We interviewed Victoria’s Gareth Gaudin of Magic Teeth fame on Thursday, the man who has pledged to draw a cartoon a day for the rest of his life, no exceptions! He’s entering his third year soon! One thing that impressed me about Gareth is not only is he a cartoonist he is a comics retailer who runs the best comic shop in Victoria, draws a comic a day (not to mention a stack of previous small press comics) and yet he retains an genuine enthusiasm for comics! So many comics pros I’ve known have become so jaded they never go to a comic shop and they seem to take little interest in what’s going on outside they’re own circle of comic book buddies. It’s kinda sad but understandable, when you make your living with comics you get tired of being around them and thinking about comics. The last thing you want to see is more comics. I’ve known comics pros who at the end of a convention simply toss out comics and mini-comics given to them by enthusiastic admirers as just excess baggage, too much weight to carry. I know much of it wasn’t very good but it broke my heart in a way, that‘s what I used to do at cons, hand out mini-comics. Comics becomes a job.

Of course, my failed comics career has shielded me somewhat from that unfortunate fate. There was a time after Big Thing and Buddha were cancelled, the comics business was sinking fast and I couldn’t find a publisher enthusiastic about losing money publishing my comics (miserable, selfish bastards!) that I found myself going to the comic shop every week, buying comics, taking them home, putting them on the to-read pile and never looking at them again until it was time to bag and shelve them. I was buying comics out of habit but not reading them. I was pretty depressed about it for awhile, then I figured “who gives a shit about the comics business?” I shook my tiny fist and started drawing mini-comics again. This helped revive my interest in the medium.

What really got me back into it was becoming a “comics journalist” on the radio, first with Onomanaphia and then with Inkstuds. For the shows I had to read more comics to be able to talk about them and interview the cartoonists themselves half-assed intelligently . I was also around people who’s knowledge and passion for comics was contagious, if not a little scary! I admit I sometimes have to read something I wouldn’t have looked at normally. I usually don’t read superhero comics, in the past because of my alternative comics elitism and now mostly because after reading foreign, alternative, political cartoons, underground, classic comic books and strips who has the time and money to start buying superhero comics that are completely alien to me know? Fortunately on Inkstuds we have a cadre of comics experts to draw from in an emergency, for example, Don King’s knowledge of old comic books boggles the mind and he’s not afraid of research! So I am thankful to Robin & Robin, Don and the gang at R/X comics for helping to keep my love of comics alive. But sometimes I wish I was a real pro, losing all interest in comics, at least then I’d be get paid!