Opening Log
Tooner: Let's go on up to the Lounge. Follow me!
Jim: Nice place. I like the rugs. And the little Krazy Kat
windows.
Tooner: Well Jim, maybe we could start with you describing your
work just a bit.
Jim: You know, I saw the saddest thing today.
Tooner: Oh, well now ya gotta tell us
Jim: It was my work. So sad.
Jim: There I was... working, working hard, and then I saw it...
my work.
Tooner: yeah?
Jim: It was so sad. Hey, let's talk shop.
Tooner: Why do you say sad?
Jim: Oh, I don't know. I just got to thinking about how all the
houses around mine are filled with drunks and people hurting
their kids, and everyone has a gun...
Tooner: ah
Jim: and the movies these days, god... they're just... did anyone see
Natural Born Killers? Great film! Too bad it had a message.
Jim: But back to what was so sad.
Jim: This old man was throwing up in front of my house I went out to
help him and i had to call an ambulance, and the paramedics
literally slapped him and called him Deady and said they hated
to waste their time on him.
Tooner: oh man
Jim: so - cough. Nice place you got here.
Tooner: Jim, does your neighborhood contribute to your strange stories
then?
Jim: Yes it does, Pete. We have a large number of great features here.
For years we had a bona fide hermit, but he croaked. I saw them
bring out his body. It had been laying in bed a month.
Tooner: Did he live in a house in your neighborhood then?
Jim: Yes, across the street.
Tooner: :I thought hermits always lived in the woods
Jim: Not this hermit. He had a long grey beard and looked like your
classic hermit. They had to remove the back of the house to get
rid of the smell.
Tooner: Wow, so will that hermit eventually make his way into one of
your comics?
Jim: I doubt it, Pete.
Tooner: Jim, you've said some of your stories come from dreams...
Jim: Yeah.... but i don't like to talk about that.
Tooner: ok. Let's talk about how you began self publising. Early 80s,
wasn't it?
Jim: Back in the old days it was easy. You just xeroxed it up and sent
it to cat yronwode. And she'd do all the promo and extortion. Not
extortion... what's that other word?
Tooner: She was a distributor?
Jim: No... she was a popularizer. An advocate.
Tooner: Was there any money in it for her? Or for you?
Jim: No.
Tooner: So how did you come to be published by Fantagraphics?
Jim: Gary Groth saw my work and offered to publish it. It was a real
break, I can tell you. This was in '84... Neat Stuff had just
come out.
Tooner: Is it still difficult to make a living, or has that given you
some breathing room.
Jim: I can't make a living on comics, but I do make a living
cartooning... doing freelance work of all sorts. That's great.
And recently I've been doing stuff for Microsoft.
Tooner: Will you be able to continue doing the comic books?
Jim: Yeah, i'm working on one even now.
Jim: But it's easier to make it as a cartoonist these days. Microsoft
has been easy to deal with. I enjoy it. They have brains and money.
Tooner: This is a small enough group, we can all ask the questions.
Ted: Okay. Thanks, Pete.
Guest 43: Are you doing something for MSN
Jim: I'm doing something for this Comic Chat thing...
Tooner: Microsoft Chat Formerly known as Comics Chat
Ted: Jim, Does Microsoft demand all rights to everything?
Jim: They don't demand... but they make you pay if you want a piece of
the back end.
Ted: How is that?
Jim: Pay cut. There's no knowing what will pay.
Ted: How did you find them? Or did they find you?
Jim: They found me. But Comic Chat, the basic question is what
short-term avatars do people want to inhabit? Animals? Famous
people?
Jim: I wish I could show some of these sketches I've done in the past
few days.
Ted: Hold them up to the monitor
Jim: There's something weird about the way an avatar is inhabited.
Guest 43: people make assumptions about the person based on the avatar
Tooner: Many of the ones you see around Palace are just scanned from
magazines
Ted: Jim, May I ask about your studio and about your reference material
Jim: Sure. My studio is in my house, on the third floor. I can see
the cemetary from my window. So sad.
Tooner: Jim, you might think about putting some curtains on that window.
Jim: Never.
Ted: how do you approach drawing problems
Ted: Someone wants an aardvark - what do you do?
Jim: I draw cartoons.
Ted: Sorry, I guess I didn't phrase that correctly.
Jim: Reference work? Like what?
Ted: I mean, if someone asks you to draw an aardvark
Ted: how do you approach the problem?
Jeff Lok: do you hire an ardvark to model for you, etc.
Jim: Well, I get a picture of an aardvark. I don't have a big
morgue... just some copies of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, and some old
kids' books.
Guest 43: Do the Microsoft people try to "direct" you, or do they let you
make all the creative decisions?
Jim: Both. When they let me alone I feel lost. It's too confusing...
too many variables...
Guest 43: So their input is good
Jim: Yeah...
Guest 43: Do they understand cartooning?
Jim: Some do.
Ted: How big is the comics chat area going to be? Hundreds of avs?
Jim: No, dozens.
Tooner: From what I've seen there are only about a dozen characters
right now.
Jim: I did two dozen... not all are out yet. they get better as time
goes on, i think...
Guest 43: will they be adding new stuff every week or two?
Jim: No, every year or so, I guess.
Jim: I have to ask... did anyone here see 5th Element? I thought it was
great, but a lot of people i know, people I respect, hated it.
Tooner: Scene sets designed by Girad... Oh I can't remember his name.
Jeff Lok: no, but i hear a cartoonist designed the imaginary cities
Jim: Costumes by Gautier, in 5th element
Guest 43: Dick?
Jim: Ja. Mobious
Ted: What gets you really excited about a project, Jim?
Jim: Money.
Ted: Ha!
Guest 43: what do you think the internet has to offer the art of cartooning?
Jim: And the chance to participate in the great project that will
emerge from this technology. Something huge is a'comin'!
Tooner: And... any idea what that might be?
Jim: Yes... a vague idea...but a terrifying one. Something ghastly.
Dudi: :you mean people will live in cartoons...
Jim: Somethin' attractive...
Ted: What? What? I'm on the edge of my chair!
Guest 43: do you think the internet will help creators to find an audience
without having to go through huge publishing and distribution
corps?
Jim: Yes. In fact I think it's going to be the salvation of "alternative"
cartoonists.
Guest 43: ... or will microsoft swallow it all up?
Jim: ...who have to rely on comic book stores to get their stuff in
the hands of readers.
Jim: It's absurd. that gilbert Hernandez has to depend upon comic
book stores to get his stuff out.
Tooner: Jim, you are selling your books through your web site. Do you
think that works well?
Jim: I think it could, but at this point it takes more work to hustle
'em than it's worth... for me.
Tooner: Do you do much of the promotional work for the site sales
yourself? I thought another company was handling that.
Jim: Yes. They are doing it as an experiment. And I think it's
working. I DON'T KNOW. THE NUMBERS ARE SO SMALL.
Ted: Are you actively involved on the web?
Jim: Not actively.
Guest 43: Do you create for the web, or is it repurposed print work?
Jim: Repurposed...what a beautiful word!
Guest 43: hehe
Tooner: Jim has done backgrounds for another Palace site - the Minds
Palace
Tooner: :Unfortunately, it looks like they're going bust.
Ted: I think I've seen that.
Jim: Someone else colored 'em. Quel bummer.
Ted: Do you draw on the computer?
Jim: No. Just drew 'em.
Ted: Do you get many jobs illustrating things for the web?
Jim: I've had some offers that I couldn't take because I WAS BUSY.
Ted: You just ink them on paper & let them scan them in?
Jim: But there is so much work for cartoonists now! It's great!
Tooner: Is the Microsoft Chat job a pretty near full time job?
Jim: No. I do it in three-month increments. And I have a lot of freedom
to control my time as i like. It's a snow job kind of thing.
I sold them on the idea I could do something special... and they
bought it.
Tooner: But now you gotta do it!
Jim: It's hard to hire cartoonists now. The good ones are all hired.
Ted: Are many offers work for hire?
Jim: I don't have trouble with work for hire. I know some people can't
abide it.
Jim: But the way I figure it is... life is sad.
Ted: You need to get a new view out the window, Jim. That graveyard is
getting to you.
Jim: You may as well try to pull some kind of fast one.
Guest 43: MS is a good one to pull it on!
Jim: I'm not spoofin'!
Tooner: Jim, any last words to the cartoonists among us, any advice?
Jim: Yes. Stay the course.
Guest 43: how bout the url of your web page...
Tooner: http://www.jimwoodring.com
Guest 43: thanks
Jim: That's it. But back to the advice...
Jim: Well, I'm always amazed at how young cartoonists don't seem to
give a hjoot about so many of the great old practitioners.
Nowadays we got these kids who think the profession began
with Frank Miller. They don't know who Jack davis is or Wally
Wood or herriman or any of 'em.
Jim: It seems impossible that the sands of time could swallow up the
E.C. guys... and the great newspaper guys... and render them
unknown to all but a few cartoon scolars.
Jim: but that is obviously what is happening. art speirgelman said that
when he was teaching a cartoon course at the SVA in NY none of his
students knew who R. Crumb was.
Guest 43: yow
Tooner: agh
Jim: These were smart adults taking a fine arts course in cartooning!
Jeff Lok: he was somewhat underground wasn't he
Jim: Not to anyone interested in contemporary cartooning he wasn't.
Jim: It's like an opera student not knowing Verde.
Tooner: Hey Jim... I didn't ask about minicomics. That's sort of a
sideline of yours.
Jim: Sort of.
Tooner: Is that just for fun, or is it really a business?
Jim: It's for fun... But they can be good for business. For example
if I can sell a page of comics... the original, I mean... I can
get a few hundred bucks for it...maybe. But if I do a single
page comic and draw all the frames individually and put it out
as a mini-comic first then I can sell the individual panels and
make a lot more dough.
Tooner: Now there's the marketing guy talking
Jim: and get a mini out of the page and sell the page for its original
purpose.
Guest 43: so much for continuity!
Jim: and save ink. I like minis.
Tooner: You lose a lot of continuity when you buy an original comics
page, or an animation cel. But then you have an original.
Jim: Some pages are almost self-sufficient. I have three Bagge pages
out of a longer story and they make a small story themselves.
Guest 43: cool
Jim: I have a set of Frank cards coming out soon.
Tooner: Hey that's neat. Is there a game connected with them?
Jim: No, no game. Just cards with info about the characters on the
back. Mike dowers is putting 'em out.
Tooner: So they're designed to be collectables... ?
Jim: Pook Mike. He just had an artificial hip put in.
Jim: Yes, especially considering the small print run. They'll be scarce!
Tooner: How many is small?
Jim: Less than a thousand, I think.
Tooner: ah ok
Jim: I'm tired. So tired. Life is sad. so sad.
Tooner: Jim, you about ready to call it quits here for tonight?
Jim: Heh heh. you know... I think Shary Flenniken gave great advice
when she spoke at the Toonie event. Great advice! Learn to hang
around in bars, she said. Learn to drop in and hang out with
people. She's so right! That's such good advice! But I felt it
fell on mostly deaf ears. I even heard murmurs of dissent.
Tooner: She meant ya gotta network The more the better
Jim: Aye.
Tooner: And really try to get to KNOW publishers, editors, etc.
Jim: And just being there at the right moment... it can be hard to
remember... that everyone is a mess inside.
Tooner: Cartoonists can tend to be loners. Ya gotta get out there and
meet people
Jim: That loner-ness... can lead to a kind of social backwardness.
I've got it bad.
Guest 43: thanks for hanging out with us, Jim
Jim: thanks for having me. Au jus.
Tooner: Well, thanks Jim, this has been a great evening. Best of good
fortune to you
Jeff Lok: it was nice listening in
Tooner: And to everyone.
Jim: So long, Pete. may your path be straight.
Tooner: Only if I use a ruler
Tooner: It will be fun to see what Jim and all of us do in the days,
and years to come.
Jim: Won't it.
Tooner: Well that's a wrap. Everyone is free to hang out of course -
this place is always open.
Tooner: I'd like to invite everyone to join the Internet CARTOONS
Forum. Your subscriptions are what make this place possible.
Grafix: Man, what a dizzy time I'm having. If I may, I'd just like to
say what a cool place the forum is.
Guest 43: seconded
Jeff Lok: thirded, or whatever
Closing Log
