Bronwyn Elvis Comics- A Musical Theater Fan Goes Graphic

14-year-old Bronwyn Chochinov always loved to draw. As a 4th and 5th grader, she contributed ongoing comic strips in her school's High School newspaper: How to Survive 4th Grade, and How to Survive 5th Grade. She has also, from a very young age, loved musicals. As best as she can remember, Bronwyn was 5 when she was taken to Beauty and the Beast starring Donny Osmond as Gaston. Mother Victoria Brown was a fan and the two waited for an autograph. "There were all these ladies my mom's age going crazy. They were like trampling me and I started crying. He picked me up and talked to me. I've gone to the stage door ever since."

At age 11, the artist's grandma showed her the recorded 20th Anniversary concert of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. "I was like Oh My God, this is incredible!" She watched the Hollywood film and attended the Broadway show. Somewhere between the two viewings, Bronwyn matter-of-factly announced she was going to make a graphic novel of the musical. "We didn't realize until she was well into it, that she intended to include every word and lyric!" her mother tells me. Determined and disciplined, the youngster stopped and started a DVD until she got it right. That was the first. (These days, she says she often remembers lyrics from repeated listening.)

Lily Rose Peck, cast member of the national tour, chanced upon Bronwyn's Etsy shop (open since 2013.) She and other cast members purchased a number of Phantom copies. Peck then invited the artist to see the show in Philadelphia where the Chochinovs were taken back stage and Bronwyn was given a poster signed by the company. "It was really exciting and cool seeing all the sets and costumes."

The next three years, Bronwyn attended the Bridgehampton Museum's Charles Addams Festival Cartooning Camp. One assignment was to create a cartoon based on instructor Peter Spacek's description of a scene. Each of these had been actual Addams art which the kids were shown after the fact. 'A terrific way to impress upon burgeoning artists that there is no one correct way to illustrate an idea. This year, Bronwyn was the only young person at the School of Visual Arts' adult continuing education cartooning class taught by Tom Motley. She told no one about her books. "I didn't want to brag about what I've done at such a young age."

"Bronwyn held her own admirably in my adult cartooning class. She completed a minicomic that displays impressive skills in inking, lettering, visual storytelling, and, above all, humor..." Tom Motley

Meanwhile, graphic books emerged. Her next effort was Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. She had loved the musical since watching the film "as a little kid." This one, again using a DVD, took 16 months. "I don't think I have to see them onstage. It's a comic book! The stage helps, but I'm not gonna copy every single motion." One woman bought 17 copies for a community theater. "I didn't realize how many kids and nuns I'd have to draw. It took a lot of black ink." Original materials are Micron Pens and copy paper.

Bronwyn is a good student and has other interests. She "rushes home from" from school, finishes her homework, practices violin, eats dinner, showers, turns up her "boom box" and draws for an hour or an hour and a half. "I always play music when I'm working, usually music from the show, but not always." Summers are spent with grandparents and at various special camps. This particular creative impetus flows exclusively during the school year.

It also flows only in the evening. "When I have my light on and it's dark outside, I feel more inspired. I've tried to do it on a Saturday when I'm done with everything, I even tried closing my curtains, but I couldn't do it. I can draw during the day, I do it at school, but I can't do the comics. I don't know why." Like many unique creatives, she also varies methods of execution. Every book is drawn in a different part of her room, lying on the bed, sitting on the floor, at her desk...

Surprisingly, Bronwyn doesn't block out the story before beginning. "I kinda wing it. Whatever takes up more space, takes up more space. Certain dramatic moments have to take up a whole page." The book is long or short as it needs to be. She draws panels freehand preferring "the handmade aspect." When memory doesn't serve, the artist refers to photographs for costumes, though for the early Phantom, she made them up. As to faces, they're not portraits, but she makes a definite decision whom to reflect. "Like with Rent, I did Eden Espinosa as Maureen not Idina Menzel's because I liked Eden's bangs."

Something of an oddity followed. Intrigued, Bronwyn saw and purchased a DVD of the Australian production of Love Never Dies, Lloyd Webber's sequel to Phantom. A favorite from Phantom, Ramin Karimloo was in the cast. "It was kinda weird, but I liked the music." Her Author's Note on the volume reads in part: Hi! This is the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. ... the sequel to the beloved love story...I know some people might be a little skeptical with the idea of a sequel, but I myself loved it. "I only really do shows that speak to me. The music has to give me goosebumps, and to make me think a lot of the plot too."

Les Miserables (Claude-Michel Schönberg Alain Boublil/ Jean-Marc Natel) was next. "The tv was on one morning in 2014 when an ad for the new revival was on. I saw Ramin was in it and I thought, I don't know this show well, but I'd love to see him...I think Les Miz changed my life most because of the deep storyline. And the music gave me chills. Whenever I listen to it, I connect to Eponine and to other characters..." Bronwyn watched the film first.

"For Mothers Day, I got tickets with my mom and grandma. We got there and it was an understudy. I was heartbroken. The understudy was amazing, though, and I was like wow, this is an incredible show. So I watched (the DVD) and listened to it." At 121 pages, Les Miserables is the longest comic thus far. Stubbornly loyal, Bronwyn went back to see the production with Karimloo. At the stage door, she gave a copy of the comic to the actor and they took a Selfie together. She has not, to date, heard from him.

Bronwyn followed Les Miz with Jonathan Larson's Rent. She saw the film, a version at The District Community Theater of Queens and a high school production in East Hampton. "It's such a sad and funny and moving story. It takes place over one year and you see how relationships change. The lyrics are very powerful. They say that you can't dwell in the past, that there's no day but today and you need to live life to the fullest, which is very interesting to think about...With Rent, I decided to bleep out inappropriate words. (She instead writes "explicit") I mean my grandparents read this!"

This year, BroadwayCon (A Broadway Convention created by long-time fans and professionals of the theater community) celebrated Rent's 20th anniversary. Bronwyn asked to be taken. "They had a big table with a lot of the original cast. I inscribed copies to cast members I knew were going to be there and gave them the books. They were like You did this?! I was sobbing. I gave one to Daphne Rubin-Vega and she Instagrammed it. Anthony Rapp reposted and that got 1500 likes!" Bronwyn researched the AIDs crisis after she saw Rent, writing a paper about it for school. (Both Rubin-Vega and Rapp were in the original Broadway cast.)

The artist's process is solitary. "She works on her comics independently, not showing them to anyone until she's done," her mom says. "When it's finished, my parents look it over for revisions. I do what I can with white-out and pen. Then my dad takes it to SVA and scans the whole book into a computer. (The School of Visual Arts, where Allan Chochinov is the Founding Chair of the MFA in Products of Design department) It's very, very nice of him. Sometimes I use Photoshop now to clean up and fill in big black spaces so it's smooth. If you look at the early ones, you can see the pen line." The scanned copy gets sent to a sympathetic California printer where books are professionally bound.

Hovering on the horizon, likely to be started in September, is the juggernaut Hamilton whose music she started listening to in 2015. "I haven't seen it yet but I have tickets in July and again in January." Bronwyn has already acquired a few cast signatures on a ten dollar bill by waiting at the stage door. "I have a connection with one of the cast member's vocal coaches, so I made a book of the last song in the first act, "Non-Stop," and gave it to her to pass on. It's very dramatic. Hopefully they have it now." (This is not in the Etsy shop.)

Her author's note says, in part: "Dear Cast of Hamilton...I know you must receive hundreds of fan letters, but I just wanted to let you know about me and the comic enclosed...I had heard about Hamilton when it first opened, but I never knew much about it...at the beginning of Thanksgiving vacation...I clicked on The Schuyler Sisters because Renee Elise Goldsberry was listed as the main singer and I knew her from Rent. From that moment on, I have been crying over, laughing over, and smiling over the music..." (Bronwyn read the musical's Wickipedia entry and watched interviews in order to understand what was happening in the play's narrative.)

"Lin-Manuel Miranda said he had to change some of the things in the show," Bronwyn informs me. "He said Alexander Hamilton almost got into a duel with James Monroe because he thought Monroe had leaked the information about his affair, but Aaron Burr stopped the duel. He could have been killed earlier. It's interesting how he had to change a bunch of things. I haven't read the book but I want to...I've only had little bits and pieces of this period of American history so far. When I was 8, I went to Colonial Williamsburg. I know a bit. I looked up Maria Reynolds...If I have time I would love to read the book."

January 2016, Bronwyn posted a drawing of the show's Schuyler sisters (done from a photograph) on Instagram. It elicited the following online response from David Korins: "I think this artwork is cool. I love how much you love our show and the theater in general. Have you had a chance to see it yet or do you just know the music? I am the designer of Hamilton."

Culture is as much a part of the Chochinov household as the air the family breathes. Her father's long been a multi-disciplined designer, her mother freelance edits for such as Rizzoli. Bronwyn has been exposed to opera, ballet, museums, concerts...travel...Musicals enter the house in every format, lately including active use of Spotify.

At the artist's progressive Brooklyn School, St. Ann's, she was required to take a theater course this year. As she neither sings, dances or acts, Bronwyn chose a film course. "Filmmaking and cartoons are kind of similar cause of the different shot sizes and angles. I learned more about figure drawing with storyboards and about how to make things flow." The class edits in Premiere Pro. "Next year, I signed up for painting, drawing, and theatrical make-up." In 8th grade. Bronwyn reads above her level. In fact, she initially taught herself looking over her parents' shoulders as they read to her.

So Hamilton next, and then, she thinks, her first book in color, Wicked. Every ETSY penny is kept in a separate account for the future, not because her parents require it, but because the young lady chooses to leave funds untouched. "My phone makes a makes a little ka-ching! noise telling me when I've sold one. We pack it up and my mom takes it to the post office, cause I have school n'stuff. Sometimes people ask for an inscription which I write on the inside cover..."

"I love doing what I'm doing now, but I'm still not sure if it's what I want to do with my life."

Whatever this talented, imaginative young lady does with her future, one can be sure it will be worth sharing. Till then, every comic gets better.

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