Wine shop owner/cartoonist draws attention with new strip
William Wilson doesn’t seem to have a lot of free time.
The dad of a newborn son runs a gourmet wine and cheese shop in Jamestown, R.I., where his wife, Isis, also operates a bakery. But it’s his other job as a cartoonist that is gaining him attention outside of his seaside city of fewer than 6,000 souls. His “Wallace the Brave” comic strip, which he pens under the name of Will Henry, is now in more than 100 newspapers across the U.S., including The Houston Chronicle, where it begins today, replacing “Dustin.” The first book of “Wallace the Brave” cartoons, simply titled “Wallace the Brave,” was published last fall.
Wilson says it’s not quite as hectic as it sounds.
“I bought (the wine shop) with the intention of knowing that it gave me a little more freedom in my schedule to draw cartoons,” Wilson said in a phone interview. “The liquor store is in a small town in Rhode Island where 80 percent of our business is in two months. The winters are pretty darn slow … I do the bulk of my cartooning in the winter.”
It helps that “Wallace the Brave” closely mirrors his experiences.
Set in the quiet waterfront town of Snug Harbor, the strip illustrates the sometimes strange adventures of a young boy named Wallace, his odd
best friend Spud and new-intown Amelia. It’s a bit of a throwback to the days when the concerns of childhood centered more on sea shells and space ships than smartphones, to a world where the echoes of early “Peanuts” or “Calvin & Hobbes” can be heard in the distance. But Wilson says he wanted “Wallace” to be happier.
“When I was reading comics as a kid, I hated that Charlie Brown was kind of like a loser and a downer,” Wilson said. “It always kind of bugged me. … In the back of my mind, I always thought that there would be a comic that better reflected what I was used to … a regular upbringing. I make it as personal as possible because I think that’s where you get the nuances like the strange things that happen. That’s kind of what I was going for, make it personal about me, and, hopefully, that way, bridge into something interesting.”
More than ‘Ordinary’
“Wallace the Brave” isn’t Wilson’s first stab at a daily cartoon. Several years ago, he launched “Ordinary Bill,” a strip he started right after his time at the University of Connecticut. It was based around the life of a young single man and his girlfriend who were stand-ins for Wilson and Isis, who was then his girlfriend. It appeared online and in only a couple of Rhode Island newspapers.
“It was a little more PG-13,” Wilson said of the difference between the two projects. “It wasn’t newspaper, comic-strip subject matter.”
He drew it for seven years and felt it had run its course.
“It got stagnant,” he said. “It didn’t have a good foundation. The ideas were really hard at the end of the day.”
Around 2014, after some self-reflection, he came up with “Wallace.” “The two main characters are sort of my two personalities just kind of split up and magnified,” he said.
He started writing “Wallace” in 2015 and, at first, was only doing it for pleasure, not sure he wanted to exert the effort it takes to get picked up by a syndication service that would distribute the strip to major newspapers.
“After ‘Ordinary Bill,’ I thought, ‘Well, if it doesn’t happen to me, I’ll just draw a cartoon because I have to be happy with what I do for myself.’ But my wife really liked ‘Wallace,’ and I don’t want to say she demanded but she was very persuasive that I send them to the syndicates for review, even though that wasn’t something that I really wanted to do. And they responded to it.”
Wilson thinks “Wallace” resonates with readers in a much deeper way than “Ordinary Bill” ever did.
“I think they just see some of their own childhood,” he said.
The cartoon Oscars
Wilson can thank his wife that, not only have syndicators and papers taken to “Wallace the Brave,” but so have the arbiters of animated literature who hand out the Eisner Awards, the so-called “Oscars of the comic-book industry.” In April it was announced that the “Wallace the Brave” book had been nominated in the best humor publication and best publication for kids ages 9-12 categories. The winners will be announced July 20 at San Diego Comic-Con.
“I’m kind of pumped that it was nominated for two Eisner Awards,” he said, then laughed. “I don’t know what they are, but someone cares.”
As for what’s next, he doesn’t want to look too far down the road, though he thinks turning “Wallace the Brave” into a television special or series might work.
“In the darkest corner of my mind, where I don’t let anybody go, I absolutely think so,” he said with a laugh. “But that’s not the focus.”