Traverse City Record-Eagle

Otsego County

Related Photos

January 16, 2010

Northern People: Comic, and cosmic, calling

Character is from the mind of Gaylord artist

By vanessa Mccray

TRAVERSE CITY -- Kurt Kolka grew up on comics.

Sitting on his father's lap and reading the funnies was a Sunday routine. When he tired of Dick, Jane and Sally, Kolka turned to comics to learn to read. And when a health problem required him to be hospitalized during the sixth grade, Kolka worked on his drawing skills.

"During that period where I was out of school a lot, I had to find something to do to keep me busy during that period, so I started practicing drawing," he said. "I would even draw like the other people in the hospital beds next to me."

Eventually, he was diagnosed and treated for Crohn's disease, which causes intestinal inflammation. When he returned to school, Kolka would fold the pages of his stories into small booklets and hand them out to classmates.

That was self-publishing on the smallest scale and Kolka, now 49, is putting his work out there again. This time, the Gaylord resident printed 3,000 copies of his first comic book "The Cardinal," based on a character he developed for his college newspaper.

"I'm hoping that he'll continue to be brave and put out a No. 2, 3 and 4," said Chris Yambar, a friend and comic writer and artist from Ohio who encouraged Kolka to publish.

The Cardinal was born when Kolka attended Ann Arbor's Concordia University, a Lutheran college whose sports mascot is the red-feathered bird. He wrote a humorous adventure strip for several years for the student paper.

Kolka, who works in the editorial department at the Gaylord Herald Times newspaper, also ran the comic strip in a shopping guide for a few years. In 2007, he started posting weekly Cardinal comics online at www.comicssherpa.com, a practice he continues.

At Yambar's prodding, Kolka took a leap and compiled Cardinal adventures into his first comic book. Its hero is Rich Benton, aka "The Cardinal," a kind-hearted guy who attends a Christian college in the fictional Michigan town of Arbor City. Kolka describes his main character as "kind of sensitive" and not very athletic, but a spiritual person who "wants to make his mark."

"It is through that faith that he has that he feels a calling to become The Cardinal to help out in the city," Kolka said. "It goes back to, 'What's my purpose in this world?' and each of the characters may find it in a different place. Rich Benton finds it in his faith, that driving force."

The result is a comic with a "simple, old-school" sense of heroics, Yambar said.

"It's friendlier than most of the harder-edge superhero stuff being published today," Yambar said. "Where the industry went to more of the gritty and the savage, he kept it more middle of the road and all ages friendly."

The book sells for $3 and is available in Traverse City at Rainbow Bookstore and Top Comics.

"It's just the challenges of creating new stories and new characters that makes doing this so much fun," Kolka said. "I have so many stories in mind."

Text Only