MEET UP @ LEE HARVEY'S

Attn. Dallas-area comic book creators

Awhile ago, several Dallas-area comic book creators would meet on a monthly basis for lunch on Saturdays. It was nice. However, it's been some time, and we may have outgrown lunch. Thus, I'm planning something new...

FIRST THURSDAY OF EVERY MONTH... MEET AT LEE HARVEY'S FOR DRINKS FROM 8 PM TO 10 PM. STARTING AUGUST 7TH.

You can stay later if you want, but 8 PM to 10 PM keeps things simple. This is not a sketch group. This is not a "networking" event. We're not planning an anthology. Just some people who share a mutual interest in writing and illustrating comics gather to have a drink or two. Note: They do serve food at Lee Harvey's until 11 PM on Thursdays, if you are hungry.

HOW DO I GET THERE?

Lee Harvey's
http://leeharveys.com -and- http://www.myspace.com/leeharveys
1807 Gould St.
Dallas, TX 75215
214.428.1555

WHO IS INVITED?

This is an inclusive event. There is no velvet rope. If you make comics, you are invited. I don't know your drama. I like all of you. If you make comics, you should come, at least once -- and enjoy each other's company. Even if no one is else there. Fear not. I will be there. :)

I sent out an e-mail earlier today. If I forgot anyone, please let me know or forward this message along. It wasn't intentional. There are a lot of you.

WILL WE CHANGE LOCATIONS EACH MONTH?

Probably not. Consistency is good. It's a thirty minute drive for me, and I'm sure it's a longer drive for some of you. I assure you I put some thought into the locale. Lee Harvey's is a good bar.

Hope to see you there. Mark your calendar. I'll send another reminder the week of.

COMICS CREATOR SURVEY QUESTIONS

I saw this survey on Wes Molebash's site. He found it on Bryan Lee O'Malley's journal -- who found it on Brian Evinou's journal. Questions by Jake Hopper.

PART ONE: COMICS PERSONALITY TYPE

Name: David Hopkins

Age: Thirty-One

Sign: TAURUS

Introverted or extroverted?
Fairly extroverted

What are your top 5 procrastination tools?
1. Checking email
2. Re-organizing my book shelf
3. Snacking
4. Playing Age of Empires III
5. Watching DVD extras

What gets your juices flowing?
Going for a walk or driving in the car

PART TWO: COMICS CONSUMER

What kind of comics do you like to read?
I read a lot of different titles -- mostly independent/small press and European comics. Although, I've started reading more manga.

What kind of comics do you dislike?
I've never been a big fan of the stuff published by Top Cow or Zenescope. Sorry guys.

When were you first introduced to comics?
When I was 10 years old, I was terrible at soccer and spent most of the time on the bench. My friend Tony Hawkins also sat on the bench, and we'd read comics. It's funny to think that my mom and dad would show up to games on Saturday morning just to watch me read comics.

What were some of your first comics?
Cloak & Dagger, Power Pack, X-Factor, New Mutants, and X-Men. Pretty much anything written by Bill Mantlo, Louise Simonson, or Chris Claremont. The Fall of the Mutants storyline made a huge impression.

What is your favorite animated movie?
Everything by Hayao Miyazaki, it's hard to pick a favorite. Seriously.

What is your favorite anime series?
Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, Serial Experiments: Lain, or Gunslinger Girl

PART THREE: COMICS CREATOR

What kind of comics do you make?
All sorts. I am bound by no single genre! Most of my stories are like a broken-down RV: they usually involve families and the trip never goes as expected.

When did you first start making comics?
About six years ago.

What are your favorite comic artists right now?
Andi Watson, Kazu Kibuishi, Darwyn Cooke, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Nick Derington, Dan Hipp, Dave Crosland, Paul Maybury, Christine Norrie, Kristian Donaldson, Scott Wegener, Chad Thomas, Jim Mahfood, Dan Warner, Chris Mitten, Tom Kurzanski, Brock Rizy, Brent Schoonover, Diana Nock, Cal Slayton, Paul Milligan, ZeeS

OSWALT'S SPEECH

A graduation speech given by Patton Oswalt to his old high school on June 18th. (click here to read)

"Reputation, Posterity and Cool are traps. They’ll drain the life from your life. Reputation, Posterity and Cool = Fear.

Let me put that another way. Bob Hope once said, “When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And then I made it to sixty, and I realized no one was ever thinking of me.” And then he pooed his pants, but that didn’t make what he said any less profound."

TIKI JOE IS A MUST READ

Mark Murphy's TIKI JOE MYSTERIES from SLG Publishing will be in stores this Wednesday (click here for a preview).

Las Vegas, 1959. WWII veteran, Joe Halliday is enjoying the good life. Running Tiki Joe’s Restaurant, courting a beautiful girl and making time with steadfast friends. It’s all good until the local mob moves in with demands for protection money. When the police are unable to help, Joe calls in a few old army friends. Together they decide to pay the mob off....in lead! Tiki Joe is a graphic novel set in Las Vegas, using Polynesian pop-culture and Las Vegas kitsch as a background. Part murder mystery, part hard-boiled thriller by newcomer Mark Murphy.

You don't know how happy it makes me to see Mark Murphy described as a "newcomer." With his very hip HOUSE OF JAVA graphic novel series from NBM, he's been creating comics a lot longer than I have! Murphy is one of those Dallas locals, along with Cal Slayon, JE Smith, and Nick Derington, who originally encouraged me to get into comics. If he's still considered a newcomer, then I don't feel as anxious about what little I've been able to accomplish in the past few years.

Murphy is incredibly talented. You need to get his book.

MINE ALL MINE ONLINE

MINE ALL MINE is available for sale online at Zeus Comics. The print run of this minicomic was rather limited. Copies were given to the creators, sold at CAPE, and sent to a few select stores. You want it? Here's your chance.

If anyone else has seen it online somewhere, let me know.

WHAT TO WRITE WHEN YOU'RE NOT WRITING

With it being summer and me being a teacher, I have June, July, and half of August away from my classroom. It's nice. One would think I'd get a ton of writing done during this time. Although the past few years have proven, contrary to popular reasoning, I actually get less writing accomplished. Maybe it's because I'm out of my routine, or maybe it's because I have Kennedy during the day and she keeps me occupied? Whatever the case may be, I tend to get restless during this time.

I have a few proposals that are more or less complete -- some with artists, some without. I'm in the finding-a-publisher phase, which is the most frustrating part. I can't really do more work on any of these stories until then. NOTE: I decided awhile ago that it doesn't make sense to script every single story idea I get from beginning to end. After I've written a decent synopsis and scripted the first chapter, I should probably move on to finding an artist or a publisher. Then once those things are in place, I can finish it. After all, with my synopsis, the story is all there and the script will come. Also, I don't always know which stories to focus on until I get some confirmation through finding an artist or a publisher. Make sense?

* The BOLIVAR proposal looks beautiful. Diana Nock illustrated the first sixteen pages, and she did an amazing job. Who doesn't want a wonderland fantasy story involving animal spirits, pirates, cannibals, a mysterious light house, and true stories of my family's experience during World War II?

* FRONTIER is without an artist, so is DELTA COUNTY. I have some people in mind. Epic in scale. I don't want either of these stories to fall in the cracks.

* If you keep track of my blog, Greg Zadrozny is the artist for OMISOKA BRIDGE. He's been busy with his freelance work, but the guy is too perfect. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But right now, I can't imagine anyone else doing it.

* I've been wanting to work with Cal Slayton for awhile now. THE LAST BABYSITTER seemed like a perfect project. However, I had a difficult time selling my "quirky caretaker" story -- Mary Poppins or Nanny McPhee, but with big guns and grenades, fighting off the robot uprising. The apocalyse, but for kids. It's just as well: Cal is working on his own story Spookytown, which is very cool. I'm excited for this one.

It's hard to keep track of everything. I've thought about finding a manager or agent. Antony Johnston discouraged the idea. He told me, comic book writers make so little money, why split the percentage even further? I simply need to find a better system for keeping everything organized. Who knows? If something hits, it might be easier to sell some of the previous stories.

For stuff that's already written, Brent Schoonover recently finished the first chapter of ASTRONAUT DAD VOL. 2. Tom Kurzanski is busy on KARMA INCORPORATED VOL. 2. Both should be in stores by the end of the year. Both look great.

It hasn't felt like I've been busy lately, but the past twelve months have been more productive than I originally thought. I scripted four issues of LAKE ARCHER, a side project never intended for publication. I wrote "50 Miles to Marfa" (illustrated by Dan Warner), tentatively scheduled for PopGun Vol. 3 and "Of All Time and Forever" (to be illustrated by Chris Mitten), part of an upcoming anthology project. I don't want to say too much about these short stories, since nothing has been finalized. Around Free Comic Book Day, I released a 16 page mini-comic MINE ALL MINE, which featured several of my favorite artists. And every other month, Paul Milligan and I produce SOUVENIR OF DALLAS for D Magazine.

Still. None of this has the momentum of a "next big project." In the meantime, I've been restlessly friending people on MySpace, twittering, visiting other people's blogs and webcomics, and scheming, definitely scheming. With a notepad and everything.

Currently reading:
DEATH NOTE VOL.1-12
ATOMIC ROBO VOL. 1
GOOD IN A ROOM

PRAISE FOR SOUVENIR OF DALLAS

On page 18 of D Magazine's July issue, in the comments section:

"Prepare to laugh like an unstable hyena over this mighty hilarious D Magazine comic strip [Souvenir of Dallas] by David Hopkins and Paul Milligan." - Morning News Reporter Dave Levinthal on June's "Mayor Big Hands" Strip.

Our next installment will appear in the August issue. Expect more hilarity.

THE INVISIBLE CITY

My respect for the Dallas Morning News has grown. Maybe it's a slow news month when we can't seem to talk about anything other than oil prices and a Presidential election, but I hope DMN continues their look at south Dallas.

Check out DMN's Bridging Dallas' North-South gap. The videos are especially good.

I love Dallas, and it's always been a concern of mine that while most fixate on the city as a place of big hair and big money, we neglect the other half, a half with style and heart all its own. I worry about gentrification. Politicians and land-developers allow these areas to fall into ruin, then they grab these square acres on the cheap, build expensive condos and force out their original owners. Many occupants have rented their place for years and years; if they owned it, they'd be sitting on something valuable. It's a ruthless system that drives out people. Mortgage discrimination, red-lining, school district gerrymandering, public opinion distorted by the local media, it all plays a part. If you want to see my take, I wrote a one-pager about this exact subject in "Mine All Mine," illustrated by Samax. (South Dallas also plays an important role in the upcoming "Vice and Virtue" storyline for Karma Incorporated.)

As a reminder, I'm an advisory member of La Reunion, which hopes to establish an artist residency in south Dallas. This is another way to support south Dallas growth without distorting and ruining its character.

NOTEBOOK

As you may remember in a previous post, I've been busy working on a Moleskine journal for SEED. Lo and behold, I did it. Last night, I finished writing three issues of an unpublished script, LAKE ARCHER, into the notebook. April has been designing a woodcut to use on the cover. It should look really freakin' cool. From this point, it's all about filling the remaining pages with whatever loose notes, quotes, and ideas come to mind. I put together a Lake Archer soundtrack, and included it. I organized the playlist in about 15 minutes, pulling from 5,428 songs on my iTunes. I was listening to it this morning. Surprisingly, the soundtrack sounds bad ass. Here it is...

1. Whipping the Horse's Eyes by Calexico
2. A Shocking Lack Thereof by dEUS
3. Take Time by The Books
4. Sadie by Joanna Newsom
5. Atlas by Battles
6. All Nite Diner by Modest Mouse
7. Setting vs. Rising by Sunset Rubdown
8. Dollars & Cents by Radiohead
9. Tender Buttons by Broadcast
10. Coast to Coast by Elliott Smith
11. White Ink by Deerhunter
12. Plans by Grizzly Bear
13. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case
14. Farewell Ride by Beck
15. Raw from Self Destruction by The Baptist Generals

All of these mp3's should be available for download at the iTunes music store, except the dEUS song. Sorry. Consider it a bonus track. Anyone living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, I hope you try to make it to the event on Saturday. And place a bid on my notebook! I will be in Ohio visiting my grandparents, so you need to go for me.

HELPING OUT CHRISTINE

Fellow comic book creator Christine Pointeau has a dream to adopt a child. However, adoption is expensive. Possibly more expensive than it should be, but I'll admit I'm not up on all the intricacies of the process. Christine is humbly raising money towards this life-long dream, and you can help -- either by a direct donation or by purchasing one of her graphic novels.

http://www.christinepointeau.com/iamadopting/
http://www.christinepointeau.com/donate/

Christine would make a wonderful mother. There are a lot of kids who need a good home, and not enough people like Christine in the world. Comic book artists may not make a lot of money, but what they lack in financial force -- they make up for it in creative support and community. If you can, please help out. I'd be incredibly proud if my circle of friends could collectively raise enough money to get this process moving forward. Spread the word. E-mail your friends. Blog about it. We could make a huge difference in the life of some child and for Christine.

MELTDOWN

This month, I'm flying to California for my cousin's wedding. I'm getting into town a few days early, so I can take the opportunity to sign at the amazing Meltdown Comics. It's on a Thursday, which is somewhat of an "off day" for most retailers, but I expect a few people will wander in.


I wish I could set up another book tour road trip like I've done in the past, but with gas at $4 a gallon, it's just not a responsible thing for me to do. Someday, I'll make it back to Norman (Speeding Bullet), Lawrence (Astrokitty), and St. Louis (Starclipper). I miss you! While I love attending conventions, especially small press/indie conventions like MoCCA or STAPLE, to promote my work, I prefer visiting retailers directly and getting to know them. Thus, when I'm in California, I jump at these chances. Maybe I can find my cousin a wedding gift at Meltdown?

JOURNALING FOR ART CONSPIRACY

Press release: Journal Art and Live Music Mark Art Conspiracy’s SEED 2008 Event

DALLAS, TX – June 3, 2008 - Have you ever wanted to get a close-up look at what goes on inside the heads of creative people? On Saturday, June 21, at 8:00 p.m., at the Sons of Hermann Hall, you can get the chance to literally flip through the imagination of visual, literary and performing artists during Art Conspiracy’s 2nd Annual SEED fundraiser. The money raised will help fund the operating costs of Art Conspiracy’s large-scale December fundraiser and inevitably help Art Conspiracy donate more money to its 2008 beneficiary.

Since the end of May, 15 artists including Kim Cadmus Owens, Marcus Striplin, David Hopkins, Diane Sikes and Tina Medina have been filling up page after page of Moleskine® Journals with drawings, paintings, photography, lyrics, observations and more. During the SEED event, the Moleskine® Journals will be auctioned along with original work from additional Dallas artists.

“When someone sees an artists’ single piece of work, they are getting a look at a singular concept or idea,” says Erica Felicella, Art Conspiracy, Art Coordinator, “but with the journals, you are able to get a bird’s eye view into someone else’s creative process – it’s a much bigger picture and the results are intriguing.”

Live music will be provided by Matthew and The Arrogant Sea, Beauxregard, Spector 45 and Pet Hospital. The snarky, comedic antics of veteran Art Conspiracy auctioneers, Rob and Rob will be returning too. SEED will also serve as the venue for Art Conspiracy to unveil the beneficiary for its December 2008 fundraiser.

“Art Conspiracy is charting new territory,” says Andrea Roberts, Art Conspiracy, Site Coordinator. “This is the first year we have asked for beneficiary applications from local groups. Our goal is to use the money we raise to reinvest in the local arts economy. This gives us a chance to use the creative instincts of so many generous artists and musicians to support creative efforts being carried out throughout our city.”

Since 2005, Art Conspiracy has raised over $30,000 for groups including La Reunion, an artist residency located in Oak Cliff, and St. Anthony Community Center, a center that offers visual art, music and dance to more than 800 children in South Dallas. Art Conspiracy is a grassroots arts collective that seeks to bring the artistic and music communities together to support creativity community wide.

For more information, please contact Cari Weinberg at cari@artconspiracy.org or 214-794-3510

From now until then, I'm working on my journal whenever I have any free time available. Hopefully, if things go as planned, I'll have an appealing notebook with a certain Henry Darger quality.

MY DAUGHTER, THE ARTIST

Last night, Kennedy, April, and I were drawing on the front porch with some chalk. In addition to the obligatory stick figures, the smiling sun, the bubbly clouds, flowers, etc. Kennedy drew an oval. She looked at me and smiled:

"Daddy, I draw poop."
"What?"
"Poop. I draw poop."
"That's gross."
"No, Daddy, it's art."

JUNE ISSUE OF D MAGAZINE

The latest installment of "Souvenir of Dallas" (illustrated by Paul Milligan and written by myself) is now available in the June issue of D Magazine. The editors loved this one so much, for the first time, they've also featured it online. Enjoy. However, you should still pick up the print version -- April read the "Sex and the Single Woman" article in this issue. It's hilarious.

I'm considering a "Souvenir of Dallas" subdomain site for Antihero Comics. Maybe expanding the concept? I don't know yet. Just thinking about it.

Thursday, June 26th, I'll be at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles for a book signing from 6 PM to 9 PM. If you live in the area, please come by and say hello.

WHEN I SEE AN ELEPHANT FLY

As I've mentioned numerous times on this blog, I absolutely love Disney animated features. From Snow White up until the mid-90s, it's hard to find too many "duds" among those films. They communicate on such a broad level. My four year old is moved. I'm moved. In the comic book workshops I've taught, I always recommend four people worth studying -- William Shakespeare, Walt Disney, Will Eisner, and Hayao Miyazaki.

Tonight, Kennedy and I watched Dumbo. Twice. It's relatively short (64 minutes). The last time I saw this film, I was too young to be socially critical. However, when the crows came into the story, I watched closer -- wanting judge for myself.

The crow characters in the film are seen as African-American caricatures; the leader crow voiced by Cliff Edwards, a white man, was originally named "Jim Crow" for script purposes, and the name stuck. The other crows are all voiced by African-American actors, all members of the Hall Johnson Choir. Despite suggestions of racism by some, many historians such as Zoe Pritchard reject these claims. (from Wikipedia)

From my perspective, I think a distinction needs to be made between "stereotypes" and "racist imagery." Were the crows stereotypes? Definitely. Did it use hateful and harmful racist imagery? I really don't think so. The stereotypes were generally more positive than the ones I see in contemporary pop culture. The crows were among the "good guys." From the ringleader to the clowns to that stupid boy who pulled Dumbo's ears, all the hateful characters were white.

Random side note: my daughter was on the edge of her seat during scene where Dumbo was taken from his mother. Kennedy enjoys films that run the entire emotional gamut. I think most kids do. Disney offers a "safe place" for good stories. Engaging and fun. When the crows sang, she tried to bee-bop along.

The crows were clearly part of "jazz culture" (which for 1941, was as hip as Disney could get). If a new version of the film were made and they need a group of streetwise marginalized youth, to be faithful, you'd probably pull from rap and hip-hop culture. How do you communicate those images without relying on some visual cues that might be deemed as "stereotypes." If it feels honest, you won't notice. If it's overdone, you'll cringe.

Jazz is something America can be proud of. I'm not uncomfortable with black crows being used as Disney's nod to jazz culture in the early '40s. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'll take this over Speedy Gonzalez. Your thoughts?

Off the race topic. When Dumbo visits his imprisoned mother and she cannot reach him due to her chains, so instead, she gently rocks him with her trunk -- I was nearly in tears.