“The teacher in Chalkdust, Mr. Phillips, was actually the main character of the comic strip I created for my college newspaper,” Bruce shares with Bored Panda. After graduation, he started another comic featuring students like Grant, Lightbulb, and Molly. “That comic wasn’t really coming together for me,” he admits, “but I realized they needed a straight man to play off of. Mr. Phillips—who was known in my college strip as Jake—fit that role perfectly.”
Bringing them all together under one school roof made sense, and Chalkdust was born. Despite the academic setting, Bruce doesn’t draw from classroom experience. “The gags and storylines don’t come from front-line experience in the classroom. Instead, I let the characters dictate the story.” The current arc, titled Voter Turnout, was sparked by a simple question: “What kind of chaos would ensue if they had to hold an election?” From there, the cast took over, and the plot practically wrote itself.
What makes Chalkdust so relatable, then? It might be Bruce’s knack for channeling the universal chaos of group dynamics through expressive, mismatched personalities. “Once the ball got rolling, it felt less like I was writing the series and more like I was letting the characters tell me what they wanted to say,” he explained.
Even educators have taken notice. “I’ve heard from teachers who’ve read the strip, and while they get a chuckle from the outrageous shenanigans in the comic, they tell me some real-life stories that rival anything I can come up with,” the artist told us. At the end of the day, he hopes Chalkdust brings a little joy to readers, whether you’re teaching a class, sitting in one, or just glad to have made it out.
