Alec Longstreth, 30, found his way to the Upper Valley through his passion and livelihood, cartooning. A teacher at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, a two-year program for students studying comics, graphic novels and similar art forms, Longstreth is the author of Phase 7, a comic book that is part adventure, part autobiography. Longstreth has lived in some of the nation’s biggest cities, but now calls an apartment mere steps away from the cartoon school his home. Longstreth sat down last week with VALLEY NEWS staff writer Kerry Trotter. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

I grew up in Seattle. I went to college at Oberlin College in Ohio. From there I developed a plan to work on Star Wars: Episode III as a carpenter. I was doing theater (set design) when I was at Oberlin, and so after graduation I went to LA, and I worked there for about six months building sets (for television commercials, etc.). Then I went to Sydney, Australia, to try and get the job on Star Wars, which didn’t work. I moved to Portland, Ore., and that’s sort of when I really started drawing comics and taking it seriously.

The unemployment rate (in Portland) was like 8è percent, and this is 2004. Now that’s not that bad, there’s a lot worse out there, but at the time it was really, really bad. I lived there for nine months and signed up with five different temp agencies. I was filling out job applications every day. I think I finally ended up working at a hardware store part-time and teaching after-school arts programs for kids. But I was still working on my comics.

I was reading comics my whole life, but it was never my passion. When I was 20, in college, my friend had me read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It sort of deconstructs comics as an art form. It was like having a curtain lifted, and I was like, “Oh, this is what I should do with my life.”

I decided to move to New York and I went to the Pratt Institute for illustration, just because I was trying to push my comics as far as I could. I had never really had like an “art” class, so I thought, “I’ll go back to school and try and like actually learn some of this stuff.”

I used to come up here for summer workshops. I finished my program at Pratt, and I had one more year where I was trying to free-lance, and it was really stressful. So I was like, “Move to Vermont! The total opposite!” I got the fellowship here, and I just stayed, and they hired me on as faculty. I’ve been here two years.

I love the job. It’s pretty much my dream job. If you’re doing what I’m doing, it’s the best place in the world to be. Honestly. Portland’s a big cartooning town, New York’s a big cartooning city, and I think White River Junction holds up just as well because of the community and the resources here.

I don’t have a car, so I don’t actually get out that much and explore. I like White River Junction because I can walk and get everything I need. I wish we could have a movie theater, that’s the only thing I miss.

I plan on (sticking around) at least for another couple of years. I just feel like I can pretty much live everywhere. Ninety percent of what I do is sitting in a room by myself drawing, so I can do that anywhere. All my New York friends were like, “Are you crazy? You’re moving to this town of 2,000 people, aren’t you going to miss the city?” and I was like, “Not really.”