When Jeffrey Koterba was six, he started drawing his first cartoons, painstakingly copying from the Sunday Omaha World Herald’s funny papers and making up his own characters. With a pen and a sheet of white paper, he was able to escape into a clean, expansive, and comfortable refuge from the pandemonium surrounding him. The tiny house Koterba grew up in was full-to-bursting with garage-sale treasures and televisions his father repaired and sold for extra money. A hard-drinking one-time jazz drummer, whose big dreams never seemed to come true, Koterba’s father was subject to violent facial tics, symptoms of Tourettes Syndrome, a condition Jeffrey inherited. From the canyons of broken electronics, the lightning strikes, screaming matches, and discouragements great and small, emerged a young man determined to follow his creative spirit. Inklings is an exuberant heart-felt memoir infused with an irresistible optimism all it’s own.
You can see some of Koterba's favorite cartoons, read his blog, and more at his website. He'll be at the University Bookstore on Nov. 10 at 7:00 p.m. for a reading and signing.
