Some people keep journals. A few others, like Chase Gregory, record their lives in picture panels.
The Tufts sophomore has been creating comics since she was about eight years old, and even in real life she's a bit of a cartoon version of herself. She sports her signature combination — glasses and a pair of braids — almost every day. "I trademark myself," Gregory said of her consistency. "It's bizarre and rather perverse."
She explains this aspect of her style with a shrug and a smile, as if Gregory doesn't take herself too seriously. She makes for a plucky star in her autobiographical, visual stories — one who is more than willing to gush about her inner geek and to find humor in everyday situations.
Gregory's current Web comic "T is for the T" is part of a collection of student blogs sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Until college, cartoons were just a hobby for Gregory. But as she began to value cartooning as a legitimate artistic expression, Gregory's friend convinced her to set up a personal blog, chaseinpanels.wordpress.com, to showcase her work. Her blog caught the attention of Assistant Director of Tufts Admissions Daniel Grayson, who offered Gregory a spot on the admissions Web site.
"They basically gave me a creative blank check, so of course I jumped at the chance," Gregory said. She now manages the student blogs for Tufts Admissions in addition to contributing her own comic panels to the collection.
"T is for the T" captures conversations and observations that characterize Gregory's time at Tufts, and cartooning has made her aware of punch lines in everyday dialogue. "It's rare that I have nothing to talk about," Gregory said. "Tufts is quirky, and people laugh a lot, so there's a lot of funny material and a few quiet moments too."
As a self−described "super nerd," Gregory fills most of her time pursuing literary theory and radio — and by telling others how much she loves Tufts. She is an English and American studies major, assistant general manager for WMFO and a tour guide. Professors pop up in her cartoons, as well as radio idol Ira Glass of "This American Life" (though, unfortunately, not in Gregory's real life).
She is a comic artist with academic sensibilities, and it shows. Gregory can intelligently trace the history of comics from the fictional stuff of superheroes to the alternative underground movement of the '60s to the newest wave of autobiographical comics, in which she herself participates. Thanks to her own comic explorations and to a class in the Experimental College called "The Cartoonist in American Society," Gregory spouts off names of influential artists like Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and James Kochalka. Her favorite Web comics include "Hark! A Vagrant" and "Cowbirds in Love." Gregory thinks about storytelling and comics the way she might analyze a film in class, and applies art and literary theory to her own works in order to experiment with the medium.
"I think [cartooning] is really valuable because we don't think in just words or just pictures," Gregory said. "To meld the two makes sense."
Her advisor, Lee Edelman of the English department, read her panels and responded with his own theoretical interpretation and suggestions. "He came from the perspective of someone who's into film," Gregory said. "He pointed out how comics are an interplay of the visual and verbal." The disconnect between words and images is something Gregory says she wants to explore.
Gregory also took inspiration from a friend who was reading art theory and suggested applying a few of those concepts to her cartoons. "He was reading about a movement where people take photographs and impose nonrealistic images on those photographs," Gregory said. "It's an interesting dialogue between the real and abstract." The result for Gregory was a series of cartoons grounded in actual photographs documenting a trip to San Francisco.
While those experiments are often side projects from "T is for the T," Gregory has found that her personal pursuits within cartooning have begun to collide with her work for admissions. "The stuff that I'm doing on my own is turning into the stuff that I'm doing for the Web comic," she said. "It's just another way of expressing what Tufts is."
And what is Tufts for the girl in the glasses and braids?
"Tufts, for me, has been a place where, for some reason, they said, ‘Here are all the resources you need. Go crazy! Do what you want to do all the time,'" Gregory said. "[It's] a place where every activity that I do — the thoughts we think in class, the job I have, the work I do with WMFO — gives me a lot of joy."
Read about Chase Gregory's adventures at tntufts.wordpress.com.
