Maintaining, my daily newspaper comic strip, offers a look at life’s peculiarities and absurdities through the eyes of a biracial adolescent named Marcus. Marcus and his best friend Anton maneuver through high school and the world with Marcus as the temperamental, inquisitive explorer and Anton as the slightly cynical, level-headed balance.
I began formulating and sketching ideas for a comic strip that would eventually become Maintaining as a freshman in college. Maintaining ran in the student newspaper for 3 years, won a few national awards, and got me a contract with Universal Press Syndicate. In May 2007, Maintaining became a nationally syndicated comic strip.
Maintaining won the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award for College Cartooning in 2003 and again in 2004. In 2005, Maintaining won the Associated Collegiate Press Award for best college comic strip.
If you’d like to see Maintaining in your local newspaper, be sure to write your news editor and DEMAND that they add Maintaining to their comics page. Everytime a newspaper picks up Maintaining they contribute directly to the Help Nate Pay Off His Student Loans Foundation. A worthy cause indeed.
