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07.18.08 - 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
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.
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 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.
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
Choke
Bottle Shock The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Hellboy 2 Burn After Reading The Dark Knight Kabluey
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.
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.
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.
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