Cartoon Legacy: An Interview with Andrew McGinn
If you’re a fan of the daily comic strips that appear in newspapers everywhere, you may want to move on to a different article. Chances are Andrew McGinn hates every strip you love. In fact, you can bet on it. But if you too bemoan the state of the strip, you may be interested in what McGinn has to say. And if you’re just in the mood for a truly entertaining, often hilarious look at comic strips and the people who create them, you’ll want to know about The Legacy, McGinn and artist David Neitzke’s new book about a young man named Chas who inherits a comic strip from his father—and does his level best to lose it as fast as he can. Try as he might, though (and he certainly tries), he just can’t seem to get rid of it, which makes for some very entertaining reading and a biting satire of the world of comic strips. Here’s what Chas’s creator had to say about it.
Tell us a little bit about your background. When did you get into illustration and comics?
I grew up in Jefferson, Iowa, a town in central Iowa of about 4,500 surrounded on all four sides by vast fields of genetically modified soybeans and corn. Oh, and some big, industrial hog lots are popping up, too. But in all seriousness, it was an OK place to grow up. At least it was looking back. Now, had you asked me about it in, say, 11th grade, I might’ve given you a much different answer.
Like most people, I dare to say, I got into comics through superheroes. Jefferson, of course, didn’t have a comic shop, but thankfully, I came of age right before the direct market really took hold, which meant it was still possible to find comics at the local SuperValu grocery store or the Hallmark store that had a magazine rack. Now I don’t think you can find a single comic book in Jefferson, which to me is something of a tragedy. But even then, the selection was pretty bad (just the most popular Marvel and DC titles), and comics didn’t seem to be all that popular, because the only people who ever bothered to show up on “new comics day” were me, my friend, and a guy who may or may not have been a pedophile, according to local legend. But by high school, I stopped reading comics. Not that I wanted to. At that time, anybody who read comics in small-town U.S.A. past the age of 13 or 14 was seen as either developmentally challenged or, well, a pedophile. My one friend stopped reading, which meant I’d have to go it alone on new comics day and fight with the pedophile for the lone issue of Thor #400 at Walt’s Hallmark. It wasn’t until college that I started buying comics again and discovering all sorts of different things I never knew existed, particularly all that great stuff that EC put out in the ’50s (which Gemstone was reprinting at the time). But I remain a superhero fan to this day, and I’m neither developmentally challenged nor a pedophile.
What were your favorite comic strips growing up?
To be honest, I’ve never been much of a fan of the medium, even as a kid. I guess it’s just not my sense of humor. I didn’t even really like Peanuts, which is damn near un-American to admit (although the holiday specials are still great). The one comic that really did make me laugh, though, was The Far Side. That’s more my sense of humor; absurd and really kind of dark. I really love Charles Addams’ old stuff as well, but I discovered that much later on.
Are there any you like now?
Truthfully? No. Then again, to be completely fair, I’m only basing that on the selection of strips that our daily newspaper currently offers (the same paper I happen to work for, as the arts and entertainment reporter). I do try to read a particular handful every day, though, just to see how flat-out stupid The Family Circus, Dennis the Menace, and Beetle Bailey can get. I just see a lot of wasted potential. You really have to admire guys like Gary Larson and Bill Watterson for having the guts to quit while they were ahead. And some guys, like Garry Trudeau and Mike Peters, still have some great ideas (and Peters’ editorial work is just awesome). But others, like the chick who does Cathy, I still can’t figure out how she got syndicated in the first place. Can you? Can anybody?
Did you ever want to be a comic strip cartoonist when you were younger?
Sure, doesn’t everybody?! But only the truly blessed are those who can write AND draw. I can’t draw.
What do you think that job would be like now?
Being a cartoonist, I will freely admit, has got to be one of the toughest jobs around. It can’t be easy trying to be funny every single day for, say, 50 years. My collaborator, David Neitzke, and I first teamed up together a few years ago to try our hand at a possible syndicated strip. I’m now kind of glad none of the syndicates wanted it. What a colossal undertaking. So with some of the strips, it’s sort of sad to see what happens when the ideas dry up, to basically go from Eddie Murphy in Delirious to Eddie Murphy in Pluto Nash. Maybe that’s a bad analogy, although I‘d love to go back in time to convince Mort Walker to pepper Beetle Bailey with f-words. But do comedians sense when they’re not funny anymore? That’s got to be a hard thing to accept. Most, as we can painfully see, don’t. That said, though, I once did a story for my newspaper on just the all-around longevity of some comic strips. I was fortunate enough to get to speak with, among others, Walker and Bil Keane and Chris Browne, who inherited Hagar the Horrible from his dad, Dik. Later on, I recalled those interviews, and some of their insights, when I was creating characters for The Legacy.
A couple of their direct quotes even made it into my dialogue. And, I must say, these are some of the nicest individuals I’ve ever interviewed. Mort and Bil even sent me thank-you cards afterward. Nobody does that! So for Dave and I to make such horrible fun of them in The Legacy, well, it’s sort of like walking up to the cutest little puppy and kicking it in the face. But let’s be honest here: Some of those strips are just asking to be ridiculed. Severely.
So you feel similar to Chas about the state of comic strips now?
Oh, yeah. Like I said before, you really have to admire the Wattersons and Larsons of the world for going out on top. And I don’t know about Watterson, but Larson still has to be making a killing by just selling desk calendars. Too bad Watterson can’t capitalize on those awful window decals of Calvin whizzing on various car logos. Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he seemingly hasn’t had a job for 15 years. Maybe he sits in his cave somewhere and actually thinks up new things for Calvin to pee on. But the state of newspaper comic strips in 2010 is bad. Real bad. It certainly doesn’t help that the physical size of the newspaper is shrinking. Space has never been tighter, and the slightest change to the comics section results in you royally offending the few people who still subscribe. I think before you could just say, “Deal with it.” We found out at my paper that you don’t screw with Garfield. We dared to get rid of it! People actually were canceling their subscriptions. We had to bring Garfield back. So even if a syndicate signed up the next Bill Watterson (which I don’t think they have), would he find much of an audience? Are papers willing to piss off those precious remaining readers to make room for some new, untested strip at the expense of, say, Blondie? It’s a bad situation and getting worse. There’s no opportunity for new blood, so why should the syndicates bother with new blood? Sure, you can go and create a webcomic on your own, but while you might attract a decent following, it’s never going to be a shared cultural experience like those strips that get to run in newsprint. And you’re never going to get a holiday special out of it.
What makes comic strips so bad? Why do you think haven’t they been able to evolve the way other art forms have?
I suppose, in a sense, it’s hard to be really funny when you have to appeal to such a general audience. It’s great that we still have something left in our society that can be enjoyed by the young and old alike. I mean, I don’t think I’d let my own son watch network TV past, say, 7 o’clock anymore. There’s no more Growing Pains or TGIF-type shows (not that I myself really miss them). But to appeal to a general audience the good way, you have to work on two levels. You have to be complex and simple all at once. Pixar does it with every single movie. Charles Schulz did it with Peanuts in the early years. Watterson did it with Calvin and Hobbes. But most strips are just so simple, they end up appealing only to the feeble-minded youngest and the mushy-brained oldest of our society. I’d love to see cartoonists take a cue from Pixar, whose films appeal to everyone on all sorts of different levels, but maybe they’re just not up to it. Besides, Jim Davis is already selling plenty of stuff with Garfield printed on it, so why rock the boat?
How did you and David Neitzke meet?
Dave and I met in college. We went to Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. He’s from Sac City, Iowa, which is even smaller than Jefferson. In college, he lived down the hall from me and was instrumental in turning me on to all sorts of things I now love: EC Comics, garage rock, and every obscure, early ’60s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. You can spot his own love for EC and Hanna-Barbera in his work. We also found we had a mutual appreciation of old monster movies and the Three Stooges, so we quickly became friends, even though he’s three years older. I think he has the same attitude that I do toward strips, because he liked the idea for The Legacy as soon as I suggested it. Either that or he was just really bored.
How did you go about getting The Legacy published?
For starters, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing when we started working on The Legacy. We still really don’t. We knew we could pitch it to all the proper publishers (folks like Chris Staros at Top Shelf, who was unbelievably encouraging), but we had no contacts except for the general submission guidelines on their sites. Being from rural Iowa, it’s not like Berkeley, where there’s a community of creators you can hang with (or at least shop where they shop). You’re isolated. There are no conventions to meet people at. I didn’t get to attend my first con until just a few years ago, and I’m 33. So it was destined to be an uphill battle; a proposed graphic novel from two dudes from out of nowhere. We got some nice feedback from a few of the people we sent our 8-page or whatever submission to, but everybody passed. Or at least I think they did. Some never wrote back! Truthfully, The Legacy was sort of a dead project until I got wind that this publisher based in Detroit (DragonFish) was interested in doing graphic novels. I sent it to them and they thought it was funny enough to sink their own money into getting it printed. Now it’s just a matter of telling people about it and, more importantly, convincing them to pick up a book by two guys they don’t know on an imprint they’ve probably never heard of. So far so good, though. Diamond recently picked The Legacy as “Certified Cool” in the March issue of Previews, which was amazing. The American Library Association also
gave it a glowing review in Booklist. And here I thought we’d only sell two copies: One to my mom and one to Dave’s mom. Then again, we still might. It’s not out yet.
What are you working on next?
Good question! I’ve been meaning to start scripting out our next book, which will be inspired by our mutual love of the old Universal horror films of the ’30s and by my recent befriending of an old actor who now is a regular on the autograph convention circuit. Those conventions are wild. Who knew the “nurse zombie” from Dawn of the Dead could now make a living by signing autographs for $20 a pop?!
-- John Hogan
