Evan Dorkin has been a staple in the comic book community for years, creating the series Milk and Cheese, Dork, and the recent mega-hit Beasts of Burden (put out by Dark Horse), as well as writing for TV shows like Yo Gabba Gabba! And Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (a personal favorite of ours during our college days).

We had a chance to talk to Evan about how his start in comics, how winning Eisner and Harvey Awards has effected his work (for better or for worse), and what we can expect from the über-talented artist/writer in the future.

SJ: What’s the earliest memory you have involving comic books?

ED: I have a pretty terrible memory, but I’d have to say it was reading translated reprints of Tintin comics in Children’s Digest magazine. It was either Children’s Digest or Humpty Dumpty magazine. I don’t know how old I was, six, seven. I remember reading the Sunday Comics, for some reason I have a clear memory of reading the funnies on the floor at my grandparents house in Monticello, NY, but I can’t place the time frame. I remember the first time I bought my own comics more clearly, four for a dollar off the spinner rack at a local grocery store, all Marvel Comics, the Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, World’s Greatest Comics – an FF reprint book – and I can never recall the fourth title. That was a big day. I still remember the covers to the three comics, although I don’t know the issue numbers. This is driving me crazy, now, I wonder what that fourth comic was. Maybe Marvel Tales. Aargh!

SJ: You have a pretty illustrious career writing for TV shows like Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and the animated Superman series, as well as writing for a wide array of comics (and in some cases doing the art as well). Which did you want to go into first, comics or TV, and do you find it hard to switch gears from one format to the other?

ED: I wanted to be a cartoonist since childhood. When I got older, I became interested in animation and wanted to be an animator. I attended film school at NYU for film and television and studied animation. Film school pretty much taught me that I didn’t want to go into film – I didn’t like a lot of the people there, I didn’t like the heavily collaborative aspects of film, I was a moron when it came to technical matters, and I found, to my dismay, that animating was a process I didn’t enjoy as much as I’d expected. I enjoyed my screenwriting classes, and started getting back into comics, and I realized I preferred to write and draw stories and gags rather than film or animate them. While in college I started pursuing comics again, and that’s where I ended up, luckily. And my comics eventually netted me some animation and TV work, so in that respect everything worked out pretty nicely. I still prefer comics to TV, for a number of reasons, but we’ve had some really terrific experiences on some of the shows we’ve worked on, especially Yo Gabba Gabba! and Space Ghost Coast to Coast, as well as the Eltingville pilot.

To answer your second question, I don’t find it difficult at all to switch from one medium to another, it’s all writing and drawing, only the formats and a few technical aspects change, really. You don’t have to write towards commercial breaks in comics, thankfully.

SJ: You’ve worked with a variety of publishers over the years, including two of the biggest, Marvel and DC. What do you look for in a publisher when agreeing to take on a project?

ED: As far as choosing projects goes, there’s really not much to it. I get an offer, and I decide if it’s something I can do. Which means is it something I would enjoy doing, something I have time to do, something that pays decently or is worth doing despite lousy or no pay, something that won’t cause a major headache for one reason or another. If the publisher is a known quantity then I know what to expect, by and large. Otherwise I check them out the best I can before making a decision, this happens more with licensors than publishers. Some companies are more impersonal than others, some places are more fun to work with than others, that’s life. All I want, really, from a publisher or company is reliability. That they do what they say they’re going to do and honor their agreements. And don’t give me a headache. There are some outfits I’m not interested in working for, for personal or professional reasons, but they don’t seem to be interested in dealing with me, either, so it never becomes an issue.

SJ: We here at Saint James are big, big fans of Beasts of Burden (along with the rest of the comic book community). The writing and art is solid and the story is very unique. How did the idea come about, originally?

ED: Basically, in 2003 Scott Allie called me up and asked me to contribute an 8-page story to the Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, a horror anthology he was putting together. I came up with a haunted doghouse story called “Stray”, and I had Jill Thompson in mind to illustrate it. The characters were all animals, neighborhood dogs and one stray cat, and I thought Jill would be the perfect artist to put the talking animals across without them seeming too outlandish. Beyond that, her watercolor work is fantastic, and I wanted that sort of storybook approach in the visuals. Anyway, everything came together and the story went over pretty nicely with some folks. We did another story with the characters for the following year’s Book of Witchcraft, and then did stories for the Book of the Dead and Monsters. We never intended the story to launch a series, but that’s what ended up happening. While we were working on the last short story we started discussing putting together a four-issue series. Each short story was longer than the previous, with the last one coming in at 20 pages, which is close to full comic-length. Scott asked us to keep the self-contained, done-in-one format of the shorts, which we did. So, now we have eight stories with the cast, and fingers crossed, we’ll get to do some more in the near future.

SJ: Has winning Eisner and Harvey awards changed how you approach projects generally, or how publishers/artists approach you for a specific project? Is there more pressure to deliver a project you think will find success commercially/critically as opposed to doing something solely because you believe in it?

ED: Because I have a malfunctioning brain, winning awards has only made me more nervous about my work. Back in the 90’s I won a few awards and it made me realize some people were paying attention to what I was doing, and it froze me up quite a bit. I got a lot more done when I didn’t think about the reception the work was getting, and what expectations there might be from the readership. I never let those things dictate what kind of stories I tell or what I work on, but it does pressure me to know there actually is some sort of audience out there, and that things like awards may raise expectations. It’s stupid, I know, but it’s something I have had a hard time dealing with, among other things that clutter my work process. People pretty much ignored the last few issues of Dork I put out, and the Biff Bam Pow comic I did with Sarah, but of course instead of relieving the pressure it just makes you worry about all the readers you’re losing or not entertaining. Again, it’s stupid, it’s stuff that shouldn’t impact the material, and really doesn’t. But it makes the process harder for me, I find comics much more difficult to create than I used to, because I worry and micromanage everything and over-think every aspect of the work. I worry about most everything, unfortunately, not only work. There’s a reason I’m on anti-anxiety medicine.

As far being approached by publishers, I’ve never had anyone offer me work because I’ve won an award. I really don’t think it happens that often in this business, if at all. It’s nice to win an award, but I don’t think they carry any actual weight in comics. At least that’s been my experience.

SJ: Arguably one of your most well-known ventures is Fun with Milk and Cheese which you also do the art for. How did you come up with this idea? Do you find it easier to work as a writer and artist, or to focus on only one?

ED: Milk and Cheese began life as a napkin sketch, something I doodled while waiting for food after a show at CBGB’s. This was in the late 80’s, 1987, I’d say. I have a terrible memory. I was fairly drunk at the time and just drawing stupid crap while talking with friends. I liked the characters and kept drawing them on envelopes and at conventions, I didn’t make comics with them until a guy named Kurt Sayenga asked me to do a Milk and Cheese strip for his magazine, Greed. Which I did, and which started me on doing a series of short Milk and Cheese comics which I eventually collected – along with new material – into a comic that SLG published in 1991. This led to six more issues and a mini-comic and a bunch of other things. Hopefully I’ll get an 8th issue out before I drop dead.

As far as the work goes, writing and drawing, I find both difficult no matter what the project is, neither comes easily for me. One difference is that when I write a script that I’ll also draw, I can take shortcuts and not explain everything in detail. When I write for others I’m always nervous I’m writing too much detail, or over-directing the artist, or not making my intentions clear enough, or not giving them material they’d be interested in drawing. I get paranoid and I hitch a lot. But I hitch no matter what I’m working on, whether I’m working on my own material or doing a script for someone else. I have a problem second-guessing my work all the time, during production, thinking about it, after I’ve done. I’m always convinced I’ve screwed up and I have trouble letting go of the work.

Of course, if I’m not drawing a script, I can breathe easier if it’s got a lot of details in, because I don’t have to deal with the art end of things. I’m starting an art job for Bongo and I want to strangle the writer because the script is so dense. Unfortunately, I wrote it.

SJ: Saint James is an independent comic book company publishing our own titles. What are your feelings towards independent publishers?

ED: Having done most of my comics for independent publishers, I’m obviously for them. I think starting a publishing outfit of any kind is insane, but that’s just me, I can’t see going through all those headaches, especially in the current market and economy. I wish indy outfits all the luck in the world.

SJ: With the digitization of comic books becoming the newest trend, allowing users to download content on devices ranging from iPhones to the Sony PSP, how do you think this will affect the comic industry going forward?

ED: I really have no idea beyond the obvious, that digital comics and web comics will continue to affect and change the way comics are created, delivered and marketed. And that print comics will be impacted by these emerging trends. To what extent, I have no idea, I’m not someone who likes to make predictions unless I really know –or think I know – what I’m talking about. I think we’ll still have a comic in the future, that’s all I really care about. I hope print survives, but I’ll be happy if the medium is still up and running. People have predicted the death of comics for some time now, but with the web, et al, there’s no compelling reason to think that anymore, even if print does die out.

SJ: What artists would you love to work with?

ED: Folks I would be happy to write something for would include Stuart Immonen, Amanda Conner, Steve Lieber, Cliff Chiang, Jim Rugg, Chynna Clugston-Flores, off the top of my head. I wrote a piece for Mad that Ty Templeton drew, but I’d enjoy writing something in comics form for him, he’s terrific. When I wrote World’s Funnest for DC I got to work with folks like Dave Gibbons, David Mazzucchelli, Jaime Hernandez, Jim Woodring and Jay Stephens, and that was a pretty amazing experience. For me, at least.

SJ: If you weren’t working in comics (or in TV), what would you be doing?

ED: Six months for petty larceny and resisting arrest.

SJ: What’s the best part about working in comics?

ED: Making things up for a living, setting your own hours, owning what you create, having some kind of audience, seeing your book in print, seeing your book in the hands of a reader.

SJ: What advice can you give to those trying to break into the industry?

ED: You don’t have to necessarily break into the industry anymore. You can sneak in via the web. Things are changing and the field is a lot more porous than it used to be. Not everyone has to go to the big two publishers, or any established publisher, to gain an audience and get a foothold in comics as a profession or serious hobby. Work hard, work creates work and work improves work. Expect nothing, try for everything, have fun, and when starting out have a safety net in the form of a day job or a dying millionaire uncle who loves you very, very much.

SJ: What are you reading right now?

ED: Rex Libris Volume 2 (James Turner, SLG), Blackjack Volume 7 (Tezuka), the Hellboy Library Volume 3 and Little Lulu, Creepy and Eerie reprints from Dark Horse, and a lot of Simpsons comics from Bongo. I recently finished The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Volumes 8-9 (DHC), The War at Ellsmere (Faith Erin Hicks, SLG) and Yotsuba! Volume 7 (Yen Press). I’m picking up a lot of strip reprints – Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy and Bringing Up Father from IDW, among others – but need to find more time to catch up on them. I’m also reading some books without pictures and word balloons, but who cares about those.

SJ: What can you tell us about any upcoming projects you have, whether it’s comic book or TV-related?

ED: The Beasts of Burden hardcover collection comes out in June, it will collect all eight stories Jill Thompson and I have done to date on the series, along with a sketchbook section of Jill’s artwork and some other odds and ends. I’ve been writing and drawing some comics for Bongo’s Bart Simpson series and Sarah and I did a pin-up for the Futurama/Simpsons crossover collection coming out in the Spring. The Wednesday Comics book from DC will include a one-page Plastic Man strip which I wrote and Stephen DeStefano drew. The next season of Yo Gabba Gabba! will have two episodes that Sarah and I wrote with series co-creator Christian Jacobs, as well as a Story Time segment we wrote and designed. I’m also working on two comic projects I can’t mention by name yet, and am moving forward at a snail’s pace on a new issue of Milk and Cheese. I think that’s pretty much everything I’ve got going right now.

Make sure to check out Evan’s blog here, and follow him on Twitter here.

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