Pencil Becomes Boy’s Path to First Prize

Aspiring artist Adam Cochran is hesitant to compare himself to cartoonist Gary Larson, but admits his work is very similar to that of the creator of “The Far Side” comic strip.

“We both try to put a different spin on things,” he said. “It’s hard, though, because sometimes I get frustrated with my work.”

Sometimes, however, everything seems to click and Adam gets noticed. That is exactly what happened when the Van Nuys sixth-grader at Berkeley Hall School in Bel-Air submitted a drawing for the Incense Cedar Institute 1997 Doodle Contest and won, beating out 335 other sixth-graders nationwide.

Cochran, 11, won the grand prize, a $100 savings bond, a T-shirt and a year’s supply of cedar pencils, for his drawing on “A Day in the Life of a Pencil.”

In his piece, “Pencil Horror Films,” Cochran created a screaming pencil with half its body being devoured by its ultimate arch-enemy--a pencil sharpener--while other pencils watch the action from theater seats.

It was the second year that the Incense Cedar Institute had run the contest for second- through eighth-graders nationwide. The contest’s goal is to increase the use of the cedar pencil, promoted as an environmentally sound alternative to pencils made with rain-forest woods or plastics.

“We figured the best group to deal with are the elementary school students,” said Tim Bader, spokesman for the institute. “No one uses pencils more than they do.”

With his first major contest victory behind him, Cochran said he hopes to complete work on a comic strip idea about a bunch of goofy workers in an office.