From: [bv 446] at [cleveland.Freenet.Edu] (James S. Ottaviani)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Evan Dorkin, The Usenet Interview -3-
Date: 29 Mar 1993 16:37:16 GMT
We left off last time in the middle of Evan's answer
to Jed's question about what happened with Reflex --
and you thought the cliff-hanger at the end of PC$! #5
was bad. So lets dive back in, with a touch 'o
repetition to help you get re-oriented (I hope):
***
Evan -- ...Well, the strip was getting on my nerves
and Kyle and I were discussing ending it. He couldn't
justify the time he was putting into it, we weren't
communicating well and I'd been "out" of the last few
strips, and we were running out of things to say about
the morons we saw at concerts. Out of some
frustration, I wrote a short paragraph in Pirate
Corp$! #4 about the situation, not mentioning anyone,
just saying I was having problems with the strip and
the pay was low and we paid for our own tickets to the
shows.
If I'd thought I'd written my "suicide note" to
Reflex in PC$! #4, I sure wouldn't have sent the comic
to Reflex for review. But a "suicide note" is what Bob
Morales called it when he saw it, and he wrote a
second article on me in Reflex, this time an openly
personal attack.
Again, this is a newsstand magazine, and from
what I've seen in it's pages I'm the only person
attacked personally, *twice*, no less, *in the review
columns* (I can't recall anyone else being personally
disparaged, save maybe in an editorial). Morales
obviously felt he had to defend his sacred Reflex
magazine from my massive slam (read my comments in
PC$! #4, they are pretty harmless, name no one by name
or inference and I end by complimenting the magazine!)
written in an obscure comic that barely sold eighteen
hundred copies!
Well, and I'm going on memory here because I
don't have the article anymore, the attack was really
uncalled for. It deals almost totally with personal
matters and contains outright untruths and half
truths. The gist of the attack was that I was an
unprofessional and ungrateful person because I
complained about the low pay at Reflex and the fact
that Kyle and I paid to see the bands we covered. He
said music magazines were known to be low paying
because they didn't make good money.
He wrote that he spoke to Kyle and that Kyle said
something to the effect that all my problems with the
strip were that it was difficult working over the
distance to California. That's untrue, I detailed my
problems with Reflex earlier, and Kyle not only knew I
had these complaints but he shared some of them as
well. Also, there was no reason to drag Kyle into this
in print, except to make it seem Kyle was against me
as well. To further slag me personally Morales said
that I told people that I felt Lou Stathis and he
didn't like me, and he then proceeded to ridicule me
about that. Yes, I had told Kyle I felt they didn't
like me, they're his friends and I was his friend and
yes, it bothered me in a personal, social context.
What place did that personal information have in an
article? What did that prove and whose business was
it? Morales also wrote that I said the same thing to a
woman at Reflex whose name I forget (it's in the
article) at a concert at the Ritz -- this is totally
untrue, the woman in question and I ran into each
other at a restaurant in the East Village. I was at
dinner with David Muzzachelli, his wife Richmond and
Robbie Busch, a friend of mine and Kyles's. Robbie
recognized the woman (I didn't even remember her) and
we spoke briefly about the magazine. End of story on
that one and witnessed, not that this is a court case.
But just one of several incorrect statements made when
Morales further goes after me to prove how
disingenuous and ungrateful I am.
Morales' point is that I'm foolish to complain
about the low pay at Reflex when my life is so
terrific and I'm all set with money and women and
work. Honestly, Jed -- you obviously read his gripes,
you tell me, am I wrong? He actually begins the piece
about how he's "living the life of Evan Dorkin" and
it's the good life or some crap like that. The idiot
literally goes into a spiel about how bad the country
is doing and who am I to complain when I'm making all
this money on Predator and Aliens books (Wrong again,
I've never worked on Aliens, but why bother
researching a hack piece for a magazine, right? He
also got the minimum wage amount wrong by a dollar or
so when hitting me over the head with how much he
thinks I earn.) He says I'm unprofessional because I
should have asked the magazine to reimburse me for the
tickets and that music magazines pay little. Maybe I
was wrong to assume they wouldn't reimburse me, but no
one ever offered or wondered aloud if we ever wanted
tickets to any shows. And my pay complaint was toward
the fact that I hardly made up for the hassles in
doing the strip -- my phone calls to Kyle cost more
than the amount I was paid. And my only other magazine
experience was with Penthouse which paid me literally
12 times my Reflex pay. So I plead unprofessional
ignorance in that I'd never worked for any pisspoor
cheap music rags before. What was Reflex's excuse in
printing that bullshit that no one except Morales
cared about?
My personal feelings about Morale's motives are
that he obviously dislikes me, and, if you read the
article, is a jealous little puppy. Maybe not of me,
it feels awkward and egotistical to say that, but of
working in comics professionally by and large. I'm not
the only one to believe this, and Jed, I'd appreciate
your take on the reading of this diatribe. I also
wouldn't mind you sending the article to Jim to print
in the interview. To attempt to prove my point I offer
three examples from his piece that I remember.
To further embarrass me and malign my character,
Morales snidely writes about my having used the xerox
machine at Reflex, intimating I did this with
regularity and hinting it was out of cheapness. I was
pissed off like crazy at that because I used the xerox
machine once. Once. One time. And, so did Kyle Baker,
Robbie Busch and Stephan DeStefano -- we were xeroxing
the pages to a comic we did called Instant Piano (see
Lance's question [installment -1-] on it) and Kyle had
asked if we could go up to Reflex to run copies off.
Lou Stathis took us up (this was directly after the
dinner that caused Morales to first swipe at me) and
that was the only time I'd been to that Reflex office,
the only time I'd ever xeroxed anything at Reflex.
Morales said whatever the hell would make me look bad,
stretching the truth to fit his petty needs. (And he
should talk about being unprofessional, when he sent
me a package from Reflex using a DC comics Fed-Ex # --
he did the same thing to another cartoonist friend who
briefly worked at Reflex.)
But what really angered me, what was truly
uncalled for, what I think cemented the pattern of
pettiness and jealousy running through his piece --
was when Morales attempts to guess at my personal
income and writes about how I always have cute
girlfriends. What the &#$@! is the point of that? Not
only is that incredibly personal, but incorrect and
intrusive. I'd met Morales at most three times, never
with a girl except at the dinner with my _girlfriend_
Sarah -- that statement could have caused me problems
between my girlfriend and I, and my earnings are _my_
business.
The whole thing was stupid, the article was
useless and unnecessary, just a nasty, cheap attack. I
never had a problem with Morales in regards to my job
at Reflex -- he wasn't even my editor! I never
mentioned any names publicly -- the person who
seemingly caused all the miscommunications was then
editor-in-chief Rich Dahm, who had been gone by this
nonsense's happening. Only personal animosity explains
Morales' having written about me in this manner twice.
Discussing my personal income, my female company and
my personal conversations displays malice and bad
judgment -- furthermore, it's my belief that Morales
is a comics geek (read his ass-kissing reviews and
interviews for proof) who's ticked he's not working in
the industry (a book he had at Piranha's been
stillborn for a while now) and is aggravated that a
little snotnose like me is. Whatever the case, I urge
you to read his unwarranted bile, and between the
lines you'll see a real pathetic case. Remember, this
is a man who wrote in the Reflex classifieds; "Are you
my fan?" and asked money to be sent to him. A joke,
yeah, but I think it's sad.
Like I said, a looong response, it's festered a
long time -- and a bit disjointed, sorry, I'm real
tired. It's 10:10 a.m. I gotta get some sleep --
But Mike's questions are short, so...
[Mike's first question was kinda personal (nothing
like that...) and probably not of interest to the rest
of you. Mike, send me a message and I'll forward
Evan's response. -- jimO]
Mike Fragassi ([m f ragass] at [nickel.ucs.indiana.edu]) -- How
many strips of "Kyle & Evan: Critics at Large" did you
do with Kyle Baker? Recently I came across an issue
of Reflex with the last one, the one just done by
Kyle, and I'm curious about for long you had been
doing this. I presume, from the smarmy flame in the
comics column (which just make your quitting seem
fully justified, by the way), that these won't ever be
made collected and reprinted, right?
Evan -- Oh shit! Mike agrees with me about Morales!
Why'd I spend ages writing about all that shit when I
could have had Jed call up Mike! Ohhh...
Well Mike -- here's the strip info -- as far as I
can tell, because it's confusing even to me which
one's I was "in".
The first "Critics at Large" ran in the Aug 91 issue
(Fishbone cover -- Kyle interviewed them and I did an
illo of the band) and "reviewed" a Blake Babies/Lemon
Heads show.
The Sept/Oct issue (Julian Cope cover) has us
complaining about kids at a Fishbone gig.
Dec 91 (Soundgarden-ugh-cover) has a unique 2-pager
-- I saw BimSkalaBim w/Special Beat, Kyle saw a huge
benefit gig w/the Circle Jerks, Firehouse etc.
Jan/Feb 92, issue #22 (found issue #'s -- Pixies
cover) I saw Mary's Danish and the Beastie Boys at a
nightmare shithole, Kyle didn't go to a show. We are
rebels!
Issue #23 (Ice Cube cover -- you know, Ice Cube, the
guy who slags Koreans and Jews but white alternative
types think he's hep bein' down wif the man) I didn't
write my dialogue for this one, which is sad as Kyle
writes me better than I do. I missed an earlier strip
because I was in the U.K. I think, and I missed one or
two later ones because Kyle is hard to get on the
phone. An aside -- in Reflex #24 there's a letter and
cartoon called "Plagiarists at Large" supposedly from
a "Mitch Swede", ragging our strip. Turns out it was
Bob Morales, the guy with a joke in his heart and too
much time on his hands. Yawn...
Issue #24 has, I believe, the last strip I worked on
-- this one I review the Pixies, Kyle stays at home,
and the strip includes a third reviewer who we thought
was a genuine shmucky Reflex reader whose childish
letters were so sad Kyle decided to use his junk in
the strip. Turned out the "reader" was Bob Morales. So
we were half right -- it was still a shmuck.
***
That's it for the first round of questions. Follow-up
time, eh? Send me your questions for Evan Dorkin and
I'll pass them on and we'll be back with more in a
couple of weeks. Respond to this post or, more
directly, to
[h--l--p] at [engin.umich.edu]
Also, you might want to write Evan to thank him for
doing this and encourage him to visit your very own
hometown comic book store this year. His address is
543 Van Duzer Street, Staten Island, NY 10304.
seeya
jimO
--