Schwartz Jay

Article by Melissa Di Constanzo
29 January 2011
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Jay Schwartz, creator of the Throwayz comic strip, has been drawing since he was 10 years old. Here, he is pictured at his Williamstown workstation.

Jay Schwartz has been drawing since he was 10 years old. He began with textbooks, doodling away at his desk in both elementary and high school. Now, the 38 year old is hoping to take his drawings to the next level. Tucked away in his 100 year old Williamstown farm house is a treasure trove of colours, sketches and collections of words, all gathered at his work station. Doodles, though mostly done by Schwartz’s daughter, Kate, pepper a piece of paper. The wall surrounding the station is lined with colourful drawings and various sketches.

Schwartz creates comics. After completing a three-year graphic design program at St. Lawrence College in 1993 (the program is no longer offered), Schwartz began creating.
“I always wanted to do children’s books,” he explains. “I tried making a go at that.” So he began to draw for a children’s Christmas book. But after the book, which was a joint project between Schwartz and his wife, Erica Taylor, was halfway complete, it was scrapped. “We were told the market was wrong for picture books,” Schwartz explains. “The market was (geared) more towards young adults".

Eventually, Schwartz worked his way up to comics, and started with a single-panel strip. The theme was family-oriented. But Schwartz wanted a little more wiggle-room with his creation. “The first strips just weren’t original enough," he says. “It was a good learning process, but (the family theme) was limited. I found it was limiting, playing off from my family (experiences).” But he counted the experience as a valuable one, despite the number of crumpled up paper balls littering the floor near his work station.

And so, it was back to the drawing board. “I thought it needed something similar to Calvin’s (of Calvin and Hobbes) imagination he says. And pretty soon, he continued sketching in his spare time. It took Schwartz one year to develop and create his latest foray into the comic strip realm: he calls the strip Throwayz. “The characters are bizarre and they live in a scrap yard/garbage dump,” he explains. There are three main characters: a coffee cup, a pineapple and a cat. One is optimistic and conscientious, while the other is what Schawrtz calls " a comfort sponge". The third character is cynically bent on destruction and anarchy. All scavenge for weir and wonderful things, and each differs on opinions.

The comics feature detailed sketches of the three aforementioned characters, plus additional characters. The strip is detailed and shows off Schwartz’s degree of talent: characters are angry, cuddly and expressions are varied. “There are limitless possibilities, to have, them find weird things, says Schwartz. The characters deal with world issues, bigger than me, and they fight it out“.

Taylor chimes in.. “It’s far out,’ she says. “(The comic) is more of who he is. Schwartz says the idea a bit strange: it was, after all, created in the wee hours of the morning in between
his job (Schwartz works as a night milker at a dairy farm) and snippets of spare time. But with a lot of caffeine and spare time, Schwartz says he’s happy with his final product.

On Monday, Jan. 24, Schwartz sent out Throwayz to major syndicates. He’s hoping Throwayz will get picked up. It’s my dream to be published in a newspaper;’ he says. Taylor nods
It’s so frustrating to be so good but not able to make a living out of it" she says.

Schwartz counts three comic strip writers as his inspiration: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, Lynn Johnston, of For Better or For Worse fame, and “Berkeley Breathed, creator of
Bloom County. And one day, he’s hoping to be featured alongside creators such as them. If not in the newspaper, Schwartz is also toying with the idea of creating a comic strip on
the Internet. He offers advice - advice it seems he, himself, took to heart - to hopeful comic strip creators. “Draw what you love to draw,” he says. “The only way to get better is to practice.