AlexRobinson doesnt just write and draw comic books. He creates massive tomes filled with wonderful characters. His first book was a trade paperback collecting all his issues of Box Office Poison. BOP was a semi-autobiographical tale of young people trying to find their place in the world whether it was through their relationships or cartooning.
His latest graphic novel is Tricked. It is a tale with multiple storylines that eventually all converge on one another. Some of the characters are Ray Beam, a burnt out rock star; Steve an obsessive fan, Phoebe a young girl who finds that her father is gay and Lily, a young girl drawn into Ray Beams gaze.
Buy Tricked
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you working on now?
Alex Robinson: Currently Im working on a short story for a friend of mine named John Kovalic, who does Dork Tower. He has another series called Dr. Blink Superhero Shrink so he asked me to contribute a short story to that. Im doing a superhero story and it is actually a lot of fun.
DRE: Will that be your first superhero story?
AR: Among the first. When I was in high school I did superhero stories but it definitely would be among the first of my mature so called professional life.
DRE: And youre writing and drawing it?
AR: Yeah, someone else colors it.
DRE: Color will be nice!
AR: Yeah. I usually work in black and white so its always exciting to see it in color. I wish I could afford to do color comics but not yet.
DRE: How has Tricked been selling?
AR: Its been doing surprisingly well. The first printing is pretty much sold out and Top Shelf is going to do another printing before the end of the year. So Im very excited about that. I was very nervous about it because when I work on something for four years with very little feedback, it lets my neuroses build up and Im like This book is going to tank. Everyones going to hate it. Im excited and relieved that its done as well as it has.
DRE: Your first book, Box Office Poison, had a lot of 20s anxieties in it. While Tricked is much more mature.
AR: Yeah, Box Office Poison was the first thing I worked on after graduating from college and I think the book shows that it was a learning process. I cant even look at the early drawings. They just make wince at how crude they are. Tricked was definitely a more mature book in that respect. Some people like the first one better so I guess its just a matter of taste.
DRE: There are always people who like the first one better.
AR: Thats what I was nervous about. Some people have been disappointed that the second book isnt just Box Office Poison Two.
DRE: Have people said that to you?
AR: To my face most people have been very nice. No one has told me to my face that they didnt like it as much as the first one. But I did get an email from someone who said they liked the new book except for the fact that they didnt like the characters, they thought the plot was dumb and they thought it was anticlimactic. It was a long laundry list of things they did not like about it, which makes me wonder if they liked anything about it. Her criticism basically seemed based on comparing it to Box Office Poison. Thats pretty much the only person who has said they really wanted a sequel or at least something similar in tone to the first one.
DRE: Unlike Box Office Poison, most of the characters in Tricked wouldnt buy comics.
AR: Thats true. When I did Box Office Poison I had at least two characters who were cartoonists and I realized that was probably too much. Im never going to do any comics related stories again because it just got too incestuous.
DRE: Do you not want to do straight autobiography?
AR: Thats a risky thing because you can sort of wind up being like Joe Matt and Peepshow. You can wind up doing comics about doing autobiographical stories and next thing you know youre going to do comics about doing comics about autobiography. Its swallowing your own tail. I was just trying to move away from the blatantly autobiographical stuff. My life is actually very boring. I sit around drawing comic books. Theres nothing going on.
DRE: Thats why Joe Matt moved to LA. I think he had a TV deal too.
AR: So is he going back to comics now? Has the HBO thing fallen through?
DRE: I havent heard an update. I should find out whats going on with him but I want to be surprised, but its taking too long for the surprise.
AR: I read that Dave Sim interviewed him and it sounded like it was not happening and he was definitely expressing frustration about it.
DRE: Im sure he was expressing frustration.
What brought you to the character of Ray Beam?
AR: Originally one story I had in mind was a rock star taking on an assistant. It was going to be much more John Lennon influenced with examining the difference between the public persona and the private. Then I just gradually moved away from it. The idea of a rock star struggling with coming out with a new album was easy to do because I was struggling with what to do with my second book. Not to compare myself to a rock star but I guess there is a part of me that thinks that Im this big shot cartoonist guy. But theres also another character in the book whos a crazy delusional person, which I think also applies to myself. Theyre both different aspects of the way I see myself or at least the way parts of me see myself.
DRE: I didnt even think about the connection between you doing your second book and this big huge rock star. This guy has a villa in Italy.
AR: Hopefully I disguised it enough where people arent going to be like, Oh my god. Is this how he sees himself? That hes this big star?
DRE: Did you find in creating Ray Beam that those feelings are just universal with any artist?
AR: I imagine anyone who has any level of success and has people asking about what theyre doing next makes you always feel that pressure from within and from people who like your work. Thats whether its a moderately selling comic book or a multi platinum selling album.
DRE: Are you past the point of any kind of semi-autobiographical work?
AR: I cant imagine creating a character that I wouldnt have any identification with because without that connection on some level the character would just ring false. I think even if youre doing a story with Hitler as a character, some part of you has to identify with him. I guess the better writer you are, the better you are at disguising it but I cant imagine you could entirely separate yourself from the characters.
DRE: You have a couple things in Tricked that made me think you watch a lot of TV. The two gay men who own the diner shaped like a pig is something you would see on the Food Network and then you have a situation that couldve come from a Montel Williams or one of those shows, the reunification of a family.
AR: As sad as it to say about talk shows like Jerry Springer or Montel Williams, they do reflect a certain amount of reality. But it is not like I was watching Maury Povich and said, That would be a good story. I think the reason those shows are successful is because they exploit the same situations that a lot of people are in. Everyone has their own weird family situations.
DRE: What does your wife think of Tricked?
AR: She says she loves the book. But Im paranoid enough where I dont believe anyone when they tell me they like the book, especially my wife. Whats she going to say, You know, I really didnt like it. How would we live together after that? Even if she didnt like the book I imagine she would have to say she liked the book to preserve our marital sanctity.
DRE: Did you give her chapters as you went along?
AR: I think she read bits and pieces of it while I was working on it, but it wasnt until the very end that she read the whole thing tip to tail. She helps me proofread it and stuff, but other than that she doesnt really give any kind of editorial interference. Shell tell me I didnt understand what was going on here and Ill dismiss it and say No. It works.
DRE: What about editorial from Chris Staros at Top Shelf Comix?
AR: When I was starting the book, he said, Well, every time you finish a chapter send it to me and Ill tell you if theres any problems with it. But that didnt last too long. I generally dont do well under close supervision. I resist that. When I finished the book I sent it to him and he read it. Aside from 15,000 typographical errors, he questioned a couple of scenes but he also told me I was completely free to ignore any advice, which I definitely appreciated. Not that I ignored all his advice, but that he was willing to say that. Some of the changes I took and some I felt free to ignore.
DRE: How was it working on a graphic novel instead of serializing it?
AR: It took awhile to get used to because without a bi-monthly or quarterly deadline it was very easy to let it slip by and spend the whole day playing Zoo Tycoon. Next thing you know Im doing two pages a week and Im really falling behind schedule. Towards the end I was doing like a page a day for two or three months. It was exciting but it was also very grueling to be working at that pace.
DRE: Tricked has a lot of different storylines which end up colliding. Did they collide in the way you first imagined them?
AR: Fairly early on I knew what was going to happen at the end of the book. It pretty much stayed true to that. There might have been some minor changes, but I pretty much wrote it knowing it was going to end that way. It got hard towards the end because I had to make sure all the characters were in the right places in their own storylines before they could get to the end. I dont write anything out ahead of time so I just know in my head how its going to end. But I dont sit down and write out the whole book before I start drawing. I can be two thirds of the way through the book and be like Oh my gosh. I still have to get to this and this before I get to the end.
DRE: There is some stalking going on in Tricked, have you ever been stalked?
AR: I dont remember ever being stalked by anyone. I dont think my readers care that much about me.
DRE: How about at conventions?
AR: Well the amount of people that go to comic conventions is actually relatively small. You do see the same people over and over again but Ive never been bothered by anyone who has ever done anything outside of the acceptable behavior at conventions. Its sort an insult in a way.
DRE: Would you like to be stalked?
AR: Im not talking like the girl from My Sister Sam or anything but a little minor harassment would be flattering.
DRE: Is Tricked making the rounds in Hollywood at all?
AR: There have been some nibbles but nothing substantial. I would love for it to happen. I think it actually has a much better chance of being adapted than Box Office Poison did because its a tighter, shorter work.
DRE: Do you ever think about what the characters from Box Office Poison are up to?
AR: I actually was toying with doing a story set ten years after the very end of Box Office Poison, so it would be ten years after the epilogue portion, which was ten years after the bulk of the book. I sort of know what happens to all the characters but I cant think of any excuse for them to all get together. Thats why it would be hard to do any kind of sequel. By the end of the book theyve all drifted apart.
DRE: Is a funeral too clich?
AR: I mentioned that idea and someone goes, Oh just like in The Big Chill. So maybe it is clich, but I dont know. I could do a wedding and make it a happier occasion.
DRE: Have you been offered any mainstream comic work?
AR: Im a big baby when it comes to doing that stuff because I want people to ask me to contribute to books. Im a very poor hustler for my own work. I never say, Hey. How can I get in on that project? Unless someone specifically asks me to contribute to an anthology or something I generally will not because Im afraid of being rejected.
DRE: Do you have anything against doing superhero work?
AR: I definitely grew up reading them. But there are very few superhero comics I read now. I guess for any cartoonist theres a certain nostalgic appeal about drawing characters that you grew up on, even dumb superhero characters. I was approached by Marvel and DC about writing some stuff, but I found Im not a good pitch person. Until I sit down with characters and start writing, exploring and playing around with them, I cant really think of anything particularly interesting to do that I havent seen John Byrne do a 1000 times.
DRE: Have you seen any Alex Robinson related tattoos?
AR: No I havent. Like I said my readers generally do not seem to care that much where they would stalk me or mark their body with tattoos. Some woman came up to me eight months pregnant and me to draw a picture on her stomach. That was probably as close as Ive gotten to a tattoo.
DRE: Thats bizarre.
AR: It was especially weird because that woman goes to conventions fairly regularly so I signed her belly while she was pregnant and now she has like a five year old child walking around. Its very strange to think about that.
DRE: Do you have another book in mind?
AR: I have some ideas Im kicking around. The analogy I like to use is that its like being in a relationship. I just got out of a long-term relationship with Tricked so I want to play the field a bit before I settle down again. I want to try out different ideas and see what I like before I decide what book Im going to do for five years. When you finish a big book like that, you have to give yourself time to forget how exhausting it can be so you can actually do it again. If I jumped right into another book I think Id go crazy.
DRE: Would you do it as a graphic novel again?
AR: It really depends. Top Shelf has said theyre open to the possibility of serialization especially if itll make me work faster. But it really depends on the story. Looking back I think Tricked actually worked better as a one shot book because I dont know if it wouldve grabbed people with just reading a 20-page chunk.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
His latest graphic novel is Tricked. It is a tale with multiple storylines that eventually all converge on one another. Some of the characters are Ray Beam, a burnt out rock star; Steve an obsessive fan, Phoebe a young girl who finds that her father is gay and Lily, a young girl drawn into Ray Beams gaze.
Buy Tricked
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you working on now?
Alex Robinson: Currently Im working on a short story for a friend of mine named John Kovalic, who does Dork Tower. He has another series called Dr. Blink Superhero Shrink so he asked me to contribute a short story to that. Im doing a superhero story and it is actually a lot of fun.
DRE: Will that be your first superhero story?
AR: Among the first. When I was in high school I did superhero stories but it definitely would be among the first of my mature so called professional life.
DRE: And youre writing and drawing it?
AR: Yeah, someone else colors it.
DRE: Color will be nice!
AR: Yeah. I usually work in black and white so its always exciting to see it in color. I wish I could afford to do color comics but not yet.
DRE: How has Tricked been selling?
AR: Its been doing surprisingly well. The first printing is pretty much sold out and Top Shelf is going to do another printing before the end of the year. So Im very excited about that. I was very nervous about it because when I work on something for four years with very little feedback, it lets my neuroses build up and Im like This book is going to tank. Everyones going to hate it. Im excited and relieved that its done as well as it has.
DRE: Your first book, Box Office Poison, had a lot of 20s anxieties in it. While Tricked is much more mature.
AR: Yeah, Box Office Poison was the first thing I worked on after graduating from college and I think the book shows that it was a learning process. I cant even look at the early drawings. They just make wince at how crude they are. Tricked was definitely a more mature book in that respect. Some people like the first one better so I guess its just a matter of taste.
DRE: There are always people who like the first one better.
AR: Thats what I was nervous about. Some people have been disappointed that the second book isnt just Box Office Poison Two.
DRE: Have people said that to you?
AR: To my face most people have been very nice. No one has told me to my face that they didnt like it as much as the first one. But I did get an email from someone who said they liked the new book except for the fact that they didnt like the characters, they thought the plot was dumb and they thought it was anticlimactic. It was a long laundry list of things they did not like about it, which makes me wonder if they liked anything about it. Her criticism basically seemed based on comparing it to Box Office Poison. Thats pretty much the only person who has said they really wanted a sequel or at least something similar in tone to the first one.
DRE: Unlike Box Office Poison, most of the characters in Tricked wouldnt buy comics.
AR: Thats true. When I did Box Office Poison I had at least two characters who were cartoonists and I realized that was probably too much. Im never going to do any comics related stories again because it just got too incestuous.
DRE: Do you not want to do straight autobiography?
AR: Thats a risky thing because you can sort of wind up being like Joe Matt and Peepshow. You can wind up doing comics about doing autobiographical stories and next thing you know youre going to do comics about doing comics about autobiography. Its swallowing your own tail. I was just trying to move away from the blatantly autobiographical stuff. My life is actually very boring. I sit around drawing comic books. Theres nothing going on.
DRE: Thats why Joe Matt moved to LA. I think he had a TV deal too.
AR: So is he going back to comics now? Has the HBO thing fallen through?
DRE: I havent heard an update. I should find out whats going on with him but I want to be surprised, but its taking too long for the surprise.
AR: I read that Dave Sim interviewed him and it sounded like it was not happening and he was definitely expressing frustration about it.
DRE: Im sure he was expressing frustration.
What brought you to the character of Ray Beam?
AR: Originally one story I had in mind was a rock star taking on an assistant. It was going to be much more John Lennon influenced with examining the difference between the public persona and the private. Then I just gradually moved away from it. The idea of a rock star struggling with coming out with a new album was easy to do because I was struggling with what to do with my second book. Not to compare myself to a rock star but I guess there is a part of me that thinks that Im this big shot cartoonist guy. But theres also another character in the book whos a crazy delusional person, which I think also applies to myself. Theyre both different aspects of the way I see myself or at least the way parts of me see myself.
DRE: I didnt even think about the connection between you doing your second book and this big huge rock star. This guy has a villa in Italy.
AR: Hopefully I disguised it enough where people arent going to be like, Oh my god. Is this how he sees himself? That hes this big star?
DRE: Did you find in creating Ray Beam that those feelings are just universal with any artist?
AR: I imagine anyone who has any level of success and has people asking about what theyre doing next makes you always feel that pressure from within and from people who like your work. Thats whether its a moderately selling comic book or a multi platinum selling album.
DRE: Are you past the point of any kind of semi-autobiographical work?
AR: I cant imagine creating a character that I wouldnt have any identification with because without that connection on some level the character would just ring false. I think even if youre doing a story with Hitler as a character, some part of you has to identify with him. I guess the better writer you are, the better you are at disguising it but I cant imagine you could entirely separate yourself from the characters.
DRE: You have a couple things in Tricked that made me think you watch a lot of TV. The two gay men who own the diner shaped like a pig is something you would see on the Food Network and then you have a situation that couldve come from a Montel Williams or one of those shows, the reunification of a family.
AR: As sad as it to say about talk shows like Jerry Springer or Montel Williams, they do reflect a certain amount of reality. But it is not like I was watching Maury Povich and said, That would be a good story. I think the reason those shows are successful is because they exploit the same situations that a lot of people are in. Everyone has their own weird family situations.
DRE: What does your wife think of Tricked?
AR: She says she loves the book. But Im paranoid enough where I dont believe anyone when they tell me they like the book, especially my wife. Whats she going to say, You know, I really didnt like it. How would we live together after that? Even if she didnt like the book I imagine she would have to say she liked the book to preserve our marital sanctity.
DRE: Did you give her chapters as you went along?
AR: I think she read bits and pieces of it while I was working on it, but it wasnt until the very end that she read the whole thing tip to tail. She helps me proofread it and stuff, but other than that she doesnt really give any kind of editorial interference. Shell tell me I didnt understand what was going on here and Ill dismiss it and say No. It works.
DRE: What about editorial from Chris Staros at Top Shelf Comix?
AR: When I was starting the book, he said, Well, every time you finish a chapter send it to me and Ill tell you if theres any problems with it. But that didnt last too long. I generally dont do well under close supervision. I resist that. When I finished the book I sent it to him and he read it. Aside from 15,000 typographical errors, he questioned a couple of scenes but he also told me I was completely free to ignore any advice, which I definitely appreciated. Not that I ignored all his advice, but that he was willing to say that. Some of the changes I took and some I felt free to ignore.
DRE: How was it working on a graphic novel instead of serializing it?
AR: It took awhile to get used to because without a bi-monthly or quarterly deadline it was very easy to let it slip by and spend the whole day playing Zoo Tycoon. Next thing you know Im doing two pages a week and Im really falling behind schedule. Towards the end I was doing like a page a day for two or three months. It was exciting but it was also very grueling to be working at that pace.
DRE: Tricked has a lot of different storylines which end up colliding. Did they collide in the way you first imagined them?
AR: Fairly early on I knew what was going to happen at the end of the book. It pretty much stayed true to that. There might have been some minor changes, but I pretty much wrote it knowing it was going to end that way. It got hard towards the end because I had to make sure all the characters were in the right places in their own storylines before they could get to the end. I dont write anything out ahead of time so I just know in my head how its going to end. But I dont sit down and write out the whole book before I start drawing. I can be two thirds of the way through the book and be like Oh my gosh. I still have to get to this and this before I get to the end.
DRE: There is some stalking going on in Tricked, have you ever been stalked?
AR: I dont remember ever being stalked by anyone. I dont think my readers care that much about me.
DRE: How about at conventions?
AR: Well the amount of people that go to comic conventions is actually relatively small. You do see the same people over and over again but Ive never been bothered by anyone who has ever done anything outside of the acceptable behavior at conventions. Its sort an insult in a way.
DRE: Would you like to be stalked?
AR: Im not talking like the girl from My Sister Sam or anything but a little minor harassment would be flattering.
DRE: Is Tricked making the rounds in Hollywood at all?
AR: There have been some nibbles but nothing substantial. I would love for it to happen. I think it actually has a much better chance of being adapted than Box Office Poison did because its a tighter, shorter work.
DRE: Do you ever think about what the characters from Box Office Poison are up to?
AR: I actually was toying with doing a story set ten years after the very end of Box Office Poison, so it would be ten years after the epilogue portion, which was ten years after the bulk of the book. I sort of know what happens to all the characters but I cant think of any excuse for them to all get together. Thats why it would be hard to do any kind of sequel. By the end of the book theyve all drifted apart.
DRE: Is a funeral too clich?
AR: I mentioned that idea and someone goes, Oh just like in The Big Chill. So maybe it is clich, but I dont know. I could do a wedding and make it a happier occasion.
DRE: Have you been offered any mainstream comic work?
AR: Im a big baby when it comes to doing that stuff because I want people to ask me to contribute to books. Im a very poor hustler for my own work. I never say, Hey. How can I get in on that project? Unless someone specifically asks me to contribute to an anthology or something I generally will not because Im afraid of being rejected.
DRE: Do you have anything against doing superhero work?
AR: I definitely grew up reading them. But there are very few superhero comics I read now. I guess for any cartoonist theres a certain nostalgic appeal about drawing characters that you grew up on, even dumb superhero characters. I was approached by Marvel and DC about writing some stuff, but I found Im not a good pitch person. Until I sit down with characters and start writing, exploring and playing around with them, I cant really think of anything particularly interesting to do that I havent seen John Byrne do a 1000 times.
DRE: Have you seen any Alex Robinson related tattoos?
AR: No I havent. Like I said my readers generally do not seem to care that much where they would stalk me or mark their body with tattoos. Some woman came up to me eight months pregnant and me to draw a picture on her stomach. That was probably as close as Ive gotten to a tattoo.
DRE: Thats bizarre.
AR: It was especially weird because that woman goes to conventions fairly regularly so I signed her belly while she was pregnant and now she has like a five year old child walking around. Its very strange to think about that.
DRE: Do you have another book in mind?
AR: I have some ideas Im kicking around. The analogy I like to use is that its like being in a relationship. I just got out of a long-term relationship with Tricked so I want to play the field a bit before I settle down again. I want to try out different ideas and see what I like before I decide what book Im going to do for five years. When you finish a big book like that, you have to give yourself time to forget how exhausting it can be so you can actually do it again. If I jumped right into another book I think Id go crazy.
DRE: Would you do it as a graphic novel again?
AR: It really depends. Top Shelf has said theyre open to the possibility of serialization especially if itll make me work faster. But it really depends on the story. Looking back I think Tricked actually worked better as a one shot book because I dont know if it wouldve grabbed people with just reading a 20-page chunk.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Did i mention how cool this guy is!! just one of the bestest people to meet ever...