I’m a comic fan first, then a comic creator. I grew up on the classics—Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side and excitedly watched as new comics popped up online. I love comic strips and have rows of collections lining my bookshelves. The coolest part of starting my own series has been becoming a member of a cartoonist community that I have always been a huge fan of.  

Throughout my oddly circuitous career, my mission has always been to help clients grow their businesses. Along the way, I’ve come up with some pretty useful insights and innovations. I mixed cartoons (I’m also one of the WSJ cartoonists) with direct marketing and created a new genre that broke many response records. Then I wrote How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, which helped readers drastically improve their sales results (and was named one of the top 64 sales books of all time). And now, How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed adapts nature’s ultimate growth model for business use, to produce explosive, sustainable growth. 

My name is Art Roche and I've been drawing cartoons and comic strips for over twenty-five years. I wish everyone drew comics! Comic strips are an amazing art form that has been around for thousands of years. With a simple pencil, pen, and paper the artist can tell thrilling stories, make hilarious jokes, or illustrate their own diaries. Once you learn the basic mechanics of how comics are designed and built, anyone can begin drawing them regardless of talent level or experience.

I had been an exhibiting painter and an editorial cartoonist for years, but never a graphic book artist. Not until A Revolution in Three Acts. I was fortunate to have great guidance: my buddy David Hajdu (Positively Fourth Street, Lush Life, The Ten Cent Plague) wrote the words, did the research, and created the blueprint of every page and panel. My job was to lock myself up in my studio and draw, draw, draw. I think David and I did justice to three amazing figures of the American stage who dealt with the shifting societal forces of race, femininity, and gender: Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge.  

I’m an Eisner-nominated and award-winning graphic novel and comics writer, editor, and book packager. I've worked on staff at the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Disney Publishing, DC Comics, Nickelodeon Magazine, and Platinum Studios. My sequential art book, The Bramble, won the 2013 Moonbeam Gold Medal for Picture Books, and I created a new way to read comics with BirdCatDog, a 2015 Eisner Awards nominee, that received the 2015 Moonbeam Spirit Award Gold Medal for Imagination, and was chosen by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best children’s books of 2014. SheHeWe, the third book in the series, was a 2016 Eisner Award nominee for Best Publication for Early Readers.

I've been cartooning, or "curtooning," my entire life. As a child, I drew cartoons of everything, from animals to dinosaurs, and was the cartoonist for my elementary school, junior high school, high school, and college newspapers. My cartooning style with big eyes and simple lines came from my favorite cartoonists and their cartoon strips that I read every day in the newspapers. However, my most significant influence was reading every cartoon in Mad Magazine, including comics from Don Martin, Sergio Aragonés, and Al Jaffee. When cable came out with multiple channels in the 1980s, I felt there was not enough kid-friendly content, so I created my award-winning cable show titled It's Curtoon Time.

I’m the author of nearly thirty books for children, ranging from board books to young adult novels. This list combines two of my great loves: animals and early readers. I love animals because they are funny, amazing, and mysterious, and they have brought me so much joy throughout my life. I love early readers because they are small books about big feelings—big problems, big dramas, big adventures. The words may be simple, but there is nothing simple about the emotions in these stories. For beginning readers, these first, short chapter books are the gateway to a lifetime of literary pleasures. Below are a few of my favorites, old and new. 

I love a little humor from romantic trysts or tales of woe of that one love that got away. Divulged conversations and gossip on the therapy couch can be fascinating (massage work relaxes the body and mind). Clients worldwide find choosing their ideal partner a lottery. Inspiration struck me to look more closely at how marriage choices are made through the heart or the mind. We all search for the perfect soul mate. Learning how others met was intriguing by chance or manipulated. Clearly showing, fate did seem to be at play in most cases. I love creating escapism to let your wild romantic dreams be a possibility.

The me of me is a “late in life rider” and freelance writer—with an edge. I learned to ride horses in my ‘40s when we left the wonders of California for sweet tea, okra, and equine “yard art” of Tennessee. Horses and writing mixed to create Horse Sluts. My political bent led me to craft an exposé on the brutal “training” of Big Lick TN Walking Horses. I still ride and explore the more humorous sides of aging and riding. A stickler for "writing worth reading,” I eschew self-conscious, wandering-lost writing. The books I recommended are well crafted.

I've been cartooning, or "curtooning," my entire life. As a child, I drew cartoons of everything, from animals to dinosaurs, and was the cartoonist for my elementary school, junior high school, high school, and college newspapers. My cartooning style with big eyes and simple lines came from my favorite cartoonists and their cartoon strips that I read every day in the newspapers. However, my most significant influence was reading every cartoon in Mad Magazine, including comics from Don Martin, Sergio Aragonés, and Al Jaffee. When cable came out with multiple channels in the 1980s, I felt there was not enough kid-friendly content, so I created my award-winning cable show titled It's Curtoon Time.