Advertisement
I am from Lummi Island, Washington State. I had an idyllic childhood, I guess. I spent a lot of time in fantasyland making up movies in my head in the woods. I read a lot of books. At school we danced the Mexican Hat Dance and had a story reading hour where the kids would lay their heads on pillows. Everyone had a fave pillow—mine was a sort of hospital-like white cotton wedge. My school bus driver was a Zen monk. All 50 kids in school sang 1920s showtunes to piano accompaniment. The Phillips boys introduced me to new wave, Dungeons and Dragons, and Monty Python. We made lots of videos in the WWII, Vietnam, or comedy genres. My nickname was "Matty-Bob" or just "Bob." Salmon barbecues and bluegrass music…very idyllic. Later I commuted on the ferry and on the bus past fields of cow shit to a shitty high school. There were some good teachers: Steiner, who played banjo in class, and Smedley, our language arts teacher. School was stressful and confusing but also wildly exciting. I got out of that and went to community college, then I moved to NYC.Do you remember the first comic you ever read? What is the evolution of your comics readermanship?
Peanuts, then Bloom County and Far Side collections, then Tintin and Asterix, the Smithsonian collection, also Batman and Spiderman, then Elfquest, Conan, Archie, then darker Batman, the Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, wearing a black trench coat and a chaos symbol pin, Doom Patrol, Edward Gorey, R. Crumb. Then in high school, reading Raw while wearing necklaces made of typewriter parts and a Rastafarian-style hat, underground comics, Butthole Surfers, music/art/collage/dada type interests…Pettibon, 19th century stuff, Aeon Flux, onward and upward with the arts. Then I went to college and took in a lot of other data but was still reading Ben Katchor, Dame Darcy, Tony Millionaire, Yummy Fur, kind of found out about Fort Thunder, Rege, Marc Bell, etc. around 2000…
1-800-MICE is partially my attempt to "adapt" the movie Serpico, at least to think about the metaphysical ideas underlying the movie. Serpico interests me because he is a traditional shapechanger figure; his skills are mythical, he's like coyote or some other kind of trickster god who can disguise himself. He goes undercover in order to be the best, most effective cop he can be, because he believes in the system and in morality, but then he realizes it's all upside down. Because of his natural sympathy, he sort of turns into what he is mimicking, a counterculture person. It makes me mad that kids these days are so reverent of Tony Montana, but who really is like any other warlord. Imagine how great it would be if everyone was wearing Serpico t-shirts instead of Scarface or wearing disguises. NICK GAZIN
