Kindersley cartoonist creates his own comic strip

By Joan Janzen

You never know what can happen when you grow up reading comic books. Kindersley resident Andrew Kennedy devoured comic books when he was a kid, and now he’s making his own brand of comic strips.

Andrew and his wife moved to Kindersley, where he was employed last summer. Creating comic strips has been his lifelong hobby, the 29-year-old said, but when the calendar flipped to January 2024, he decided to pursue his passion consistently.

“This is kind of a New Year’s resolution of keeping the passion alive and actually doing something with it rather than doing it sporadically,” he said. “My dad is a cartoonist; he does it for the joy of it. He taught me everything I know. My dad would always be drawing, and I loved that.”

Andrew grew up on a farm near Yorkton with four siblings, but he’s the only kid who pursued his dad’s love of creating comics. “My dad and I used to always read comic books together. He introduced me to comics like Charlie Brown and Calvin & Hobbs,” he recalled. “I used to read comic books for my school book reports cause they didn’t say ‘what kind’ of book I needed to read.”

Father and son would do art together. Starting at the tender age of nine years, Andrew was the student, and his dad was the teacher, critiquing his work. The duo would encourage each other to pursue their passion.

The young artist continued to learn more skills by reading different art books. Today, Andrew sends his newly created comics off to his parents for his dad to critique.

His main comic strip character is named Tracy Fay, who lives with her family in a small town along with her mom and dad. “I wanted the parents engaged in the comics,” he explained. “That’s one thing I didn’t like about the Charlie Brown comics; they didn’t show the aspect of the family.”

His main comic character is based on people who he knew while growing up. “I chose the parts that I really like about those personalities and grafted them into my own main character,” he explained.

The personal goal for his comics is to show how family works together and deals with life in a humorous fashion, overcoming obstacles rather than constantly being annoyed with each other. He wants people of all ages to feel connected to his cartoons.

“I’m going to introduce a gramma figure and a little brother; that’s in the works,” he said. “There will be someone for everyone to relate to. I try to stay clear from getting my inspiration from other people’s comics. I don’t want to do what someone else is doing; I want to put my own flavour into it.”

The captions for his cartoons are inspired by everyday observations. “Something funny will pop in my head while I’m looking outside,” he said. Like seeing a rabbit jumping across the lawn near a snowman, which inspired him to create a comic about an animal stealing the snowman’s carrot nose.

“I enjoy telling stories through the medium of comics because comics can show you something that words can’t,” he concluded.