The Little General Is Here to Save Us All!

I first “met” Mark Lerer back in 1983, when he was the assistant editor on Marvel Age, and I was a freelancer, contributing to the publication. Well, technically, I didn’t actually meet him, as I didn’t really ever go into the office, but his name kept popping up on my articles as he contributed to the articles that I wrote.

In fact, it wasn’t until 2004 that I finally did meet Mark, we were both attending a book party at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City for the release of Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us about Ourselves and Our Society. Meeting Mark was something of a surprise to me, as I never really quite grasped that he was a real person (I had always thought he was a fake name used to bolster the staff, something that a number a Indy mags I had previously worked on had done).

Needless to say, I was very pleased to discover that I was wrong, and that Mark was an actual person. So, as we had arrived early, we decided to go for a beer and something to eat while we waited.

Mark and I have kept in touch over the years — through Facebook and at comic-related events. Needless to say, when I discovered Mark’s The Little General at a MoCCA show, I was happy to purchase a copy. So, now that he has produced a graphic novel with the little bugger, I couldn’t get my copy fast enough, and I’m truly very glad that I did, as it is fun, engaging, and well cute as a button.

Given all this, I wanted to share how much fun this graphic novel was with all of you. So, here is a brief chat I recently had with Mark as we discussed his unique, and entertaining creation, The Little General:

RJS: Tells us, Mark, what inspired The Little General?

ML: A discovery by a writer named Andrew Coe. He found a photograph of three babies dressed in military officers’ uniforms in a flea market in Sri Lanka (Andy likes to travel a bit). He was so fascinated by this image that he bought it, took it back home, had the photo enlarged into a poster, put it on his business card, and told us all about it.

ML: Andy and I, of course, are big fans of comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and cartooning in general. We decided immediately that having babies as generals of armies would be a great concept for all sorts of satirical cartooning. And so, I went about learning how to draw baby general cartoons, and all these years later, wrote and drew what would become the Little General mini-comics and graphic novel.

RJS: What, if any, is the back story here?

ML: He’s an 18-month-old baby, clearly more precocious than his years, who employs a well-regulated militia and goes by the name of General Dunlately (as in “What have you Dunlately?”). He has a baby arch-rival named Admiral Kips-Bay, and a love interest in an adorable baby Central American guerrilla leader named Chiquita Bañana (with a tilde over the “n”).

RJS: Should we be reading anything into his dictatorial tantrums?

ML: Oh, yeah! Find whatever ironies and allegory that you possibly can.

RJS: He’s cute and all, but who would make a baby a little general?

ML: How do three little babies become important political and military figures? There is no shortage of ways that completely immature people can acquire great power — without exercising great responsibility.

RJS: I know that I acquired a single panel cartoon book of it back in 2011, but what made you decide to do a larger format, continued adventure of it?

ML: In the beginning, I just went mad trying to get down the way the characters would look and coming up with ideas for what kinds of stories they might star in. One version showcased only one of the three baby generals, so I called it “The Little General,” and submitted to Mad magazine. They turned it down (they always sent me the most supportive and wonderful rejection letters, by the way), and later I made a mini-comic of it, which you reviewed in your Is Nothing Sacred? blog.

All that time, I kept working on the longer story, which wound up being 28 pages, and became a graphic novel.

Of course, when Facebook came along, it seemed to be a perfect showcase for the stuff, so I started posting single panel cartoons, with captions like “Our baby general relaxes with one of his favorite maps and wishes that all the world’s problems could solve themselves.”

Then I began doing extended narratives on Facebook (“To Be Continued!”) which I’ve turned into mini-comics and hawked at various venues, including Pete’s Mini-Zine Fest, Forbidden Planet, Jim Hanley’s Universe, and the Yoe Books table at Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) festivals.

RJS: Can we expect to see more Little General comics and stories?

ML: I think so. There’s a lot of comic and dramatic potential in this little feller.

RJS: Are you wicked famous yet?

ML: We’re working on it.

RJS: If not, do you expect to be soon?

ML: The goal is to acquire a sustained readership, but that takes time.

RJS: Where can people get copies of The Little General?

ML: Go to amazon.com for the graphic novel. We’ll soon have a website for all the mini-comics, too. In the meantime, you can check out the Facebook continuities on my Fb photo albums page, and I regularly yell and scream about festivals and shows where I hawk the wares.

RJS: Will you be appearing anywhere and do signings?

ML: We’re doing a whole Little General table at next year’s MoCCA Fest, with comics, graphic novels, buttons, balloons, and other tchotchkes. Should be fun.

RJS: Tell us a little about your process for creating the character and comic.

ML: Lots and lots of sketching. Say I get an idea for the next Facebook cartoon. I fill up sketchbooks, blank books, and even doodles in the margins of newspapers, with drawings of how I want this guy to pose and act.

Then comics the Great Reference Hunt. I learned early on that it always pays to take the time to get good photo reference for what you have to draw. Finally, I start putting the composition together in Photoshop and then work the drawing back and forth until I’ve got a good, well-drawn cartoon panel.

Finally, I write an entertaining caption if it’s needed.

Now, I’ve also started plotting the second graphic novel. The first one I just worked away at, revising, re-drawing, re-writing, and re-working for years until I had a robust, well-plotted, and witty story. I’m indebted to Art Spiegelman and Paul Karasik, who gave me helpful advice on putting the thing together.

This second time around, though, I’m a much more skilled artist and writer, and so coming up with the story is a lot easier. I’m plotting this graphic novel in much the way I do the Facebook cartoons, but this time filling up sketchbooks with written plot outlines as well as drawings.

RJS: Anything else you’d like to add?

ML: I’m indebted in a big way to my wife Susan, who has contributed her tremendous knowledge of book production and promotion to the whole effort, and as well as inestimable patience and support.