From: [bv 446] at [cleveland.Freenet.Edu] (James S. Ottaviani)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Evan Dorkin, The Usenet Interview -5-
Date: 16 Apr 93 18:14:41 GMT


Questions and answers from Evan, and you, and me.

                         ***

Evan Dorkin -- I guess now we'll go on to the questions, 
thanks to those interested enough to send them in. I'm 
enjoying this "interview" and hope some of you are as well. 
Polite little bastard I am today, eh? Okay, first up are a few 
questions from Jim O. his own bad self...

jimO ([h--l--p] at [engin.umich.edu]) -- How did you end up 
collaborating with Bob Burden on Flaming Carrot #20? Did 
you do something similar to what he and Dave Sim did on 
Cerebus #104, i.e. get together and rattle each others' cages 
for a week? Did any funny stories incidents arise from the 
process?

Evan -- The details are hazy. I met Bob at the San Diego con 
in...hell, my memory is such crap. I can remember who 
inked Sal Buscema on certain Defenders issues and the 
names of the Funny Face drink characters but not my mom's 
birthday. Such priorities. Anyway, it was my second San 
Diego convention, I hadn't had much work out then, I was 
just bumming around and getting really drunk and mouthing 
off. So I was mostly hanging out with whoever stayed up 
late and was at the bars, which then was mainly Chris 
Warner, Burden, Bob Schreck, the guys from Jim Hanley's 
Universe comics shop (whom I worked with and went to 
San Diego with) and a batch of others, my memory blurs out 
on details. (Funny how all the then drinkers ended up with 
Dark Horse in one way or another.) Anyway, it was as 
simple as this: Bob and I got along and he was late on issue 
#20 and sometimes uses assistants, so after the convention 
he floated me a call asking me if I wanted to go down to 
Atlanta to help out for two weeks. It sounded cool to me, I 
was a Carrot reader, I was getting paid and I figured it 
would be a good time.
     The way we worked was basically I just assisted Bob 
with spotting black areas, cleaning up balloons, penciling 
incidental background characters which he either inked or 
erased as he saw fit and inking small areas, shirt patterns, 
etc. I was nervous about handling anything "major", as I 
was intimidated working on a book I knew had a real 
following. I've never been too cocksure of my drawing 
abilities, but back then I was incredibly self conscious. The 
panels that I did work on almost entirely are panels three on 
page 15 and a large section of panel one on page 26. On the 
latter panel you'll notice a lot of Pirate Corp$!-esque bits, a 
trombonist, pogoing punks, a man in a wheelchair falling off 
the building. I also did a bunch of shelves in the supermarket 
sequence, adding stupid groceries and slipping in a kind of 
cameo of Milk on page 22, panel three. At that time I hadn't 
done any Milk and Cheese strips, or had done only one or 
two, and working with Bob was a strong catalyst for me to 
start developing strips with the characters. He was looking at 
Pirate Corp$! and kept telling me I was putting too much 
detail and time into it and should do Milk and Cheese 
because "they're easier". He turned out to be right. 
Personally, I didn't think anyone would pay attention to this 
Milk and Cheese crap.
     Anyway, my memories of the two weeks boil down to 
these: We worked with the t.v. on and watched two Liberace 
tv bios, both hilarious. I watched the baseball playoffs 
because the Mets were in it (normally I really fucking hate 
sports, but a childhood love of the loser Mets lingers) and 
Bob had to listen to me scream like a moron as they lost. 
Everywhere we went we taped people we met, the best being 
a drunken native American doing impromptu stand-up 
comedy in a 24 hour Crystal Burger. We hit some bars and 
clubs where all they played seemed to be local heroes REM 
and the B-52's (at least they were good then) and I showed 
Bob how to drink flaming Sambucas while they're still lit. 
Bob told me Alka-Seltzer at night and in the morning helps 
hangovers, it still works for me today (although I hardly 
drink anymore). I got a set of small plastic pigs from 
Roxanne Starr, Bob's letterer. We ate frozen dinners, we 
drove around, I woke up late everyday, we worked on the 
book. We were cartooning bachelors and it was a real good 
time. The End.


jimO -- Congratulations on your (well, Milk's) appearance in 
Grendel #8. Are you receiving huge royalties?

Evan -- The Grendel "Milk" cameo was cool, it's always 
nice to find out someone reads and likes your work. The 
weird thing is, when the issue was solicited there was a 
mention of him being in the book which a few people and at 
least one retailer took to mean there was going to be a 
backup strip with him in it. I understood that the mention 
was just a nice way to promote the characters and help me 
out, thankfully nothing bad happened out of it, just a little 
confusion. What I want to know is how come they didn't 
use Cheese? I assume your "royalty" question was a joke, 
right?


jimO -- What's your favorite              ? (Please fill in the 
blank, and answer your own question. Thanks.)

Evan -- What's my favorite Blank? The one from Dick Tracy 
I guess, but not the one in the movie, the Chester Gould 
one. Another good Blank in comics is the Mad Thinker's 
Awesome Android. (Pathetic that I know this crap, isn't it?) 
That's all the snide and obscure Blank shit I can think of. I 
can't really answer that question, I don't have a favorite 
anything, comic, band, toy, drink etc. All answers would 
take too long to list and I windbag too much already. Okay -- 
here, my favorite pinball machines are Funhouse and 
Addam's Family, and my favorite stuff is MY stuff. Don't 
ask me questions that require me to think.


jimO -- Who would you most like to collaborate with (if 
anyone) that you haven't yet? Related, what's your favorite 
sequence/issue from your own work, and if you're 
comfortable saying why, then, um, why? (Sorry about the 
fanboyish nature of these questions, but I don't think the fact 
that they're really cliched totally invalidates them. I hope.)

Evan -- I don't mind the "fanboyish" nature of the question 
at all -- to tell you the truth no one ever asks me about my 
actual work. I'm not complaining, mind you, but most 
people ask me about personal stuff surrounding my work 
rather than my actual books. I realize the nature of my work 
causes this sort of response, my comics are almost a 
dialogue with my readers about my likes and dislikes. But at 
times it seems people forget I actually have to work to get it 
all on paper, if you know what I mean. That said --
     Most of the people I'd like to collaborate with are friends 
of mine, to be honest. I'm pretty fortunate that my few 
friends in the industry are people whose work I enjoy and 
respect. I've already done the Reflex strips with Kyle, and in 
Instant Piano I hope to work with Stephen DeStefano again 
(we worked on Bill and Ted's for several issues) David 
Mazzuchelli and I have talked quite a bit about working 
together sometime down the road when our schedules calm 
down and the industry settles down. I was all set to do a 
strip with Bob Fingerman for Film Threat, but it fell 
through. We may do it anyway for ourselves, it's a double 
parody of Bad B-films and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad 
World" called "It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie".
     I have a mini-series idea I've been working on for several 
years that I want Derek Thompson, the penciller on Predator: 
Bad Blood to collaborate on. He'd be perfect for it, and if all 
goes well I'll be doing the proposal this summer. There's 
also a chance Dan Vado and I may do something for DC one 
day, tied to his Justice League scripting job. Who knows.
     Otherwise, the people I don't personally know and would 
like to work with is kind of small. While there's a lot of 
people whose work I admire, many of them I'd feel 
incompatible to work with, or just plain intimidated. (If I 
didn't know Kyle and David, I'd never even consider 
working with them.) I also don't work that great with people 
because I feel intimidated on the one hand, and on the other 
collaboration always means compromise on the work. But, 
forgetting that, the people I would want to do something 
with would be Jason Stephens (who does Sin for Tragedy 
Strikes Press), Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl), Phil Bond (Wired 
World), Scott Saavedra (It's Science)...actually, I'm friends 
with Scott and Jamie and Phil as well as Glynn Dillon who I 
worked with on the first Vroom Socko chapter. And Jason 
and I are sort of pen-pals. So who would I work with that I 
totally don't know...well, in a dream job world, I'd like to 
script a mainstream story for Sal Buscema to squelch my 
fanboy daze. That would be a kick. He was a favorite when 
I read Marvel junk as a kid. There's plenty of others, but 
again, it's easy to say you'd like to work with so and so and 
feel even geekier than you already are.
     One person I keep bugging to work with me is my 
girlfriend Sarah, who actually already is doing all my color 
work. But I want her to write and draw her own stuff and 
script this strip idea for me that she has, but she's resistant. I 
like her stuff.
     As for which things I've worked on that are my 
favorites...well, I'm pretty unhappy with everything I've 
done. The list of mistakes in drawing and wrong turns in 
writing would cover twenty rolls of toilet paper. But that's 
the nature of working over a long time, I will say I think my 
work is steadily improving. Off the top of my head...I'm 
more or less happy with the Milk and Cheese strips. The old 
ones are drawn for shit but have a certain charm, I guess. 
The new ones are a bit cluttered but I think are designed 
better graphically. I still do them pretty much off the cuff and 
make it up as I go along.
     I'm fairly happy with the script on Fight-Man, for what it 
is, and I did as good a job on the pencils as I'm capable of 
on a deadline. I think my writing has improved on Pirate 
Corp$!, and I'm most proud of issue 5. I also like issue 3 
for the most part. The art...well, drawing doesn't come 
incredibly naturally to me, so I screw up a lot, especially in 
the inking. I didn't start inking seriously until I was close to 
twenty or so. I need a lot more years. Issue 5 is closest to 
where I want P.C$! to go, it's closer to the things that matter 
to me and should matter to the readers I'm aiming the book 
at. Hopefully my best work is forthcoming, otherwise I'll be 
hacking out garbage somewhere or washing dishes again.


Jeff Meyer ([m--ia--y] at [tc.fluke.COM]) --
>I just turned down an offer from the Fox Kids Network
>to option Milk & Cheese.
     GaaaaCCCKKKKK!!!!  I can only imagine what they 
would do to that strip to get it to air on Saturday morning.  A 
faithful adaptation would hit children's animation like a 
50mm shell slamming into a gas tank under an orphanage.

Evan -- I don't really know what to say except there's no 
way M&C would be done primarily for children, or for 
grown up children like your average ass-backwards comics 
geek, either. Present company excepted, of course. As I 
noted in the updated information I sent to Jim [installment 
-4-], there's a bit of talk about animating M&C for a possible 
Deadline T.V. project. I think that's a proposed forum that 
would accept M&C for what it is (whatever that is) and 
present it as such.
    Children's programming is basically shit. Tiny Toons 
makes me nauseous, it's unwatchable fanboy produced crap 
with all the sound and fury of the old Warner Bros. material 
without any of the wit, imagination or style. And it's 
arguably better than the rest of the nonsense aimed at kids. 
The supposedly adult stuff is pretty lousy also, if you ask 
me. You didn't, but it's my computer, so what I say goes. 
For the record, Batman is junk, comics goofs embrace 
anything adapted from comics wholeheartedly even if it's 
pure crap. If it's only slightly decent, like the Batman 
cartoon, they go positively apeshit over it. Don't even get me 
started on Ren and Stimpy. If I want badly timed fart and 
booger jokes I can listen to a bunch of kids on a playground. 
The sad thing about animation is that the people doing it are 
usually as geeky as comics people, only they leave the house 
for work so it appears they have lives. Animators generally 
can't write for beans, and design their films around set 
pieces, art direction and "cool shit" they enjoy drawing. Just 
look at ex-animator turned lousy filmaker Tim Burton for 
proof. It's all monsters and castles and explosions, nothing 
wrong about that, but it's also hollow characters, cliched 
situations and clunky dialogue. I've got Pro-Wrestling for 
that. End of unasked for spiel.


Matt Maxwell ([m--xw--l] at [ucsd.edu]) -- Any cool bands that 
you want to recommend to all the comics.geeks out here?  I 
mean besides the ones that you put in the comics, on T-shirts 
etcetera.
      And I understand that once you caught some flack for 
putting a Metallica t-shirt on one of the characters (in B&T), 
but only because they were a band that some corporate drone 
recognized and flagged (as opposed to the million other 
bands who appear in your comics that a lot of people 
wouldn't know about.) Truth or boloney?  About getting in 
trouble, that is.
     Keep up the good work.

Evan -- Because my schedule is so crammed up, we haven't 
been buying any CDs or vinyl in months. All we hear is 
what's on the local "alternative" radio stations (a three play 
of CRAP! followed by a rockblock of CRAP!), a decent 
smattering of stuff on W-FMU when we can get it in (except 
for the self indulgent art school droning of the DJ's) and the 
decent six to ten minutes of MtV's laughable 120 minutes. 
Otherwise we only hear whatever promos Sarah receives for 
her 'zine Mad Planet (second issue almost done, bands 
interviewed are Toasters, Unsane, Seaweed, Bim Skala 
Bim, interview with cartoonist Carol Swain and scribbles by 
moi. Only a buck from us at the House of Fun, 543 Van 
Duzer St., Staten Island, NY 10304. End of gratuitous 
plug.) and the occasional order she places with K Records. 
Most everything out there sucks, in my humble opinion, so a 
good number of the bands I mention in my work are still the 
ones I like. These include the latest Bim Skala Bim (Bones), 
the new Mighty Mighty Bosstones E.P.(which has an inside 
photo that includes an issue of P.C$! #4. Neat!) and the 
upcoming full lengther, the most recent releases from Bad 
Religion, All, No Doubt, the new Toasters is a vast 
improvement over the last tragedy they put out, the 
Scofflaws, the California Ska-Quake comp from Moon 
records, the live Madness reunion releases were pretty cool, 
anything by Shonen Knife (they've been around a decade, 
so don't listen to the people calling them a joke fad), King 
Missile,etc. etc.  Some bands I used to recommend have 
crapped out big time for me -- the Chili Peppers, 
Lemonheads, Juliana Hatfield is a sap on her own, REM, 
Dinosaur Jr., the last Dead Milkmen was really 
disappointing, the B-52's, Thomas Dolby's last two were 
pretty weak, the last Curve wasn't too hot. I'm not nuts 
about the new Soul Asylum and Paul Westerburg has 
become duller than dull. Almost everything on MtV or the 
alternative stations stinks or turns brown really quick. 
Sarah's been playing mostly "girl" bands, for lack of a better 
descriptive term, and most of it's loads better than the stuff 
Spin is pushing. I'll ask Sarah who we've been hearing as 
my memory is weak:
     Some good "G" bands are Tiger Trap, the Gloo Girls, 
Bikini Kill, the Fifth Column, L7 and the Fastbacks are 
really great even if they've been on 120 Goofballs, some 
other stuff we've liked were the High Backed Chairs, the 
last Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Freedom of Choice new wave 
cover album, the last Lush release, some other stuff I can't 
remember. Mostly independent small release stuff Sarah's 
gotten a hold of. Who cares anymore, music is becoming so 
fucking irrelevant nowadays, like everything else. Oooh, 
such a nihilist!
     On Bill and Ted, I didn't catch too much flak, it was just 
that the stuff was being removed when it was caught by 
Nelson Entertainment, who owned B&T. Marvel was okay 
with it all. One editor at Marvel sent the B&T issue that had 
Superchunk on the cover to them, she's friends with the 
band. Nelson was pretty corporate baby over it all. No one 
went ape that I know of, they just asked Fabian Nicieza, the 
editor, to tell me not to do it. So I just used obscure bands 
that sounded like I was making them up. It's stupid, no band 
would sue for free advertising, Marvel wasn't selling books 
on the basis of the band's names mentioned on T-shirts. I 
didn't care, because the popular bands they objected to were 
the metal bands I don't even like. I just put them there 
because Bill and Ted were stupid enough to like them.


SCAVENGER ([k--gu--t] at [ucsu.Colorado.EDU]) -- I'd like to 
know why [you] turned down the cartoon option.

Evan -- Ah, last question in this round. Also asked by 
someone calling themselves Gene Alloway. Now look, 
Gene, what you do is up to you, but I think using silly 
pseudonyms is pretty stupid. You should stop doing that. It 
makes you look bad.
     Well, if you read any of the rest of my babbling, you'd 
know that I think network cartoons are pretty much crap. 
I've no doubt anything done with Milk and Cheese done 
under that system would be an embarrassment, if it got so 
far as actually being produced. Of course, I could take the 
option money and hope they don't actually produce the 
show, so the rights revert back to me, but that's a risky 
maneuver not worth getting into. The option money is 
usually nothing tremendous, and while I'm not rich I'm far 
from welfare. Furthermore, the Fox people wanted all the 
rights to the characters, and I'm not selling. Under their 
offer I couldn't do my T-shirts or even the comics. Fuck that 
in a handbasket. If I was in this for the money you'd see me 
angling for royalty books at Marvel instead of floating by for 
page rates to support my Slave Labor stuff. Don't get me 
wrong, I'm living under capitalism, I'm a pragmatic person, 
I work on Predator, but I'm not going for the throat and the 
wallets of the kids in the comics shops or the teat of 
Hollywood. I don't need to impress the Comics Buyer's 
Guide/Comic Scene crowd with my media options. If a good 
deal came along that involved me creatively, I'd be more 
than happy to agree to it. That probably will never happen. 
Either way I've got my comics to do.

                         ***

That's the lot. Let's keep going, shall we?
Emphasis on WE. Ask some followup questions and I'll 
send them to Evan -- and the oft-mentioned and much 
appreciated Sarah (Dyer) who made my life easier by 
sending me Evan's answers on disk. Thanks Sarah. 
Respond to this post or, more directly, to
      [h--l--p] at [engin.umich.edu]
                                and we'll learn more and more.

seeya
jimO
--