Another post from the road.

Jaw drop.

Punk Rock and Trailer Parks gets a HUGE shoutout in the French national newspaper Le Monde today, in the frontpage story on the first return, since the terrorist attacks, of The Eagles of Death Metal, who played last night.

"On the stairs, past the bar, J., headphones on ears, is immersed in a graphic novel, Derf Backderf's Punk Rock & Trailer Parks (Çá et Lá, 2014). She is 26 years old. "

Yeah, here in France, people take comix to concerts to pass the time! Like everyone else here, I heard about this concert and thought about what an emotional affair it would be, and admired the defiance of the Parisians. I never expected PR&TP to be connected to this triumphant event! (Actually, I feel a twinge of the guilt of the unworthy there).

PR&TP is a hit book here, which it was not in the US. In fact, it turns out, it never really left the warehouse in the States! My publisher in 2010, SLG, ran face first into the financial and distribution troubles that would spell its end, just as the book was released. SLG, of course, a pioneer of indy comics, was the largest victim of the corporate conspiracy of the Big Two and Diamond Distribution, which essentially barred smaller publishers from mainstream comic shops. This unfolded just as PR&TP came out. I spent over two years making that book and no one could find it. It was very frustrating. I busted my ass and sold as many copies as I could at various cons. I sold tons of them and couldn't understand why it wasn't selling in the shops. Turns out the shops couldn't get copies, that's why, thsnks to SLG's troubles. And then a roof leak at the warehouse destroyed most of the copies.
But I was very happy with it, and it got great reviews. PR&TP did what wanted: put me on the graphic novel map and, more importantly, I taught me how to make a book. There would have been no My Friend Dahmer without PR&TP. It's the book I needed to do first.

PR&TP, for those of you who haven't read it, is still available. You can grab a copy on Amazon, which SLG re-supplies, or the digital download on Comixlogy.





As my wife told me before I left, "You're leading a charmed life."

Greetings from the road.

The Angoulême Festival. 

A few random thoughts  from the road.

I’m halfway into my 5-week tour of France and Belgium. I’m writing this from a Brussels hotel. A cold, driving rain is, unfortunately, keeping me from enjoying the city today, before I hop a train back to Paris this afternoon. This is my 12th trip to France since Mon Ami Dahmer was released here in 2014. As my wife says, I'm living a charmed life.

To sum up so far, I appeared at my third (straight) Angoulême Comics Festival and am now skipping all over the country for signings and interviews. Angoulême was exhausting, frankly. I signed at my publisher's booth for six or seven hours a day, four days in a row. It's great meeting fans, don't get me wrong, and I had a big line right up to the closing bell. The tradition here is a dedicace, a drawing on the title page of every book. It's great for the fans, but that's a LOT of drawing. I didn't even try to keep count.

One of my nicer dedicaces.

The many screw ups of the Angoulême Fest bureaucrats made it something of a bummer affair. Maybe because I started on such a high note, winning a prize for My Friend Dahmer at my first Angoulême, but they get a little worse every year. Last year it was mere weeks after the Charlie Hebdo massacre and this year, well... a round-up of the disastrous awards ceremony, where a French shockjock handed out fake awards to humiliated comix creators and then mocked and insulted them is HERE. I've commented on this at length on social media. Suffice it to say I've never seen such a nauseating, cruel trick pulled on creators. French comix folk are FURIOUS, horrified and ashamed. I wasn't even involved in the ceremony and people have been apologizing to me at every stop!

• Every French comics shop has at least three people working in it, no matter how small. And they all appear to get along splendidly. They are happy places. So are the surviving US shops, although we all well remember the creepy stores run by swindling assholes. The difference is the French shops are thriving. There is no Amazon here. France outlaws book discounts greater than 20%, a move made to cut off Amazon at the gate, prevent its  infamous predatory capitalism and protect French bookstores. As a result, Paris alone has over 400 independent bookstores, and almost 100 comic book shops! Socialism works!

• Yesterday evening was laundry night. O, the glamorous life of a traveling author! There’s a 24/7 laundromat conveniently located right across the street from my Paris hotel. Right in the middle of the spin cycle, a fuse blew and the laundromat went dead and dark. I was left with an armload of dripping clothes at midnight, and with a morning train to Brussels. Thank God for a friendly hotel clerk and their industrial clothes dryer!

• The Paris Metro cops have checkpoints in station all over the city. Don’t have a ticket? Fifty euro fine on the spot. They even have credit card devices to process the fine right there. It’s a total money grab, and it’s a mob scene of stern-faced cops and angry, yelling passengers. I always keep my ticket in my back pocket and just wave it at them. They look disappointed as I march on.

• French trains knock me out, especially the fast intercity ones. I don’t know if it’s the rocking motion or the weak train coffee, but I sleep like the dead. Great way to catch up on snooze time. 

• The Metro station I was in this morning smelled like baking bread, thanks to the bakery in the lobby. A slight improvement over the smell of stale pee one enjoys at a Cleveland train stop.

• At Angoulême my publisher, Editions Çá et Lá, brings in a dozen creators from all over the world. A highlight of these trips is hanging out with old friends and making new ones. The week after the fest, we all spend in Paris doing signings and interviews. We stay in the same hotel, share meals and hang out at a legendary comics shop across the street, or at a nice corner cafe next door. All of my colleagues have gone home now. It’s sad bidding them farewell. 

In Le Troc comics shop (and tea house) in Paris. Peter Kuper works on a sketch, as
(from left) Gregory Benton, Tom Daly, Joshua Cotter and
Swedish creator Henrik Lange relax.

• On the plus side, it looks like I dodged the Angoulême Plague that felled many of my fellow scribblers. Angoulême was packed and the sound of hacking and coughing filled the air, along with germs. Add to that, the custom of cheek kissing and bugs spread like wildfire here. You can easily understand how the Black Death wiped out half the country.

• I’ve met a few French garbagemen who want signed copies of Trashed. One told me he coaxed everyone on his crew to read it, too and some of them “have never read a book in their life.” One garbageman used to work at the comics shop in Toulone, on France's southern coast! He left “to make more money.” I, of course, left the garbage biz for the same reason (among others, as readers of Trashed know), so we passed going in opposite comix-garbage directions!

• Every shop owner wants to give me a free book as a token of appreciation. I don’t get squat at US signings, so that’s great, except with 20-some signings, my bag will weigh as much as a Buick.

I eat meals like this every day! Fuck off!!

• Dining out here is a national tradition, and dinners last HOURS. A round of drinks, followed by three (or sometimes four) courses, then coffee and perhaps ANOTHER round of drinks. Everything is fabulous, of course, and my various hosts take great care in picking their favorite local eateries, places no tourist would find. The French are all clean platers, too, right down to wiping up every ounce of sauce with bread. I seldom finish, which gets me disappointed looks. I don’t know how they do it! They’re all pretty trim, too. The benefit of good ingredients and great cooking, I guess. 

• Comic creators are treated like visiting rock stars here. Everyone is SO glad to see you, and there’s a superfan or two at every signing. One woman practically burst into tears when I handed her my finished dedicace! It’s great fun. I have no explanation why my books have resonated here, while other (far better) American books have not. My publisher, Serge, will chalk that up to the brilliance of the publisher. I won’t dispute that. I lucked out landing at Çà et Là.  And I just found out I’ll be back in Sept. for a big book festival, plus possible additional trips to Amsterdam and Denmark. It’s all completely unexpected. I walk around Paris smiling to myself. I simply can’t believe this has happened to me, especially after 20 years toiling in weekly newspapers. I enjoyed my time in that genre, don’t get me wrong, but lavish... or even unlavish... benefits of any kind were unthinkable. Once in awhile a weekly editor would buy me a beer, that's about it. Half the time I got stuck with the tab!

More from the road on the next rainy day.

New Baron of Prospect Ave. page posted!

The saga continues HERE

As I'm prepping to leave for the comics heaven on earth that is the Angoulême Festival, a lot of interesting industry tidbits have been popping up.

This piece on Comicsbeat, Are We Seeing the Twilight of the Big Two?, is a real eye opener. According to the article, sales of traditional floppies from the Big Two are flat-lining, despite their much hyped relaunches and, in the case of Marvel, the big boost from its Star Wars line, which accounts for nearly half of the Top 10 bestselling floppies these days.

However, the sales of graphic novels is up a staggering 38%!! I've brought up this topic before and have been shouted down by certain parties, but the numbers are backing up what I've suspected was happening in the biz. The traditional superdude floppy is in decline. It's audience of middle-aged men is fiercely loyal, God bless them, but it's not a sustainable readership. The explosion of comics readers and buyers, particularly women and girls who are coming into comics in unprecedented numbers, is taking place almost entirely outside Marvel and DC.

The numbers here mirror what I've been observing on the ground at fests and cons for the past few years. The comix fests I attend are packed with people I never see in mainstream comic shops. The floppy is fading

Frankly, I don't think the parent companies of the Big Two really care about their comic book lines anymore. That's pretty obvious. I just watched an hour-long commercial on the CW, with Kevin Smith (Man!... has that dude lost a lot of weight!) for its new line of superdude shows and films and they've got a shitload of both rolling out. DC was just forcibly moved from NYC to LA and it's obvious the movie execs are now calling the shots. Oh, and DC just announced it was scrapping its much-hyped "New 52" line of comics for yet another reboot, one that will bring the comics in line with movies and tv (not the other way around, which is a major shift). Marvel is obviously doing the same. I just read a write-up of a big strategy retreat at a posh resort where all future storylines were hammered out, all to lead into the film releases.

Comic books are small potatoes to these gargantuan entertainment conglomerates. A mediocre superdude film makes more money in a weekend than an entire line of comic books makes in a year. Up until 2016, the Big Two were flooding the stands just to keep other publishers, particularly Image, which IS doing new and interesting books. That's why Marvel and DC keep publishing books that barely sell 10,000 copies, and put out dozens of variant covers for their more popular offerings. Flood the stands and drown the competition. Their corporate ally Diamond happily plays along, monopoly that it is.

It seems like even using comic books as a development laboratory is on the wane. All the A-list writers are being pulled into tv and movies. Warner and Disney have plenty of old characters left to pull from, and I'm sure those execs have noticed that nothing new has come out of their comic book houses in 25 years, thanks to their work-for-hire policies. I think this will backfire of Disney and Warner, neither of which is exactly known for innovation or creativity. All the superdude characters and concepts they're currently milking were dreamed up by comics folk working on their own with the freedom to experiment. That won't fly at corporate HQ. What does fly is predictable, derivative crapola. My wife and daughter are fans of a couple of the DC shows, Flash and Arrow. I'm struck by how these shows target a female audience. Both are total soapers, with lots of relationship stuff and prettyboy actors. In other words, the audience is directly opposite of what the comic books shoot for! Obviously, since they're hit shows, the tv execs picked the right target.

For comic books, as an industry and as an artform, the diminishment of the Big Two as publishing entities is a good thing, but there will be victims. The comic book shop for one. They're barely hanging on as it is. And they're stuck with the dictates from Diamond that virtually insures they'll never attract that growing female audience. Their stores are full of macho superdude fare. New readers aren't into that continuity shit either, which is almost fetish stuff now. They want a great book that they can pick up and read right now, without studying a 50-year-long back story. Another factor is the Big Two have been long been abusing their loyal readers with countless relaunches and shitty cross-title events that encompass the entire line but peter out after a couple months, even the most loyal superdude are starting to cut back on purchases. We've all been brainwashed to accept mediocre product for the sake of nostalgia

Gen X funnies

This week's Retro Derf from 1992, which I just posted on Gocomics, is a fun one that I only recently uncovered in my files.

This is the debut of Generation X in my strip! The term had only recently been coined a few months earlier, in Douglass Coupland's book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Before this, the new wave of twentysomethings traveling downwind of the great cultural fart of the Baby Boom HAD no name.

Popular culture moved a bit slower in the days before the Electric Intertube. Most didn't even have laptops in 1992– Mac's first Powerbook had just been released– or even home computers, for that matter. Mobile didn't exist. Heck, I don't think I had even purchased my first Mac yet!  The Electric Intertube was there, but it was mostly limited to universities and brainiac computer geeks, who accessed it via snail-like 14k dial-up modems through clunky online portals like AOL or Compuserve. The counter culture, and there actually was one in 1992, wholly separate from the mainstream, spread through self-published zines and alt-weekly newspapers, both of which were in their golden ages. I was heavily invested in the latter, obviously. It was a fun time to be making comix! And I made them "old school." No Photoshop, no desktop publishing, just a pen and a piece of paper. 

But the term "Generation X" didn't catch on right away. As I recall, the first reaction was: why would I want to be named after Billy Idol's first band? But catch on it eventually did.

The streetscape here, by the way,  is Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, which was the epicenter of of the local Gen X counterculture and also of Cleveland comics. I had just moved to the Heights after buying the house I would live in for the next decade, site of the infamous "unheated attic studio" where I made the comix that would make first my name. Harvey Pekar lived in a brownstone at the end of the block pictured here. Brian Michael Bendis, who grew up nearby, was still in town. You could bump into both at the Arabica coffee house on Coventry, where I'd spend every morning swilling the infamously bad brew and writing in my sketchbook as I watched a cluster of Xers play hacky-sack in the courtyard outside.

So this strip here kicked off the Gen X humor that would fuel the strip throughout its Nineties peak.

Finally! The return of The Baron of Prospect Ave.

My webcomic is active again! Sorry that took a little longer than planned.

I started The Baron of Prospect Ave. webcomic in Fall 2014, got a dozen pages up, and then had to put it on sabbatical in early 2015 when I realized the deadline for Trashed was going to be a killer. I planned to pick it up again later that fall, once Trashed was in the can, but I was so whipped from 14-hour days, I just couldn't muster up much enthusiasm for a free webcomic. Then came the crazy Fall book tour which took me from San Francisco to Miami to Paris and many points in between. It never seemed to end.

But I'm ready to fire it up again and post more of the further adventures of the Baron. And I'm happy to report that this project is now being funded with a generous Cultural Workforce arts grant! Here in greater Cleveland we fund our arts with grants to 40 artists every year, thanks to our nicotine addicts. I applied, almost on a lark to be perfectly honest, and was one of those selected. Even better, THREE of the 40 are comics creators! That's a great acknowledgement of the storied comics history of Cleveland. It's great to be a part of it and I'm flattered and proud.

There are a few changes in the story you should be aware of. I've re-done the opener, added a few pages, so you'll want to start from the beginning. I'll be adding a couple big splash pages down the road, too, but I just don't have time to punch those out before I leave for Angoulême.

And that's another thing. I'll be touring in France and Belgium for five weeks. I've got a few new pages of the story ready to post, so I'll do that from abroad. If I can. My webhost might be a little pissy about uploading files from outside the US. Blogger here certainly is. Last time I tried to do some posts from abroad, it wasn't allowed. No way to know until I'm there, so fingers crossed. When I return, I can be a little more productive. A new page every two weeks is the plan. I'll post here and on Twitter and Facebook whenever a new page goes up.

I have the whole first chapter written. Beyond that, very little. I originally looked at this as a storytelling experiment, more freeform than the method I use to make a book, where everything is tightly written before I start drawing. I just wanted something I could have fun with and work on a little at a time on the side. Well, turns out I'm not really comfortable with that. Guess I'm just not a freeform kinda guy.   I'll use my downtime in France to write the rest of it, probably sitting in a corner cafe in Paris. That should be fun. Just like Hemingway! Life is good, man.

One other change. I waffled on how to finish these pages. Punk Rock & Trailer Parks was, of course, just b&w pen work. No washes, no spot color, like My Friend Dahmer and Trashed respectively. I originally added some grey tones, but I've changed my mind on that. I don't want to get bogged down in file prep at this stage, so I'm just going to leave them b&w for now, just like PR&TP. Down the road, this will eventually see print and I'll add some tone. Frankly, I'll probably add full color. I've been inching my way in that direction anyways. But for now, just b&w.

As for the ultimate plan here? Well, like I wrote, it'll be printed at some point. Trashed started as a webcomic, too, for those of you who remember. I only got two episodes posted before Abrams grabbed it and had me finish it for them. My French publisher is already nagging me about The Baron, since Punk Rock & Trailer Parks was a surprise (to me, anyways) hit over there. But this is very much a side project, a labor of love. I'm just planning to have fun with it and not worry about commercial considerations. And since I'm getting paid for it up front thanks to the arts grant, how cool is that?

So enjoy.

French Book Tour 2016

Here's the details on the upcoming tour of France and Belgium.

January 29, 30, 31, February 1

Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême

Angoulême

Tuesday, February 2

Super-héros 

175, rue Saint-Martin

75003 PARIS

Wednesday, February 3

FNAC la Défense 

2 place de la Défense

92053 LA DEFENSE

Bulles en Vrac 

9 rue de Mirbel

75005 PARIS

Thursday, February 4

La Cour des miracles 

51 Rue Froide

14000 CAEN

Friday, February 5

Bachi-bouzouk 

7 Rue Latapie

64000 PAU

Saturday, February 6

Librairie Falba 

5, place Puget

83000 TOULON

Monday, February 8

Multi BD 

Boulevard Anspach 122

1000 BRUXELLES-BELGIQUE

Tuesday, February 9

La Dimension Fantastique 

106 Rue la Fayette

75010 PARIS

Wednesday, February 10

Fnac Montparnasse 

136 rue de Rennes

75006 PARIS

Thursday, February 11

Usage du monde 

32 Rue de La Jonquière

75017 PARIS

Friday, February 12

Storybulle 

21 rue de l’Église

93100 MONTREUIL

Saturday, February 13

La Parenthèse 

19 Cour des Arts

54000 NANCY

Monday, February 15

Fnac Toison D'or 

Av. de la Toison d'Or 17

1050 IXELLES

Tuesday, February 16

Gibert Joseph St-Michel 

26 boulevard Saint-Michel

75006 PARIS

Wednesday, February 17

BD Net Bastille 

26 rue de Charonne

75011 PARIS

Thursday, February 18

Brüsel 

Bd Anspach 100

1000 BRUXELLES-BELGIQUE

Friday, February 19

Bédélire 

81 rue du Commerce

37000 TOURS

Saturday, February 20

Folie d'Encre 

9 Avenue de la Résistance 

93100 MONTREUIL

Gibert Joseph Barbès 

15 Boulevard Barbès

75018 PARIS

Monday, February 22

Au grand Nulle part 

102 Rue du Général Leclerc

76000 ROUEN

Tuesday, February 23

Le Merle Moqueur 

51 rue de Bagnolet

75020 PARIS

Wednesday, February 24

Cap Nord 

4 Rue des Balances

62000 ARRAS

Thursday, February 25

Le Migou 

27 Rue Dessoles

32000 AUCH

Friday, February 26

BD Fugue Café 

11 rue Sainte Ursule

31000 TOULOUSE

Saturday, February 27

Expérience 

5 Place Antonin Poncet

690020 LYON