Class of 1991
BFA in Art and Design (illustration)
Profession: Cartoonist and Graphic Designer

"As an Alma College undergraduate, I always had only one goal: I wanted to be a cartoonist. And Kent Kirby, Bob Rozier, and Carrie Parks-Kirby helped craft my curriculum to fit that goal.

"My senior thesis was almost completely comprised of cartoons -- mostly political cartoons. The Art Department brought in Bill Day, political cartoonist for the Detroit Free Press at the time -- to help juror the show.

"After the show, Day gave me some great advice about becoming a cartoonist. He advised me to find a small newspaper looking for a newsroom graphic artist. Once I was there, he told me, I could submit cartoons on the side.

"By the end of the year, I was working for The Repository in Canton, Ohio, and doing just that. Fifteen years later, I’m still working for a daily newspaper as a graphic artist. Currently I live in Philadelphia where I work for the Philadelphia Daily News.

"Six years ago, I launched a daily comic strip called “Greystone Inn” (http://www.greystoneinn.net). I self-published it on the Web and self-syndicated it to a number of newspapers. It ran six-days-a-week until July 2005. Immediately after ending “Greystone,” I launched a new daily comic strip called “Evil Inc” (http://www.evil-comic.com), which has run Monday-through-Saturday ever since. It also appears on the Web as well as in some newspapers. “Evil Inc” is about a corporation run for and by super-villains. As of October 2006, when I celebrated posting my 2,000th comic strip on my site, it was being read on the Web by about 90,000 people a day.

"In addition to my daily comic strip, I do a weekly, single-panel comic about love and relationships called “Courting Disaster” (http://www.courting-disaster.com). And earlier this year, I launched a bi-weekly full-page, long-form comic about life in Philadelphia called “Phables” (http://www.phables.com).

"In 2003, I was approached by Adams Media to write a 300-page cartooning tutorial called “The Everything Cartooning Book.” Distributed in bookstores nationwide, it has become a popular reference for cartoonists, selling more in the first four months than the publisher had estimated for the entire year.

"In addition to the “Everything” book, I have self-published five books (a sixth is due out in early 2007). Each is a collection of comics from my different projects. All of these self-published books can be found at http://www.lulu.com/guigar.

"Alma College was exactly the right fit for me. I would have never gotten the tailor-made education at a larger institution. A larger university would have never troubled itself to bring in a editorial cartoonist to juror a senior thesis and give an undergraduate some much-needed career advice. In short, Alma gave me a tremendous boost in achieving my goals. "