U. grad returns to 'Pen,' drawing students

It's been a slow day for Jonathan Pochos -- most of the action is going to the paper-cutter a little down Locust Walk who's been working before a steady crowd of people since morning. In fact, Pochos has only sold one Ben Franklin portrait since setting up his easel and pastel tools in front of the Palladium Restaurant for the first day of the SPEC Fall Crafts Show. But his visit to Penn means more than just profit. For Pochos, 1981 College graduate, his return to Locust walk is something of a home-coming. When the owner of the Palladium Restaurant walks by, Pochos remembers him as the man whose menu board he used to draw flowers on for a free sandwich or couple of bucks. Sixteen years later, when Pochos laughs and motions to all the unsold "Bens" near his chair, the words, "Look at where I ended up," seems to be behind his humor. Pochos never intended it to happen this way, and readily admits that his story is proof that coming across all the things in life that college students dream about is not as easy as it seems when setting out. "The world doesn't always cooperate with you," the Center City resident said, adding, "But yeah, I'm proud to be a vagrant now." Pochos set out from the University with high hopes of becoming a player in the newspaper publishing business. He had been a cartoonist at The Daily Pennsylvanian, drawing his own cartoon strip called, "Pen's Landing." A job soon materialized with a small paper in the Philadelphia area called the South Street Star. But the paper folded and he found himself bouncing around several area publications, each time trying to find a place that still allowed its artists to draw without relying on a computer. But as if modernity was chasing him from behind, each publication he took a job with shifted to graphics art shortly after his arrival. "I like to work with my hands," he said. "And every time I learned how to use the computer I would leave because I didn't want to produce my art that way." So Pochos went from place to place for the better part of 13 years, all the time supporting himself on the side with a talent he first discovered in college. At the annual DP banquet his senior year, his editor thought it a good idea to have his star-cartoonist do caricatures of the attendees. "I even did one of [former university president] Sheldon Hackney," he said. "I was so afraid of offending someone with my pictures." He didn't offend anyone that night, rather that seemingly innocuous experience provided the basis for a future career when the final place in Philadelphia to allow its artists to draw by hand gave in to graphics design in 1994. "It was all I had left," said the now full-time caricaturist, who works summers in Philadelphia's Headhouse Square and at private events the rest of the year. "It's funny how things turn out and what that night from college became for me." Setting up his easel on Locust Walk yesterday morning, a student curious about what was to take place approached him and asked about the crafts fair. When Pochos told her he was once a Penn student himself, the student began to turn pale. "She saw her whole future flash before her eyes," Pochos said. "She couldn't believe where I had ended up and then started to get scared she might one day end up on the street." Pochos calmed the girl by assuring her that he was doing what he was doing out of his own desire and not because the world had forced it upon him. Now almost done with the illustration book that has been a nagging dream since college and the main reason he refused to do graphics work, Pochos said, "It's tough to make things come out way you want. Sometimes it takes a while." A guy walked up to his easel then and asked for a portrait -- his first customer of the day. It might not be a bad stay at Penn after all.