Thursday 3 December 2009

Paul Stapleton Interview


Do you like comics? I like comics. I still can't get into those super-hero ones that rule the roost and have hundreds of tons of crappy plastic models made in their honour, snapped up by goths, schoolkids and schoolkid-goths the world over. Anyway, Mr Paul Stapleton draws comics that are a reflection of the society we live in and the ingenious ways we devise to annoy and amuse one another. I suppose I like his stuff because I recognise what he writes/draws about from my own experience, and also cos he has a fun drawing style. He takes the piss out of everyone, including you, me, and him. Also, his band Anal Beard were responsible for “The worst record in the history of music" by Fracture zine. Aces!
(All links added by me.)

Bite Yr Lip: I first came across yr drawings on your band's (anal beard) record sleeves. Now you've got 6 books out, how did you get from there to here?

Paul Stapleton: I've been drawing comic strips in one form or another since 1992, although for years the only person that ever saw them was my friend Richard who I drew them with (often sitting on the roof of his parents' house on sunny evenings). Towards the end of the 90's I did a handful of zine comics, which I sold at gigs and a couple of comic shops. They were pretty rudimentary, and quite ugly in places, but it got the ball rolling.

By the time we were releasing Anal Beard records I felt confident enough to put something in a slightly more public place, and we all thought that photo sleeves were dull anyway, so there was that.

And a bit more recently, I was on a walk with my brother Matthew and we had for some reason decided to take pens and paper with us, so had a bit of a picnic and a drawing session. I did what became the first story in Divs and Defects and he suggested I did another full comic, so that baking hot July afternoon in Minehead turned out to be quite cataclysmic.

It's been loads of fun though, although I am sometimes aware of how much of a solitary exercise it all is! I went through a phase of going to a local cafe and drawing there while nursing one can of something grim, but felt like a bit of a blowhard. In Brighton, there's plenty of would-be artists sitting in a cafe with their pens and paper praying that someone will come and ask them what they're working on. So now I sit in the garden.

In the 6 years since Divs and Defects came out, there's been another five books. The most popular has been Chav, which is still selling like hotcakes but the most recent (Facebook - the Comicbook) is coming close. That was exciting in itself, as it was the first book to be printed in full colour.

And most recently of all (I think I'm answering far more than you asked here, but never mind!), I'm working on a set that doesn't have a name yet, but is aimed at being a newspaper strip. It's odd having to fit stories and gags into three panels instead of having an infinite amount of space at your disposal, but probably a good discipline to learn.

BYL: And am I right in thinking you are/are in Pog? What other musicy things do you do then?

PS: I am. Pog ran alongside Anal Beard for a couple of years, and was the kind of music that I tend to write when left to my own devices. For quite a while it was just me and an acoustic guitar sliming out punk folk, but now it’s grown to a very agreeable four piece. It takes up most of the evenings I'm not drawing, and I love it, although it also gives me plenty to moan and worry about.

BYL: Can you tell me about how you draw your comics? Am I right in thinking you hand draw and colour with some sort of alien robot technology?

PS: Spot on! As far as the drawing goes, it's as low-tech as you can possibly get - just a couple of art pens and a stack of whatever paper I can borrow (I always forget to stock up). Everything is drawn by hand, and recently I've been using watercolour, but colouring is nearly always done in Photoshop. That said, most of the comic strips are in black and white anyway.

BYL: Often people in the background or incidental characters are wearing shirts/badges by bands such as The Pastels and Talulah Gosh. Are you much of a pop fan then?

Oh god yes! When I'm stuck for a T Shirt, I just look at the CD shelf and take whatever I see first. And seeing as I'm a sucker for hairslide and lollipop indie pop, it tends to be something that was released on either Sarah, 53rd and 3rd or Rough Trade Records. Although another method which I really should start doing more is giving someone a T shirt sporting the name of a local band. Oily Rag bought five copies of Mr Bethnal and Mr Ongar between them when I did that! I'd like to think I was less cynically enterprising than that, but experience has proved otherwise.

BYL: Where's the best place to get your comics from then?

PS: Pog gigs, but they tend to be very closely guarded secrets. The website (http://www.worldofbeardandpog.co.uk/Scribbles/index.html) is a good place too, and you can read some pages from each book before you take the plunge. Otherwise, if you ever happen to be in Brighton, David's Comics or the Punker Bunker won't give you a blank look should you mention my name, but they might choke on their morning bagels and point you towards Bill Watterson instead.

BYL: Who do you recommend we check out comics by then?

There are three comics that I would say were an influence, and they were all newspaper strips. The Perishers, a long-standing strip in the Daily Mirror, was still running when I was growing up, and Maurice Dodd's beautifully rendered London backdrops and the novel use of polyptychs (where a single background is split across panels which the characters walk across) always kept the strip a source of visual wonder. It’s not published anymore, but you can pick up the collections in charity shops and so on, and there are a few online to look at. The second was Dilbert, which by contrast was really primitive looking, but just so purely funny, insane and spot-on - I think it’s fallen into a bit of a white-collar rut now, but the first few collections are marvellous.

Out of all the daily strips though, nothing touches Calvin and Hobbes for sheer warmth, compassion and big-hearted laughs. Even more admirable is that Bill Watterson never allowed his creation to be merchandised, in the end killing off the strip, rather than taking the Garfield route and making a lot of money in the process.

I guess as I was growing up the only place to really find comics were in the daily papers. As I discovered the weird and expansive world of graphic novels though, I realised how boundless the format was. So if you're ever in a comic store, I'd recommend the Preacher books, Hell Blazer, the Walking Dead, anything by Peter Bagge or Max Cannon, and most of all A Complete Lowlife, which was by Ed Brubaker who is best known for his Batman strips.

Most of what I like are about alienated geeks who work in book shops, but more recently I came across The Tale of One Bad Rat, which is achingly good. And last weekend I finally got round to reading the Watchmen, which is every bit as epic as I was told it would be.

BYL: According to yr website, although you're willing to consider commissions for non-profit organisations etc you'll not deal with organisations that use animal experiments. I like this! So only to take this on a slight tangent, what's good in our sandwiches?

PS: Yeah - the way I put that it makes it sound as if I'm fighting off commissions like they were being gatling cannoned into my inbox. The truth is though that such offers are few and far between. However, I think it’s important to distinguish between different types of charity, although I suppose it’s all down to personal polemic and experience. I find it distasteful that the British Heart Foundation have a roughly 10% stake in vivisection, but then I've never relied on heart surgery or associated technology to save my life. It seems churlish to complain about Cancer Research to someone who's just lost a family member to cancer, but suffice to say, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing anything for those organisations.

BYL: And what's the best thing to do with tofu?

PS: The best thing for me to do with tofu is leave it in the hands of someone who might know a collander from a wok.

BYL: And finally, did your cat really manage to delete the layout for "I must rise above these divs and defects" by trampling over your keyboard? That's terrible luck!

PS: Not quite! But there were times it seemed dangerously close. I'm sure the keys CTRL ALT and DELETE have magnetic qualities. She once managed to rip the power plug out the wall while I was mid-save, which did something very nasty to the file, amounting to about fifteen hours work going down the shitter, and a much-maligned cat coming very close to being donated to the British Heart Foundation.

I think I'm now about 4 months away from forgiving her.

BYL: Thankyou mr paul!

PS: You're very welcome! Thankyou too - it’s always nice to be asked to bang on about oneself after all.


BYL Addendum: This interview was done AGES back. Since then it seems that Paul has started (and abandoned?) an online daily comic strip called Latchkey.

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