Mark Monlux is an award winning freelance illustrator and cartoonist. A northwest native, he has called Tacoma home for the last 16 years. After graduating with a B.A. in Graphic Art from Central Washington University in 1985 Mark entered the freelance market initially as a broad-spectrum designer. But, as more and more clients requested is drawings, he focused solely on being an illustrator. Working mainly in the fields of advertising and published his just a few names from his long history of clientele includes Microsoft, Carnation, Workman Publishing, Eating Well Magazine, Kimberly Clark, Hewlett Packard, Alaska Airlines, Reynolds and Reynolds, Toronto Dominion, Coldwell Banker, March of Dimes, Washington Mutual, and a host of agency design groups.

Recently, the Tacoma Sun sat down at the computer and asked him a few questions.

[Sun] First off, a geek question: your stuff looks too good to be purely digital. How do you do it?

[Monlux] Currently, I start with pencil sketches. Those are faxed for approval. I then do pen and ink. The pen and ink is scanned in at a high resolution, colored in Photoshop and then provided to the client as a for placement file. For a number of years I constructed my illustration in Illustrator as vector drawings. I still do that, but only when the demands of the project call for it.

[Sun] Did you ever imagine that you could make a career out of cartooning?
[Monlux] I knew very early on in life (age 4) that I was going to become what was then termed a “commercial artist”. I could always draw, but it wasn’t until after a few years as a freelance designer that I made the decision to do strictly illustration. And it was a number of years after that before I decided to focus in on the cartoon style which I find I love to do the most.

[Sun] Who were your inspirations?
[Monlux] Graham Wilson was a huge influence on me.

[Sun] How has the web impacted the quality and quantity of your work?
[Monlux] The web had a huge affect on the illustration market. Most of it negative. With royalty free and free clip art available at the click of a button the amount of work has gone down hill drastically from the time when I first entered the market.

[Sun] Any advice for any aspiring Illustrator Extraordinaires out there?
[Monlux] Be aware of the true value your art has in the marketplace. While it’s true that demand for illustration lowered, that does not mean the value of it has lowered. The key these days is to target and connect with clients who are looking for dynamic images that are tailored to them, and not just the random schlock you find on the web that everyone else and their grandmother is using.

Image credit: Art Director: Tony Ulwick, CEO Strategyn; Client: Strategyn

[Sun] As an Illustrator Extraordinaire, I’m sure you could live and work anywhere. What brought you to Tacoma and what keeps you here?
[Monlux] I moved here some 17 years ago when my wife and I decided to buy a house. The prices in Seattle were starting their first surge then. We wanted an older house with a large yard. Our search spiraled out until we found the perfect Victorian here in Tacoma. I’d just shifted my business structure to where I was doing everything by fax, modem and courier. I got myself an 800 number and sent that to clients. I never bothered to tell anyone that I was moving and lost none of my clients when I did. In fact, the process opened my thinking and I started to take on national clients, and then international clients. We are very happy with our move. I live in the Fern Hill District which has a very Mayberry feel to it. An alley runs behind my house and it is the artery of the neighborhood. Everyone visits everyone else in the garages and porches and I know all my neighbors very well.

[Sun] The ability to hold a pen or pencil with a critical eye or witty thought seems to be a fading art form. What is your hope for the future of illustrating?
[Monlux] That people will once again become demanding in what is offered up to them. If you look back at the advertising that occurred in the 60′s and 70′s
folks were very critical of what was set before them. Currently our culture is being very open to anything that appears, whenever it appear. This acceptance of the random was brought about by the internet. Folks learned how to surf, and it’s fun to do, just not very productive. Now folks are learning how to use search features to be a bit more efficient. As response the internet is building features which use your past searches to create ‘intuitive’ recommendations. I belive that as the internet grows in this direction, the average joe will once again become more discriminating about what they want offered up to them. The artist who foresee this trend, and design their presence on the web to be tuned to this trend will have a distinct advantage.

[Sun] Is it just me, or do the comics in today’s daily papers really suck?
[Monlux] With the internet the amount of web comics have shot through the roof. Many web comics do not have to be as tame or conventional as syndicated comics that fill the newspaper. Because they tap into a different revenue stream they’re not required to edit down into something that is widely palatable.

I look forward each day to opening up my email and my blog reader to read all the strips I’ve subscribed. I agree, there is a lot of bad comics out there. But, only because there are more comics. I keep hunting down and adding the ones I think are the cream. I also like to find cartoonists who are trying new and different things. Watching them improve with each strip is just as entertaining for me as the amusement of the strip itself. I’m developing a couple web comics myself, “The Comic Critic” which is a movie review in cartoon form, and “The Return of Stickman”. Both of my cartoons are anti mainstream. In The Comic Critic I use no consistent characters, this breaks the silent rule of having five core identifiable characters in a strip. In The Return of Stickman, all the characters are stick figures and sometimes the only difference between them is their names. Oh, and stickman is usually stuck in a cubical behind a desk. It’s my way of poking fun at strips that constantly use no background and just have a shelf or above the waist shot of their characters. When I see a strip like that I add it to my blog reader list.

Image credit: Art Director: Ron Pullium, Nautilus Design; Client: Flex-a-lite

[Sun] It seems like the best cartoonists are either slightly crazed or get burned out (Robert Crumb, Gary Larson, Berkeley Breathed, Garry Trudeau). How do you keep from going crazy or getting burned out?[Monlux] For a number of years I wouldn’t draw except during business hours. I wanted to be paid for every line I drew. But, the I decided to try something for a year. I bought a bunch of sketchbooks, of all sizes, and I put one in every room of the house, one in the car, and even a small one for my pocket for when I went out. I then drew in them constantly. I wanted to see if the faucet really would run dry, which was a big fear of mine. I did not place any limits on what I drew. I told myself not to care about the quality, or the ideas, just to let it stream out. To my joy and surprise the faucet never ran dry. Instead it flowed even stronger. Ideas, concepts, and gratification came faster and grew better. Sure I still drew a turd every now and then. But, it didn’t strike me negatively like it did before. Now don’t get me wrong, I still like and demand to get paid for the value of my work. If during my doodling I come up with something that I can license, that great. Certainly my client’s have taken note of how much more productive and resourceful I’ve become.

[Sun] Do you ever get “illustrators block”? What do you do to break through?
[Monlux] Drawing more and keeping the flow open is a long term solution. But, there are days when I get totally blocked. When that happens I try to get out of my head. Usually a walk will do it. If not I will read a short story or book and temporarily spend my time crawling into someone else’s head. By the time I get back to my own, the furniture looks like it’s been moved around.

[Sun] Can we expect to see you at a Frost Park Chalk Off sometime?
[Monlux] Yes. I keep planning on going but life interferes. Either I’m flying in or out of town, having the car die on me, have a crushing deadline, or like this Friday, I’m picking up my nephew to attend the Emerald City Comiccon. But, I do plan on making it one of these days. And I will dominate and lay low my competition.

[Sun] What is a question you’ve always wanted to be asked?
[Monlux] Would you like to draw an illustrated history of zombies in the cinema? Yeah, I’d really like to do that. In fact, I think I will start working on my first draft.

[Sun] GREAT! We look forward to seeing it. Thanks for taking time out to chat with us!

If you would like to see more of Mark’s work, check out his website and blog at: www.markmonlux.com

Recently, I came across a website that caught my attention because it touched on two favorite obsessions of mine: wine and Tacoma. The Wine Economist is a book in the works website by Michael Veseth, Professor of International Political Economy at UPS. Why would an Economics Professor at a small local private college be writing about wine, something near and dear to my heart? Intrigued, I had to learn more.

Sun: Please give us a little background on yourself.

Veseth: I’m a native Tacoman – high school at Lincoln and college at UPS, where I teach today.  I’ve studied, taught, lectured, lived and traveled across the U.S. and around the world, but I always come back to Tacoma.  It’s home.

I love teaching at the University of Puget Sound because the students are great and my colleagues are supportive. UPS is a place that has changed with the times (it was CPS when I was growing up here) but has always somehow managed to be just what students need at each particular moment. I like the University’s ability to adapt and grow combined with its steadfast commitment to achievement, intellectual integrity and the development of students as complete human beings.  I see my work with students at UPS as a way to continue the tradition of the great high school and college teachers who helped me so much.

Sun: I love the topic of the new book. It could have been coffee, cheese… or hamburgers, why did you choose wine?

Veseth: You are exactly right. Globalization and global market forces are all around us and all we really have to do is to look closely at our own lives to learn something about how the personal and local connects us to grand global forces.  I could write about almost anything and it would teach me something about globalization and the global/local connection.  In fact I have written about hamburgers and coffee, basketball and soccer, and the used clothes that you give to Goodwill and found something interesting and unique in each case.

I’m writing about wine now for a number of reasons.  First, a lot of people are interested in wine and so I can reach them and maybe teach them better through wine than I could writing about global interest rate spreads and covered interest arbitrage.  More importantly, a close examination of the wine market reveals a number of contradictory stories and I am deeply interested in trying to reconcile simplified dominant narratives of globalization (such as the McDonaldization theory) with the complex reality I find all around me. 

You have only to spend a few minutes in the wine aisle of your local supermarket to appreciate some of globalization’s effects.  The wine department at Tacoma Boys on 6^th Avenue has more than 3000 different wines from about 30 different countries. Washington wines, however, are the largest single group on the shelves; global choice hasn’t crowded out local producers so much as it has created a larger market for their products.  The variety and diversity of choice is amazing and the questions that are raised – who produced these wines, how, and how did they get here – are endless.  Globalization is there in your wineglass, I like to say.  Drink up!

I can’t deny that I find wine research pleasant, too, especially since so many of my former students are active in the wine industry in one way or another.  My wine research has given me the opportunity to reconnect with former students and to change places with them.  Now they are teaching me about their particular businesses just as I once taught them as students.  Who wouldn’t enjoy an opportunity like that?

Sun: What are some opportunities, and challenges, you see around the corner for our homegrown wine industry?

Veseth: I write about Washington wine frequently on my blog The Wine Economist (wineeconomist.wordpress.com) and in fact I’m helping to organize an international conference of wine economists that will be meeting in Portland in August to discuss the Pacific Northwest industry among other things. 

The Washington wine industry is in extremely good position for the opportunities that lie ahead.  The dominant winemaker, Chateau Ste. Michelle, has achieved national and even international distribution and its success has uncorked opportunities for Washington wine in general.  Washington is one of only two important wine regions that I can think of (New Zealand is the other) that does not compete in the low cost commodity wine market (Two Buck Chuck drinkers, you know what I mean).  Most wine regions sell both commodity and quality wine.  Washington has benefited from a strong focus on premium and super-premium wine at a time when these are the fastest growing global market sectors.

That said, I think Washington wines still have trouble breaking into new markets because of a lack of a distinct regional identity.  What does it mean to be a Washington wine?  This is a liability as the wine shelves of the world become even more crowded and consumers search for a reason to buy one bottle instead of another.  The Washington “brand” needs strengthening.

Sun: Wow! I had no idea there was even a title of wine economist! Do you have any idea how many there are in the world?

Veseth: The American Association of Wine Economists has several hundred members, I understand, and there are a lot  more of us around the world.  I’m helping the association organize a conference in Portland in August and I guess they expect about 300 people to attend from the US, Europe and Australia and maybe other places too.  http://www.wine-economics.org/  The email list for conference announcements has about 4000 names, I’m told, but I think that includes both academic and industry people and perhaps food economists, too.  So I don’t have a solid number for  you, but it is a surprisingly large group given the narrow (but deeply interesting) topic.   Wine economics is very important.  The famous Master of Wine examination is 1/3 about the economics of wine, 1/3 about its history and geography and 1/3 about sensory analysis of wine.

Sun: I’m a budding winemaker with dreams of starting my own wine empire. I read that the number of Washington wineries has increased 400% over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, wine consumption is only growing at something like 4%. What do you think of this? Should I quit now while I’m ahead?

Veseth: It depends on what you hope to achieve.  I have written that consolidation in the wine market seems to be producing a “missing middle” effect.  Big winemakers are successful because of economies of scale in marketing branded goods and in distribution. 

Small winemakers (one or two thousand cases) can still be quite successful if their wines are good because they can internalize labor costs (friends and family) and handle distribution personally through direct “cellar door” sales.  This business model keeps out of pocket costs low and allows a higher yield on sales.  Higher wine volumes (middle-sized wineries) mean substantial labor costs and the necessity to accept bigger discounts to get your wines into the distributor system.  This makes it problematic to make the middle work.  It can work, but it’s a different business model.

There are good opportunities for small scale wineries, especially if you take the time to get training on the business side as well as in winemaking.  The community college in Walla Walla offers good one-day seminars to help you understand the economics of your operations and how to meet the many regulatory requirements on production and sales, especially inter-state sales. 

The Carlton Winemakers Studio in Carlton, Oregon is an interesting experiment in filling the missing middle of the wine market.  It is something like a wine cooperative where several smaller winemakers share facilities and start up or grow bigger without taking huge risks.  I am cautiously optimistic that it is a model that can be reproduced elsewhere.  Maybe you should be thinking about a wine cooperative in Tacoma rather than going it alone?

There are a several boutique wineries in the South Sound area – more than most people imagine.  They are invisible to us for the most part because of the very local and personal nature of their production and distribution. You have to seek them out because they don’t have tasting rooms with parking for tour buses and they don’t necessarily appear on the published wine maps.  But they are there.   If you want to see “cottage industries” like these you have to look very closely around you and train your eyes to see what you don’t expect rather than what you know you’ll find. This is harder than it sounds, but it pays off.

Sun: In you’re previous book, Globaloney, you explored myths about globalization and that “all globalization is local”. Should Tacoma get out of the Port business and into something else? Are we putting all our eggs in one basket?

Veseth: International trade created Tacoma and sustains it today, so I am a big fan of the Port of Tacoma. I edited a book for the New York Times a few years ago as part of their “Twentieth Century in Review” series.  They gave me 100 years of everything published in the New York Times  - news stories, photographs, editorials, book reviews, obituaries, the works.  My challenge was to tell the story of the rise and fall and rise again of the global economy through, as it turned out, more than 400 articles and about 150 images.  When I went looking for stories about globalization in the pre-World War I era I was not surprised to find Tacoma in the center of it.  The most important stories about trade with Japan and China were published with a Tacoma, Washington dateline.  Interestingly, these stories reflected the same combination of optimism and anxiety that we find in discussion of international trade today.

Sun: What do you love about Tacoma?

Veseth: I love the neighbors and the neighborhoods.  I grew up in the South End and I loved the sense of community I found there.  I go back to the Lincoln International District a lot and I take out-of-town students there so that they can get a feel for how diverse Tacoma really is.  I live near UPS now because I like being able to see my students, former students and co-workers every day on the street, in the shops and at the library.

And I like being less than an hour away from Seattle, the mountains or Hood Canal.  Tacoma’s the center of the world… my world, anyway.