Todd Balthazor and the Walker Art Center comic

On three separate occasions I have been employed at the Walker Art Center, the famous modern art gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The best part about working at the Walker Art Center was meeting and interacting with my co-workers. A large majority of these people are creative people, and many are visual artists. It seems you have to have a certain appreciation for modern art if you are going to spend 40 a week staring at it. So it makes sense that many people that work at the Art Museum are artists.

I could spend weeks writing blogs about all the talented people I have met at the Walker and talk about their works. And maybe I should. Today I wanted to start with and highlight the work of friend and co-worker Todd Balthazor. The timing is also relevant because he has just started a weekly web comic called It is what it is to be posted about being a guard at the Walker Art Center on mnartists.org:


It is what it is web comic by Todd Balthazor available on mnartists.org

My first experience working with Todd, was seeing him turn the break room into an art studio. Using his 30 minute breaks to paint, sketch or draw. I knew right then that this guy was good company. I spent many of my breaks doing the same thing, and it was encouraging to have another artist frantically working on projects during their break besides just myself.

Another reason his comic strip struck a cord with me, is that, basically the comic strip is about me. Since we have the same job I understand many of the inside jokes or double meaning of the work. It is all too true and funny.

Even beyond that, I have a strong connection to Todd's web comic because I spent a year making 100 of my own autobiographical web comic in 2009-2010 which often had content about my job as a security guard at the Walker Art Center.

Here is one of the comics I made about the Walker:

You can find all 100 of my web comics on my website

You can see why Todd's web comic project is especially exciting for me. Meanwhile, Todd Balthazor's illustration work is also something people should not miss:


Find lots more at www.toddbalthazor.com

Check out his work, and read the web comic. It will be a lot of fun.

relevant links:
If you enjoy web comics you should also see King of the Pill a web comic adventure about Jasper and his Face of Many Hands.

Check out other blog posts about the Walker Art Center