EVAN DORKINFrom left to right: Sarah Dyer and Evan Dorkin with Christian and Parker Jacobs of the Aquabats! Evan Dorkin is an amazing writer and artist, one of my all time favorites. One of the first comics I ever read, which would explain why my mind is so warped, was his Milk and Cheese, dairy products gone bad. Evan's humor and artistic style is very unique. Some of Evan's other creations include Hectic Planet, Pirate Corp$ and a comic collection called Dork. Besides comics, Evan has written for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Superman the Animated series. More recently, Evan put together an animated pilot for the Cartoon Network, based on another comic he created called "The Eltingville Comic-Book, Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Role-Playing Club", (of which the Aquabats did the theme song) as well as working on a comic called "Agent X" for Marvel.
Click here for Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer's House of Fun! Be sure to check it! Click here for a "Fun Strip", which is updated "weekly!" Click here for the original pages from issue 3! Doug: State your name and occupation Evan: Evan Dorkin, writer and cartoonist..{laughs} nobody's ever asked it like that before. D: How did you get started in the comic business? E: That's pretty boring...I guess like anyone who gets into comics..i did comics, but I dont like job interviews or anything like that, so I kept to myself until some guy dragged me to an interview. This was in the 80's when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles books came out, and people opened up all these small companies to capitalize on the press of black and white stuff. Anyone with a few grand in their pockets started a comic book company. So we went on interviews around NY and didn't get any jobs, but one company picked us up and we did a book, but the guy who dragged me to the jobs kinda went berserk and took off, after the 3rd issue he kinda disappeared... D: Which book was that? E: This was a thing called Figment, not very good, I did some pencil work on it, it was a superhero kinda thing, a supernatural thing, I really didn't have any input on it, I was just doing pencils, but it's nice to see some of your stuff in print somewhere, but the editors split off and started Eternity comics, and they saw my proposal for the book that became Pirate Corp$ and asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said sure cos at the time I was living in the back of a comic book store cos I kinda left home in a huff..so I stayed in the back of the store for 3 months in the winter of 87; with no heat. It was lovely. So I said sure, and they were willing to pay me $100 for the comic, and it would be my own book. So that was it. I did a convention after that in San Diego, they managed to wrangle some money to send us out there, and I got some work from that, I went to the conventions and got really drunk, said some stupid stuff, people liked it and eventually hired me for other stuff. It's pretty boring, like I said. Not too many people flip out of Nicaragua with an M-16 with their comic books under their arms and escape death squads, and that's how they start their comic careers, ya know? Most of em are just slobs for 17 years and eventually get hired to do a comic book. D: When did you do the Bill and Ted comics for Marvel? E: Jees, I'm really bad with dates or remembering anything except the names of stupid old supervillians. 91' I think that was..my first serious job in comics was a Predator mini series that I was called in last minute from some people I met from getting drunk at comic conventions, cos their penciler flaked out at the last minute. I didn't do a great job, but that was my first serious job. Then after that I got Bill and Ted. And that was definitely because I got drunk with some people. I think I got a lot of my books from being congenial and filled with alcohol, not because i'm any good. But I had dinner with a salesguy at Marvel, who ended up being a big editor there years later, and he remembered me, and no one wanted to do this Bill and Ted book. I was into bands who sold like 12 records, and he figured, well he makes jokes about pop culture stuff, so he gave me the book, and it turned out to be a really fortunate thing for me. I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with it, and no one really gave a shit. Can I say that? D: Yah, shit is fine. E: Oh good. So no one gave a fuck then..about Bill and Ted, and I didn't either. I mean, I still haven't seen the first movie. D: You saw the 2nd one though, right? E: I saw the 2nd one after I did the movie adaptation of it. I worked off the script, but not the final print. So when I saw the movie, a lot of stuff was different. There was this whole chase scene and crap like that, so a lot of stuff was missing. But it was a really bizarre experience. It was a really neat experience to see how there can be such a difference in scripts and how they constantly change things. One script had a good plot but wasn't funny, and the other was funny as hell but made no godamn sense. But in the end they made a movie that didn't make a hell of a lot of sense and wasn't too funny. But I never saw the first movie, so I decided I would make up a few characters, do what I want and play down the heavy metal aspect cos I'm not really a metal fan, so I put bands on their shirts that they really wouldn't listen to in the movies. D: Yah, I saw some Dead Milkmen shirts, and some Milk and Cheese... E: Yah, Dead Milkmen, Dead Kennedys, Fishbone, Chili Peppers cos they really didn't suck back then, Ska bands before Mtv started pushing it, cos ya know I put bands that I liked and wanted to see the little kids of America picking up these comics and seeing bands like Firehose in there, crap like that...nobody seemed to notice, although I did get some hate mail when I made fun of Jane's Addiction in one issue....I know I'm babbling and I feel sorry for you when you have to transcribe it. D: That's ok. It's a living. What are your artistic influences? E: I would have to say Budweiser. That was my big joke. But people stopped laughing. And I stopped drinking it anyway. I could say Bass Ale and pretend that I'm rich now. Hold on one sec...I needed my Coca Cola. It's my drug of choice. I guess I could say my influences change all the time. Growing up it was Marvel comics and Mad Magazine. Especially the reprints of the old 50's stuff. I dont know how old you are but I'm 32. They used to staple in old color reprints of the 50's stuff and that was hilarious. It was a hell of a lot better than what's been going on for the last 20 years, like Dave Berg looks at crack or that shit. It was really detailed and really beautifully drawn. Peanuts, that was a big influence. You know all the movies and TV stuff, like wrestling and monsters and action movies, all that garbage. Punk rock and New Wave music, Love and Rockets was a big influence in the 80's cause it opened my eyes as to what you could put in the comics. It didn't have to be just superheroes. Lately I've been getting back into the old superhero comics just because the craft is so interesting. Nowadays everything is an influence. A lot of comics now are just like 2 guys sitting around on a couch. Nothing really there. I just try to beat the shit out of that stuff, I dont try to make the characters out as being hip. The guys in Hectic Planet are kind of assholes, and the Eltingville club are certainly a bunch of morons. And Milk and Cheese, well they sit on a couch, but they dont sit around discussing whats cool or Betty and Veronica. I dont know what they do. But I certainly have a lot of influences. D: What about musically? Does music affect what you draw? E: Well I suppose it does. I mean I cant come outside my own body and see what I do depending on what I listen to. I mean I go through stages. I kinda got bored of punkrock. It's not even a matter of that it went through an Mtv makeover for the last 10-15 years...I'm a little bored with ska, I've been bored with ska for awhile, I mean I've been listing to ska since about 80', but I haven't been listing to anything new lately. I tell everyone this when I get this question. I listen to everything except disco. I just dont see the point of listening to disco in the house. I dont really like it. D: Do you play any video games? E: No. I watch video games. I dont have the patience for em'. I tend to stink at videogames. We have some platforms, But Sarah basically plays the games and I'm co-pilot. I ride shotgun. So if she's playing a role-playing game, like Final Fantasy, I remember shit from my old days as a teenager and I say oop..stay away from that. I think that will freeze ya. And Resident Evil, I cant play that because it scares the shit out of me. I tried playing it and I started sweating like a school boy trying to ask a girl out to the prom. Not that I know what that's like cos I stayed home from the prom. I love zombies, but they get to a root fear in me. But we've got Saturn, Playstation, a Genesis, we borrowed Sarah's brother's Nintendo, then my friend got me the old Atari 2600 for my birthday. The thing about new video games like Resident Evil are that they are actually better thought out then most Hollywood movies. D: Tell me about Space Ghost and Superman, you and Sarah work on it....... E: Yah, me and Sarah right now are running behind schedule on a Space Ghost episode, very late on the script. Yeah we work on Space Ghost and we did 4 episodes of Superman. Space Ghost is more fun though. D: Yeah, with Superman you have to follow more of a format...... E: Yep. The only time we came up with a script for Superman, they kinda cut it to pieces. The bigger the deal and more money put into it, the more unrelaxed the people seem to be. Space Ghost is more fun because they're willing to let the writers have kind of a free reign, let them play a little more and basically fuck around. The Cartoon Network is a much more relaxed atmosphere, Warner is a little uptight. We've enjoyed some of the things we've done for Superman, but basically it's turn in the script, cross your fingers and hope they dont change everything. A lot of it had to be re-drafted and re-drafted, but it's a learning experience. There's also gonna be a 2-part Supergirl cartoon in May. A lot of the origin was cut down to make it 2 parts and what was cut is going into a comic book. D: I saw the Superman episode you did with the monkey, and it looked to me you tended to focus more on the monkey than on the character of Superman. E: Yah, well that's just the way it goes. I mean Superman is kind of a bland character. I think they made him more interesting by lessening his powers and making him less of a boyscout. One of the things we wanted to do in our episode was, well unfortunately it didn't get into the script, but in one sequence Superman is at the docks, and if you remember he gets smashed into a car. And he says to Lois,"Your monkey friend is going down." and he's kinda pissed. We really wanted it to play a little heavier. We wanted it so everytime the monkey ate it had a growth spurt. That got dropped out of the original storyboard, and at one point Superman was trying to pacify the monkey with fruit down by the docks on the ship, and the monkey swallows Superman and chews him up and spits him out. Superman is dripping with this monkey spit, this disgusting bananas and spit. We thought it would be a very un-dignified thing, and very funny, and when Lois goes to help him he yells at her "Dont touch me, I'm covered in monkey spit." Not genius, but a kind of embarrassing moment for this guy who's always supposed to look heroic, and it also would have pushed the aspect of him being more pissed off. We also wanted to show him beating the crap out of the monkey for a little bit. Not kill him, but really just try to knock this fucker out and really show that when he's pushed and the situation is when he's up against an opponent that he can take some shots with like in the Lobo episode, but none of that seemed to get into the script because it was cut. Superman isn't really the focus of that episode, it's really more about Lois. It tended to be more of a comedy episode. I'm pretty happy with that one because that's the most of our material that's gotten through in an episode. The Livewire episode was just a little too compressed, her character didn't really come through like we wanted. It didn't break out. We wanted her to be crazier. But whenever we had a character flipping out or going crazy it didn't jive too well with the editors. You know it's not our character so there's only so much we can do..... D: What was the stupidest thing you've ever done? E: Became a cartoonist? Um... The last several answers to your questions were pretty stupid....I ran under a moving truck once. It was driving down the street in Manhattan, an 18 wheeler, and I ran under it between the 2 sets of back wheels. I just thought it would be fun to do. People started yelling at me and telling me what an asshole I was. But the thing that could have killed me worse than the wheels was there were gears under it. I didn't know that. And my Parka could have got caught in it. I would have been killed. The guy in the van behind the truck said "Why dont you try that with my van?" I guess I really was the prime asshole that day. I shoplifted Star Wars figures when I was 13 and got caught. Driving drunk. Dumb. Woke up 3 lanes over on the Bell parkway not knowing how I got there. What's the stupidest thing you did? D: I've done alot, but one of the worst...set myself on fire. E: That reminds me. 3 stupid fire things. 1. Came home drunk and taught my little brother how to do the flame-thrower trick with the aerosol can. I taught him how and said dont tell mom. He immediately told them. 2. Put my head in the oven burner and set my hair on fire. I think it was a cry for help. I say that with sarcasm. 3. Set army men on fire with my friend Clifford. We closed the doors and windows in his room so his mom wouldn't smell it, but he had a linoleum floor and it set on fire and the fumes started to make us pass out. Like a bad Star Trek episode, we were groping for the walls trying to hit the communication devises. Another thing was I used to drink sambookas on fire all the time and I had a few mishaps with that. Instead of blowing out the sambooka, I would take the shotglass and just up end it. Not that that was very dangerous, but if you spill the stuff, it all goes on fire sort of like cheap poor man's napalm. So I set a bar on fire, and once I set my face on fire. I spilt it on my face and looked like a little sterno can for a second. D: Have you ever been arrested? E: No. Well, I almost got arrested recently for DIY...DIU....driving under the influence. {actually it's DWI , but who cares.} DIY...that was a band! Jees. I got arrested for DOA, SOD, ELO, BLT,.....ha ha......oh god... Well I got pulled over cos i went through a light..I was drunk, but they pulled me over cos I went through a checkpoint. But they let me off cos my stepdad's a cop. I got pulled over by a cop at a concert...A Cars concert. My first concert. They pulled me over and detained me for selling bootleg shirts. It was amazing. I'm sitting there and this guy grabs me and trys to arrest me and I go what the hell's going on! He's like you were selling bootleg shirts! I had one shirt that I bought. I mean they should have arrested me for buying a Cars shirt, but finally another guy comes over and says that's not the guy! So they let me go. I got in trouble for cursing a cop out once too. No arrests tho. Clean record. One moving violation tho. D: Have you ever done any drugs or anything like that? E: Yes. D: Like what? E: You're getting kinda personal!... But yah. I've smoked Marijuana and I've snorted cocaine. D: Are you still into any of that? E: No, I'm happy with caffeine, aspirin, advil, and breakfast cereals and sugar. I haven't done any of that stuff in along time. I dabbled in that, and I dont want to apologize. But I think drugs make for a really good time. I'm not for complete legalization, but at the same time I'm not for ruining people's lives cos they smoked a joint. I never really got into anything too heavy, I never did psyedelics, never did heroin, I was a very casual user. {edit edit edit} I guess what I'm saying is I have no patience for drugs. I've done em, big deal. Edit that fucker down. {i did} Most people think I'm on coke all the time cos I talk so much. {he does, but who doesn't.} D: What's your drink of choice? E: I dont drink that much anymore. I have a couple of beers if i'm not driving. I have a couple of pints of bass if I'm hanging out, throwing darts, playing cards. If I'm feeling like I just wanna get goofed up I'll have a mudslide, or a kamikaze. I used to drink anything, but I got burnt out on that. I'd be like yah, I'll drink a pint of scotch. {insert vomit noise} Cos I watched movies growing up as a kid and everyone was like gimme a scotch! Gimme a whiskey! Oh that's what i'll have. I cant drink anything like that anymore. I can hardly drink vodka. When I worked at the bar, They'd let us drink behind there and I just passed out. So I basically just drink beer. D: Do you have any wisdom for the kids of today? E: No. There's a short answer. No.....Turn the TV off. Make your own fun. Be good to one another, Unless the guy next to you is such a stupid moron he needs to be taken out. Unless it's you then you should just take yourself out. I dont know. I have no words of wisdom, Who the hell am I?