Comic strip artist can’t stop drawing

Bill Watterson was 28 when his “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip took off. So, give Eric Gapstur, 26, a couple more years.

“It's not an option to quit,” says Eric, sitting at the drawing desk in his North Liberty apartment next to a bookshelf stuffed with comic strip books. “I couldn't let myself stop.”

Sure, maybe Eric's “Belle Plaine” didn't win the recent Comic Strip Superstar competition through amazon.com. But, the strip that follows two fifth graders who fight boredom in a small town, made the Top 10.

“I felt pretty good,” Eric says. “There was a lot of crap out there. There's a lot of good stuff out there.”

Told he made the Top 250, Eric was like, “No kidding.”

Told he made the Top 50, Eric was like, “the fact it's not finished is no big deal.”

Told he made the Top 10, Eric was like, “I hoped I had more friends than those other guys.”

Alas, Eric doesn't know how he finished. He respects all comic strip artists, including the winning entry, “Girl,” by Dana Simpson of Kent, Wash. But that doesn't mean he agrees with their style or art work.

“There's a lot to consider,” he says. “That's why it's hard to break in.”

You can see Watterson's influence the two “Belle Plaine” Sunday strip entries. In one, Josh and Collingwood ride in a bathtub. In the other, Collingwood takes a spin around a wet yard on an inner tube towed by a go-cart driven by Josh.

“I definitely don't want people to think it was a slur on a small town,” Eric says about “Belle Plaine.” “It's like a love letter. I really enjoyed growing up there. It was home because I'd moved around so much as a kid.”

Eric, like his characters, was in fifth grade when the family settled in Belle Plaine. After graduating from high school in 2001 he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at Iowa State in 2006.

“I wasn't a great student,” Eric admits, “but I really enjoyed working at the school newspaper.”

He drew a comic strip, editorial cartoons and front page illustrations.

As a stock boy at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Coral Ridge Mall, Eric has time to daydream about new strips. He'll also spend a day writing - he wrote 37 ideas in one day for “A Little Justice,” a strip about a 7-year-old boy who has super powers.

The uncertainty of newspapers, home to the comics, concerns Eric. Then again, he knows the best rise to the top.

“You hear of big papers folding,” Eric says. “Oh, man. It's been my goal for so long. Maybe there's still room to make a living off this stuff.”