professional" and Advisory Board status here at the Gilchrist Cartoon Academy.
Frank McLaughlin (Visiting Professional and Senior Advisor)
 Frank McLaughlin is a forty year veteran of the comic-book industry. During his tenure, Frank worked with virtually every major comic-book publisher which included DC, Marvel and Defiant, as well as serving in an editorial capacity for Charlton Comics. While employed by these companies, Frank worked on such well known titles as Superman, Batman, The Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman and many, many more. Frank has also contributed to many newspaper comic strips and has taught cartooning and visual storytelling at "Paier College of Art" in Hamden, Connecticut as well as other schools.
Frank was also the co-developer of "Writing to Read" program, produced for the JHM Corporation through Nova University. "Writing to Read" employed the use of comic-book storytelling to teach and encourage people of all ages to read.
Presently Frank is still teaching at Paier College, does freelance projects and produces art work for the daily comic strip "Gil Thorp" for Tribune Media Services.
Mike Lynch (Visiting Professional)
Mike Lynch is a magazine cartoonist. His clients include *Reader's Digest*, *Playboy*, *The* *Wall Street Journal*, *Harvard Business Review*, TheLadders.com, the New York *Daily News* and many others. He's the National Cartoonists Society national representative. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and cats. In addition to his website, Mike writes the popular Mike Lynch Cartoons blog (http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com) on the business of cartooning.
Richard "Dick" Ayers (Visiting Professional)
 Richard "Dick" Ayers was born in Ossining, New York, in 1924. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, where he published his first comic strip 'Radio Ray' in the Army newspaper Radio Post in 1942. Afterwards he attended the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. Dick Ayers has done much comic work, including penciling, inking, lettering and coloring for most of the major comic publishers, such as Marvel, DC, Timely and Atlas.
Richard Ayers is best known for his work on comics of the gold and silver ages. He has been doing comic books since 1948 when he was assigned to do the Jimmy Durante Comic Book by Magazine Enterprises after he had penciled a couple of stories for the 'Funnyman' comic book by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in late 1947. His most popular work includes drawing for such Marvel Comics as 'The Fantastic Four', 'The Incredible Hulk', 'Sgt. Fury', 'Calico Kid' and 'The Ghost Rider'. He also pencilled, inked and lettered for Charlton Comics in the mid-1950s.
Dick Ayers stayed with M.E. Comics until 1956, having also worked on 'The Avenger'. He switched to the Timely/Atlas/Marvel group, and it was there that he did the most of his production. He started as an inker on 'Human Torch', and penciled and inked 'Rawhide Kid', 'Outlaw Kid', 'Wyatt Earp and Two-Gun Kid', 'Captain America', 'The Hulk' and 'Sgt. Fury' (with John Severin), to name but a few. In the late 1970s and early 80s he also worked freelance on 'Archie' comics.
Richard Ayers also was a teacher at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art and gave classes at the Guggenheim Museum. After a break, he returned to comics in 1996 to do the thriller 'Dr. Wonder', and is still active in the comics field today.
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See photo's from Dick Ayers Lecture & Workshop at the Cartoonist's Academy HERE. |
Herb Trimpe (Visiting Professional)
Herb's homepage and examples of his work are HERE.
 Herb Trimpe is a longtime Marvel artist who is best remembered for his work on 'The Incredible Hulk'. He joined Marvel in 1967, after a year in Vietnam and three years as a student at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. He was hired by Stan Lee as a production assistant. Trimpe worked on several titles for the next three decades, mainly on 'Fantastic Four' and 'The Incredible Hulk'. During the 1970s, he illustrated several Marvel series based on Japanese figures, such as 'Shogun Warriors' and ' Godzilla'. He also pencilled titles like 'Nick Fury', 'The 'Nam' and the 'Transformers-G.I. Joe' cross-over. .
Trimpe's pencil work stood out for its surreal moodiness. Working for Marvel from the late 1960s, Trimpe brought cinematic techniques to his comics as well as a certain "EC touch".
George Wildman (Visiting Professional)
George's homepage and examples of his work are HERE.
 Over the years George has illustrated many of the most famous cartoon
characters in the world. His works have appeared in a long list of publications, examples of these can be seen here in his on-line portfolio. Two of his books became best sellers. He received the ' Best Comic Book Cartoonist in America' Award from the National Cartoonist Society in 1983. His graphic arts career includes - Package Designer, Art Director, Animator, Editor, Cartoonist and Childrens' Book Illustrator.
He cartooned his way to the White House when requested to do a Popeye Easter Egg for the White House Easter Holiday Party. His Popeye Pop-Up Book is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.
"I consider myself blessed being able to make a career out of a natural talent, the ability to create pictures, and illustrate stories for all ages."
Mark Charles Brewer (Chairman of The Professional Advisory Board)
 Mark's homepage and examples of his illustration work are HERE.
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2002 National Cartoonist's Society Best Magazine Illustration Reuben Category Award Winner. |
Catering to his imagination's every whim, while fanatically spattering his fancy onto paper, Mark Brewer has created a flourishing career from what began early on as a bad drawing habit during school hours. This Connecticut native saw his characters first printed in his hometown shoreline newspaper at the age of fifteen. Mark's driven nature lead him early on to become a distinguished brush inker for such comic book publications as Archie, Warner Brother's and Disney. Before finding his whimsically steeped illustration style, Mark worked on some of the most notable syndicated comic strips printed in newspapers today.
Mark’s, "A Beautiful Bike Ride," was awarded second place in an exhibit of humorous art presented by the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators in 2007. In 2005, the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators honored Mark for his piece titled, "Here Comes 'The Sun'," an illustration he produced that was published in the book, Beatles Art, Fantastic New Artwork of the Fab Four(Boxigami Books). In 2002, the National Cartoonists Society honored Mark Brewer with a Best Magazine Illustration Award at the Rueben Awards in Cancun, Mexico. He received this honor from Mad Magazine's own award winning cartoonist, Sergio Aragones. Mark was nominated for this award in 2001 as well. He was awarded by the NEPA (New England Press Association) for best cover art for a newspaper periodical in 2001.
Among Mark's many expressive creations are his colorfully awkward perspectives and high energy creatures of ink which present themselves quite nicely in nationally distributed publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Wine & Spirits, Cricket, Bloomberg Markets, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Mark's focused perseverance and wellspring of creativity has parked his artwork on the cover of Newsweek, The American Conservative, Weekly Reader and Golfstyles magazine among many other publications. His original works and prints are in private collections, galleries and have raised thousands of dollars for numerous charities across the United States.
Mark Brewer's whimsical vision continues to entice art directors, designers and publishers who engage him with exciting new assignments around the world.
Greg Walker (Advisor)
 Born December 17th, 1949 to young, aspiring cartoonist Mort Walker. Now I have my own three kids (Brendan, Andy, & Bonnie). Spent formative years spilling Dad’s ink and asking dumb questions. Absorbed some cartoon knowledge this way and by hanging out with Godfather Dik Browne and many others. Studied liberal arts and journalism at Syracuse University. Worked briefly in film, then commercial photography, newspapers, and graphic arts while writing and drawing comic books (“Rocky & Bullwinkle”, Barney & Betty Rubble, “Sarge Snorkel”, “Beetle Bailey”). Started writing Beetle and Hi & Lois Gags in Early ‘70’s, then lettering, then inking Beetle, as I am still doing today. Co-produced “The Rock Channel” strip with the Gilchrist Brothers and co-produced the “Betty Boop and Friends” strip with my brothers: Brian, Neal, and Morgan.
Brad Gilchrist (Advisor)
Brad has lived in CT for all of his life and is indeed the inspiration for Bill, the main character in Brad¹s local Sunday Sports Feature, CT Fan. Bill, Joe and ³the cat² were created in 1995 (for the Htfd. Whalers Game-night magazines) and joined the Hartford Courant¹s Sunday Sports Page in May of 1997. The many sports figures, broadcasters and teams of CT make up the CT Fan Family. (Brad is no longer a ³long suffering Red Sox fan,² as he was referred to in many previous bios.)
On the subject of Brad¹s cartooning career. . . he began working with his brother, Guy in 1977- the summer after graduating from Avon High School. They created four years of Superkernel Comic books for the Weekly Reader in Middletown and played on the Xerox Softball team there.
Guy and Brad created the Jim Henson¹s Muppets comic strip for King Features Syndicate, which ran in 700 newspapers world-wide from 1981-1986. Brad also created a direct-mail arts and crafts program called, Together Time- for The Creative Learning Institute in Portland, CT. . . which at one time was delivered to 50,000 homes per month.
In 1995, Guy and Brad took over production of Ernie Bushmiller¹s classic comic strip, Nancy®. Guy does all the art and Brad writes the gags.
Brad is currently working with friend and fellow cartoonist, Peter Menice on a new comic strip project called, ³The Green House.² It¹s a comic that deals with issues of ecology and the environment with a humorous undertone. The Green House debuted on the internet on Earth Day, 2005. It¹s world-wide launch is slated for October 3, 2005.
You can read more about it at: http://www.greenhousecomics.com
On the personal side, Brad has a wonderful wife, Bethany, two girls, Jayme & Carly and a multitude of pets. They all continue to be a driving force behind Brad¹s creativity and features. Many of the ideas for Nancy® come from having girls who keep Brad informed and up to date on ³girls stuff.² Brad and Beth have a passion for the environment and conservation issues, and hope that The Green House will be a successful way of bringing the concept of environmental consciousness to a large readership.
Pat Brady (Advisor)
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Brady started submitting strips to newspapers at age 11. He studied art and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1969. Since 1983, he has created the beloved Rose is Rose comic strip for United Feature Syndicate. He lives in the Midwest.
Recently Pat Brady of Rose is Rose won the 2004 National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.
 I was born on December 22, 1951, which makes me, among other things, older than Godzilla, who turns 50 this year. I learned to read from comics at the age of four and have never stopped reading them. Along the way, I started writing to comic-book letter pages, writing for comics fanzines, corresponding with other comics fans and the occasional comics pro, and going to comic-book conventions. Clearly, I was on the road to ruin.
That road led from my then-home of Cleveland, Ohio to New York City and a job as an editorial assistant at Marvel Comics. It was the fall of 1972, and, much to my amazement, I found myself working with Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Sol Brodsky, and so many other legendary comics creators that merely listing them would fill this column and allow me to knock off early today. This, my now-less-cute editors inform me, would be a bad idea.
I did other work-type things before getting into the comics industry, have done them while I was doing comics gigs, and still do them to this day. However, comics has been my chosen profession and, in my 31 years in the field, my titles have included: writer, editor, retailer, distributor, publicist, consultant, lecturer, and columnist. I have been called "America's most-beloved comic-book writer and columnist" (initially by myself, as a joke, but darned if it didn't catch on) and the "granddaddy of online columnists" (by virtue of the thousands of columns I have written for my TONY'S ONLINE TIPS website). I'm trying to get people to think of me as "the guy we send money to for no good reason whatsoever," but that one isn't meeting with wide acceptance. Yet.
I created Black Lightning at DC Comics, co-created Tigra for Marvel Comics, developed Jack Kirby's Satan's Six at Topps Comics, and have written for countless other comic-book titles from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN to YOUNG LOVE. Of course, when I say "countless," what I really mean is that I've never counted them. Math confuses and frightens me.
I was an editor at both Marvel and DC in the 1970s. I owned and operated a comic-book store for over a decade in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, working with Bob Ingersoll, I've published two novels: CAPTAIN AMERICA: LIBERTY'S TORCH and the just-released STAR TREK: THE CASE OF THE COLONIST'S CORPSE. If I can't be known as "the guy people send money to for no good reason whatsoever," I could live with "bestselling author." Hint, hint.
I live in Medina, Ohio with Sainted Wife Barbara and our two wonderful children, 15-year-old Eddie and 12-year-old Kelly.
For the most current information on my availability as a writer, editor, consultant, convention guest, or lecturer, email me at tony@wfcomics.com
Angie Gilchrist (Communications Director)
Angie became involved in the business aspect of Guy's career in 1996, one year after "meeting" Guy at their 20th Avon High School class reunion. Angie schedules Guy's special appearances and programs in and out of the Academy. Guy speaks at schools, libraries, fairs & shows, and also does group programs at the Academy. Angie handles all promotion of the Academy, especially the On -Site lessons at the Academy and the lessons which our Students download from the Gilchrist Cartoonist's Academy Website. She also uploads weekly features such as Your Angels Speak and the illustrated poems from the Night Lights & Pillow Fights feature.
In addition to her work for the Academy, and our websites, She also runs Gilchrist Publishing, the publishing arm of the Gilchrist Features.
When not working, her 16 year old daughter, and her 2 year old Native American Indian Dog, Nitika keep her busy. She enjoys many types of music, eating Extra spicy food and knitting gifts for friends and relatives.
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