Dan Clowes: He-Man Comic Artist
The Comics Industry
m: You never had to deal with the comic industry proper. . .
d: No, I'm the luckiest guy in the world, I mean most people have to
hack around for years and get these little pick-up jobs until
finally they get something, and I just completely lucked into it. It
was just that the timing was perfect cause the markets were
really booming at that time, and they were just looking for
anything to publish.
m: So how do you explain, I mean it seems to me that Dr. Infinity
and Dan Pussey come out of angst, but you didn't have to
experience that. So are those strips just looking at the industry
from the outside?
d: In a way, but I mean it comes from my early years of doing
Lloyd Llewellyn and stuff, and going to these comic book
conventions and just dealing with trying to sell my comic to
retailers and being met with this just kind of passionate
disinterest [laughs]. And just seeing how, you know, everyone
goes ape over these absurd repetitive superhero comics. It
really, really bothered me. I mean, now I'm sort of use to it, and I
just kind of laugh it off -- it's just a macabre nightmare that I can
laugh at. But at the time I took it really personally, and I was
really offended by the fact that no one would look at my comics
or at all of these other great comics by people I respected; how
such a small segment of the industry was based on comics that
had any at least real value intended in them. And everything
that was paid attention to was such utter garbage.
That [the Dan Pussey story] was sort of my way of
expressing
that, and I also thought of Dan Pussey as a character that was a
cautionary message to myself. He was sort of what I could have
become if I had taken a wrong path. I mean, I have a definite
amount of sympathy for the guy all mixed in with the resentment
and hatred.
m: [laughs] What kept you from becoming him?
d: Well I like to think that I was just a little. . .too aware of myself.
I don't think I could have ever drawn that superhero stuff after
age 15 or 16. I just would have gone crazy cause it's just mind-
numbingly dull to me.
