Infamy for Me

Here are links to a couple of recent interviews that I thought turned out rather well. I'd like to include this information here as part of my official memoir, and if I don't link to them now, I might forget they exist. How long does information like this last in cyberspace, anyway? Let's all check back next year and see if these links are dead.

First up is "Oh, Brother!", it's Jay Stephens, conducted via email by Alex Dueben at Comic Book Resources. Includes information like,

What exactly is "Oh, Brother!" and who are the main characters in the strip?

"Oh, Brother!" is the latest in a grand tradition of "brat" strips, dating back to Outcault's "Buster Brown" and Dirks' "Katzenjammer Kids" in the late 1800s. It stars a big sister, Lily, who is constantly challenged, pestered and exhausted by her brother Bud's shenanigans. There are supporting cast -- most popular so far is the dog, Buster (named for the above mentioned classic strip) -- but the core of the comic is the simple relationship between the siblings. So far it has an almost "Krazy Kat" simplicity in the myriad ways we explore a single premise, but I imagine it will evolve over time. Bob writes with an enviable mix of retro classic stylings and modern experimentation, and I do my best to match the art style to that. We are both huge John Stanley fans, and the primary influence on tone is "Little Lulu," I think. Bob was inspired by Ketchum's "Dennis the Menace" a bit. We love "Peanuts" and "Calvin and Hobbes" and early "Family Circus." I'm quite fond of British "Beano" cartoonist Leo Baxendale, particularly the Bash Street Kids. Visually speaking, there's some Cliff Sterrett, Jay Ward, Harvey Kurtzman and Fleischer Studios stuff going on. So many ingredients go into this recipe!

Next up is a Blog Talk Radio interview Beth Feldman of Role Mommy conducted with Bob Weber Jr. and I. Bob talks about growing up around cartoonists in Westport, Connecticut, and I discuss falling into comic-making in Art College, among other things.

Bleeding Ink

Just returned home with Kate and the kids, dripping with cold Spring rain, from the Kazoo Zine and Comic Expo at Norfolk United Church in Guelph. I selfishly wanted to drag the family out to expose them to the small-press atmosphere that got me started making comics oh so long ago. Amazingly they all dug it. My darling Kate dropped, like, 40 bucks on mini-comics, and all three kids found beautiful small-press items they wanted. The over-heated church (with it's accompanying B.O.) reminded me of the first TCAF almost a decade ago, and the presence of some old pals like Rob Collinet and Daniel Barclay contributed to the feeling I was time-travelling.

The first published comics I ever got paid for were produced while I was an Art Student at The Ontario College Of Art in 1991. This marks my 20th year as a professional cartoonist. I have been doing this full time for exactly half my life. And you know what? I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I often remember to be grateful that I can make some sort of living writing and drawing cartoons. It really is an amazing magic trick to turn ideas in your head into money. And sometimes the pay is OK. But let me warn you-- more often it's not, and it can be a real tough go sometimes.

I mean, here I am, a 40-year-old professional cartoonist-- totally broke again. I'm working my ass off all day, every day, and I'm busted. Sure, my Ex-wife is partly to blame for that, but it still shouldn't be this bad. Honestly, if my brother-from-another-mother Mike Allred hadn't given me work in his new Madman 20th Anniversary Monster book as well as a fill-in issue on his iZombie series for Vertigo, I'd be begging for change on the corner. It's pretty embarrassing to admit, really. I mean, what sort of responsible parent would dare to live like this? No health benefits, no job security, no unemployment insurance... and the pace is killing me! I'm drawing a daily newspaper strip, drawing that iZombie comic, writing a graphic novel for my friend Mike Byers to draw, teaching cartooning classes, pitching two new animated series ideas, working on a couple of book projects, trying to find time to pull together a collection of older comics material and do my taxes, and apparently taking over as chairman of the Canadian Chapter of the NCS. And it's always been this hectic. For 20 straight years.

I'm not alone, of course. The Village Voice recently ran a piece called, 'If Cartoons Are So Big, Why Don't They Pay?', that had Pulitzer Prize winning legend, Jules Feiffer quoted as saying, "Cartooning never made me a living". I sometimes wonder why I do it.

The answer is, of course, I can't do anything else. It's just too late for me. I bleed ink, and there's no cure. In any event, I'm not qualified to do anything else. It's this or waiting tables, I'm afraid.

Some days when it's grey and rainy, I wish I were a young man with few cares and fewer responsibilities, sharing my mini-comics with likeminded creative types in a sweaty church. Enjoy it while it lasts, zinesters.