THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY AUGUST 18,2008
NEWS15A
POLITICS
Candidate uses comic to connect with voters
Kansas Representative hopeful in 15th district discusses campaign life in online comic strip
BY JESSE TRIMBLE jtrimble@kansan.com
A state representative hopeful's comic strip has made its way around the Internet during the last few weeks and he has received feedback from Kansas to Finland.
Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in district 15, the city of Olathe. A School of journalism graduate, Tevis said he
never thought he'd receive so much feedback and attention from one comic strip.
Tevis
The comic can be found at Tevis' Web site, along with
many others, and depicts his story of what it's like running for state representative.
"It took me 40 hours to create the comic: five hours to write a script and then I built the actual page and did a final." Tevis said.
He posted it online for the first time on July 16 and from there it spread, popping up on Facebook.com, Digg.com and elsewhere.
David Perlmutter, professor of journalism, said there were risks involved with such a strategy. Perlmutter said politicians wanted to create attention, but not serious attention, and they didn't want to be taken as a joke.
"Obviously, all forms of social interactive media like MySpace, Facebook and Twittering are good ways to go," Perlmutter said. "2008
is the year of trying everything in politics and media."
He added that Tevis' comic strip was a way to penetrate a very saturated market and that the comic was something fresh and different.
Tevis said he originally thought of the comic strip from his own experiences of running for state representative.
"The best way to put it is running for office is absurd." Tevis said. "I want to say it's absurd because you should be out there giving speeches and figuring out local problems. What I found out instead is that during the first two to three months of my campaign involves going door to door and asking for donations. I thought that surely there must be a better way of doing this and figured why not use the Internet."
Mark Skoglund, Olathe senior,
said he saw the comic on *Digg.com*.
He said he thought the comic strip
was a great way to bring attention
to something not normally seen
within this district.
"Without something that makes people pay attention, a lot of the time candidates go unnoticed and the underdagers are looked over," Skoglund said.
Skoglund, a
political science major, added that it was unprecedented for a candidate to receive so many donations in such a small amount of time.
Tevis said as of now, he had surpassed $100,000, and many people have donated $8.34 or less. The comic strip simplifies his strategy of reaching larger groups of people for less money, versus fewer people
"I thought that surely there must be a better way of doing this and figured why not use the Internet."
SEAN TEVIS Candidate for state representative
would receive a DVD from his 60-year-old mother telling them how wonderful they were.
for more monev.
His mother has had to make three DVDs so far.
- Edited by Elizabeth Cattell
"Politicians have learned that you need to simplify and explain complicated concepts to their audience," Perlmutter said. "A cartoon is the best way to visually illustrate and simplify a main point opposed to a long speech."
Tevis said he was ready to get back to going door to door and he was tired of the Internet for now.
At the beginning of his campaign, Tevis said he never expected to get a $500 donation from any one person, so as a joke he posted on his site that anyone who donated $500 or more
BACK TO SCHOOL SPECIALS!
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
State representative hopeful Sean Tevis designs comics that relate to his hectic campaign life.