April 23, 2019

Donna Almendrala ′12 is the art director at the Peanuts Studio in Santa Rosa. She spends most of her free time playing and obsessing over board games and RPGs. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr as @madmacaques. She did the following interview with Angela Boyle ′16.

Who was your thesis advisor for your second year at CCS and why did you choose them?

I worked with R. (Bob) Sikoryak for my thesis year, who happened to be at CCS for the year as a faculty advisor. He has a really tight polish to his comics and a meticulous approach to creating comics that I really admire. I was also drawn toward his sense of humor and his ability to use parody to subvert traditional ideas and values. I love his lettering and attention to detail. But overall, he seemed like an accomplished, thoughtful cartoonist I could learn a lot from.

What was your first job at the Peanuts Studio?

I was hired to review licensed products for quality and ensure integrity to the original source material. I’d be looking at all sorts of products, such as bento boxes and umbrellas, from all over the world. I also had the opportunity to use my cartooning skills to contribute to a number of creative projects such as coloring comic strips, creating artwork for social media, cleaning up and vectoring artwork, and eventually learning to draw the characters on-model.

What are your tasks as Art Director at Peanuts Studio?

As Art Director, I pretty much do the same thing as before but at another level of responsibility. I lead the art department in reviewing products and supporting development to ensure brand standards. I manage incoming projects or art requests, checking deadlines, delegating tasks and creating an organized structure for people to follow. I also have a role in mentoring and training staff to develop Peanuts expertise and overall elevate the work and contributions the studio brings to licensing.

The Shape of Egg by Donna Almendrala

How do you fit Chimps in Space and your other personal comics work in with your work at Peanuts Studio? How do you avoid burnout?

Honestly, I don’t balance my personal work with my day job very well, but I am working on it. Spending more time on my comics and fueling my creative needs in my spare time is one of my goals for the year and something that I hope will make me feel more fulfilled. And maybe it just makes me a more well-rounded person at home and at work. I try to create at least a couple 16–32 page zines per year, and use tabling at cons to give myself deadlines. I only work on things that I think are fun or would enjoy reading. And I’m not sure that I have learned to avoid burnout either, other than when it all seems to build up as too much work, I just step away for a while. And when I’m ready to get to back to work I sit down and pick up my pen.

You seem to have an affinity for non-human primates. What is your favorite primate?

I just love chimps . . . . They’re so smart and expressive, and they’re strong. I think there’s some stuff we could learn about ourselves when we study chimps. Truthfully, I like all the apes. And the monkeys are cute, too.

Safari Journal Comics by Donna Almendrala