pWhen Jeffrey Koterba was six, he started drawing his first cartoons, painstakingly copying from the Sunday iOmaha World Herald's ifunny papers and making up his own characters. With a pen and a sheet of white paper, he was able to escape into a world that was clean, expansive, and comfortable--a refuge from the pandemonium surrounding him. pThe tiny house Koterba grew up in was full-to-bursting with garage-sale treasures and televisions his father Art repaired and sold for extra money. A hard-drinking one-time jazz drummer whose big dreams never seemed to come true, Art was subject to violent facial and vocal tics--symptoms of Tourette's Syndrome, a condition Jeffrey inherited--as well as explosions of temper and eccentricity that kept the Koterba family teetering on the brink of disaster.ppFrom the canyons of broken electronics, the lightning strikes, screaming matches, and discouragements great and small emerged a young man determined to follow his creative spirit to grand heights.