JP Coovert is a freelance illustrator and cartoonist living in Northeast Minneapolis. He has illustrated numerous books for kids, most notably the Charlie Joe Jackson series. JP co-runs One Percent Press, a small comics publisher and record label, with Stephen Floyd. He has written, drawn, and published over 40 comics and his ongoing autobiographical series, Simple Routines, just celebrated its ten year anniversary.
Coovert was born in Jacksonville, Florida but moved to Minneapolis 8 years ago when his wife took at job working at Target as a textile designer.
Rift thought it was pretty cool, Coovert had done his strip for ten years straight. So it was great to ask him about how he kept it going and how he became a full time artist.
Rift: When did you start drawing, and when did you know you wanted to do it for a living.
JP: I’ve always drawn, as long as I can remember. It was probably middle of high school when I started taking it seriously, practicing, and it became my main focus.
Rift: Did you think you could make a career out of it, or did you have other career ideas?
JP: Yeah, I went to the Savannah College of Art for undergrad. It’s a very career focused school, so I had the intention of making art, or comics, my job. After SCAD I went to the Center for Cartoon Studies with the hopes of becoming a teacher. I had some amazing professors over the years and thought being a teacher would be the best way I could give back to the comics community. There’s a lot of anxiety, at least for me, that came with being in front of a group of students. I gave up on trying to teach and got a job as a textile designer making t-shirt graphics for little kids. I never thought I’d be working on apparel after spending so much time studying and making comics, but I was happy to have a job illustrating and drawing all day.
Rift: Your cover to your Salad Days comic reminds me of the covers for the Peep Show series by Joe Matt. Do you have comics and artists you that inspired you?
JP: I haven’t read much Joe Matt, but I’m influenced by a lot of his Drawn and Quarterly published peers. I think my clearest influence is probably John Porcellino. I poured over his comic, King-Cat, in my most formative period. There are a thousand other cartoonists who inspire me, though. And I’m lucky to have a lot of friends making rad work too. Of course video games, movies, books, cartoons, music. It all has some effect on my comics.
Rift: Ten years is a long time to be doing a comic regularly, how do you keep it going?
JP: It’s hard to believe I’ve been working on Simple Routines for that long. Because it’s about my life, it’s not hard to keep going from an inspiration perspective. As long as I keep living, there’s always something to write about. Even if it’s just something funny, my dogs did. Creatively, I treat Simple Routines a little differently that my other comics. They are meant to be quick and easy. It’s almost like an exercise, or a way for me to remember that I know how to make comics. I take a lot of shortcuts with Simple Routines, like relying heavily on narration instead of showing action. The comics are meant to be short and to the point, though, because if I spent too much time on them, like my other comics, maybe they would be a lot harder to keep going.
Rift: You also are part of One Percent Press, what are the good and bad things about self-publishing and also putting out other work.
JP: I run One Percent Press with my best bud, Stephen Floyd. There are tons of great things about it. The best is that we get to work together with our friends and put out cool books and records. As a publisher, I think being able to help make something real and tangible that people can hold, and experience is awesome.
The bad part is not having enough time and money to make more stuff and get things out there to more people. There are so many cool projects that people would love to get their hands on, I wish we could do more to make that happen!
Rift: The Twin Cities has a great artist community, has that helped your creative process?
JP: My biggest regret over the last few years is that I haven’t made an effort to be more of a part of the Twin Cities community. There are SO MANY great cartoonists here; it’s crazy. Making comics is such a solitary process that it takes a lot of effort to step away from the drawing table. Since my day job had me working closely with lots of people all the time, I had no energy left to try and collaborate creatively with anyone. Maybe now that I’ve gone full-time freelance, I’ll be a little better at reaching out.
Rift: What other things do you have coming up, new comics or books?
JP: I’m in the process of writing a longer comic at the moment. It’s still very early so I’m not sure how the whole thing will be presented. Of course I’m always working on Simple Routines, which is new every Tuesday and Thursday on SimpleRoutines.com. And I’ve been working on lots of new t-shirt designs, so there’s tons of cool apparel stuff coming out all the time too.
Rift: If you had to give advice or say something about anything at all, what would it be?
JP: Hmm. I would say, instead of giving into cynicism or negative feelings, try and spend time making something cool!
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