GRAPHICS DESIGN

What impact do you hope to have on your students after they leave your class?

To be problem-solvers, rather than problem-makers or hand-ringers (someone who clasps their hands together and says “Oh my god, what can we do?”). I feel like there are three types of people in this world: there are problem-makers, problem-solvers and hand-wringers. The place to be is to be the problem-solver, the person who says “yes” and can plan a solution and get the job done.

What have you learned the most from teaching at JMU?

That the learning process is a two-way street, and that you’ve got to keep yourself connected and you’ve got to keep yourself current or you lose your ability to communicate with the students.

What is your claim to fame?

From a teaching standpoint I guess the fact that I have written and illustrated a number of children’s books [“Neil Buzz, and Mike go to the Moon”, “Godspeed, John Glenn”] and from an in-the-classroom standpoint, many of the classroom demos that I do are actual finished art that will be used for some of these publications. Then on a personal level, I guess I’m the guy with the craziest office on campus … it’s an office full of Batman.

What are some of your hobbies outside of work?

I collect comic books, and that’s a pretty extensive full-time hobby. I also collect movies on DVD. I don’t watch TV; I don’t even have regular broadcast television hooked up in my home theater. I just watch movies. Everyone tells me I should watch “Breaking Bad” and stuff like that, but I just don’t like TV — I like film.

What job would you want if you weren’t a professor?

Well prior to coming to JMU, I was an art director and then creative director for almost 20 years in New York in the ad agency and exhibit design industry, so I’d probably still be doing that.

If you could make sure your students took one thing from your class, what would it be?

That there’s no such thing as the word “no.” Anything a client asks of you, you can do it.

Do you have any other words of advice?

My advice to the students is to squeeze every bit of learning and joy out of this experience, beacuase these four or five years that you are here will be the best time of your life and you need to maximize that.