Drawing Outside the Box:
An Interview with Keith Knight
By Adam Finley

Cartoonist Keith Knight — creator of the often autobiographical strip "The K Chronicles" and the single panel "Th(ink)" — has been toying with the idea of doing a daily strip, something he had been avoiding for some time. His decision was partly based on an encounter with The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder at the San Diego ComicCon this year.

"When I was talking to Aaron about it, he was like: 'Man, they're going to be looking for it so you might as well get in on it.' He said he was sure my work would stand out, which is a really nice compliment," Knight says. "I want to strike while the iron's hot and take advantage of what's there, because the door will close again."

Knight, one of the few black cartoonists on a national scene that's long been Anglocentric, is responsible for "The K Chronicles" and the single panel "Th(ink)."

"There are editors out there that don't understand that something that has black characters in it and a black sensibility can appeal to white people," he says. "They're going to appeal to as many people as possible, and there's more white people than anyone else."

This attitude has long been mirrored by the comics themselves. Charles Schulz introduced Franklin into "Peanuts" in 1968, and though it was a commendable move on Schulz's part, Franklin was distinctly bland and underdeveloped. Decades later, such strips as "Jump Start" and "Curtis" brought blacks onto the page, but it wasn't until the late '90s and McGruder's often controversial "The Boondocks" that blacks — and black cartoonists — gained a more abrasively realistic foothold in the medium.

Knight, 37, grew up near Boston and moved to San Francisco in the early '90s. He received a degree in graphic design from Salem State College in 1990, with the intent of applying his knowledge as a cartoonist.

"At a point it was like, 'I'm going to be a cartoonist. It doesn't matter what you say.' My parents said there was no money in it, and they were right, but it still didn't matter," he laughs. Knight does make a living from the strip, however.

"The K Chronicles" began in 1985 in his college newspaper, the Salem State Log. Later, the strip ran in SF Weekly as a regular feature and continued to branch out to other outlets, including the San Francisco Examiner (until the paper was sold in 2000).

His work has also appeared in Cracked Magazine, Pulse! MH-18, The Funny Times and Dave Eggers' Might Magazine. The K Chronicles currently runs in about 15 publications nationwide.

Despite a sales pitch on the Universal Press Syndicate site offering "comics like 'Baldo' and 'The Boondocks' that appeal to a young, diverse audience in support of your efforts to attract and retain a broad spectrum of readers," Knight says it's still a tough market to break into.

Strangely, Knight has encountered problems with the alternative press, a medium that often boasts of its progressive attitude. His frustration culminated in a "K Chronicles" strip in which an editor for an alternative publication explains to Keith that he loves the strip, but can't run it in his paper because the paper has no black readers. When Keith points out that the editor is white and enjoys the strip, the man replies, "Because I am open-minded."

"If I put something in the paper that's going to make people write in and go 'What the hell?!' isn't that better than putting something in there that people don't even read and don't feel the need to interact with the paper about? With a newspaper, you should be informing and challenging people. I think they lose sight of that, and it's a shame," he says.

While both "The Boondocks" and "The K Chronicles" offer a black perspective, Knight's work has a gentler touch. His drawing style bears a resemblance to that of Mad Magazine margin artist Sergio Aragones, complete with rubbery limbs and wild, misshapen eyeballs. While his work often delves into social and political criticism, its true impact stems from a very simple rule all the best comic strip artists abide by: it's fun to read, and fun to look at.

"I purposely do these things that everyone can relate to and then I'll throw some thing about race in there. So people have bonded with me and then all of a sudden they see something that happens to me that doesn't happen to them. But they don't take it as preaching because they've developed this kind of kinship with the comic," he says.

Knight has courted controversy, sometimes intentionally (a strip in which he smokes crack with God), but sometimes unintentionally. A strip that railed against black church burnings during the late '90s was misconstrued by many to support such activities, due to some unfortunate wording.

"I didn't realize it until I was showing it in this class and a girl pointed out that it could be misinterpreted," he says. Knight changed the strip when it was reprinted in a "K Chronicles" collection.

On Oct. 4 and 5, Knight opened his studio to the public as part of Artspan's San Francisco Open Studios project, which allows artists to interact with the public. He sold several pieces of work, including an animation cel for a nonexistent "K Chronicles" animated special.

"I called one the 'K Chronicles Suicide Special,'" he laughs. "I drew this stuff where you could tell I had just gotten dumped by this girl. I painted it, did the background, and wrote all this official 'production' stuff on it."

Knight's edgier hijinks belie a serious interest in doing his work on a more commercial and accessible scale. He came close to creating an animated series for Nickelodeon, but the deal fell through. Recently, however, he was approached to create some drawings for a series being pitched to Disney created by Jaleel White, or "Urkel" as most of us know him.

"It was actually well-written and I just ran with it. They wanted some pencil sketches and I ended up inking and coloring them and doing them all 'fancy shmancy' and they loved it, they went crazy," he says.

The comics section of the daily newspaper remains essentially the same ("It's like, even if you die you don't lose your spot on the page," Knight says). In the meantime, Africana.com continues to run "Th(ink)", a comic that often reveals some of the subtler injustices dealt to the black community. The first "Th(ink)" collection, titled "Red, White, Black and Blue" will be released in December.

His work has also been recognized by both creators and syndicates. "I had a meeting with someone from Universal Press Syndicate about doing a daily strip, and I was amazed at how many people knew my stuff," he says.

One might think Knight's natural inclination would be to tell the mainstream news media to go to hell, but he knows he has something to offer the world of staid, predictable comics strips. However, Knight is not interested in doing a diluted version of the "K Chronicles." He has an entirely new idea in mind that he's keeping to himself until it can be unveiled to the masses in its finished form.

"I know I can do a daily strip as well as most of the strips [on America's comics pages], which means I know I can do a mediocre daily strip," he laughs, "but I don't want to do that. If I'm going to do it, I want to come out like gangbusters."

E-mail Adam Finley at pumpkinpants@excite.com.