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MY FRIEND DAHMER blog. Read it here. 'A well-told, powerful story. Backderf is quite skilled in using comics to tell this tale of a truly weird and sinister 1970s adolescent world.' 'Stunning. Horrifying. 'An exemplary demonstration of 'A visceral, ambitious graphic novel. Backderf's writing is impeccably honest. A small, dark classic.'
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'Hysterically funny!' –Boston Globe "Brilliant!" –Newsarama 'An incredibly likeable book.' CBG Fan Award winner 152 pages, SLG Publishing, $15.95 ...................................
'The funniest book of the year.' The original Eisner-nominated memoir of my memorable (and smelly) career as a garbageman. 52 pages. SLG Publishing, $6.95 ...................................
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MY FRIEND DAHMER Tues. May 15, 7pm Book signing to follow Thur., May 17, 6:30-8 pm Sat., June 16, 2pm Mon., July 9, 7:00pm Sat-Sun., Sept 15 & 16
BLOG ARCHIVE
INTERESTING SITES: APE indy comix expo in San Fran
AWESOME COMIX SHOPS: Laughing Ogre - Columbus OH Atomic Books - Baltimore Quimby's - Chicago Copacetic Comics- Pittsburgh Green Brain Comics - Deerborn MI Jim Hanley's Universe - NYC Astound Comics- Cleveland w.comicrelief.net/">Comic Relief - Berkeley CA The Beguiling - Toronto Big Planet Comics - DC area Million Year Picnic - Cambridge MA Big Brain Comics - Minneapolis Zanadu Comics - Seattle Lucky's - Vancouver BC Monkey's Retreat - Columbus, OH Starclipper Comics - St. Louie Comix Experience - San Fran Last Gasp - San Fran Comikaze - San Diego, CA Meltdown Comics -LA, CA Dark Star Books - Dayton, OH Austin Comics - Austin, TX Pitka mies - Helsinki |
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Hey, feel free to friend me on Facebook. I'm a social media slut. I friend anyone who asks. Of course, you'll read nothing but lies on my page. May 11, 2012 The Kindle eBook here at last Finally. Amazon has released the Kindle ebook of My Friend Dahmer. About time, and who knows why Amazon moved at such a snail's pace. The Nook and iTunes eBooks were released a month ago. So take your pick.
I've thrown all sorts of extras into the eBook, to cruelly tempt you completists who already own a paper copy. There are three complete, deleted scenes (see the above page)... tons of photos, sketches and other source material... the entire first short story from 1995... even a collection of drawings and photos from high school. It's a nice package. Especially for $10. May 10, 2012 Back from the road Sorry for the radio silence. I've been on the road book tourin' for the last two weeks. Greater bloggers than I would be posting hourly updates. What can I say? I'm weak. I'll try to do better.
Comix pals Ruben Bolling, Shannon Wheeler and your humble scribbler at the The Terrorists in my back yard
You've read about the five idiots who tried to blow up a bridge here in Cleveland. I just got back from New York where lots of folks in the Lower East Side are combat veterans– in fact, the Lexington Armory, where the MoCCA fest was held, served as a make-shift morgue after the Towers fell– so a plot that was uncovered months ago by the FBI and had no chance of being carried out doesn't qualify as any big whup. But still, this one hits a little close to home. More than a few locals have commented that this quintet looked as if they stepped right out of one of my cartoons! As weird as these guys appear to rest of the country, they look like typical bad-hair Clevelanders to me! In fact, I'm certain I've seen the bearded guy, lower right, around town. Yipe. The bridge they tried to blow up spans the Cuyahoga National Park to the south of Cleveland. It's used by suburban commuters and moms driving vanloads of kids to baseball practice. How this would have rallied the average American to the cause is unclear. I drive over this bridge frequently. Who knows what possessed these poor, stupid bastards to concoct such a scheme? A couple of them are only in their early twenties. Some have had documented behavioral and mental problems as youths. And now they've all collectively flushed their lives down the toilet. Fifty-year sentences at least, if not a one-way ticket to Gitmo. Nicely done, boys. And in a sad twist that no doubt has the Koch Brothers cackling in their lair, the Cleveland Five, so inspired by the Occupy Movement, very likely mortally wounded the whole thing. Here was a non-violent group with a message of fairness and justice, poised to surge once more into the streets as the weather warms and– who knows?– perhaps this coming summer would have seen Occupy grow into the kind of mass movement that fundamentally changes the nation! But thanks to this hair-brained scheme, all that is probably lost. With the mainstream corporate media gleefully connecting the nutball Five to the larger Occupy Movement, the American Middle, always with feet of clay, has soured on the group and its message of economic fairness and political reform. And obviously the Feds have completely infiltrated the Occupy crowd. That's clear considering how easily they identified and penetrated this splinter group. If they can do this at Occupy Cleveland, imagine how many of them are burrowed undercover in the far bigger, and thus more dangerous, New York or Oakland outfits? How sad this spewed out of Occupy Cleveland, a sad little group which only consisted of a couple dozen familiar lefties, despite forming here in the ground zero of the Housing meltdown, where the criminal abuses of Wall St. continue to wreck havoc, all the vows of reform aside. Funny, isn't it, how radical rightwingers like Warren "Gator" Taylor, who pulled a gun in a Virginia post office while spouting Teabagger talking points, are written off as "nuts" by big media and not representative of the larger Tea Party Movement, while the Cleveland Five are clear proof of the true radical agenda of the Occupy Movement. That's the way it always is for the Left. Doesn't mean sweeping, lasting change can't be wrought. The Left can't hold power in this country, never has, likely never will, but it can dramatically impact society. Look at the Labor Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-war Movement, the Womens Movement and the Gay Rights Movement. That's what Wall St. fears. Which is why this whole thing smells more than a little fishy to me. I don't believe these five could arrange a hacky-sack tournament at an Occupy sit-in, let alone a complex plan to acquire illegal, combat-grade explosives and topple a bridge. Not without the help of the FBI, whose undercover man (identity yet to be revealed) helped plan the bridge strike and procured the fake explosives. Without the Feds assistance, would this scheme have ever gone further than five guys ranting and banging the table at the coffee shop? Is this a total set up? Were big-talking doofuses led by the hand to terrorism? Was it an undercover scam to embarrass and emasculate a populist movement that is making things very uncomfortable for the powers that be? If you think this a paranoid exaggeration, how do you explain the overwhelming police pushback against Occupy protests– the mass arrests, the tear gas, the beatings– while raucous Tea Party rallies, where calls for the armed overthrow of the government were gleefully cheered, were held with not a cop in sight and not even a parking ticket written? April 23, 2012 My Friend Dahmer book tour Info and links are to the right. Check back periodically for updates. Just added is a talk and signing at Green Brain Comics in Detroit and a reading (via Skype) in Glasgow, Scotland! I'll be on the road for most of the next two weeks. First up is New York City, where I have a number of signings, media thingees and radio interviews. This coming weekend I'll be a featured guest at the MOCCA comix fest at the Lexington Ave. Armory. I love this fest and if you are into great comix, it's one you should attend if at all possible. I'll be on a panel about memoir comics on Sun. at 11 am. The following week it's off to Canada for the Toronto Comics Art Fest! I've been wanting to attend this fest for years. Any excuse to travel to Toronto is a good one, but toss in comix? It's a no-brainer! There'll be more media stuff, including an appearance on the Canadian Today show (gulp). I'll be giving my presentation at 11 a.m. on Sat. May 5. Thanks to everyone who turned out for the wildly successful talk and signing in Akron, Mr. D's hometown, last week. A full rundown of this fun and strange evening is on the MFD blog. Apr. 20, 2012 The Poopin' Patriot
I don't usually bother with the rants of crazed buffoons like Ted Nugent, but the latest froth-mouthed raving of this over-the-hill asshat, and the hilarious personal revelations that followed, makes him our Teabagger of the Month. Like most gun-lovin' tough guys, Teddy is a coward. He's just another feeble-minded crackpot in destitute Michigan, the militia capital, belly-crawling through the backwoods with a knife clenched between his teeth and an over-sized assault rifle in his hands, playacting he's a badass. The only "threat" he'll encounter in the Michigan backwoods are other flabby, militia creeps. Here's hoping some of these camo-clad dopes open fire on each other. Picture the Three Stooges joining forces with Benny Hill to overthrow the government. But it turns out when Mr. God-and-Country Nugent was called to serve his nation as a young lad during the Vietnam War, he... what a surprise... dodged the draft! According to Ted himself, in a 1977 interview with High Times, back when he was merely a stoner moron who played lousy, dumbass rock and not the manly-man savior of the Constitution he now fancies himself, he got a deferment by... pooping his pants! "So I got my notice to be in the draft. Do you think I was gonna lay down my guitar and go play army? Give me a break! I was busy doin' it to it. I had a career, Jack! I ceased cleansing my body. No brushing teeth, no washing hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. My hair was gettin' kinky, matted up. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer, syrup. Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. Shit, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up. I was a walking, talking hunk of human shit." Keep in mind this wasn't "commies" like JFK or LBJ ordering our young hero off to battle. In 1970, this was Mr. Nixon's war, and Tricky Dick is the kind of true-blue, right thinker that Nugey adores. His commander-in-chief called and Ted let loose his bowels... and then bragged about it. Just like the brave Patriots who stood up to the British with the weapons Teddy so treasures. Bambi and Thumper beware. 65-year-old Occupy hippie chick vegans are in BIG trouble. But if the Viet Cong come over the hill, Ted fills his underwear in fear! Classic. Punk Rock & Trailer Parks item-of-the-month Spent yesterday at a Library Fest here in Cleveland. Nice enough event held in a posh part of town, but I had no business being there. The crowd was a combination of geriatric Friends of the Library types and overly tanned suburban housewives. There was a room full of authors selling mostly cookbooks and local history tomes. I sold maybe 15 books, most to people who thought "my grandson will like this." I did, however get a chance to to chat with John Gorman, who is one of the great geniuses of FM Radio and the station-manager/ impresario behind Cleveland's legendary WMMS-FM, the album-oriented rock station that virtually invented the genre in the 1970s. Gorman is pushing his own book on the rise and fall of the influential station. It's a good read for anyone interested in the era or rock radio in general.
"The Buzzard," as it was known to loyal listeners, virtually single-handedly turned Cleveland into the "Rock-n-Roll Capital of the World." Whether you think that bullshit or not, Gorman is the guy who engineered it all. I know it's hard for anyone under the age of 40 to understand how all-pervasive terrestrial radio once was, especially given how irrelevant it is now. It was an era before corporate ownership, when local guys ran local media and stations were sewn into the youth culture and part of the very fabric of the city. In the case of WMMS, it virtually defined the personality of the town for anyone under 30 and eventually dominated young hearts and minds for the entire north half of the state! WMMS blasted out of every car stereo and dorm room. Teenagers and twentysomethings festooned themselves with Buzzard t-shirts. Car bumpers were plastered with 'MMS stickers and decals. WMMS sponsored every stadium concert, in fact they pioneered the mega-concert concept. It was all hailed with a lighter held aloft and a pumping fist. All that is lost now, of course, replaced by syndicated content run out of a database at the corporate HQ. A kid today would no more listen to terrestrial radio than crack open a weekly newspaper or use a rotary phone. I myself wasn't an 'MMS fan. The station pioneered the arena rock sound of the Seventies, but there it stopped. If it played punk at all, it was only to make fun of it. I was a devotee of the station earlier in the decade, when it was still a freeform hippie station, infamous for stoned deejays and playing an entire side of the latest King Crimson LP. My first love was Prog Rock, and 'MMS was where I heard it. Gorman recounts some great anecdotes of these days, like the deejay who did his show in the nude! But as 'MMS rose to cultural (and commercial) prominence, and abandoned underground music for Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Frampton Alive and the Boss, I lost interest.
But I still listened in the car, since my '74 Chevy Vega had only a clunky, factory-installed, Delphi combo 8-track tape player & radio. It's hard not to think of 'MMS as an intergral component of the soundtrack of my youth, even if my frustration with the playlist grew by the year. I well remember one day in 1977 one of the star DJs, the drivetime Kid Leo, debuted the Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen," before anyone else had a copy. I had heard the buzz, but not the tune, so I was thrilled. But Leo kept interrupting the cut to complain how much it sucked! I sat there in the driveway in my Vega screaming at the radio. That was it. I scrapped together my shekels and bought a cassette deck so I could listen to what I wanted. The scene above from PR&TP accurately illustrates the aggravation of punk hipsters back then. It was here that the cord was cut between radio and youth. Oh sure, the hair metal types kept listening throughout the Eighties and stations like 'MMS raked in the profits, probably more than ever, but the kids all fled to college radio. Commercial free college stations began sprouting up everywhere from 1980 on, and they embraced new music. So later in the decade when hip-hop and alternative rock kicked Poison and Stryper to the curb, stations like 'MMS had no where to turn. It was over. I was also "forced" to listen to 'MMS in art classes at Dahmer High. The art teacher, a young guy in his 20s, had the radio playing all day. I was pretty Stalinistic about music then, as you can only be when you're young, but thinking back to those days, I dunno, there's something comforting in the memory of hearing Stairway to Heaven every day at lunchtime! So I enjoyed talking to the guy who engineered the whole thing., who, it turns out, is a fan of my cartoons. Gorman also has a great blog about the book, full of memorabilia, video and sound scrapes from the day. Well worth a glance. HERE
Apr. 16, 2012 Last week of the My Friend Dahmer gallery show This is the final week of the exhibition at William Busta Gallery in downtown Cleveland. If any of you in the area want to see original pages, sketchbook drawings and source material from the 20-year process that resulted in My Friend Dahmer, this is your last chance. Exhibit will close Apr. 21. The gallery did a marvelous job hanging it. Well worth a visit. And there are a supply of (signed) copies of the book for sale there. The coveted (and sold out!) 1st printing, too. Apr. 15, 2012 Talk in the Rubber City Just thought I'd mention, for those in Ohio, that I'll be making my only appearance in Akron to talk about My Friend Dahmer at the Akron Main Library auditorium this Weds. at 7 pm. Signing to follow. Akron, of course, is more or less, Jeff's hometown. Bath, the small town where he grew up, is a bedroom suburb of the Rubber City. like all my talks and presentations, this one will be about the making of My Friend Dahmer, and the long, 20-year journey from sketchbook to graphic novel. I've given it several times and it's been very well received. What makes this particular evening interesting is that quite a few people who knew Jeff will be in attendance, former classmates, townsfolk, maybe even a teacher or two. Should make for a fascinating evening. Here's a front page story from the Akron paper on the book and the talk. HERE. Mar. 30, 2012 Another anthropological expedition into the underbelly of America Had a very disturbing lunch the other day. My brother dragged me to a popular "gourmet sandwich" restaurant here in Cleveland. Long lines out the door, daily themes, a microbrew beer list that goes on for two pages and servers that are trained to playfully banter. I'll call it Trendy Bistro, to avoid lawsuits. From the moment I stepped through the door, I knew I was in for a long afternoon. It was "Heavy Metal Day." Bad hair metal blared over the speakers and the wait staff all sported ironic metalwear. I heard, in the first five minutes, both Triumph and Stryper. My appetite left me. Cleveland is one of the fattest cities on the planet. No surprise, since we are a city comprised mostly of Middle-european peasant stock that has been hideously inflated over generations by a diet of corn beef and curly fries. But Trendy Bistro has carved a niche for itself by marketing directly and unabashedly to fatties with a death wish! I have never seen so many overweight people in one place. Not even in the beer line at Cleveland Browns stadium! Huge pumpkin heads atop multiple chins cascading down to gargantuan torsos. I wanted to scream "WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE HERE? EAT A FUCKING VEGETABLE AND GO FOR A WALK!"
The fare was appalling! The biggest sandwiches I have ever seen, football-sized portions of meat, all slathered with melted cheese… or cheeses! Covered in enough fries to feed an entire Irish village during the Potato Famine. Diners are invited, nay DARED, to meet the "challenge" and clean their plates. Do so and you get your picture (with your cleaned plate) posted on the website! "I recommend our specialty," offered the waiter, shouting over Trixter's Give it to Me Good. "It's a DEEP FRIED ham and cheese!" "….It's not as disgusting as it sounds," he said, ending his ineffective sales pitch as I stared at him with what must have been a look of horror. I ordered something I thought wouldn't give me a stroke on the spot, figuring I could feed the leftovers to my dogs later. I should've just ordered a pint of Guinness, had a liquid lunch and called it a day. All around me, People of Size (the politically correct term for lardasses) were digging in with gusto. Look, I've bellied up to many a deli counter here in Cleveland. Ancient eateries like Otto Moser's, Slyman's and Sokolowski's University Inn have been packing in crowds and packing on pounds for decades. But these places have a throwback vibe that is both comforting and treasured. Trendy Bistro just made me want to stick a finger down my throat. I did indeed feed my sandwich to the dogs later. They both got the runs. No lie. I fasted for the rest of the weekend. The only positive from several hours of suffering? All of the many tv's scattered about the restaurant were playing the 1978 made-for-tv classic Kiss vs. the Phantom of the Park (sometimes titled Kiss and Attack of the Phantoms). I haven't seen this abomination since its original 1978 broadcast. It's truly the Plan 9 From Outer Space of rock-n-roll movies! It's so bad, the seemingly unembarrassable Gene Simmons forbade any of his entourage to mention it in his presence. Anything that can shame Simmons is something to be seen!
Dork trivia note: you may recognize Brion James as one of the cops in this scene. He later, of course, played the savage replicant Leon in Blade Runner. "Wake up!" Slap! Slap! "Time to DIE!" I can't think of another actor who played in both the worst and best sci-fi films of an era.
And here's the climactic battle, as superpower Kiss face off against a group of albino, robot werewolves! This is truly a Seventies kitsch overload. Exhibit #1 why we love that decade so much. This masterpiece btw was brought to the world by the fine folks at Hanna-Barbara, taking a break from destroying young minds with animated Saturday Morning schlock. If only Sid and Marty Krofft had been available! Can you imagine a pairing of Kiss and the guys that brought the world the Bugaloos? Shortly after filming ended, Peter Criss quit the band. He refused to re-record some of his garbled lines in the film so his voice had to be entirely dubbed by another actor!
Mar. 25, 2012 Have a heart, Dick.
I drew the above strip in 2007. It could run today with only a few word changes! A reader just called me "the most prescient cartoon artist of your era." I loath Cheney, as you regular readers are well aware. I think he's a war criminal, whose combination of moral shortcomings and blithering incompetence make him the single most destructive US leader since his old master, Dick Nixon. He doomed us all to the never-ending War on Terror. He emptied the treasury with the sad comedy of errors that was the Iraq War, financially crippling our nation for generations to come, just so he could wave his manhood at the Muslim World, like the true draft-dodging chicken hawk he was. He ushered in the Orwellian age of Homeland "Security." He's responsible for Gitmo, for Black Sites, for sanctioned torture, for shadow wars fought by corporate mercenary armies and for shredding the Bill of Rights, with help from the worst Supreme Court ever, a compliant, black-robed Star Chamber largely of Cheney's construct. When we look back 20 years from now and wonder when our democracy crumbled, there will be Cheney, leering at us from the history books. And now here he is getting a heart transplant at age 71. Cheney has had a five heart attacks, a quadruple bypass, stents and angioplasties, and a heart pump installed in his chest. How much more life will this buy the growling, Machiavellian creep? Five years? Maybe. Experts say heart transplant patients of Cheney's age usually don't do well after the procedure. Cheney was advised of this to be sure and obviously doesn't care. Over 3,000 people are currently on the transplant list waiting for hearts, people far younger than Cheney. Think Dick pulled strings? Of course he did. He's Dick Cheney! It's a good bet he never gave a moment's thought to those others. The man lives for power. This is his last, pathetic, flailing grab at keeping a shaky hand on the wheel. Just Like the doddering Soviet dictators who wheezed orders from their death beds and were mocked from afar by the young Cheney. I've been on that ECU bed, with tubes stuck in my chest and down my throat. My open-heart surgery back in 2010, to repair radiation damage from earlier cancer treatment, was the worst ordeal I've ever gone through. Worse than the cancer! After two nightmarish weeks in the hospital, tripping on drugs and in debilitating pain, I finally made it home, where I spent nearly a year slowly crawling back to health. I'll never go through that again. I'll take whatever time is left me, and when the ticker starts to go, I'll sign my dance card and be on my way. But not Cheney. He is driven to live on and on and on, to influence policy and run think tanks, and to call the shots from the shadows so his "legacy" won't be squandered. I'll quote Bob Dylan here, as I have before when writing of Cheney, as the last verses of Masters of War seem more relevant now than ever: Let me ask you one question And I hope that you die
Mar 24, 2012 Radio Silence Explained Sorry for the radio silence this past week. Had a bit of a hard drive issue. Thank God for Apple's Time Machine! Also had a bunch of interviews piled up. My voice gave out at the end of my latest podcast interview! Amateur. And great news! My Friend Dahmer is officially a best seller! It entered the graphic novel charts this week. Now we're not talking John Grisham numbers here, of course. Graphic novels aren't printed in that kind of volume, so I haven't put a down payment on a Bugatti convertible (although I will be splurging on that overdue Adobe Creative Suite upgrade). But I'm happy to report that the first printing is sold out. Fear not, a second printing is on the way as I type. But if you want one of those first printings, especially of the hardback, which was printed in far smaller numbers than the paperback, I wouldn't hesitate if you locate a copy. I won't, as previously mentioned, post every interview and review here. They get a little repetitive after a while (More acclaim? Oh please, stop.) Every interviewer tends to ask the same things. I knew when I decided to make one last run at this project that I would doom myself to talking about nothing but Jeffrey Dahmer for a solid year. It's the price I must pay. The up side of that is in the future, once the promotional commitments are done, and someone asks me about Jeff, I'll just smile and say "read the book." But I'm a long way from that point. Mar. 13, 2012 Derf does Slate! And Otto returns! Slate launched a new, and welcome, book page this month. They tapped me to illustrate the whole thing. Each month, a different illustrator will get the assignment. Good stuff. Well worth bookmarking.
Here's the logo I drew for the page. Fans of Punk Rock & Trailer Parks will recognize none other than the star of that story, Otto! This is the first time The Baron has "returned" since the publication of that book. Check out the comments section, too. Man, that Slate readership is a tough crowd! MY favorite comment so far: "When did Slate start hiring artists from the old Cracked magazine?" Dude thought that was a dig. Shows what he knows. I would have loved to have worked for Cracked! Mar. 10, 2012 RIP Moebius
Comix lost one the greats yesterday when Jean "Moebius" Giraud died at age 73. Never heard of him? Disappointing, but not surprising. Giraud was one of stars of the French comix movement in the 1970s and founders of Metal Hurlant comix magazine. In 1974, National Lampoon launched an English version, Heavy Metal, that brought translated versions of Moebius stories to US fans. He instantly became a star in the comix world, especially for his poetically bizarre Arzach and The Airtight Garage.
No one drew like Moebius. He was a master of line and composition. Sweeping, intricately detailed landscapes were his specialty. His pages were both cleanly rendered and eye-poppingly complex. No stroke of the pen was wasted. Known at first for his western epic Blueberry, he later delved into sci-fi and quickly shot to the top of the field. I had a brief, frustrating Moebius period in high school. I soon learned to set my artistic sites a great deal lower. Truth be told, his stories never made much sense. There was never much in the way of plots or characters. But the visuals were so astonishing, it didn't really matter. It was like staring into a futuristic fever dream.
But Giraud never broke into the mainstream here. After his Heavy Metal work, Marvel printed a series of collections on its Epic imprint. They were beautiful, but poorly distributed and hard to find. I've been trying to score copies for years, a task now made even harder. In the 1990s, Caliber put out a Moebius series, also poorly distributed. His big chance at US success came when Stan Lee recruited him to draw a Silver Surfer mini-series in 1988. Lee was obsessed with the Surfer, a character whose popularity first made Lee a pop-culture superstar in 1967 and vaulted him from lowbrow funny-book scribe into a youth-culture messiah. Lee, of course, as noted here before, didn't create the Surfer. Master artist Jack Kirby did. But Lee absconded with the character, which resulted in the break-up of the legendary Lee-Kirby creative team. Lee regularly revived the Surfer, usually with disappointing results. His pairing with Moebius was no exception. The mini-series was dull, overwrought soap opera and a financial flop. Concurrently, Giraud enjoyed a more lucrative, albeit behind-the-scenes, career as a conceptual artist for film. He supplied many visuals to Alien, Blade Runner, the original Tron, The Abyss and The Fifth Element. Outside of Alien, most of the films were, sadly, critical or commercial flops, or both, but Giraud's conceptual drawings are amazing. He storyboarded an entire adaptation of Dune for filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky in 1974 that is a mythic never-made masterpiece in the sci-fi world (with Salvador Dali as the emperor and Orsen Welles as Baron Harkonnen!). The planned film was 14 hours long! The project never made it to production and the rights were eventually awarded to the infamous Dino de Laurantis, who hired director David Lynch. The resulting film was one of the worst sci-fi blockbusters ever made and ruined the franchise for several generations. Blade Runner, still the finest sci-fi film ever made, in my opinion, drips with Giraud imagery. Those vast panoramas of future Los Angeles, the teeming street scenes, all those are classic Giraud. But he sadly received almost no credit. The glory went to director Ridley Scott. Giraud was the invisible genius who conjured up Deckard and Batty's world. Looking back, Giraud's film career was a rather sour experience of missed opportunities, misplaced credit and fizzled projects. An injustice to be sure. In his later years, as his eyesight failed, Giraud concentrated on large commissioned pieces. Hopefully, we'll soon be seeing re-issues of his incredible bibliography. As I wrote, Moebius' translated work is hard to find here. Most of it, if it exists, is out of print. But here's a fan who has constructed an amazing online archive. You can spend hours HERE
Punk Rock & Trailer Parks Item of the Month
One of the most popular scenes in the book is when Otto convinces a drunk Joe Strummer and Lester Bangs to go with him to sabotage Journey's tour bus. The wretched supergroup is playing at the Coliseum, then home to the NBA Cleveland Cavs. It was a ridiculous arena, built in a cow pasture in the rural hinterlands halfway between Cleveland and Akron. The idea was to make a sports palace convenient to fans of both both cities. The reality was a sports palace that was convenient to no one! No one except me, as I lived right down the street from the Coliseum and could walk there, down the narrow country road and past miles of gridlocked traffic.
Above: The Who at the Coliseum in 1975. Me and a buddy cut through the woods in the pitch black from my house to avoid the choking cloud of auto fumes and pot smoke (and some asshole jumping us for our tickets!) that hung over the massive traffic jam. What a show. Only time I ever saw them. Keith Moon on drums, too! To maximize the investment, the owners of the Coliseum rented it out as a massive concert venue. It opened in 1974, just as the arena rock era kicked off, and the Coliseum quickly became the place to play for touring rock gods and led to Cleveland boasting it was the Capital of Rock-n-Roll. The first concert? Elvis! Epic shows followed by the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Sabbath, Queen etc etc. I saw quite a few and, in fact, the crushing crowds and pain-in-the-ass hassles are what pushed me toward smaller venues, specifically the punk clubs in Cleveland and Akron, and a more satisfactory live music experience.
So naturally, when I wrote an arena rock scene I set it at the Coliseum. Several fans have written me believing the story to be true! I made it all up, of course. Except that Journey did indeed play the Coliseum, before 20,000 lovin', touchin', squeezin' fans on May 11, 1980. And here's the proof! A concert stub from the very show I recreate in PR&TP! Found this baby on eBay and, of course, had to have it. Take it away, Steve Perry...
Mar. 8, 2012 And on the book front... My Friend Dahmer officially launched last week and, friends, it's been everything I'd hoped. The first printing is already sold out, basically gone the day of the launch, and a second printing is being rush ordered. There are copies out there, but the warehouses are empty, so grab them while you can. Amazon is sold out of copies, too. Fear not, unmanned Amazon cargo drones are zooming across the Pacific Ocean with freshly-minted replacement stock. I won't bore readers here with a promotional barrage. A list of appearances and signings will run in the column right and the My Friend Dahmer blog will house most of the articles and interviews. But, forgive me, I just have to share some of the rave reviews MFD has been receiving. And the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And from Rocktober Magazine. So it looks like MFD is both a critical and commercial hit! I spent 20 years pulling this book together. Despite all the rejections along the way, I never lost faith in the story. My instinct was right and this is the pay off. I couldn't be more pleased. There was a little not-unexpected blowback just before the book launched. Up in Milwaukee, where feelings about Dahmer are still, understandably, prickly, a local tour company began offering Dahmer Tours, a commercial endeavor that was greeted with howls of outrage in Milwaukee media. My Friend Dahmer got temporarily sucked into this controversy as well. The commentrary ran along the lines of: first a tour and now some creep has done a Dahmer comic book! This lasted as long as it took local TV News types and AM-radio screamers to acquire copies of My Friend Dahmer. Imagine their disappointment when they read the book and realized "Oh crap, this thing isn't the sleazy piece of garbage we assumed. It's really good."
Mar. 7, 2012 My Report From the Lawless Tribal Regions As a public service, I file regular reports from the Midwest hinterlands, to give those of you who dwell in civilized urban enclaves a glimpse of the true nature of America. Here's the latest. Fear for your very lives.
Super Tuesday has come and gone with a few surprises here in Ohio. Dennis Kucinich, as I'm sure you all heard, lost his Congressional seat in a bruising primary battle against another incumbent, Marcy Kaptur. The two long-serving Reps were pitted against each other, thanks to state Republicans gerrymandering a district specifically to send Kucinich packing and remove a far-left gadfly who the GOP detests nearly as much as Obama. And it worked. The new district, which preposterously worms from the west side of Cleveland along the Lake Erie shore all the way to Toledo some 100 miles away, cut Kucinich's base in half and stacked the deck with Kaptur supporters. Dennis was doomed from the start. And now Kaptur will face off against the GOP challenger... Tea Party posterboy Joe the Plumber! Ohio lost two seats after the last census, that's what brought this on, and Republicans made sure those lost seats belonged to Democrats. That's politics. They were especially keen to isolate Cleveland, the largest city and county, both which lean moderate to left. Ohio is typical of Midwest swing states. The big cities, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo and Columbus, are pitted against downstate, arch-conservo wackos. But the X factor in Ohio politics, and what sets the Buckeye State apart from Illinois and Michigan, is Cincinnati. Cincinnati, the third largest city in the state, is a rightwing hive of german Catholics that produces a particularly virulent type of conservative nutjob. Imbued with Vatican doctrine, humorless germanic puritanism and having pioneered the mean-spirited attack politics now in vogue across the Right, this Cincy Taliban has completely taken over the state GOP, shoving aside the traditional, country-club Republicans that once dominated the Statehouse, and ushering in an era of no compromise, one-party rule. Idiot Ohio voters, pissed at the Recession, swept them into power in virtually all branches of government in the last election and now we're suffering for it. They'll be hard to uproot, especially after re-drawing districts to solidify their slim majority. Cincinnati spawned John Boehner, the bright orange Speaker of the House. He's actually one of the more diplomatic politicians from a town described as "where Nazi Germany meets the Old South." Typically, the real nutcases are in the Statehouse. Birthers, gun nuts, bible-clutchers and Warriors Against the Uterus infest every corner of the State Senate and House.
How far right is Cincinnati? That brings us to my second bit of news. In a stunning defeat, Congresswoman "Mean" Jean Schmidt, one of the worst, most vindictive wackadoodles in Congress, lost in the GOP primary... because she wasn't rightwing ENOUGH! Schmidt, a reptilian housewife from suburban Cincy who honed her savage style with a reign of terror at local school board meetings and town hall pissing matches, gained her safe Republican seat in 2004 during the epic Red vs. Blue smackdown that disastrously sent Dubya and Co. back to the White House. If you cross-bred Westboro Baptist's Shirley Phelps-Roper with Ann Coulter and then gave the offspring a frontal lobotomy you'd produce Mean Jean. Imagine Michelle Bachmann, without the "charm." Mean Jean lied about her academic resume, claimed endorsements from organizations that did not support her, repeatedly slandered Planned Parenthood with preposterous falsehoods, infamously called Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Marine veteran, a "coward" for questioning Dubya's war policies and was one of the most outspoken Birther kooks, a position she still clings to. She also has dirty hands from a couple ethical reprimands, including allowing a group to pay her $500,000 legal bill when she sued an opponent for slander. She's held her seat for eight long years, not because of any legislative accomplishment, she has in fact none, since she's an intellectual lightweight and her tapeworm personality won her no allies in even her own party, but because she's such a foam-mouthed, backstabbing bitch no one wanted to take her on in a dirty primary battle. GOP leadership hates her guts. In fact, not a single Republican leader would endorse her, campaign for her, or even donate money for her re-election! So she lost and good riddance. She'll skitter off to a leadership position in the Cincy Right to Life and continue to be a political cancer in Southwest Ohio. The scary thing is, the victor, Teabagger Brad Wenstrup, is an anti-everything, libertarian true believer. He vows to dismantle the entire federal government, starting with healthcare and then working his way methodically across the safety net. 2012 is going to be a brutal year with the already vast political divide becoming a yawning chasm. Given the shockingly weak GOP presidential candidates, and barring an economic meltdown or Iran bombing Tel Aviv, I predict Obama gets re-elected and the hinterland loonies are driven even madder.
Mar. 5, 2012 My Friend Dahmer is officially launched Thanks to all who turned out for the book launch event and exhibit opening at William Busta Gallery in Cleveland last Friday. It was a mean night with those storm fronts that delivered devastating tornadoes to southern Ohio and Indiana roaring through, but several hundred folks braved the inclement weather and kept the gallery hopping all night. It's become something of a given that whenever I have a public event here in Cleveland, the weather turns sour. The opening of my first solo gallery show back in 1997 was greeted with a blizzard! But friends and fans always show.
The exhibit documents this 20-year work-in-progress, from source material and the first sketchbook drawings, to the early short stories, to this final incarnation. Viewers can see the entire step-by-step process I use to make comix: thumbnails, preliminary drawings, pencils, inked pages and the final printer galleys . I think it's a pretty interesting exhibit on the construction of a very difficult graphic novel. Runs until April 21. I thoroughly enjoyed myself Friday. The launch was a long time coming, and now I can take a little breath and enjoy the ride.
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