- American Elf
Infobox webcomic|
title = American Elf
caption =
author =James Kochalka
url = http://www.americanelf.com/
status = Daily
began = October1998
ended =
genre = Autobiographical
ratings ="American Elf" is a daily online
comic strip diary created by award-winningcartoon istJames Kochalka . [Glenn, Joshua (July 11, 2004). "This American Elf". "The Boston Globe", p. D2.] Manycritic s consider these diary strips to be Kochalka's most significant work. [Murray, Noel (July 28th, 2004). "Interviews: James Kochalka". " [http://www.avclub.com/content/node/24265 The Onion] "]tyle
Each strip usually portrays one event that happened to Kochalka that day. These events are sometimes momentous (such as the birth of a child) and sometimes relatively trivial (such as an entry which concerns eating a slice of
cheese ). Although the strips document real events, Kochalka'sart style deviates from realism. For example, people aren't always represented as people; Kochalka and his wife Amy are elves, and Kochalka's friend Jason is represented as Jason X-12, adog with arobot brain . This is a carryover from Kochalka's long-form works, many of which take place on theMoon in a magical duplicate of Kochalka's hometown ofBurlington, Vermont , and which feature versions of people from his life.Kochalka considers these strips to be an attempt to document the rhythms of his life, and as such refuses to either edit the strips or publish a "best of" collection — according to Kochalka, the value of the strips doesn't lie in any individual strip, but rather in the totality.Fact|date=April 2008
"American Elf" is syndicated online as part of
Webcomics Nation . Thewebcomic version of "American Elf" used to be subscription based and only the daily strip was free to read, the archives only being available to subscribers. Recently the archives were made available to anyone. "American Elf" was used along with "Penny Arcade", "Fetus-X " and "Questionable Content " as an example of comics using the web to create "an explosion of diverse genres and styles" inScott McCloud 's 2006 book "Making Comics" McCloud, Scott (2006). "Making Comics", New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-078094-0. Pg. 227]Books
The "American Elf" strips are collected and published in hardcopy as "The Sketchbook Diaries", "American Elf", and "American Elf Vol 2" by
Top Shelf Productions .References
External links
* [http://www.americanelf.com "American Elf"]
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