Jay and his cat, Sedona
MONTAQUE: How do you describe Small Saves?
DEMARCO: I think he’s just a combination of every goalie who loves to stop pucks. Some people ask, ‘Is he you?’ And I say, ‘No, he’s his own little identity. But we seem to do a lot of the same things. So, there’s probably a little bit of me in there too, especially when I was younger.’
MONTAQUE: Yeah, I remember reading on your Wikipedia page that you started playing as a goaltender at five years old.
DEMARCO: Yes, my mom put me on the ice at two to learn how to skate—she was a figure skater.
MONTAQUE: Oh, wow.
DEMARCO: I knew I wanted to be a goalie, but I wasn’t involved in any youth hockey programs. I was gonna be six in a couple of days or whatnot, and started to play street hockey with my friends. I made my own little pads out of couch cushions and got my father’s dress belts and used them to hold up the pads. My parents weren’t too happy because the cushions came from the couch, and they were my father’s dress belts. That’s kind of a Small Saves moment right there.
Then I knocked on people’s doors and said that if they needed a goalie, to let me know. So, that’s how I started.
Jay posing at hockey practice in his “old school” pads
MONTAQUE: It sounds fun to have an experience like that.
Did the comic debut in 1991?
DEMARCO: It did, in a magazine called NHL Faceoff Magazine. It didn’t last too long, but it was a really nice magazine.
MONTAQUE: How long have you been making comics?
DEMARCO: Oh goodness, I was a youngster, copying Charlie Brown and Dennis the Menace and my favourite Family Circus comics. I always gravitated to them. I never gravitated to superheroes, but I did read a little bit of them.
With Dennis the Menace and the Family Circus, their face structure is sort of a little similar to Small Saves because I was so used to drawing them that when I started drawing my own, I unconsciously started drawing the faces as round and whatnot.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, I’m more familiar with Charlie Brown and the Family Circus.
DEMARCO: Yeah, I love them.
MONTAQUE: In 2012, I’d take out the comic strips page from the Toronto Star and I have a bunch of them hanging on my wall. So, I do recognize the similarities between Family Circus and the Small Saves style.
Going back to your history of hockey playing, how do you think that informs your writing and illustration process for your comic making?
DEMARCO: I’ve noticed a lot of people write to me and say, ‘You must really play goal, because you had tape on Small Saves’s stick up by the paddle.’ No one sees it, but some goalies tape about three inches of tape where they hold the stick. It gives a little more grip to it. The experience does translate into the comic strip.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, I think it’s important to have that kind of experience and be able to relate to fans who also notice that.
DEMARCO: My Kristin taught me about football and baseball rules. I didn’t know too much about them, and if I were to try to draw a comic strip, I’d be exposed that I didn’t know what I was doing because I don’t know the game too well.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, I feel that in kind of a reverse way. I went through all of your YouTube videos and read all of the comics on your website, and I feel like I learned so much more hockey vocab from researching different words that you described in the comics.
So, I thought that was very cool to have that experience because I feel like other people reading already have that basis.
DEMARCO: Cool.
MONTAQUE: I watched the video on how you talked about how your life experiences bring you more inspiration for your comics than sitting at your desk for a number of hours. Can you speak more on that?
DEMARCO: Yeah, I hardly ever have any luck writing when I sit down to write. But I keep a notebook, and I can get inspiration anywhere. I’ll be driving, so I’ll pull over into a parking lot and I’ll spend 10 minutes writing the idea down.
I call it clay because it’s not formed yet, but the idea is there. I say, there’s my blueprint, and then I’ve got a bulletin board with ideas stuck to it, and then I can sit down and be able to write.
But the inspiration comes from anywhere, so you have to be ready. Kristin says, ‘Oh, did the muse tap you on the shoulder again?’ Because we’d be watching something, and I’ll say, ‘Oh!’ and I go reach for the pen and paper. ‘She called again, didn’t she?’ ‘Yep!’
MONTAQUE: Having a notebook ready and near you at all times is so important in the creative process because when thinking to yourself, ‘Oh, I’m gonna remember that,’ then later when you’re trying to remember, it’s not there at all.
Can I ask who Kristin is?
DEMARCO: Oh, she’s my fiancée. We met in 2012, and I knew right away she was the one, and that was it. I’m looking forward to the day we officially say I do. She, like a lot of my friends and people in my life, is in the comic strip. She does the narrative for the Small Saves videos. She’s the one who says, ‘What sort of antics are you up to today, Small Saves?’ She’s the little girl in the cartoon strip who wears the glasses and has a big bun in her hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen that character, but that’s her.
MONTAQUE: It’s very cute to include that. What would you say are the most fun and the most challenging aspects of comic making?
DEMARCO: The most fun is the creating.
The challenging part is distribution, especially when you’re self-syndicating. I’ve knocked on so many syndicators’ doors over the years and never got an acceptance.
I had to learn to become my own syndicate. It’s tough to shoot the newspapers today with the internet and everything. It’s a tougher market. That’s the hardest part.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, I’d say, but it must have been nice to have your comics compiled into their assorted books, and having the children’s books as well.
DEMARCO: Oh sure, that’s fun. I like it when I get an email from a fan and they’ll say, ‘My son won’t go to sleep without the book. We have to read it to him every night now.’
One email that really stood out, a mom wrote and said, ‘Thanks a lot, you’ve inspired my daughter.’ And she was eating at the breakfast table, and she had the goalie mask on top of her head because she wanted to look like Small Saves. She wouldn’t have breakfast without the mask on top of her head.
MONTAQUE: Wow, that’s nice, inspiring so many people. That must feel really good.
DEMARCO: It does, it really does.
MONTAQUE: Do you have a favourite Small Saves comic that you’ve drawn?
DEMARCO: Yeah, I do. It was one where he was walking with the girl, Kristin. In the comics strip, I think I call her Audrey, and he’s telling her why goalies never complain about the game. He’s saying, ‘We’re loners, we’re iron men, we don’t complain that we have bruises,’ and he shows her the bruise. ‘Or that we feel really bad, like I do, because I just lost the game,’ and he’s telling her, ‘this is why I’m a loner and we as goalies don’t share our inner thoughts with anybody.’ And at the last panel, she says, ‘Is that why goalies are so tough and need nobody?’ He’s leaning up against her, holding her, and says, ‘Yeah.’ That’s my favourite one.
Jay’s favourite Small Saves comic
MONTAQUE: That’s fun.
DEMARCO: I’ve got a newspaper clipping of it on the other refrigerator. It’s a little faded, but it’s there.
MONTAQUE: Newspaper clippings are the best. Going back to your earlier years in making comics and developing your style and your skills, do you have formal art training, or are you self-taught?
DEMARCO: I went to Bunker Hill Community College, and I got my associate’s degree in graphic art, and I didn’t have the money to go on to college, so I had to go right into the workforce. I became a silkscreen artist, and I did that for over 30 years. I designed t-shirts and everything.
And that was the formal training. I mean, I got the degree, but when a customer comes into a shop and says, we need this for a parade on Saturday, and it’s Thursday, and you’ve got to come up with a design—I’ve learned to draw really fast.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, that’s not right to do that to a person. But going back to when I was watching your videos of when you were drawing out a comic panel. I couldn’t help but appreciate—this feels very minute—but how straight and even your text is when you’re writing, and how it was drawn freehand with no guidelines.
When I watch comic lettering videos, there are so many guidelines, there are so many grids to make everything so even. It felt like you were just casually writing out the text, and it just came out so nicely in every single comic. I was like, oh my gosh, the text is so nice, and that was a big focus for me.
DEMARCO: I have my sixth-grade teacher to thank for that. Not for teaching in the classroom, but because I was always in trouble. So, I was sent to the back of the room with grid paper to write my initials in each grid over and over and over.
MONTAQUE: Wow, that’s really unique. I guess we have you and your teacher to thank for the really beautiful text.
DEMARCO: I loved drawing caricatures as a child, so when I was sitting in the classroom, I would be drawing caricatures of my teachers. My teacher came back from Florida, and he had caught a ten-foot hammerhead shark. They posed with it, they had the beer, and he was all happy.
So, I stayed in at recess, and I drew a caricature. Only, I drew the shark with a beer can in his hand, and had my teacher hanging on the hook. I taped it over the picture, and he didn’t know, so he was teaching the class, and everybody was laughing at him and he’s like, ‘Why is everybody laughing?’ We said, ‘Did you see your picture?’ and they showed him. He knew immediately and said, ‘Jay after school, I want to see you.’ So after school, he explained why I can’t be doing that.
He was a really nice guy. He said, ‘Oh, before you leave, would you sign it for me? Because I’m framing it and someday when you’re famous, I’m gonna tell everybody I had that kid in my class.’
MONTAQUE: I was hoping that’s where it would go because that sounds like a really awesome picture. Did your teacher ever contact you, now that you have a comic?
DEMARCO: No, if I ran into him, though, I’m sure he’d be happy to see me. But you know, with teachers, they see so many students over the years. I mean, I’m sure he must remember me, but it’s so many children.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, that’s fair. What were your initial goals and expectations for the Small Saves comic when you first started making it?
DEMARCO: I desperately wanted to be signed on by a syndicate, so they could distribute the cartoon and whatnot. Small Saves is a focused topic, whereas Charlie Brown and Snoopy are universal. One day they’re playing baseball, the next, they’re listening to Schroeder play the piano, or Snoopy’s flying on the plane. And mine is just hockey. So, the syndicate said it’s too focused.
I was using Small Saves at the beginning as a hook, like a Sunday paper. My goal was to have the cartoon draw them to the website, and they would see everything there, not just the cartoon, but the shirt stand and whatnot. I’d still love to see him with a big syndicate. But it never came to be.
MONTAQUE: It is really tough having a niche because the advice is always, you need to find your niche. But then sometimes it’s too specific, and then that’s not wanted either. So the industry is very picky in that sense, in what feels like an unfair way.
DEMARCO: I did discover, though, when the door opened, there were a ton of goalies and hockey players on the other side, just clamouring for more.
I knew I had something special when a mom wrote me and said, ‘My son is playing over in Europe right now and he’s kind of sad because he has no one to talk to and his career is sort of near the end’—he was an older goalie—and I’d like to get him these books to kind of help him just cope.’ [I just gave them to her,] she mailed them to him, then he came back and said, ‘Oh my god, I love these.’
That goalie ended up playing for the Boston Bruins. He was Tim Thomas.
MONTAQUE: Oh, wow.
DEMARCO: He was a big Small Saves fan. My friend went to a signing wearing a Small Saves shirt, and he stopped the signing and asked, ‘Where’d you get that Small Saves shirt?’ He said, [the cartoonist is my friend.] Tim said, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to meet him,’ and my friend said, ‘Well, he wants to meet you.’ But we never got to meet.
I met his daughter, who said, ‘Can you give me your email address? Here’s mine. Would you send me the cartoon, so I can send it to my dad each week, cause he still wants to follow them.’
That was pretty cool. I knew that I had something special.
MONTAQUE: Making that deep of a connection with someone seems like one of the ideals of having a comic strip. Having it be recognizable, where people can relate to it in such a meaningful way.
DEMARCO: Yeah, it meant a lot. Through his daughter, he said that it helped him through some tough times. I think he was playing in Sweden or something, and he just felt isolated, but he’d read those at night, and it just kind of helped him. Then, we got him in Boston, and he just blossomed and won us a Cup.
MONTAQUE: Wow, that’s nice to influence and help someone like that.
Would you say that your goals for Small Saves have changed over time?
DEMARCO: I’m older now. I used to work part-time at senior care, and now I teach art at senior centers. In the past, I was so goal-driven, but working with seniors, I kind of saw the ending of the story.
So, you really have to stop, step back, and enjoy what you’re doing. Whether one person reads it, no one reads it, or a thousand people read it, you’re doing something that you love, and you’re leaving your mark on the world.
And that’s when I realized, if the money doesn’t come from it, be happy you’re doing something good like this, because a lot of people go through their whole lives and they don’t have a passion or something that they just love doing.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, it’s a really nice sentiment. Last question, even though I feel like you ended with something really really nice, but is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?
DEMARCO: I feel that because Small Saves is very G-rated, family-friendly, I feel like he’s still undiscovered, like he’s not a household name. People will recognize him here and there, but it’s not like if you see Snoopy, everybody knows who Snoopy is, I mean my gosh the whole world knows who Snoopy is. My little guy, not so much.
If Small Saves even got 30 seconds of air time under a national televised hockey game, would that cause an avalanche? Would people say, who is that? Where’d he come from? You know? They say the overnight sensations take about 30 years to get there. And, you know, I think those would be my two goals. So, I mean, just basically a larger market.
MONTAQUE: Yeah, I hope that happens. I feel like with work like this, it’s not about the quality of the work, and for Small Saves, I really love it. From an artistic and writing standpoint, I really do like the characters and the artwork, and obviously the lettering, as I talked about before, but it’s always the marketing aspect and how many people can get their eyes on it that needs to happen before it becomes really big. So, I really hope that happens for this comic because it really does deserve that.
DEMARCO: I have a sister comic strip that I’ve been working off and on for years. And I actually got a written response from a huge syndicate. And the woman wrote, ‘I read your comic strip on a Friday, I’ve been thinking about it all weekend. I just love it.’ It was called Mixed Crayons and dealt with my days working at the community centers, where we have children from all nationalities, religions and races. They all bring their lifestyles with them, and they’d play and get into all sorts of adventures and everything that children do. But she was saying, ‘We can’t sell it, because it’s too wholesome.’
In today’s market, the cartoons are very cutting edge and kind of crass. The humour is over the children’s head, and that’s not my style. I was maybe 20 years too late.
Jay DeMarco’s Mixed Crayons comic
MONTAQUE: Yeah, that’s unfortunate. I feel like if that’s the type of media that people in society like, I feel like your more wholesome comics are exactly what people need to kind of bring back their empathy and their care for other people, because everything’s very violent.
DEMARCO: It is too much. I just keep doing what I love, and that’s why I said, I’ll become my own syndicate and I’ll become my own publisher, and with my experience in silk screening, designing my own t-shirts was a no-brainer. I’ll just do it myself. Like the marching guy with the drum and the horn and the symbols. He’s just doing it all.
“You really have to stop, step back, and enjoy what you’re doing. Whether one person reads it, no one reads it, or a thousand people read it, you’re doing something that you love, and you’re leaving your mark on the world.
Images courtesy of Jay DeMarco
Contact the author: [email protected]
Jay DeMarco with an original Small Saves comic
James DeMarco grew up in Watertown, MA and became a goaltender at a very young age. It’s his life’s passion to stand between the pipes and keep the puck out of the net. Combining this with the love of cartooning, Small Saves emerged in 1991 and took on a life of his own. “To play goal – then come home and draw Small Saves — is my ideal definition of a good day.”
Check out more of Jay’s cartoons and merch at smallsaves.com
