Alum publishes book

Chambers' unique Mannequins comic strip a hit

By: Jessica Danielewicz

Posted: 10/23/01

The Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Bookstore will soon feature the unique work of a 1986 Eastern graduate.

Don Chambers, who majored in graphic design, recently published his first comic strip book featuring photographs of 230 towns, universities and parks surrounding Champaign-Urbana, called “Mannequins at home in Illinois and Western Indiana.”

“I wanted it to be something completely different from anything that anyone had ever seen before,” Chambers said.

Along with the photographs, the comic strips feature three dimensional computer-created characters complete with scans of real clothing and hair, Chambers said.

He said he has been the first person to publish a comic strip using such technology.

Chambers published his first Mannequins strip in 1996 and continues to publish one each week which runs in: The Altamont News, The Arthur Graphic-Clarion, the Atwood Herald, The (Cerro Gordo) News Record, the Georgetown Independent News, the Mt. Zion Region News, and the Teutopolis Press.

During is college career at Eastern, he also published comic strips in The Daily Eastern News.

The bookstore is expected to begin carrying Chamber’s book sometime this week. Currently, the Table Arts Center and the Lincoln Bookshop carry the book, which sells for $14.95.

Chambers spent 13 months traveling central Illinois and western Indiana taking photographs for the book.

While photographing different cities on the weekends for the book, Chambers said that he ran into a few interesting situations.

While walking around Eureka College, Chambers said he asked a student if she knew of any little-known landmarks around the area that he might get a picture of. The student said that there was a monument outside of town that commemorated the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln had practiced law.

After driving for what seemed like a very long time, Chambers said that they finally pulled over on a road out in the middle of nowhere, and the student got out of the car and parted the grass to show them the monument.

“There’s this boulder the size of a beach ball that’s totally hidden,” he said.

However, the picture did not go into the book, because it was too weathered and just showed up as a picture of a rock.

He said he had other situations with people telling him that he could not take pictures of things.

“When I told them what I was using the pictures for, they just laughed and said ‘go ahead,’” he said.

He said that the big lens on his camera made people nervous.

The book does not flow as a story, but the characters are the same throughout. The mannequins Web site: www.manniquins comicstrip.co.uk, includes information about the comic strip including character biographies.

Content for the comic strips is taken from Chambers’ life experiences as well as keeping his eyes and ears open.

Chambers describes the content of the book as “small town rural humor.”

He plans to publish further volumes and currently has enough photographs for 2/3 of the next volume.

Chambers worked as an artist for a General Motors automotive dealership chain in Decatur and in the advertising department of Supervalu grocery store in Urbana before he became a broadcast animator at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

His wife Laura works with the characters’ hair and proofs the comic strip. They have been married three and a half years and live in Champaign.