Artists Draw Out Children’s Aspirations

To most of Los Angeles, he is David Cruz, a former college student shattered by the death of his best friend in a drive-by shooting.

To the thugs and thieves who skulk through the city’s grittier quarters, however, he is something far more fearsome, a brainy crime-fighter nicknamed “Ally” by the local media.

Sounds like a comic book?

It is.

Ally is the brainchild of Ruben Gerard and Max Espinoza, two Fullerton-based artists who are using their talents to entertain and educate children with free workshops on the art of comics. On Thursday, they visited the Los Angeles Public Library’s West Valley branch in Reseda.

“I found that a lot of kids give up drawing at 9 or 10 years old because they think they can’t draw,” Espinoza explained. “I wanted to get into teaching kids not to be afraid of using a pencil.”

Through the workshops, the pair hope to spark the imaginations of their pupils in the way that Superman and Archie comics inspired them as children in the 1960s. “One of the things we tell kids is, ‘Don’t worry about erasing,’ ” Gerard said. “This is not a class about being perfect.”

Using a wipe-off easel, the men showed the audience that even the most complex characters can be created using carefully placed shapes and letters.

“The idea is to be able to do this time and again without copying something,” Gerard said, leading the children through a step-by-step sketch of Ally.

Gerard and Espinoza met while sketching caricatures of beach-goers in Santa Monica and decided to self-publish a comic book after the city gave them the boot about four years ago. Using Gerard’s concept, they conjured the saga of Ally, a Los Angeles-born hero designed as an alternative to the dozens of superhero titles set in New York City.

With two black-and-white issues already under their belt, the pair are at work on a third as well as several other projects they hope to launch in the future. They stress, however, that their goal is not merely to chronicle the fights and foibles of costumed crime-fighters for the rest of their careers.

Said Espinoza: “We want to address what’s going on in our world and in America in general.”