From: [bv 446] at [cleveland.Freenet.Edu] (James S. Ottaviani) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc Subject: Evan Dorkin, The Usenet Interview -7- Date: 14 Jun 1993 14:00:29 GMT More and more! *** In the news department: Well, weird as this sounds, Sarah is, as I write this, finishing the colors on a piece I'm doing for Esquire magazine. Crazy, huh? If all goes well, it's running this month or next month. It's a piece about the foibles and follies of the "Alternative Rock" phenomena. Or, "Alternative Rock Sucks". There's a good chance I'm doing a 10 page Fight-Man:2099 story for an issue of 2099 Unlimited. I'm running the "Kyle and Evan" Reflex strips next year in Dork #2. Added tour dates include June 18th at Steve's Comic Relief in NJ, and a week in Texas in August (Aug 4-Paper Heroes in Killeen, Aug 5-Funnypapers in Austin, Aug 6-Bedrock City Comics in Houston, then the Houston Comic Book Festival Aug 7-8. La la la. Much too goddam busy. Predator: Bad Blood #1 is scripted, and good lord I'm onto the fifth issue of the wretched Mad Dog disaster mini- series. Dork #1 should arrive around June 18 or so and Fight-Man is any day now, no one seems to know when exactly. I'll look into finding a bibliography of my stuff one of these days... Steve Shotwell ([l s s 3 q] at [uva.pcmail.virginia.edu]) -- Has your work with Marvel been primarily to pay the bills, or do you really enjoy working for them? Don't get me wrong, I liked Bill & Ted and am looking forward to Fight Man, but I'd be so much happier to see Pirate Corp$! come out on some kind of regular basis. I know you're not trying to sell out or anything, but as long as you're doing stuff like writing Mad Dog, why not just brush up on your cross-hatching, forget all you know about anatomy, and hook up with those musclebound mutant millionaires over at Image? Sure, sellouts are bad and all, and the merchandising of the Ninja Turtles was (and still is) disgusting, but it made Tundra possible. And last installment you mentioned a few people you were interested in collaborating with. Have you ever considered a Milk & Cheese team up with Doug Allen's Steven? (Yes, I did catch him on the cover of Pirate Corp$! number one, the first one.) Evan -- My Marvel work is indeed done primarily for paying bills, and obtaining medical coverage...which it looks like I won't be receiving for 1994. Better not get sick. Anyway, I really look back on Bill and Ted with extreme fondness, and really actually miss the book. I had a lot of freedom to do goofy stories with weird characters and nobody bothered me much at all. I didn't realize how good I had it. If Bill and Ted was still around I would have taken a hiatus from it, a breather, maybe just writing it for a while-but I would have returned to it full time as it was a series I definitely had a "handle on". I'd be much happier just focusing on PC$! and my personal work, but I can't live on the "pay" from that material, it's serious poverty income. Milk and Cheese show a decent profit these days, but nothing close to gainful employment, and I can't do many more of the damn things anyhow. As I wrote before, Mad Dog is a fluke, a favor to my editor. It's a crap book, and I'm unhappy about it, but it pays for my newsletters and mailings and so there's that aspect of it. It's not a great paycheck, but then again, I'm really hacking the lousy thing out. As far as working for Image...even if I did, I wouldn't hack the work out. I actually TRIED with Mad Dog, on the first issue, to make it okay. But when I saw the pencilled pages from my full script I just gave up. Further installments further caused me to just not give a damn about the book, it's not worth my time to fight another artist who can't or won't do his job. As for Image, well I personally doubt I'd do anything for them. Easy to say, because I doubt any of those smiley boys would ask me to do anything, and I'm not proposing anything to them. I find Image's product 100% shit, and their attitude annoys me personally, but I don't really care about the "controversy" surrounding them. They want to produce comics, let 'em produce comics. Only jealous fanboys who won't grow up like Peter David seem to be "outraged" by Image. So a bunch of young turk millionaires want to push their weight around and act like low rent rock stars? So what? They still have no talent, and their audience is pretty pathetic, almost entirely geeks, meeks, and freaks, little folks without social lives or older folks with even worse social lives. If I ever did something for the money, something BIG and totally calculating just for money, you can bet that money would be poured right back into my own projects. This is how I operate now, the mainstream money supports Milk and Cheese, Pirate Corp$!, Dork, Instant Piano, Mad Planet, the Hectic Planet Newsletter, my 'zine and flyer and "charity" work, and pays my rent. It bought a computer, a printer, art supplies...I could see myself doing something "Image-like" for the money, and when I say that I don't necessarily mean for Image, but a project designed purely as an attempt at reaping in big bucks for stupid work. Then I could be in with Dave Sim, Alan Moore, Chester Brown...all those hard line alternative types full of absolutes and harsh words until they need a few bucks. Actually, I've got no problem with anyone working on stupid Image books for the money, as long as they produce some good work elsewhere now that they're solvent. Whatever, it's none of my business, and none of yours in the end, let people do what they want, I think it's insane for fans and readers to be depressed that so and so is working for such and such. The "sell-out" issue is tired, people have to eat. People who clasp artists to their bosom and don't want them to ever change or be human have lots of time on their hands. This is the way life is, money is important, it buys time, it buys freedom. I do think that some people come off as hypocrites, however, given their statements in interviews about how they feel about superheroes, or corporate comics, and then they seem to contradict their statements with their actions. Even if the vaunted "big-name, big-talent" pros who worked at Image did so for "good" reasons, it's a shame that these talents lend Image their names, thus providing the company with more legitimacy than it deserves. I don't know if I answered your question, but I don't care because it's late and I'm tired and I tend to ramble anyway. As for a M&C/Steven team up -- No. Later, kids... *** Count on Brother Dorkin to shoot straight from the hip, eh? The questions have thinned out a bit, by the way, so slide 'em my way and I'll slide 'em Evan's. Send your comments and further questions to me at [h--l--p] at [engin.umich.edu] and I'll see that Evan sees 'em. Thanks. seeya jimO Oh yeah. Have you ftp-ed Operation Crazed Ferret (a Cerebus Campaign 93 thing) yet? You don't have to tell anybody you did it (it's _anonymous_ ftp after all) and now you Windows folks have no reason not to. The animations are now in AVI format. --