[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] - Hello and welcome to "Comic Culture."

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

Today on my show, we have three guests who are going to be talking about an organization called Drawn to Help.

Joining me is Steve Barr, Al Bigley, and Greg Cravens.

So gentlemen, welcome to "Comic Culture."

- Thanks for having [audio breaks].

- So Steve, I think we'll start with you as the organizer, the founder of this group.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about what Drawn To Help does?

- Well, Drawn to Help takes cartoonists, comic book artists, and children's book illustrators to visit children in hospitals.

We're practicing what's known as pleasant distraction where we help the children forget about what they're going through for a little while.

Studies have actually shown that creative activities, like drawing, can reduce pain and reduce stress, and we just want the kids to be able to feel normal and have a good time.

And so, we take our volunteers to various hospitals, and we give them free drawing lessons, and we give them the packet of art supplies they get to keep so they can keep feeling the healing power afterwards.

And in the last couple of years, we've also started giving them autographed books.

It makes 'em feel really special when the author or illustrator sends them something like this that's personalized.

And pretty much, we go to hospitals in person when we can.

We also go to camps treating children with cancer and other really serious medical challenges.

Al does a lot of that with me.

We are using technology now.

With the pandemic, we were a little bit limited in personal visits and so we went to technology, and we do broadcasts, which Greg does a lot of those for the kids in Memphis, and it's amazing what he does.

And, as part of what we've worked on, this is part of our use of digital technology, but we created these little flash drives, shaped like pencils, and they're on on lanyards, so they can be worn by caregivers and parents.

And if you pull the pencil out, that's a little flash drive with over 400 art activities on it for the children to use, something for every age group, every skill level, and cartoonists and illustrators from around the world contributed their work to it.

And we have some things in there from both Greg and from Al, and they have been a tremendous hit, and we're continuing to send them out to hospitals across the country.

We recently sent a bunch of them to some of the hospitals that are treating the children from Ukraine, because art transcends language barriers and borders, and it's been great to be a part of that.

And these guys can share with you some of what they've done as well.

But it's my favorite thing I've done to my entire life, and it can be a challenge sometimes, but it is so fulfilling, and I truly believe all of us will tell you the kids give back more than we could ever give to them.

- It's truly amazing to do something like this and involve art and involve comics and cartoons.

So, was there any particular... Obviously this is a great cause and something to be involved in, but what made you want to get involved in this in the first place?

- Well I had a dear friend whose teenage son was diagnosed with leukemia, and she saw the impact art programs had on the kids in the hospitals where her son was, and she said, "Man, they'd go crazy over cartoons.

"Why don't you think about doing visits every now and then?"

So I started as an individual, and it just went, I started in Knoxville and all of a sudden, I was asking to go to Florida and to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.

And I encountered a young patient named Paris whose parents have given us permission to share his story, but he was a multiple transplant patient, and he was an aspiring cartoonist and comic book artist, and I met him in the hospital and began working really closely with him.

And I reached out to other artists to send him original art, books, posters, whatever, with a little note to encourage him, and they did that from around the world.

And once again, Al and Greg were involved in that, and it encouraged him to keep fighting, and the results were just amazing.

I couldn't believe them myself.

I've seen things that if you told me they could happen with the program, you would not believe 'em.

But the word "cartoons" opens the child's heart and their door, and I've seen them lifted out of depression.

I've seen some kids lose their appetite due to their treatment, and when they're drawing, they start nibbling on something, their parent will slide it next to 'em, and they begin eating, 'cause they forget they weren't hungry.

- That is special.

So Al, I'm gonna ask you how you got involved.

- Steve approached me a few years ago to be a part of what he just mentioned, original art donations, prints, things like that.

And I guess he made his way out here to my area near Charlotte, North Carolina where we could do some onsite events for the Levines Children's Hospital.

And because they have a unique broadcasting studio within that facility, to have a closed circuit system in all the rooms, we did little art lessons, very simplified art lessons, drawing Batman or Black Panther or Spider-Man.

And you forget too, a lot of the kids also attended live these sessions, the kids that could attend, getting out of their rooms, and it's a treat for them to see somebody draw something live, and it encourages them to think, I can draw like this.

And here's Steve with his art supplies right there, and it's just an amazing thing.

I've seen some kids not return to their room, because they wanted to see the finish of the art lesson, which is amazing.

And you also think too, in this day and age of laptops and video games and the internet, what's the big deal with some drawing pads and some crayons?

But the joy I've seen on these kids' faces when Steve presents 'em with these supplies is just amazing.

And you think maybe no one ever thought to give the child blank pieces of paper and some crayons, and it's just amazing what it does for them, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

- And it's gotta be rewarding, because as an artist, most times you are working by yourself.

You might be working at home, you might be renting a studio space, but it's a solitary activity.

So getting back into, I guess, a public setting, it's gotta be extra rewarding, not only that people appreciate your art, but you're doing something to help people in need.

- It is, and it's very interesting, 'cause I've always said what we do as cartoonists and artists, it's like dance and theater and stuff, except we're not going directly on the stage in front of our audience.

It takes a lot for them to see it.

We prepare it by ourselves.

So it is interesting, and it reminds you of a lot of things when you've got an audience that thinks this is great, what you take for granted is great, and you can tell them, "Oh, I used to have trouble with that.

"Here's how we get over that," drawing faces or hands and things like that, 'cause you forget that once you started, and you were watching other people, and you were amazed, and then they gave you some tips, and then you found ways to do this yourself, and you pass it along and watch the fun and creativity they are now experiencing.

- Greg, I'm gonna, I guess, ask you a similar question.

It's a great organization.

How do you get involved?

- Well, I got involved, I'm in Memphis to start with.

So we've got St. Jude Children's Hospital here, and a lot of people make a big deal out of, you know, let's get a thing together, and we'll go to St. Jude, and so the National Cartoonist Society got involved.

And years ago, it was easier for just the local cartoonist group to call up and say, "We'd like to come out and draw with the kids."

Now, I'm actually working with Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, which is where Steve got me set up, and they've got a room that was supposed to be a movie theater, and it got converted.

Somebody donated some money, and they've got cameras, automatic cameras.

You can run 'em off of an iPad in the room, so with the closed circuit TV system they've got, they can do art lessons.

You draw on a whiteboard, and it goes out to all the rooms.

And the big news is that it's gonna be the latest Ryan Seacrest Studio.

It's going into Le Bonheur starting next month, I think.

Kids get to come down, like Al was saying, get to come from their room and sit in the big glass room and draw and let us bring you some paper, let us bring you some crayons, let me show you how to do this.

It's just a lot of fun, really.

- Now, you're saying that the latest Ryan Seacrest Studio, what do you mean by that?

- Ryan Seacrest put together a foundation that I think his father and sister, but don't quote me, run.

And they build small closed-circuit television studios inside children's hospitals, which dovetails beautifully with what Steve does with Drawn to Help, because you can go in there, and you can do Pictionary, and the kids can call in from their room, because they're watching live, and they get fascinated by the fact that the clue is like covered wagon, and you're doing all this insane stuff, drawing with two hands at one time or whatever silly thing you can think of just to throw up there.

And kids are calling in going, "It's bread!"

No, it's not bread, we're gonna keep drawing, call us back.

So it's a lot of fun, it's a game, it's a little magic show that, you know, we're a cartoonist, we do this all the time anyway.

And like Al was saying, you get out of the studio, you get to do a new thing, you get to show off a little bit, and everybody has some fun, they get to ask questions.

But the Ryan Seacrest Studio, like I said, is where that can go on, and it doesn't have to be the kids that are allowed to leave their room.

It can be all the kids that are stuck in their room, can't leave, not gonna leave, bored outta their minds, families bored outta their minds.

Turn on channel eight on your hospital television, and here's the thing that's going on downstairs.

If you can come, that's fine.

If you can't, play along with us, call the number.

And the Seacrest Studios are fantastic for that, because they share the programs amongst the different hospitals that they're in, and I think they're in, I don't know, a lot.

I thought I had a number in my head, and it's gone.

- Well, it's gotta be a challenge to come up with something that can reach all ages.

I mean, there's no single age for all the patients there.

So, when you're designing a program for the day, how do you make sure that a younger artist and an older artist are both gonna be able to do something that will be satisfying to them?

- There's a lot of good ways to do it.

I used to design all those wild menus that you get at restaurants with all the games and puzzles and stuff to keep your kid busy until the food gets there, and I learned a lot of different ways to make a game work two different ways.

You can either work the maze, or you can work the maze and write down the numbers or the letters that you reach as you get to them, and it spells out something different, so you got a younger kid, can just go through.

Same thing with the, they call it Doodle Mania at Le Bonheur Hospital.

It'll be an art lesson, and you're starting off with literally a smiley face.

It's a circle, two dots, and a line.

And then for the older artists, you go, "Okay, but remember, a human head's not a circle," so you can draw something with ears, and you got cheekbones, and you got a chin, and you throw the extra stuff on at the end, so that the older kids that have the longer attention span are grabbing hold of that and having fun with it, while the little kids, they're already done, they're already coloring stuff.

They've done their circle, two dots, and a line, and they've grabbed a yellow crayon, they're ready to roll.

- Steve, I was going to ask you about how you get this program into various hospitals.

How are you reaching out to them and offering them, and how are they able to see what you can accomplish?

- Well, when I first started doing this as an individual, because now it's, we, it's a whole lot of people involved.

When I first started out, I approached a lot of hospitals and got turned down.

I was fortunate enough to get a grant from a California organization, known as a Pollination Project, and they fund individuals doing good works.

And they said, "We'll fund you "if you can get into a hospital."

The hospital in Knoxville, when I approached them, they said, "We'd love you to come over."

And once they saw what happened, they started telling other people in the business, so all of a sudden now, I was getting calls from all over the place, and at the same time, we had to move towards an organization because cartoonists were actually contacting me and going, "Hey, how can I do this in my area?

"Can you can you help me do it?"

So I had to come up with the supplies and the books and things like that and give them some guidelines to follow.

But, it went from me, very quickly to we, and I appreciate all our volunteers.

We've got an incredible list.

And when you asked about various age groups, I personally worked with two to 18-year-olds.

[chuckling] Drawing with a two-year-old is really something.

And I watched her pain vanished, and she started giggling during a difficult treatment.

I'm sure these guys have seen different things, but Al goes to some of the camps with me, and the camp actually breaks it into age groups, so you can tailor it for each age group to make it a little bit easier.

And the kids are always great about going, "Whoa, slow down, you're moving too fast," and you roll with the youngest and the least skilled and go from there.

All the other kids are just having a blast anyway, and they often get way ahead of you and do extra things.

But cartoons, comic book characters especially, play a role in these patients' lives, because they see themselves as the hero and the bad, evil guys as what they're fighting, and they internalize that, and that can actually help them through the healing process too.

- And when you are organizing a program at various hospitals involving various artists in different locations, how do you keep the we part of it working, so that way every hospital can get a program, every artist who wants to help out can somehow get involved?

How do you organize all that, I guess, administrative end?

- Through pure insanity.

It takes on a life of its own.

We usually deal with the Child Life Department, and those are specialists that are trained to work with the children, and they see the validity of what we're doing, and quite often, they invite us to join, because they've heard about us.

Seacrest Studios were in multiple locations.

The first one was Cincinnati, and it grew from there.

Their employees told other studios, "You gotta have these guys come in."

And the great thing that makes it even easier is cartoonists, many of us work from home, and so we're located all over the country, and that's what started happening when we began this.

People would say, "How do I get it in Cincinnati?

"How do I get it in Texas?"

And it's a learning process for me over time, but now that all flows very smoothly, and we work on a very tight budget.

We're dependent on grants and donations, but we do amazing things with that really tight budget, and we continue to expand.

- Al, I'm gonna ask you about going into the hospital for the first time.

Are you given any sort of special instruction on how to, I guess, speak to the patients there, so that way, you're a positive influence in there?

I mean, I know the program is, I know the art is, but how you're able to keep up your spirit even though you might see something that might be a little difficult.

- Well, it's interesting you asked that, because I've gone on some of these visits as a cartoonist, an artist, but also as a cosplayer as different characters.

Usually, when you're going to Levine here in Charlotte, which has a Seacrest Studio, it's just make it simple so everyone understands, like we just heard earlier, and like you give any other young person an art lesson, and that's pretty basic, and you know you're going to see kids of various levels of affliction.

Some will come and join you holding their IV rack.

Others may have a certain impediment with a hand or an arm in a sling or something like that.

But now when you go as a character, you're actually going usually to the rooms or the floor of these kids.

I recently did a appearance as Spider-Man for a young child who was five, and Spider-Man's his favorite, he's gotta meet Spider-Man.

And you kind of go in sometimes with okay, seal yourself, be brave yourself.

And I go in, and it's the child with his family, and from start to finish, he is just giggling and giggling, just so happy and amused at the scene.

He's not laughing at me specifically, he's just, "I'm so happy, Spider-Man's here!"

So it almost lifts your spirits when you were expecting the worst.

And yes, sometimes you will see kids that can't respond simply because they're too weak sometimes, which is heartbreaking.

Some are just a little frightened.

So it's different as an artist where you're pretty much there giving child-level art instructions and also telling 'em, "Hey, whatever turns out is great, it's art.

"It doesn't have to look like mine."

When you're interacting as a character, you're on a more personal level there as Spider-Man or Captain America or Batman, where you're in the rooms, you're meeting their family, and you're more integrated like that instead of just, "Oh, I'm the guy here drawing, "Can everybody see this egg shape, okay.

"Spider-Man, put his eyes in," things like that.

And I've gotta ask, where's my closeup?

I wanna show off my collection too, look at all this.

I don't get a closeup.

Oh, that's show business, I guess.

- [chuckling] Well rest assured, we are seeing everyone in closeup.

We are able to switch between all of the cameras.

I was telling the gentlemen before we started, this is our first time with multiple guests, so it's a great experience for our students here.

Not only is "Comic Culture" a great program where people can learn about comics, it's a great opportunity for our students at UNC Pembroke to learn broadcasting by doing and working on a show that is not only shown here in North Carolina, but streams on the PBS website, so we're pleased about that.

Obviously, it's not quite the same as Drawn to Help.

And I was going to ask Greg with this smooth, seamless segue that I just did about your experiences going into the hospital, maybe the first time and maybe having to just sort of have a poker face, because maybe something is a little bit difficult, but the reward is so high, because you're helping somebody who needs it.

- Yeah, the first time I went in, we were lost.

I mean it was the local cartoonists, and a lot of the safety precautions that are in place these days weren't there yet.

The nurses said, "Yeah, come on over here, "we got a table set aside, we got a stack of paper," and there's all the kids that have masks.

Because the kid runs up and goes, "Draw me."

You got a thing, and the nurse is like, "Two minutes, can you do it in two minutes?"

Yeah, you know, but the local group drew a lot of kids, and there was a lot of looking at the nurses going, "Is it okay if they do this thing?"

And, we met a few kids that didn't know English, and Bat Mobile turns out to be a universal word.

Everybody in the whole planet knows the word Bat Mobile.

But there were sad things that happened.

Diego laughed and cut up and had a wonderful time, and we heard what you hope to hear when you go to a children's hospital.

The nurses told us, "Diego hasn't smiled in days, "he hasn't been interested, he hasn't wanted to do anything, "and he's so happy right now.

"He's got a stack of drawings that he did.

"He's got a stack of drawings that you guys did.

"He's laughing and cutting up, this is fantastic."

And I found out a few months later, I saw a photo of him on an art director's desk, and I said, "I know who that is, that's Diego."

And he goes, "Yeah, we had to take that off of the cover "of the newsletter this month, because he died recently," and it threw a lot of us off.

It's like can we continue to go back?

Are we good enough people to suck that up and get back in there and draw for the other kids that are there?

And everybody agreed, and everybody went back in.

So when Steve called up years later and said, "We're going into Le Bonheur, "and we're gonna draw a lot of kids, "and we're gonna do caricatures, "and we're gonna do Pictionary, "and we're gonna do Doodle Mania, do you want to go?"

And I went, "Yeah, let's go."

So yeah, it's really dicey the first few times, and then after a while, you get used to it.

- And it seems for every sad ending, there's many more happy endings, and certainly helping people through a very difficult time.

And, Steve, as you were saying, they're able to forget for a while their discomfort.

So, as the organizer of this, as someone who's going and connecting with all of these different artists, what do you do to let people know what to expect?

- Well, we usually talk and email back and forth, and a lot of times the hospital staff will also coach the volunteers, so that they're prepared.

Child life specialists are just an incredible breed of person.

They are that child's best friend when they're in the hospital.

And so they bring us in, and they provide a lot of the guidance beforehand, so that we know just what to do.

Nobody can fully prepare you, for instance, the fact is that one out of five children in this country diagnosed with cancer, we lose.

And you sometimes see these children repeatedly during these programs, and that can be very difficult.

I think Greg has talked about it before in interviews.

There are times when you go out and sit in your car, and you've gotta compose yourself before you can go home.

But you can't show that when you're with the children.

You're there to distract them and to lift them up, and it makes it all worth it when you see that child lift out of a depression, suddenly talk about going home.

I remember when I first started doing this, watching a little girl in Asheville, North Carolina dancing down the hallway, singing to her mom, "I get to draw, I get to draw," clutching her art supplies.

And those are the moments when you see the really true impact and the power that us drawing funny little pictures with the kids can have, it makes it all worth it.

- Well, I see that we have about two minutes or so left in our conversation, so this is generally the time when I will ask you to tell us where can the audience help you?

How can we find out more information?

How can we help you do your mission?

- We're on Facebook, and you can go to www.drawntohelp.org and take a look at what we do.

Donations are always welcome.

We're always hunting for grants as we continue to grow.

We'll be looking for more volunteers, and I'm glad to correspond with anyone.

They can get in touch with me through the website, and any help is deeply needed right now and deeply appreciated.

I appreciate you bringing us on the show and letting us share what we're doing.

- Well gentlemen, it's been my pleasure to have you here to talk about this great organization.

Steve, Al, Greg, I'd like to thank you so much for taking time out to talk with me today, but we have have run out of time.

I'd like to thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture."

We will see you again soon.

[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪ [dramatic music continues] - [Announcer] "Comic Culture" is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

♪ [dramatic music continues] ♪