Dan Clowes: He-Man Comic Artist

Junk Culture
m: So what kind of influences were you having at that particular time as far as other media, I mean were you into movies, or was there some kind of music that kind of influenced the way you were seeing things?

d: Certainly I was starting to expand my horizons and all that stuff. At that time, New York was a great place for someone who was trying to learn about movies because there were about ten theaters showing old black and white films at the time. There was one summer were I'd go and see two movies every single day. And that was when I was really learning stuff. You know, I'd go see weird experimental art films from the sixties and all the film noir stuff and Hollywood stuff that I'd never seen. I wound up seeing like all the old classics and then just buying records. That was back when you could buy records for like three dollars. You know, I'd just buy tons of bad, old, used records and, you know, just going to book stores and try to absorb all this culture that I was not familiar with until then.

m: Does a lot of that stuff play itself out still in Eightball?

d: Oh yeah, I mean it's all kind of the foundation for my thinking. That's when I was starting to figure out sort of critically what I really liked and what I thought was really stupid. You know, when I was in high school, I was sort of going along with what other people would tell me was cool and I would try to get into it. And if I didn't like, it I would think that it's just cause I'm stupid and I don't understand it, but that if I keep trying to get into it one day I will understand why Lord of the Rings is such a great story. And then when I was like eighteen or so, I sort of realized that it's not me, this really does suck [laughs], and there's a lot of cool stuff out there that I actually do like. And I sort of started figuring out what it was that I really liked and tried to be honest with myself and tried to like stuff on its own merits and not just because people said it was good. So that was good for me.