En af de mere ukendte gæster på Komiks.dk er den amerikanske indie-tegner Ed Piskor. Han har lavet tegneserier med Harvey Pekar – og er pt i gang med et projekt i fire bind om de tidlige dage med hackerne tilbage i 80’erne under titlen WIZZYWIG. Han har formået at skabe opmærksomhed om sit projekt, selvom han selv udgiver det og ikke præcis har det store marketing budget.
Han kommer fra et barsk nabolag – og han spøger med at han blev tegneserie fan, da det slog ham som værende bedre at sidde indendørs og læse Marvel-tegneserier end at være ude på gaderne hvor banderne hærgede. Han ligner et glemt medlem af Beastie Boys – men er meget høflig og ydmyg. Hans hovedværk er om hackere og computere – men han er ikke specielt vild med sin PC og han laver tegneserie på den gammeldaws måde med pen og bristol boards. Seriejournalen har sat sig for at undersøge hvem Ed Piskor er inden vi møder ham på Komiks.dk 2010.
Who are you: Name, rank and number…
The name is Ed Piskor, number is 27 years old, and rank is a bit harder to describe. If you ask 5 people to describe me, you’ll probably get 5 different answers, some of them bad.
What were your original plans for you life (pilot, baseball player, dictator of a small country) – and how did you end up as a comic book artist?
I pretty much always wanted to be a cartoonist. As a child I was pretty physically lazy and couldn’t fashion a confident identity within any organized sport. Honestly, I wasn’t even the best artist in school but it seemed like something I was willing to work at and it would be easier than catching a ground ball or running away from 11 guys to try and get a touchdown.
After high school I ended up going to The Joe Kubert School of Comic and Cartoon art for 1 year. It was a good, creative environment and was a great excuse to really practice hard at fine tuning my work. I didn’t continue going to school because I got very nervous about getting into a deep debt that would be hard to get out of so decided to get a job as a telephone operator to pay back those school loans.
While at that job, I felt my identity slowly conforming with the rest of the working stiffs and I couldn’t have that. At a certain point I just saved some cash and quit, and began working on small 4-5 page comic strips that I sent to everybody I could think of. Harvey Pekar, from American Splendor was one of those people, he decided to give me some work and I haven’t stopped since.
You’re living in Pittsburgh – what is the comic scene like there? Is it a good place to be a comic book artist?
The comic scene in Pittsburgh is really growing and actually exists, much to my surprise. I have a few friends who get published regularly: Jim Rugg, Pat Lewis, Tom Scioli, Mark Zingarelli, and Frank Santoro.
There are a few “mainstream comic artists in town: Ron Frenz, Pat Oliffe, Joe Jusko. We also have the Toonseum, which is one of 3 galleries in America that showcases Cartoon and Comic art regularly.
Your current title Wizzywig is about a hacker from the eighties – that seems to be as far away from your world as possible? How did you end up doing that story?
Ed Piskor: – I was working with Pekar on a long graphic novel called Macedonia and I ran out of stuff to listen to early on while drawing that book. I found a 20+ year archive of a radio show called Off The Hook which immediately captured my interest as it dealt with Hacking as one of it’s main subjects. I listened to every episode. 1000’s of hours of material probably. The would interview hackers, politicians, activists, and authors involved with this culture and, for pleasure, I began reading more and more about the scene. I certainly identified with a lot of the psychological traits involved with the most obsessed hackers and this seemed like a comic that only I could do, for better or worse.
Why do you self-publish your book Wizzywig?
The self publishing of Wizzywig began as a weird Christmas present actually. I was working on the book. I knew it was going to be a 400+ page story and I was just going to do the whole thing at once. As I was completing the first 2 chapters my girlfriend at the time wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas and I couldn’t think of anything.
I found a place online that could do “Print on demand” and it appealed to me that I could print any number of copies through this resource so I asked if she would get me 100 copies of what would be Wizzywig number 1.
After Christmas came I now had 100 copies of this book that were taking up space. I decided to try and sell them online and it was fantastic when I started getting orders from people all over the world.
Wizzywig is coming to its conclusion – what are you going to do next? Wizzy the movie?
I’m always going to be drawing comics. I’m not too sure what I want to do next. Maybe something set in the days of early Hip Hop culture. I also scored a really cool job in animation, but I’m not allowed to talk about it yet.
What type of comic did you grow up on? Who are your comic book heros – who do you admire (characters, artists, writers etc)?
Many of my influences early on come from 1 of 2 places. There was a film called Comic Book Confidential that had many interesting interviews with many great cartoonists, and a book that I used to get at the library called Comix by Les Daniels that expanded on many of the people I learned about through the film. I really love the work of the usual suspects: Kirby, Eisner, Kurtzman, Crumb, Kim Deitch, Clowes, Ware, Burns, etc.
What brands and materials you use: Pencil, paper, ink and pens…
I use all sorts of materials for my comics. For paper I use Strathmore bristol board a lot. Sometimes I like to use Crescent Illustration board. I typically ink using a hunt 102 speedball nib with speedball ink, though I am experimenting with other inks. I like to use either tech pens like Rapidograph for lettering but I’ll also use micron pens for that.
You work “old school” with pencil, bristol boards, pens and china ink – ever considered going digital and more mainstream?
Nah. I hate the fact that I even have to scan my work into a computer for print. I like creating something tangible. It makes me feel like I accomplished something during my day.
What excites you other than comics?
More and more I’m meeting really cool creative people who I enjoy getting to know and learn about. Believe it or not I feel like doing comics has actually given me some confidence to come out of my shell, so to speak (which is probably pretty sad now that I think about it).
What is the story behind you mail address “wimpyrutherford@gmail.com”?
Wimpyrutherford is a handle I used for years starting with my teens and it’s a name of a punk rock singer I stole. At the time, the internet started opening up more and more for commercial use and you started seeing screen names that contained a lot of numbers, which was lame, so it was important to take a cool name that wasn’t being used. Using your real name was also a lame choice as well, which I still sort of agree with.
You’ll be visiting Komiks.dk 2010 – what do you know about Copenhagen and what are you expectations?
I’ve been reading a lot of do’s and don’ts of Denmark and I’m really looking forward the experience. In order to make the trip a positive success it’s very important for me to have zero expectations. I’ve barely left my town for most of my life, I certainly never left my time zone before. I know it’s going to be an awesome trip. I’m very excited about it, and now that I had a great excuse to get a passport, if everything goes great I will probably come back to Copenhagen some day with no comic book agenda, just to explore and have fun.
Mr. Ed Piskor will be attending komik.dk 2010 – and will be signing and selling his books from the PEGASUS booth. Visit his website: http://www.edpiskor.com to see his work, commission art and read Wizzywig #1 and #2 online.
• Wired Magazine
• Video med Ed
• Eds website