Talk:Charles Boyce
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I'm Charles Boyce, the creator of Compu-Toon. All the content I recently entered onto your site under my name is owned by me. Some of the content was pulled from an article in the SunTimes Group papers here in Illinois. The reporters who did the write up was Dan Pearson, a contributing writer. If you need more authenticity just email me at computoon1@aol.com. Mary Jekielek Insprucker Daily Herald Correspondent is another source of reference. If you can, add Charles Boyce, cartoonist, to the list of notables from Memphis, TN.
Thanks you, Bobbie J. Williams, MJC (On behalf of Charles Boyce) Marketing Director
View my website at www.compu-toon.com
REFERENCES-------ALL INFORMATION WAS RESEARCHED BY THE REPORTERS AND THEIR NEWSPAPER.
January 25, 2007 By DAN PEARSON Contributor
Finding the humorous and decidedly human side of technology is the primary focus of artist Charles Boyce whose work will be exhibited through Feb. 28 at the Barrington Area Library.
Boyce, a Barrington resident since 2002, is the creator of "Compu-toon," an often hilarious single panel cartoon. The show, entitled "cARToon Exhibit," can be found in the Barrington Area Arts Council's Gallery at the library and offers access to nearly 80 cartoons, both framed and in albums, as well as a selection of Boyce's pen-and-ink and acrylic paintings. ยป Click to enlarge image Simon, a recurring character in the comic strip "Compu-toon," also is the alter ego of the comic's creator, Charles Boyce. The single-panel comic strip shows humorous and human interactions with technology.
The inspiration for "Compu-toon" came about when Boyce was up to his neck in working with technology, he said. From 1994-2000, "Compu-toon" ran weekly in the Chicago Tribune's business section. For the past three years, Boyce, who took an early retirement, has been producing daily panels on the Internet for Universal Press Syndicate including a color panel for Sunday. "I prefer to be where I am now than in print," Boyce said.
Hi-tech humor
Described as "laugh therapy for the PC generation," recent "Compu-toon" examples include an older woman who tries to listen to her first text message on her cell phone, a man who tries to best a U.S.- made lie detector by thinking in a foreign language and the hazards of forgetting one's pin number at a bank's ATM.
"I came at you with the humanistic approach. So if you don't what a computer is about you still get the jokes," said Boyce, whose on-line panels are archived at www.gocomics.com/compu-toon.
One classic "Compu-toon," originally published eight years ago and recently reposted, features the ill-fated attempt of a Mexican aerialist brother act to go wireless.
Born in Olive Branch, Miss. and raised in Memphis, Tenn., Boyce was known to his high school teachers as a doodler.
"All the teachers remember me as a kid who drew on his homework," he said.
Art history
Prior to serving in the U.S. Navy from 1968 to 1973, he attended the Memphis Academy of Art.
While serving as a lithographer stationed in the print shop on the USS Cascade AD-16, an attendant destroyer that patrolled the Mediterranean Sea during the Vietnam War, he created his first comic strip for the USS Cascader, the ship's newspaper.
"I did editorial cartoons and a comic strip called 'Pudgy and JB,' about two sailors. I was a big fan of Bill Mauldin and his World War II characters Willie and Joe," said Boyce.
The budding artist moved to Chicago in 1974 and attended the Chicago Academy of Art and the University of Illinois at Chicago where he studied animation and cinematography.
In 1979 Boyce completed and exhibited a series of 17 pieces in Memphis known as the "Blues Arrangement Exhibit." Examples from that installation to be found in the Barrington Area Library include "Ducks 1" and "Ducks 2," inspired by the famous ducks who come down to the lobby every day at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. Other examples are a portrait of blues singer Leadbelly and a man playing a harmonica.
"Growing up in Memphis, I know some of the famous local people and these are views of what the blues may have been or could have been," Boyce said.
While his first attempts to market his ideas for comic strips like "Winslow, the Bald Eagle" failed to fly, his perseverance has paid off with the success of "Compu-toon" which remains dedicated to people who "go through life working up against or for or with technology and the challenges they face."
Boyce, who hand draws each cartoon, may have taken an early retirement but he still faces a midnight deadline every day.
"We have to change that word because nobody actually retires anymore," he said.
EXHIBIT: BARRINGTON ARTIST SHARES HUMOR
"cARToon Exhibit" from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 28 at the Barrington Area Library, 505 N. Northwest Highway, Barrington. Call the Barrington Area Arts Council at (847) 382-5626. Free admission.
Barrington man's cartooning will make you laugh.(Neighbor) Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Jan 10 , 2007 Byline: Mary Jekielek Insprucker Daily Herald Correspondent
Charles Boyce enjoys making people laugh, especially when it comes to our everyday cyber headaches.
His aspirin of choice -"Compu-toon," a single-panel comic he created that pokes fun at our interaction with technology, which he categorizes as "tech jokes."
At its height, "Compu-toon," launched in 1994 through Tribune Media Services, ran in about 150 newspapers worldwide from 1994 to 1997. Now, he's doing a daily panel for such Web sites as www.gocomics.com, www.compu-toon.com, and www.ucomics.com.
"It's 99 percent Internet users who see it," said Boyce, a Barrington resident. "I get e-mails about it from as far away as Japan and Europe. The e-mails often ask for autographed copies; talk about how cute the cartoon was, or ask how to get started as a cartoonist."
If you want to start the New Year off with a good laugh, you might want to peruse Boyce's works, presented by the Barrington Area Arts Council, while on display at the Barrington Area Library. The cARToon Exhibit boasts 20 pieces.
"Cartoon illustrations are still an art form that someone had to create and so they fit an exhibit mold," said Corryn Hall-Lee, executive director of the Council. "The cartoons are fun and their technique is so interesting."
"I already had some of my favorites framed and ready from smaller exhibits, so I didn't pick any other special pieces for this show," said Boyce, who was a television listing guide coordinator until he retired in 2003.
In addition to "Compu-toon," the cARToon Exhibit features part of Boyce's "Blues Arrangement Exhibit," which was first displayed in 1979 in Tennessee. It includes "Lead Belly," a portrait of the blues singer, and "Harmonica Player," which depicts a blues harmonica player. The Ducks 1 and The Ducks 2 paintings were inspired by a daily routine at Memphis' Peabody Hotel. Staff would parade ducks through the lobby every morning and night.
" 'Blues Arrangement' is scenes about the blues in Memphis from the early turn of the century to now by way of the events I saw or heard of," Boyce said.
"His work is so neat and with the library being a community gallery, we felt people would find it visually appealing," said Hall-Lee.
