From: [h--w] at [casbah.acns.nwu.edu] (Heath Row)
Subject: skip williamson interview
To: [c--m--x] at [world.std.com]
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 01:40:18 -0600 (CST)

Interview with Skip Williamson, Nov. 9, 1993
 
H1>Basically, Skip, how long have you lived in Chicago?
 
S1>Since 1967.
 
H2>OK, and where did you live before that?
 
S2>Well, the reason I moved to Chicago was to publish magazines and comic
books with Jay Lynch. I did that in 1967. I was living in this small,
Missouri-Mississippi river town called Canton, Missouri, which is really
right across the river from Quincy, Ill., so it's kind of down state. As
soon as I could get out, then I got out. I had been corresponding with Jay
Lynch for a number of years.
 
H3>About how old were you at the time?
 
S3>I was 21, 22. I had just finished four years of college in this town,
and it had a little liberal arts college. Actually, I hadn't finished it. I
didn't get a diploma. I did four years and then dropped out like a lot of
people were doing at the time, and just moved to Chicago to publish
cartoons.
 
H4>How did you hook up then with Jay?
 
S4>Jay and I had known each other for a period of time mainly through a
fanzine network since we were maybe 14 or 15. Also, Art Spiegelman, Jay,
Robert Crumb... We all knew of each other. In 1961, I published a cartoon
in Harvey Kurtzman's Help magazine, which was my first published cartoon.
Then we kind of fell into this fanzine network of people who were fans of
satire, primarily influenced by Harvey Kurtzman. Through that network of
fanzines, we got to know each other at a very young age. It kind of
coalesced in the late '60s.
 
H5>What were some of the zines that you were involved in?
 
S5>The first fanzine I was involved in was a fanzine by the name of Smudge,
which was published by Joe Pilotti(?) out of some place in New York state.
I can't remember. It's something like Knobburn(?), but I'm not sure about
that. He was a fan of the Kurtzman style of satire, and somehow we got in
touch with each other. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. I can't
remember. But we contacted one another, and through that I met Jay Lynch. I
published my own fanzine called Squire, and Art Spiegelman published one
called Blas
-- . They all had circulations of like 80 or 100. Just little mimeographed
sheets.
 
H6>I've done a fanzine in one form or another since 1988, and my last
project, Karma Lapel #4, the last issue of that had 300, which was quite a
step for me.
 
S6>I think the fanzine scene is probably... You can reach a lot more people
simply because of the existence of Kinko's. Or Xerox technology, because
when I was doing it, it was like hectographs or, not even mimeographs, but
that kind of blue ink on paper. Kind of a hectographic process, very
primitive. Now you can set type. If you've got a Mac, you can do something
fancy.
 
H7>Make it look really nice.
 
S7>In those days, it was pretty much hand work and relatively low
circulation. So we discovered each other and started communicating.
 
H8>When you left for Chicago from Canton, had you been involved in some
kind of political activist scene at school?
 
S8>The whole culture was changing at the time. Everywhere, every place in
the country there was activism going on, because this was '67, and it was
pretty much sweeping the culture. So, sure, in our own little way,
absolutely. I did cartoons for various campus literary magazines and
newspapers that would get me into trouble because they were strident
political statements having to do with everything from sexual politics to
presidential elections. I was kind of a rabble-rouser at that little
school.
 
H9>What college was that?
 
S9>Culver Stockton(?) College. I went there. My dad was a professor, and he
taught there, so I went basically because I had a free ride. I didn't like
the school at all.
 
H10>What was your degree in?
 
S10>I didn't get a degree, but I was majoring in art. One of the problems
with the place was that it only had one art teacher in the art department,
and he would change every year because he hated the school, you know? By
the time I finished, I was more focused in terms of what I wanted to do
than most of the teachers, than the one guy, whoever that might be, and in
many ways was a more active artist than people who were trying to teach me
what to do. It was frustrating.
 
H11>So then you moved to Chicago. How was that different?
 
S11>First of all, it was a cosmopolitan area where there was a lot going
on. The Chicago Seed was beginning to happen at that time. Jay and I
immediately put out a publication called The Chicago Mirror, which lasted
three issues. It was kind of a combination of The Realist, which was a
popular publication at that time.
 
H12>I believe it's still around.
 
S12>It's still around. Paul Krassner was the editor of that, still is. It
was a combination of that plus a lot of psychedelic influences and a lot of
cartoon influences. With the last issue, the third issue of The Mirror,
which happened simultaneously with the Democratic Convention of '68, during
that time, when the convention was going on, Robert Crumb came to town and
the three of usQJay Lynch, Robert Crumb and myselfQput together the first
issue of Bijou Funnies, which was what we changed The Mirror into. A comic
book. Crumb had just put out Zap #1.
 
H13>How long did Bijou Funnies run?
 
S13>It ran for eight issues from about '68 to '72. I believe that's
correct.
 
H14>Was Chicago a hotbed for underground comics at the time?
 
S14>Well, it wasn't necessarily a hotbed of underground comics. The main
hotbed for underground comics was San Francisco. We were kind of a middle
point because we caught a lot of the people moving from New York to San
Francisco. They would stop and visit us. Or anybody coming from out of the
country who was involved in the whole movement. There were some people who
came from Amsterdam and other places would visit New York then come to
Chicago on their way to San Francisco. We were kind of the stopping point
between New York and San Francisco, so a lot of the cartoonists would come
through, particularly Robert Crumb, who had come through every time we did
an issue of Bijou. He would stop and help us, and would then move on to
either New York or San Francisco. There were a good amount of people here
too drawing comics.
 
H15>How important do you think comics and other artistic media that were
used at the time were as far as a political message goes?
 
S15>I don't know. I think that the purpose they served was one of
individual artistic expression rather than political party line kind of
politics messages. I think really what they did was the comics had more to
do with what the individuals had to say than what the correct party line
was. There were many times in those days that I got in trouble with the
local radical community for being politically incorrect, which is another
problem again these days. Only in those days, it was called
counter-revolutionary. It wasnUt called politically correct, so you were
either for the revolution or youUre a counter-revolutionary. Sometimes I
would venture off in my own tirade which wouldnUt coalesce or gel with the
opinions of those who had the political agenda.
 
H16>ThatUs interesting, because from what IUve read and IUve talked to
people about, even groups like SNCC werenUt very politically correct, at
least in the treatment of women within their organizations.
.
S16>But that was still evolving at the time. The womenUs movement came
along probably post T68. Before that, it was a real male dominated kind of
macho oriented culture. Hippie women were bare foot and took care of the
kids even in the communes, but that began to change I think primarily
through the kind of the hard left political movements. Women realized that
they were not getting, that they were doing all the work and getting none
of the credit. So all of that began to develop as a result of that. So that
didnUt really come along until after T68.
 
H17>Have you been able to support yourself financially by doing comics?
 
S17>IUve been able to support myself financially by doing artwork. IUve
always had a job. Even in the T60s, when I was doing these comics, I was
working at small ad agencies and package design places. And on the side I
kind of did the comics. The reasons for this move is to move away from more
and more commercial work and throwing more and more energy into the comics.
ThatUs what I want to do. IUm at a point now where I can do it. I can see I
can do it because IUm publishing my own books and, you know, knocking out
the middle man. IUm putting it into distribution myself, and theyUre
beginning to make money. What I want to do is go off into the woods and
draw comic books. ThatUs essentially what IUm doing. ThatUs primarily the
reason IUm doing that, yeah.
 
H18>What kind of work are you doing now?
 
S18>In the recent years, IUve self-published a number of comic books. I
self-published a sketchbook collection called Naked Hostility, and thatUs
simply a collection of drawings from my sketchbooks from T68 to the
present, really. Scanning that period of time. Then I published a
large-sized collection of the kind of radical stuff from the underground
press of the late T60s called Class War Comics: A Brief History of the
Revolution. Then I published Pighead, which is all new comic strips, which
just came out. Actually, thatUs the first all Skip Williamson brand new
comic strip comic book ever. IUve done a lot of reprints. IUve done
collaborations with other people. IUve been in books with other people, but
this is really the first after 25 years. This is the first collection of
all new material. IUve just put into distribution a new book called Skip
WilliamsonUs Gag Reflex, which is a collection of single-panel humor. When
I first started drawing cartoons, I really wanted to be the kind of
cartoonist that did single-panel humor like you see in The New Yorker and
Playboy Magazine. What happened over the years is we fell into this comic
strip format. In the meantime, IUve always kind of done these gags and
things. ItUs a form I like. ThereUs really not a lot of places to publish
it these days.
 
H19>ItUs a tough market.
 
S19>It is. Even in Playboy, that isnUt a satisfactory place to print
because the cartoons arenUt that funny. WhoeverUs editing them, and I think
I know who it is, has no sense of humor. The Yorker? So youUve got one
magazine in the country... In any case, I have a whole pile of these
cartoons that IUm publishing in a book that are basically single-panel
humor. Then after that, I want to do a regular comic book featuring my
character Snappy Sammy Smoot, which will be called Smoot: The Comic. IUm
going to do a second edition of Naked Hostility and then keep going. Do
another Pighead.
 
H20>Are you also doing ad work still?
 
S20>IUm doing a little, but not much. I mean, primarily right now itUs the
comic books and comic art. IUm going to a lot of conventions, IUm talking
to a lot of guys who run retail stores, building a network, putting up
incentive... One of the things is a lot of the younger people these days
really donUt know anything about me and what I did. One of the ideas is to
get me back into their mindset. If you get me in their mind and show them
that IUm out there, and that IUll be reprinting some of the older things
and doing a lot of new things and hopefully building an audience.
 
H21>ItUs interesting. Where do you think Pighead fits into... Is there
really an underground comics scene today?
 
S21>There is, and itUs probably stronger now than itUs ever been before,
although I think it probably doesnUt have as, people arenUt having as much
fun as they used to. People, Dan Clowes...
 
H22>So you would consider some of the Fantagraphics...
 
S22>Oh, those are all underground. Pete Bagge and Hate is underground.
Terry LabanUs Cud is underground. Julie Doucet is underground. And Crumb
continues to publish work. He has a regular title called Hup! There are
more titles out there now, more quality titles, I think, and theyUre
everywhere. One of the interesting things about the early undergrounds is
that it was such a raw form that there was a lot of really bad underground
comics. But on the other hand, it was totally open to anyone who wanted to
do it. Now I think thatUs not true. Now you have to have a little bit of
talent, the ability to draw and the ability to write before you can
actually publish a book or the publisher wonUt publish it otherwise. In
those days, it was so cheap you could just, it didnUt make any difference
if you had any talent or not, you could do a comic book. Which in a way,
was great. It was an open-ended kind of forum that anyone who thought they
had an idea to express could do it whether the idea was good or not. Now
itUs a bit more restrictive because of economics.
 
H23>Are you talking about that because of the distribution networks and
trying to reach an audience, because there is still quite a vibrant
minicomic underground with photo-copied, self-published.
 
S23>ThereUs a lot of that going on.
 
H24>A lot of thatUs really bad.
 
S24>Yeah, well, thatUs true because see, that kind of takes up, I guess
that does take up the slack of people who canUt get published in mainstream
and get mainstream distribution or as mainstream as underground comic
distribution is.
 
H25>I guess I never really considered Eightball or Hate as underground
because of Fantagraphics and the widespread distribution that theyUre able
to reach. How would you define an underground comic?
 
S25>There was widespread distribution in the T60s, too, through the head
shops. As a matter of fact, with Bijou, I think we sold over two million
copies for each edition in reprints and everything. We were widely
distributed, and to this day, people know who I am from that generation
simply because they saw the comics. So there was a decent distribution
network that was destroyed after head shops bit the dust. Then what
happened was direct marketing, and these alternative distributors who came
up out of those ashes. You had people like Kitchen Sink. Of course, Denis
Kitchen was one of the original underground cartoonists both in Bijou and
with his own MomUs Homemade Comics out of Milwaukie. Then Fantagraphics.
Those are the two main underground publishers these days. How would I
define a underground comic? I donUt know. It was a term that was kind of
given to us by Time Magazine, you know, and it defined what we were doing
at the time, which was basically black-and-white cartoons without
restriction in a comic book. So I suppose that still applies. Of course,
whatUs happened in the meantime during the T70s and the T80s, you got a lot
of black-and-white titles out of mainstream distributors, which were called
independent titles or alternative titles. They werenUt really what I would
consider underground. They were still kind of guys in tights appealing to
13-year-old boys.
 
H26>Just smaller press.
 
S26>Yeah. But I would just define, I suppose underground comic books are
comic strips that encompass the freedom of the artist to do whatever he
wants to do and generally are produced with black-and-white guts and color
covers. Although thatUs not always true.
 
H27>Even the market today for black-and-white books, if itUs not on, say,
one of the, like Fantagraphics or something like this, distribution gets
somewhat difficult. I know Cerebus, luckily, has probably one of the
largest distributions of a black-and-white book. But Martin Wagner, Jeff
Smith... even though theyUre constantly growing, do you think that
self-publishing a black-and-white book is going to reach the audience that
you want to reach?
 
S27>The distribution is not too hard to get a handle on, but the artist has
to have it within himself to be able to want to pick up the phone and deal
with distribution situations as well as draw. I really donUt have a problem
with that because IUve been doing that for years for other people anyway,
you know, dealing with print runs and the technical ends of publishing and
that sort of thing, so finally a light bulb went off over my head and I
said I should just do this for myself. This is craziness, promotion and all
of that, marketing and all of that dumb stuff. IUm in an advantageous
position in a sense because I have a name so when my work goes into the
catalogs, they put one of those little stars by it.
 
H28>Like in Fandom House.
 
S28>Then the retailers pick it up. On the other hand, I know itUs much more
of a struggle for people who are still trying to build that name. I canUt
answer that question because IUm not those guys. I donUt know how much
theyUve investigated the distribution. Part of the clues are to develop
relationships with retailers. I go to conventions, and I have a mailing
list. Everybody who buys one of my products signs that mailing list, and I
can send out solicitations for the next book, and I can also offer
autographed copies of the next book if they order directly from me for a
couple more dollars. Or they can get the books early. I have other
products. It doesnUt cost that much to print a book. ItUs about $1000 to
print a book.
 
H29>WhatUs your print run with that then?
 
S29>3,000. For my books, what I do is I solicit to the distributors and as
soon as I find out how many copies they want, then I print. Not until I
know what the numbers are. Anybody can solicit a product through the major
distributors and wait Ttil those numbers come in. The numbers might come in
at 45, and you donUt want to print 45 copies, obviously you decide not to
print. But if they come in at a reasonable number, anywhere from 1,000 on,
you can be justified to print the book. Then itUs just a building process,
you know. One right after the other.
 
H30>You got to get out there. Reading some of the early Smoot stuff in The
Seed and then reading some in Pighead and Naked Hostility, it doesnUt seem
like the character has changed a heck of a lot since T67. Has your work
grown or developed?
 
S30>ItUs developed. I think IUve developed a wider range of characters. I
think the story telling aspect has changed. I think my writingUs probably
better. I think the more that I draw now, the drawing will get better. In
terms of my mindset, IUm pretty much the same guy I was in those days. IUm
still pretty much of a thorn in the side of just about anybody. I like to
get my rants out in these comics.
 
H31>It also seems that you have different styles like some of the celebrity
caricatures in Naked Hostility. Some of the strips that you draw have a
real sparse line-art aspect to them, and then other strips are more dense.
Is that something that you wanted to do? What do you enjoy doing most?
 
S31>ItUs real painful for me to draw these real detailed, dense
cross-hatching things that IUve done for years and years. I just get into
the habit of doing it. Sometimes I feel like I overwork a piece, so I
consciously sometimes draw in a very kind of simple line style because I
feel like itUs a more spontaneous drawing. Depending on what IUm working
on, sometimes it requires more spontaneity. Sometimes it requires this kind
of labor-intensive thing. For years IUve tried to get away from as much of
this labor intensive as possible because it takes so much time. But on the
other hand, once I get started, sometimes I canUt stop. The hand doesnUt
stop moving. It just kind of takes on a life of its own.
 
H32>Are you influenced by any artists? Can you pinpoint any people?
 
S32>Originally, I was very influenced obviously by Harvey Kurtzman, the guy
who invented Mad Comics as opposed to Mad Magazine. I was influenced by
such comic strip artists as Chester Gould, who used to draw Dick Tracy, and
I was influenced by Harold Gray, who used to do Little Orphan Annie. Then I
was influenced by Al Capp, who did LilU Abner, and George Herriman, who did
Krazy Kat. There were a number of people who influenced me, but now IUm
influenced by a lot of things that I see. New things. Everything is
constantly influencing me. I borrow a lot.
 
H33>How do you think comic strips in general have changed over time?
 
S33>From the beginning?
 
H34>Not from the beginning. From, say, the influences that you just named.
A lot of those people arenUt still around, and a lot of their storytelling
styles arenUt still around.
 
S34>No, thatUs right. In terms of newspaper comics, thereUs nothing out
there worth reading. There really isnUt. But at the time of these guys, the
ones I mentioned were kind of the last of the great comic strip artists who
were publishing in newspapers. The way that all began was that William
Randolph Hearst actually published the first real newspaper comic strip. It
was called the Yellow Kid, and the reason it was printed in yellow was also
the same reason we got the name yellow journalism was because they had an
excess of yellow ink. They used to wrap the newspapers in these crazy comic
strips, and they let these guys go pretty much full tilt, whatever they
wanted to do and give them full pages to draw, and they would come out with
some pretty absurd, nutty stuff. And they would sell newspapers. As the
newspapers became more commercially viable, then the editorial dispositions
became more conservative, and they began to tell these guys who were in
fact selling the newspapers for them, what to do. Cartoons over the years
have shrunk and become more and more meaningless, which is where they are
now. TheyUre just totally meaningless. Interesting cartoon art that I see
is either coming from Europe or coming out of the alternative comic book
market. I do think the undergrounds had an influence on even the mainstream
markets in terms of creators rights and in terms of subject matter. But it
really hasnUt made much of a difference in terms of the artistic quality of
those mainstream comic books, mainly because they are still a group effort
and not an individualUs effort and theyUre motivated by dollars as opposed
to by art.
 
H35>Tell me a little bit about the Class Act volume you were mentioning
earlier.
 
S35>The what?
 
H36>Class Act Comics?
 
S36>Class War. Class War Comics: A Brief History of the Revolution.
 
H37>Is that a reprint volume?
 
S37>ItUs a reprint volume. ItUs oversize. ItUs really only 12 pages long,
but itUs printed on really heavy paper and coated stock so itUs more like
an art portfolio. ItUs a lot of the stuff from The Seed and that era. A lot
of Nixons, a lot of Agnews in it. Right from the period.
 
H38>When did that come out?
 
S38>It came out early this year. In April or something like that.
 
H39>Has that been received well?
 
S39>Yeah, it has.
 
H40>Do you find that your reprint stuff is received on an equal level with
the new stuff or vice versa?
 
S40>This new Pighead book has gotten the biggest numbers in terms of
reception. The reprint stuff, I think, down the line will receive more
attention because people will become more interested in what I do from
reading the newer things. At this point, the newer work seems to receive
the most attention.
 
H41>It seemed that, a couple of interesting things in Pighead. The first
story, is that totally autobiographical?
 
S41>Pretty much.
 
H42>Do you plan on doing more stuff like that?
 
S42>I think so. As a matter of fact, what IUd like to do with Pighead is
continue the format with each issue. In other words, tell an
autobiographical story, do a prose piece, do a parody of another thing and
follow the same kind of format IUve established with this magazine. That
will be Pighead, as opposed to the Smoot work that will be the adventures
of Snappy Sammy Smoot that would include maybe classic reprints plus new
stories.
 
H43>Those new stories, are they going to be short, fast bits, or are they
going to be eight-page-long stories or...
 
S43>It depends. It depends. I mean it really depends on what happens when I
sit down and start drawing. Sometimes theyUre fast, and sometimes I intend
for them to be short and they end up long. I donUt really know. I donUt
plan ahead enough on these to figure out the length of them really before I
start. In other words, theyUre not totally written out. they kind of start
and take on a life of their own and then evolve.
 
H44>Do you write as you go, then? As youUre drawing the piece?
 
S44>Pretty much what IUll do is IUll start with the words first. IUll
figure out what IUm going to do. IUll write phrases. Dialogue. IUll write
kind of a rough outline of what the things going to be. IUll start breaking
it down into pages and panels. Then IUll end up a lot of times inserting
things or taking elements out, just doing a general editing kind of thing.
ItUs always fluid.
 
H45>With the text piece, was that done in a Basil Wolverton-esque kind of
style as far as the language you used or just, I guess how your name was
the first thing... Were you influenced by basil Wolverton?
 
S45>Absolutely. As a matter of fact, my signature is an homage to Basil
Wolverton. For 20 years IUve signed it that way, and that I did it because
Basil Wolverton did it.
 
H46>And is this story about the Underground Comix Hall of Fame in Chicago
and stuff like that?
 
S46>It's pretty accurate, yeah, too.
 
H47>Just the names are changed?
 
S47>The names have changed, yeah.
 
H48>Who are you?
 
S48>But everybody knows... Well, I'm kind of a composite character. I'm the
Clarence Creedwater character, but he's also other people too.
 
H49>When we talked on the phone, you said that a bunch of kind of the
underground scene people got together when one of your ranks had died. Who
was that person that passed on?
 
S49>Paul Zmievsky(?). When I first met him, he was one of the guys who came
from New York City to found The Seed. He was known at the time as Paul
Simon, but he changed his name back to his original Jewish name Zmievsky
after awhile. So he died recently. He was living in Munich, and he came
over here to visit a child of his, and on the way back, he got an embolism
on the plane. That's it! There's no hospital to relieve the pressure. There
was kind of a wake, and a lot of the people from the Seed era showed up,
people I haven't seen for a long time.
 
H50>How was it seeing them?
 
S50>It was fine. It was alright. I'm always glad to see old friends. It
wasn't like an extraordinary event.
 
H51>I was going to ask if it was exciting or...
 
S51>It also wasn't an uncomfortable event either. It was just like part of
the landscape at the time, and it worked.
 
H52>Do you feel like you've definitely moved on from the '60s, or do you
think that you're still very rooted in it and influenced by what was
happening with The seed and all that?
 
S52>I think the answer to that question is probably yes to both of those
parts. I think I'll always be influenced by that time, by that culture, by
what happened, as everybody's influenced by what happened in their youth.
The question is have I moved on or has the culture moved on, you know?
Something has moved on. Or both things have moved on.
 
H53>A lot of people I talk to kind of want to leave that part behind.
 
S53>I look at it kind of as anthropology at this point. it's almost like
looking at hieroglyphics when I go back and look at that sort of thing. I'm
so detached from it, really, that it doesn't seem like it's... I mean I
know that I did it, but I relate to it more from a historical or
anthropological viewpoint than I do from an influential reality.
 
H54>The photographer's here. Would you mind us taking a few picture of you?
You can just do whatever. If you want to just look at comics or mug.
 
S54>I brought my sketchbook. You can see some of this.
 
H55>We can look at sketches. That'd be cool.
 
S55>Oh, I'll show you. See? I'll show you some of the gag stuff I've done.
For some reason, there's a lot of crucifixions in what I'm doing. I wasn't
raised Catholic or anything, but there's a lot of anti, I don't know if
it's anti... I also do a lot of paintings. This is a study for a commission
earlier this year. It was a large acrylic painting that recreated all of
the Bijou characters.
 
H56>Is that going to be the cover of a book? Oh, you're not...
 
S56>No, this was a commission from some guy who was willing to lay out
$3000 for me to do a painting. You know, this kind of stuff. This is
typical.
 
H57>I've been involved recently with some of the Chicago anarchist scene,
and when I was in high school back in Wisconsin, I was doing quite a bit
with the punk scenes in Milwaukee and Madison. Do you think that that's
kind of the counter-culture or subculture of the '90s?
 
S57>I guess it is. But punk's been going on now for a long time. I mean
punk's been going on for almost 18-20 years. Who knows what's going to
happen?
 
H58>have you been trying to get into the markets like the New Yorker and
stuff like that?
 
S58>No, I'd just rather do it myself, you know. Here's a logo I did
recently for a software development company. This is a bubble gum card I'm
working on right now as a matter of fact for Topps bubble gum.
 
H59>What series?
 
S59>I'm not sure the name of the series. What it's going to be is like you
know you get those badges that people wear at conventions, those clear
holders. Then kids buy the bubble gum pack and it's got like three badges
in it, and you can stick it in. This one is Computer Wiz, and it's actually
a parody of my old, on the first of Bijou I had Snappy Sammy Smoot say
"Don't wee-wee on the TV, kids," which I have no idea what that means, but
I did it. This, what they want me to do is they want to have this character
and he's got a personal computer, and down here it'll say "Don't wee-wee on
your PC."
 
H60>Kind of like what the country bumpkin cousin coming in and urinating on
the television with his dog? Is this some of the stuff that'll be in Naked
Hostility II?
 
S61>Some of it.. well, I don't know. It'll end up somewhere. I'm not sure
where. This is just a fairly recent sketch book I've started. I try to keep
these thing going just in terms of rough notes and drawing and whatever.
 
H62>How did you come up with the Smoot character? How did that evolve?
 
S62>The Smoot character? It's hard to say. I was doing a bunch of drawings
that kind of looked like him at the time. Where he came from, I can't put
my finger on. People ask me that, and I just don't remember.
 
H63>Is he supposed to be an Italian-American?
 
S63>He has many disguises. As a matter of fact, I want to do for the first
Smoot book I do, I want to do the origin of Smoot where he's like raised by
pigs. Just like Romulus and Remus, but he's raised by pigs. And that's
where he gets his powers from.
 
H64>His powers?
 
S64>Right, exactly. Those pigs are always giving him advice, but it's
stupid, piggish advice. He's always been pretty much an autobiographical
character. he's kind of like the country bumpkin that moves to the city and
is amazed by looking and he sees the tall buildings and they amaze him.
He's constantly being ripped off by the guy who wants to sell him the
Brooklyn Bridge. He's that kind of naive character.
 
H65>Now you're moving Dec. 1? Is that the date?
 
S65>That's the date.
 
H66>And you're moving to Atlanta, Georgia?
 
S66>I'm moving to Marietta, Georgia, which is north of Atlanta. I sold my
house here. I bought a great place down there where I have twice the space
to work in, my own building to work in as well as a house. I've got a
printer right up the road who'll print the comics. It's a major
distribution hub down there for both Capital and Diamond. It's just much
more cost-effective. I'll be able to, just on the savings on taxes alone,
be able to publish two comic books a year.
 
H67>Do you plan on trying to be more regular than that?
 
S67>I'm not going to try to do a regular publishing schedule because that
would put me under a gun I don't want to be put under.
 
H68>Do you have less fun when you try to deadline yourself like that?
 
S68>I just think that there are too many ways that I would want to be
sidetracked. If I say OK I'm going to do Pighead four times a year, I might
decide I don't want to do a Pighead now, I want to do something else. A
different kind of collection or maybe another kind of book. Rather than
formatting myself too tightly, I prefer not to and produce four to six
titles a year, maybe, of whatever I happen to be doing.
 
H69>Just random Skip stuff.
 
S69>That might change as I get into it more. I might end up getting into a
tighter format. But I'm really not interested in locking myself into as
tight a format as doing say a Hate or an Eightball all the time or that
sort of thing. I'd rather be more all over the place.
 
H70>Do you feel that just having one recurring title is a structure even
though the contents of the book could be flowing all the time?
 
S70>It just depends on who's doing it. To me, I'm sure that the people who
do that and enjoy doing it don't feel like they're restricted at all. On
the other hand, my feeling about it is yeah it probably would be.
 
H71>So you'd rather have the freedom to change names.
 
S71>Or move into a sketchbook format or a more prose-oriented format or a
more autobiographical format. I mean I suppose I could have just an
open-ended title that would have all that business in it, but I just think
I would prefer to do these as individual projects. The Smoot series. The
Pighead series. The sketchbook series, which would be Naked Hostility. And
then occasionally publishing reprints.
 
H72>Now you said there's something happening soon, a last going away party
going on?
 
S72>And everybody's invited. Because I'm also going to be signing books, so
that means the more people that come, the more money I make to help finance
my trip. It's going to be at the Heartland Cafe, which is, check the
address on this, but I believe it's 1700 N. Greenwood.
 
H73>Do they have comic art displayed there?
 
S73>They will that night because I'm going to display some, particularly
some paintings and some original art, and then I'll be signing books. There
will also be a buffet so people can eat. It's open to anyone who wants to
come, and it's open from 4 to 7 p.m.
 
H74>Didn't I see some of your stuff in Chicago Cartoon when that came out
awhile ago?
 
S74>Yes. yes, you did.
 
H75>What's up with that?
 
S75>Chicago Cartoon is a scam that's put on by the same frauds who run the
Underground Comix Hall of Fame.
 
H76>Is that the Bucktown Pub as well?
 
S76>Yeah it is. It's terrible. I lent my name to it, and I think it's
really a piece of shit. I don't like it at all.
 
H77>Did you know it was going to be like that?
 
S77>No, I did not. So I really dissociate myself from anything those people
have to do. I could go on, but I won't.
 
H78>I'd rather not field your bile.
 
S78>Exactly.

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