January 25, 2008 01:48 pm

Cut and paste version of story Photos Porter keeps a stack of suggestions he’s received via mail and e-mail for future Stick Town cartoons. Wade Coggeshall/Hendricks County Flyer An example of Stick Town, USA Submitted art/Hendricks County Flyer Greg Porter looks over the T-shirts he has of his comic, “Stick Town, USA.” Porter keeps them on the pool table in his North Salem, Ind., home. Wade Coggeshall/Hendricks County Flyer

Editor's notes: 2 photos plus scan of one of the comics

Welcome to Stick Town

Resident turns familiar drawing into successful enterprise.

By Wade Coggeshall
CNHI News Service

NORTH SALEM, Ind. — Probably most of us have drawn the quintessential stick figure, be it during class or on long car rides before the advent of portable video games and TV.
But how many can say they’ve taken such a drawing and copyrighted it?
Greg Porter can. What started as a break room boast has turned into a thriving comic strip.
A pipe fitter by day, Porter has a daily routine of reading newspaper comic strips.
“They just seemed to be getting very lame,” he said about one particular day on his lunch break. “I said I could come up with 50 of them by the end of the week.”
The co-worker he broached this to said he had a cousin who was a cartoonist. Funny ideas, he’s been told, can be difficult to routinely come by.
Undeterred, Porter started drawing stick figures. Sure enough by the end of the first week he had about 50 of them. He called them Stick Town, USA. One depicts the first family of Stick Town and their new addition (“From now on, he will be known as ‘Walking Stick’”). Another illustrates a robbery (“Is this a stick up?”).
“It’s based on the idea they’re all skinny stick people,” Porter said. “They’re not wooden people. They all live in this town and don’t think they’re any different, but they are.”
This was a couple years ago. Once he set his mind to it, Porter couldn’t stop. Pretty soon he had Stick Town drawings everywhere in his residence.
“If you would’ve walked into my house (at the time), you would’ve thought I lost my mind,” Porter said.
A friend suggested he copyright them, so Porter sent them into the United States Copyright Office. Months later he got his certificate of registration.
“What’s funny to me is you go to the Library of Congress, and under visual arts it just says ‘stick figures,’” Porter said. “But I got it back, and it is a registered comic book. It just cracks me up someone spent six months of their career researching stick figures to make sure it wasn’t copyrighted by someone else.”
But Stick Town remained Porter’s own distraction. It wasn’t until his girlfriend took some of his drawings to a print shop to get T-shirts made and signed him up for a booth at a Christmastime craft fair that the idea went public.
At the fair, Porter said, “I walked in with my book of stick figures and four T-shirt designs, and set them up on a card table next to the woman who spent weeks making wreaths for Christmas, and on the other side is this woman who makes candles, and I really thought man, this is not for me.”
Maybe Stick Town isn’t your typical craft fare, but it proved to be quite popular. Porter sold $300 worth of shirts in three hours. Those of us who’ve drawn such a crude creation before should be kicking ourselves right about now.
“Everybody tells me the same thing: It’s the simple ideas that sell,” Porter said.
He added what contributes to Stick Town’s popularity is that he puts the stick people in various scenes. Some have included the doctor’s office, a bar, and the county fair.
“That way people can better relate to them,” Porter said. “It’s never-ending. You can put them in any situation. That’s what a lot of people like about it.”
The T-shirts continue to be a hot seller, and can be ordered online at www.sticktownusa.com. With its success has come a fan base with its own suggestions for scenes from the fictional community.
“It blows my mind how many people send me ideas,” Porter said. “I have a stack of ideas that have come in the mail and through e-mail. I know mine are dumb and silly, but man, some of them I get are really crazy.”
But Porter would like to move beyond shirts and onto those cherished funny pages one day. He’s pitched the comic to various syndicates while he continues to refine it.
There’s no moral or message to Stick Town.
“It’s just pure fun, pure silly,” Porter said. “I definitely don’t see the world through stick people.”
Nor does he consider himself an artist.
“I always call myself the ‘creator’ of Stick Town.”

Wade Coggeshall writes for the Hendricks County Flyer in Avon, Ind.