INTERVIEW: Pop Gun War Collected
Interview conducted by Jonathan Ellis

This June will see the release of Farel Dalrymple’s critically acclaimed mini-series POP GUN WAR collected in trade paper back format for the first time by Dark Horse Comics. POP GUN WAR is a rich story of loss and friendship, estrangement and distance, beauty and sanity. Or the lack thereof. The story focuses on Sinclair, a young boy with wings, and the many eccentric characters that fill the urban environment around him. Farel Dalrymple is a Society of Illustrators Gold medal winner, a Xeric Grant recipient, and a Russ Manning Award nominee. Farel also serves as editor for the anthology series MEATHAUS. Since the release of POP GUN WAR and other works like SMITH’S ADVENTURES IN THE SUPERMUNDANE Farel has been praised as one of the industries most talented emerging artists, and with recent work for Dark Horse and an upcoming project for DC Comics, the accolades have begun to ring true.

So, I never did ask, why the title POP GUN WAR?

It came to me when I was reading a Herman Melville book, Typee. There was a scene when the main character talks about how he made a popgun for one of the natives in this village he was being held prisoner in. After the other natives saw it they all wanted their own. After he made several he said something like "all day long you could hear the sounds of their pop gun war". I just liked the way that sounded.

Did you expect… all this? The acclaim? The awards? One of the greatest things must be receiving recognition from the creators who influenced you.

It’s great to have people say nice things about your work. I love getting mail from random fans but it is a different thing to have your peers like what you do. Not better or worse but it nice in a different way.

I didn't really expect the path my as of yet short life in the comic’s world has taken. I mean I wanted to be successful but small publishing is such a weird animal. I haven't really made much money directly off of POP GUN WAR yet. In an indirect way I have because it has gotten me other paying work.

I was thinking that when I first got into this that I wouldn't sell that many books at first and maybe I would slowly build up an audience to where one day I could make a living off POP GUN WAR. I did a little better than I expected with the first issue but it seems like sales after decreasing with the second issue (which I hear is normal) have been pretty steadily the same. As far as awards go I have won one and been nominated but lost the other.

With the society of illustrators I was just hoping to get into the show. I had no idea that I would get the gold medal. I was seriously stunned. Most comic readers might not know about the society but to me it was a huge deal because when I was going to the School of Visual Arts I would go up to the Society a lot. I even interned there for a semester.

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It is a pretty neat place. Back in the day all those old famous illustrators like J.C. Lyendecker and Norman Rockwell would hang out there. There are original paintings by guys like N.C. Wyeth hanging up in the dining room. All the people that juried the show I got the gold medal in were comic creators I really respected. Anyways, I never expected winning. Of course this last year I didn’t even get in the show. Go figure.

How did you hook up with Dark Horse for publishing the trade instead of Absence Of Ink? You actually asked them if they’d be interested, not the other way around?

I’m happy doing the individual issues of POP GUN WAR with A.O.I. but a while ago Ed asked me about having someone else doing the trade. I guess because a larger company would have more experience and resources at their disposal for distribution and promotion. At that point I had done some work with Dark Horse Maverick editor Diana Schutz (HAPPY ENDINGS and GRENDEL: RED, WHITE & BLACK, volume 2, issue 4). So I asked her if Dark Horse would want to publish the trade. She seemed pretty excited about doing it. POP GUN WAR was after all what got her interested in using me for HAPPY ENDINGS. Diana is like one of the coolest people I have met in this comic book business.

I notice the trade will be published with new dimensions. 6” x 9” giving it more of a ‘novel’ feel. Your idea or theirs?

That was Diana’s idea. I think she really likes that size HAPPY ENDINGS and Scott Morse’s ANCIENT JOE were both that size. I think she said one of the reasons was because it fits better in a girl’s handbag. I like it too. Some day I’d like to do an oversized book like Paul Pope’s BUZZ BUZZ or one of those Chris Ware Acme Novelty Books but I think the 6 X 9 works nicely for POP GUN WAR.

Considering your fondness for the company and editor Diana Schutz, any plans on taking your War of the Worlds vs. cowboys idea to Dark Horse?

Wow, that’s cool that people are talking about that when I haven’t even drawn a single page of story yet. It is just in the proposal stage right now. Yeah, hopefully it is sitting on Diana’s desk right now. We were both busy working on the PGW trade so she probably hasn’t had a chance to look at it yet. The whole idea for that series was for me and fellow Meathaus contributor Jason Sacher to try to make a little money and do some cool comic together. I really like his writing a lot and have wanted to work with him on something for a while. His own book “And My Also” should be available by next month. Anyway I figured before I shopped the series around to a few other guys I would give Diana first go at it since she has been so cool and given me work. I actually feel a little weird talking about it now because I haven’t talked to her about it at all yet.

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One way I’ve heard POP GUN WAR described is as your own personal love letter to New York, which may be the most generous portrayal of the series. Was this your intention?

I like that description too. I was very pleased when I read it. Yeah, in a way it was my intention. The city in POP GUN WAR isn’t exactly New York. It isn’t any real city obviously but a lot of it feels like New York. I’m sure it is because I have been living in New York City for 7 years now. So that is my frame of reference. I knew when I started thinking about doing POP GUN WAR that I wanted it to be set in an urban landscape. It is cool to me that the city Sinclair and the others inhabit has almost become it’s own character in the story. On the other hand I really hate living in a big city a lot of the time. I don’t know if I could ever move because there are so many inspirational and wonderful things here but there are also the worst things in the world here too. I was just listening the new David Cross CD where he sort of talks about that. He says something like New York is the only place where every twenty minutes you have to make a decision to either look at the craziest person in the world or the most beautiful woman in the world. One of the things that upset me about this city is all the mind numbed or insane people here. If you notice in POP GUN WAR the streets are usually deserted. I didn’t realize I was doing this until my second or third issue. But I like the way it looks. A big city that is empty of people. New York City can look like that sometimes. When I walk around the city at like 7:00 am the city is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. No one is out.

The streets are barren.

Much of the series originated in your sketchbooks? Might this be included in the collections or perhaps publishes as a special companion piece to the series?

I don’t know. Would people really want to see that? I thought about putting some sketchbook pages in the trade but decided rather to have a few new pages of story. The thing is my sketchbook is mostly scribbles and notes to myself. Also I have all these friends with amazing kick-ass sketchbooks that make me feel ashamed of mine. My friend James Jean has some incredible sketchbooks. If you go to his website jamesjean.com you can see some. A lot of the MEATHAUS guys like Esao and Mu have pretty amazing books too. So when I think about doing one and I see theirs I’m like, “okay I’ll just go back to work making comics.” A while ago I had this pretty cool sketchbook but I left it on an airplane. I was pretty bummed out about it for a while. Then I started a new one and did some really cool stuff in it. Of course I lost that a few weeks later. Talk about depressing. There was a book Meathaus Press put out a while ago called Beef Apt. It has a few of my sketchbook pages in it. Maybe someday when I collect all the short comic stories that I’ve done for MEATHAUS and other things I will put a sketchbook section in that.

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A lot of the series is influenced directly from your childhood yet the series is also reflective of adversity and loneliness. Wanna talk about it?

Wow, it sounds like I have some serious issues or something. I guess I spent a lot of my childhood alone. But I don’t think that is a bad thing. I wasn’t crying in room saying, “I’m so lonely boohoo.” I had fun by myself, reading comics and drawing and watching a lot of television. But I was somewhat afraid of people. I still am to some degree, although I consider myself a sort of personable guy now. It seems like when I write comics with children I like to show how alone you can feel and how unfair everything seems to a little kid. There is a scene in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that does that brilliantly. The scene where little Stephen Dedalus is sitting at his desk and punished along with the bad kid for not doing his work even though another teacher told him he didn’t have to because he didn’t have his glasses. That is one of my favourite scenes in literature.

One of the things I find most appealing about the series are the lovely painted covers. Like a modern urbanized Norman Rockwell with thick acrylics. What was the motivation in shaping the style of each cover?

Thanks. Those are actually oil paints. Some times I will do a quick acrylic under painting but the finished product is done with oil. The motivation behind the first cover was that I like the way covers with large white areas look. They really seem to pop out on the store shelf. After that I thought I would just continue the motif with different colours and different characters. I’m going to change it up with issue 6.

Not that long ago you were researching potential DC Comics properties, has this lead to anything concrete? Are you planning on working with another writer or artist or will you be taking things on all your own?

I was planning on doing something with one of my favourite comic writers Ann Nocenti and we are still waiting on word about that. I’ll be pretty excited if that happens because it has been goal of mine for a while to work on something with her. Things are moving kind of slow on that right now. But the good news is that I got gig doing something for Bob Schreck at DC. He is another of the coolest people I have met in the comics business. I don’t know how much I can say about it right now because I just got the go ahead to start drawing it but Judd Winick is writing it. I think it is going to be pretty cool.

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Is the Winick project for Schreck a back up story or it's own project?

It is it's own project. It is a 12 issue mini series told in three segments. I am doing the first 4 issues.

Wow. Congratulations Farel. We’ll have more on this series when the details become available.

How do you feel working from someone else's writing this time around?

Well it isn't officially the first time if you count the 8-page Grendel story I did with matt Wagner. Also there was something I did like 15 years ago when I was a teenager. I did some pages for this Ray Zone 3-D comic that Nate Butler wrote and Carlos Garzon inked. It is always hard for me to get to get started but once I do it's fun. I sort of have to switch mental gears or something. Both Matt and Judd are really cool guys to work with too. Judd for instance is writing these 4 to 5 panel pages. Which is nice because it gives me a lot of breathing room.

What’s next for POP GUN WAR? Is the future pretty open or will the series adhere to any sort of schedule?

Nah, no regular schedule any more. My apologies to the fans. I only did the quarterly thing for a year and it was just too much work for a book I wasn’t making any money on. I love doing POP GUN WAR and will definitely keep putting it out but it is just going to really sporadic for a while. Hopefully readers will keep reading it. Maybe someday enough people will buy it so I can just do POP GUN WAR and nothing else.

Where does the series head with the 6th issue of PGW?

Issue 6 is going to be all about Emily. Sinclair is going to be on a separate one-page story but that's it. Emily is going to be stuck in some small town with her band outside of the city where she follows these scary looking guys down to an underground gangster den. With issue seven I’m going to go back to featuring Sinclair.

How have things been, comics aside? A lot has happened since our last interview, back then you were paying the bills with freelance animation and storyboarding jobs. Have things improved since praise for PGW and Meathaus has grown, since becoming a Society of Illustrators Gold medal winner and Russ Manning Award nominee?

Wow, I haven’t had those kinds of jobs in a while. That must have been the remnants of when we had a good economy. Since then most of my income has been from my coffee shop job. The end of last year and beginning of this year was one of the worst times ever for me financially. Things are looking up though. I just did one of those back page comics for Spin magazine (out in May) and have been selling some original artwork. And since I got this DC gig I was able to put in my notice at the coffee shop. Now if I could just get those credit card companies to stop calling me.

Congratulations once more Farel. The POP GUN WAR trade paper back ships June 25th, 2003 from Dark Horse Comics for $ 13.95 U.S.

Jonathan Ellis is Co-Editor in Chief of PopImage


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