Colin Upton is a creator who only recently entered my area of knowledge, thanks to a great lead from Matt Feazell. Some of the best interviews, like this one, evolve from when the interviewer is learning about the creator along with the fellow readers. Upton has been working in comics since 1985 with his first mini-comic, Socialist Turtle and The Granville Street Gallery. Since then he's self-published more than 60 mini-comics, as well as Buddha on the Road (Aeon) and his autobiographical Big Thing (Ed Varney, Fantagraphics, Aeon, Starhead), among many other works. He recently completed an Iraq warblog.
Tim O'Shea: A great deal of your work in Big Thing was autobiographical, were you uncomfortable at first telling stories about yourself and what attracted you to doing such work?
Colin Upton: I was inspired by the autobiographical comics of Harvey Pekar, it just blew me away that this guy would write comics about his boring life as a filing clerk in Cleveland! It was so different from the comics I knew at the time, the mindless superhero crap, the underground comics celebrating a lost hippy sub-culture I couldn't relate too and the slick European comics. I figured, "Hey, my life's gotta be more interesting than this!", I'm not sure it was but it was a challenge to make it interesting! Also, my father was a historian and I inherited a fascination with the details of everyday life in our times and how it is recorded. I had gone through years of psychiatric therapy so the idea of self-examination was in no way a novel experience for me.
TO: While I know you're not presently creating comics at present, I was wondering if there's ever an interest to do more stories along the lines of Buddha on the Road?
CU: Actually, I have plans for a couple more series of Buddha on the Road! A couple issues sit in a drawer somewhere... unfortunately after Aeon folded I could not interest another publisher in a book with rapidly dwindling sales and not much press to back it up. I am a poor self-promoter, I lack confidence in my own work so it is difficult inspire that in others. At the time I was looking for a publisher my personal life became such a mess I gave up... although there might be news sometime in the future...
TO: What has been the response/feedback to your warblog, is the feedback constructive or not?
CU: The feedback has been all positive, which probably means I'm preaching to the converted. I've had a good response from cartoonists, I think more for my ability to put out a coherent full page comic a day than for it's content! The blog was plugged here and there, I was getting mail from the Philippines to Scotland but not a great deal. I have no way to count visits to the site. (The warblog is currently being collected and will appear hopefully as a print on demand book soon.)
TO: Any chance for an Iranblog? Or a CurrentEventsblog along these lines?
CU: Well, maybe, depends how indignant I get or if I was to get a regular forum outside my web site. After awhile you just burn out, although there's still lots to say about the mess in Iraq.
TO: I was struck by the fact that you say in the Warblog intro "...This is, I think, the major advantages of on-line comics, topicality and reach, a genre that otherwise holds little interest for me." Why the lack of interest in online comics?
CU: Unlike some I am not enamored with the computer. A useful tool yes but there's other ways I'd like to spend my leisure time. To be honest I find reading off a flickering screen to be taxing on my eyes and it's nearly impossible to relax. I can't describe how but I suspect that somewhere in our brains what we understand of what we read changes depending if we read from a printed page or read from a screen. I have noticed when sending E-mail nobody seems to be able to "read" sarcasm unless there's one of those damn smiley logo things to spell it out for you! Plus, a lot of the strips I've seen on-line are about computers and I couldn't begin to get the jokes!
TO: You recently participated in a group comic art show in late May. How much progress do shows like this achieve in getting mainstream recognition for the Art of comics as an important art format? Does it afford you an opportunity to expose your work to other people who may otherwise not seek out comics or minicomics?
CU: Every little bit helps, I think that greater awareness of comics is growing, especially with younger people who've experienced comics and zine cultures entering into positions of responsibility in cultural institutions. Of course, I've always suspected this is a double-edged sword. Comics seem to thrive on an lowbrow, populous, outsider status. Virtually ignored, cartoonists have the freedom to do as they please. If comics are absorbed into the world of fine arts it may become as irrelevant, vacuous and driven by empty sensationalism as the rest of the art world.
TO: What have been some of your favorite guests on your show, the Onomatopoeia Show?
CU: Seth, David Boswell, Ian Boothby, Roberta Gregory, Donna Barr, David Lasky... ah... going blank...
TO: Is there anything you'd like to discuss that I may have not asked?
Be sure to mention that I paint and do award winning illustration work (primarily of historical and military subjects) and I need the damn money!
I am a wargamer. I mention this as I was called a geek in a comic shop for being a wargamer by a guy playing magic cards. I have come to accept my inner geekiness, no matter how cool and alternative we pretend to be, how much black we wear, scratch an alternative cartoonists and you'll find a geeky fan boy/girl. I am currently mapping out my theory of universal geekiness that encompasses everyone from Star Trek fans to the greatest artists and thinkers of our times and the past. There is no shame in this... anybody out there have any old Goon shows I could dub...?
