The cover of Chronogram’s April issue drops the viewer into a moment of menace. Jagged teeth frame the foreground. A wide-eyed face looms above them. The perspective is disorienting—somewhere between a punchline and a threat—and the whole image is rendered in stark black-and-white ink. It feels like a panel torn from a comic at the exact second before something chaotic happens.
The drawing is the work of Middletown-based cartoonist Louis Peterson, whose art blends slapstick energy, underground comics aesthetics, and the graphic boldness of classic newsprint-era comics. Peterson describes his work simply: “Very cartoony, old-school, satirical,” he says. “There’s a lot of cartoony violence, a lot of slapstick. But there’s a level of comedy to it, so it stays in the satirical realm.”
That sensibility owes something to the exaggerated physical humor of vintage animation. “The more cartoony stuff always attracted me,” Peterson says. “I don’t like too much hyperrealism. I like expressive, hyperbolic drawing.”
Comics were part of his life almost from the beginning. Peterson grew up in Middletown in a household where comic books were always around. His father collected them, including reprints of early Disney comics and large-format editions of Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin, which Peterson remembers being read to him before he even started kindergarten.
Later, in the 1990s, artists associated with the early Image Comics era—Todd McFarlane, Sam Kieth, and Erik Larsen—helped shape his approach. Their exaggerated anatomy and kinetic linework reinforced Peterson’s interest in comics that prioritize style and energy over strict realism.
Today Peterson’s work spans a mix of formats: short independent comics, cover art, fan illustrations, and other graphic projects. What ties them together, he says, is the visual voice. “Style is king for me,” he explains. “People usually come to me because they want something a little cartoony, a little graffiti, a little edge to it.”
That sensibility also reflects Peterson’s admiration for the traditional craft of comic inking. Historically, comic art relied on heavy blacks and bold lines partly because early printing processes were so crude. Those limitations ultimately became a defining aesthetic of the medium. “I always thought that style was so bold and graphic,” Peterson says. “I’m just trying my best to follow that art form.”
His comics are also produced with an eye toward the medium’s tactile history. Some of his self-published titles—including Mason and Invasion on Center Street—are printed on old-style newsprint, with glossy color covers and black-and-white interiors designed to evoke the look and feel of classic comic books.
The cover image featured here originally appeared as the back cover for Invasion on Center Street, a short anthology comic created with writer Kevin Michael Rowe. The story plays on a familiar setup—a home invasion—but flips expectations in the final panel. Peterson’s image hints at that tension without revealing the twist. The viewer peers out from inside what might be a mouth or a set of jaws while a startled intruder leans into view.
Peterson will be among more than 70 exhibitors appearing at the Kingston Independent Comic Expo (KICx) on April 18, an event highlighting the region’s growing independent comics community. Now in its third year, the expo has expanded into two venues—the Old Dutch Church and nearby St. James United Methodist Church—after steadily growing attendance and attracting more creators than the original space could accommodate.
Discovering the expo three years ago helped reconnect Peterson with a broader comics scene he hadn’t realized existed locally. “This is where I need to be,” he remembers thinking after attending the first show. For Peterson, returning to comics after years away has been a gradual process of rebuilding craft and confidence. “Every comic you make kind of sucks,” he says with a laugh. “The next one’s a little better. Then you keep going until you make a good one.” Judging from the cover image that greets readers this month—sharp, graphic, and just a little mischievous—he’s well on his way.
The third annual Kingston Independent Comic Expo will be held in Kingston on April 18.
This article appears in April 2026.
