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INTERVIEW: FAREL DALRYMPLE: POP GUN GENIUS Ever since the first issue of POP GUN WAR hit the stands those lucky thousands of fans who were smart enough to pick it up were all wondering one thing: When does the next issue come out? We sat around, wondering for quite a while, reminiscent and curious, until recently when we were greeted with a treat from Absence of Ink Press. Starting this January A.O.I. will begin releasing the remaining issues of POP GUN WAR starting with the long awaited issue 2... Sweet. First, how about a little familiarity for the fans. Introduce yourself. Ok, my full name is Farel DeShongh Dalrymple. I'm 29 years old and have been living in New York for over five years. I'm originally from Oklahoma by way of California. I've been doing self-publishing in one way or another for about three years now. Yeah, animation was the way to put the bread on the table when I got out of school. I didn't really go to school for that sort of thing. I was an Illustration major. I just kind of fell into animation. I mostly did character designs, turnarounds, storyboards, and layout drawings for flash animation projects. I was working for one of those big Internet companies that blew apart last year. Now I am scrounging out a living doing the occasional storyboarding job. How did you get into working on Storyboards? I have gotten some jobs through the people I used to work to work at the Internet company. I have worked on some animation projects as well as a low budget movie. I really like doing storyboards. It is very close to doing comics. Unfortunately work has been a little slim lately. I might go back to waiting tables soon. Of course I could just work on POP GUN WAR all the time if I sold a few thousand more copies. Now I don't remember seeing POP GUN WAR when it was solicited, but the day it came out - I saw it, bought it and the title immediately went on my 'pull list.' Since then I've heard nothing but good things about the book. Why do you think reactions have been so positive? I don't know. I hate to confess this but I don't really buy comics too often. There are certainly several cartoonists that I admire but it takes so long for a single creator to produce a comic that I didn't see too many comics on the stands that I wanted to read. So I made POP GUN WAR with the idea in mind of a comic I might buy. I am sure every creator thinks what they do is unique and original so I may sound conceited but I don't really see too many comics out there that look anything like POP GUN WAR. I don't think my ideas are necessarily groundbreaking. I used a lot of common imagery, and typical comic book devices like surrealism, but maybe the way I presented the story, combined all these elements, is what appealed to people. Yeah, that's not really what I meant by surrealism, although I loved those old Steranko comics. I bought a lot of those comics when I was younger. They were old when I bought them. I must have spent some serious money on all those. I wish I still had them. The kind of surrealism I meant was more the classical meaning I guess. Some people have referred to POP GUN WAR as magical realism. Maybe that is a better definition. I always dislike trying to describe my work. For some reason I makes me feel uncomfortable. I am too worried people will get the wrong idea or something. So what titles have been appealing enough lately for you to pop a few bucks out your pocket? Not too many. Of course I buy the occasional Chris Ware, Paul Pope, or Dan Clowes. I usually buy their books a long time after they have come out. I never buy them right away. The problem is I hardly go to the comic store to even look anymore. Most of the comics I read are ones I have traded with people at conventions. I think the last comic I bought was Dave Cooper's "Dan and Larry". I really like that guy's stuff. Some of it is pretty disturbing but it's all so very nice to look at. I got a chance to see some pages from the new Michael Lark Batman book. I don't know if it's out yet or what but I will pick that up eventually. That stuff was amazing. It reminded me of the Mazzuchelli Batman year one. It's been a good while between issues 1 and 2, what was the cause of the delay? What sort of timeframe can fans expect for the rest of the series? I feel very guilty for the huge delay between the first two issues. It was my original plan to have a new book out every few months. What can I say? I have a bunch of excuses. At first there was just poor time planning on my part. Then there was the financial problem. The first book was funded by the Xeric grant for which I am very grateful. The second book has been finished for a while. I just didn't have any money to print the damn thing. So now that I have a real publisher he decided to put me on some sort of regular schedule. Which is a good thing for the readers and me. I have made a commitment to get out POP GUN WAR on a quarterly schedule. Since issue two will be in stores in January, issue three should be on the stands by April. Expect a new issue to follow every three months. Since issue 1, issue 2 has gone from Cryptic press to meathaus publications and has now found it's home at absence of ink. Why all the jumping about and are there currently any plans for a reprint of issue 1? I was under the Cryptic Press banner with my first publishing endeavor, SMITH'S ADVENTURES IN THE SUPERMUNDANE. John Green and Dave Roman are a couple of great guys. They didn't have the funds to pay for the printing but did the production work on POP GUN WAR as well as dealing with all distributors and that other stuff on both PGW and Smith. I found the whole process pretty intimidating. By the time I started work on the MEATHAUS anthology I was a little more confident. Though I remember John helping out quite a bit with the production on the first issue of MEATHAUS. After doing a few issues of MEATHAUS I got this crazy idea to start a comic publishing empire. I decided to publish POP GUN WAR under Meathaus Press. Sadly, a few months later I was collecting unemployment checks wondering what happened to my nice internet job. By the time I was finished with the second issue I was severely unemployed (still am) and couldn't afford to print the book. Ed Irving at Absence of Ink Press heard about my financial dilemma and graciously decided to publish POP GUN WAR. No plans right now to re-print issue #1. I still have about 1,000 copies sitting in my friend's loft in Brooklyn. It sold pretty well for a first issue of an indie book. I sold over 2,200 copies just from Diamond. I had to do a re-print since I originally only had 2,000 copies printed. I do plan on collecting the first 5 issues in a trade paperback. Are those thousand copies available for sale and if so how might fans get a hold of a copy? They can always mail order them from me. Meathaus has a website, www.meathaus.com with our address and everything. Cold Cut was distributing POP GUN WAR as well as Tony Shenton. I still get an occasional small re-order form diamond, but I am not too sure how their re-order system works. Staying as hush hush as possible, can you tell us how you got involved with artbomb? Well, I guess it started when Ed Irving posted something about POP GUN WAR on a certain person's message board. Someone contacted him through that. Then I sent off my stuff to be posted on the Artbomb Site. I think that's it. I might be missing something. Tell us about MEATHAUS and the role you play in that concern. MEATHAUS is a comic book anthology consisting of illustrators, cartoonists, and animators mostly from the New York area though in the last couple of issues we have had people from other parts of the country as well. I have been the editor on the first five issues but it is really a group project. It started out as an excuse to make something and get together with a lot of my friends. Now it is a little more than that. Issue five, which should be back from the printers by the time people read this, is 104 pages long and features 21 different artists. Speaking of MEATHAUS publications, you've been trying to get a few projects off the ground involving contributors from the MEATHAUS anthology - any luck on that front? Unfortunately no, Tomer Hanuka already had BiPOLAR, one of my favorite comics, going under Five O'clock Shadow. A few of the guys in issue #5 have their own projects too. I was really excited to get Vincent Stall from Minneapolis to contribute something to issue five. He does mini comics under the title KING MINI INTERNATIONAL and just did a full length book, ROBOT INVESTIGATOR. Nothing under the Meathaus Press logo though except for a cool mini comic Zac Baldus did called RED THREAD. Tomer and I were trying to encourage a few of the founding members of Meathaus to do some full length comics. Not many people want to invest their time doing something as financially unrewarding as comics. I can't blame them but I sure would love to see what these guys could do with their own books. I think a couple of them are still playing with the idea. Do you think your ideas might be better suited to Graphic Novels then comic series, thus allowing for better bookstore distribution? Oh yeah, totally. I think the market for the 24-page comic is dying. After I get tired of doing POP GUN WAR as a regular series it will just be graphic novels for me from then on. Everyone seems to like the bigger, graphic novel, trade paperback format better. Distributors, retailers and some publishers agree it is superior from a monetary standpoint. I am definitely going to compile the first five issues into a trade, maybe with some colour pages added. One happy bit of news you recently announced on the WEF was having received the gold medal from the society of illustrators in their sequential category. Could you tell us a little bit about that? The Society of Illustrators is an old establishment in New York that promotes the art of illustration. Every year they have an international call for entries. Selected winners are exhibited in a show then put in a full color book. They also have an annual student competition. This year was the first year they had a sequential category. It is any illustration where the sequence of images is necessary to fully illustrate the idea. The show for the sequential category will be from Feb.6 to Feb. 23, 2002. Their website is: Society Illustrators.org. I was hoping that I would get in the show but I was very happily surprised to find out I got the gold medal.  One of your favoured themes, as seen in POP GUN WAR is childhood and the negative feelings associated with being young and small. Could you yourself see this story represented in any other way then that of a comic book? What do you mean exactly? Do you mean like a movie or a book? Or whatever medium you prefer. Sure, comics are just one way of telling the same story that everyone else is telling. I would love to someday work on my own film. I have even played with the idea of doing a POP GUN WAR short. Do you have any experience working on films in terms of production and direction as opposed to just a artists position? Not really. Some friends and I make videos sometimes. They are just short, funny films. I haven't attempted anything serious yet. Jay Sacher (from Meathaus) and I have been working on a movie script. I don't know if we will ever really make it into anything. I would like to get into other areas of film someday. My girlfriend is studying film right now. Maybe after she is famous she can get me into the business. Are these feelings and concepts based on any specific childhood experiences of your own? Actually I had a pretty good childhood. I remember being confused a lot. I think I was in my own world, "oh, were we supposed to go on a field trip today?" That's probably what they are calling A.D.D. these days. There were a lot of times though where I felt everything was unjust. I think a lot of children feel that way. Also, I spent a lot of time alone as a child. I tried to get those things across in Smith's Adventures. Occasionally, I use certain scenes I remember from my childhood as material when I write. That's the place I try to think from. Back in our day, what they now refer to as ADD, was what we might have called creativity. Yeah, I guess most creative people did a lot of daydreaming in school. When I was in grade school I noticed I would always do my best drawings while the teacher was talking. You've mentioned plans of a children's book once PGW was completed. Is this still on the table? Being a full colour book, are you planning on doing the book fully painted? Yeah, doing a children's book is something I think about almost every day. Once I get a few more issues of POP GUN WAR finished I want to start work on it. I would like to do it fully painted, probably in oils. I might mix it up though. I play around with computer coloring sometimes. I may do some more of that. Dave McKean makes it all look so darn easy. It's interesting you'd chose oils as the medium. How much attention do you put towards texture in your art? Texture is something I think about when I paint and draw. The types of paintings that I am more attracted to are usually the ones with texture. I like seeing brushstrokes. Comic artists like Sergio Toppi and Jorge Zaffino are really good at giving their work a textural quality. I think the reason I work mostly in oils when I paint is because that is the medium I learned to use while I was in school. It seemed to work ok for me so I stuck with it. If I ever start doing a lot of illustration work I may have to switch to acrylic or gouche.  With PGW issue 2 soon to hit the stands, what can fans expect from this issue? I had a couple people tell me that the story in issue one was incomprehensible. If anyone was confused by the first issue don't expect it all to get cleared up in #2. I think it is a stronger book than issue #1. There are a few new characters in this issue. One of them is not a nice person. Sinclair and him get into a bit of a fight. I think people will like the book. I have a heard a lot of positive things from the few people I have showed it to. I am a little worried about Issue three, which is out in April. It is a slower paced than the first two issues but I think there is actually more stuff going on. With a heavy NY influence, have you made any attempts in expressing the events of 9-11 in your art? No, Not anything obvious or literal. I have a couple of friends that did some stuff for the Alternative Comics 9-11 book. I really liked what they had to say about it. But doing things like that is not really my style. I deal more with fantasy and surrealism. I'm not too good at expressing myself through something that heavy and frightening. I know I have been affected as a New Yorker and a person just like everyone else on the planet. I am sure that will show up in my art in some way. There seems to be an oppressive mood in this city since 9-11. People seem more hostile than ever. I think about moving every day. As ridiculous as this sounds I hope that the comic books I make from now on are truly uplifting in their own way.  Next time someone gives you attitude, pull out a copy of PGW ish 1 and say "Here. Have a comic" - it's sure to cheer up some people. 4 out of 5 doctors recommend it. Yeah, I should try that. Right now I am sticking to my plan of trying not to ever leave my apartment. Heh. Ladies and gentlemen, the making of a true artiste... And don't forget, Farel is open for new work assignments - I'm looking YOUR way Larry Young! You too Jamie Rich. I've haven't forgotten you either Jim Valentino. And don't start thinking I won't be mentioning your names as well; Joey Q, Karen Berger and Mark Chiarello...
 Jonathan Ellis is Interviews Editor for PopImage. He is not however a big shot editor at one of the biggest and best comic companies currently out there, but if he were he'd certainly snag up a talent like Farel before someone else did. I'm just saying is all.  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. E-mail Us. - Send us an e-mail, commenting on this article. Meathaus.com - Check out this anthology bringing together some amazing talent Xeric Foundation.com - The Xeric Foundation - helping talented work reach you. Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles |
Most people reading this will know you from POP GUN WAR and MEATHAUS, but you also have a background in animation, correct? 
I got some advanced copies the other day. It looks amazing. If anyone wants to check this book out they should start with this issue. It has been a lot of fun to work on MEATHAUS but with issue six some of the other guys are taking over the editor chores. I will still contribute but I'm a little burnt out on doing the editor/publisher thing. 
