Gaming and LARPing is not something I read about on this site too much. Maybe that's because of the naked girls but still it's a part of outsider culture. I did it once and it was too much pressure. People kept asking me questions and all I wanted to do was talk to the Goth chicks.
That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to John Kovalic. As the creator of the comic book Dork Tower, John pokes fun at Goths, gaming Goths and gamers through his main characters of Matt, Igor, Carson the muskrat, Ken and Gilly the Perky Goth. Dork Tower fans are not limited to Goths and gamers. It really is one of the funniest books out there. John and I decided to have a bit of fun with this and just dissect Goth culture through a humorist's eyes.
Now who out there considers themselves a perky Goth?
Check out John's website at www.dorktower.com.
Daniel Robert Epstein: For lack of a better term I'm going to keep tossing around the word Goth. What's the funniest thing about Goth culture?
John Kovalic: Oh god. I'd be interested in your take on that?
DRE: Probably because some take themselves too seriously.
JK: That's the Walden character in Dork Tower. He takes himself too seriously. Most of the humor in Dork Tower is fairly self deprecating. When I write Walden I've been writing myself into him a lot more than I ever used to. Initially Walden was the two-dimensional mopey Goth. I made Walden and Gilly [the perky Goth] brother and sister. So I've had a lot more fun since I made him her big brother. I think taking one self's too seriously pretty much crosses all culture. I think Goths who do tend to be more visible. I know a lot of music geeks who take themselves too seriously. It's something which occurs in many different subcultures all throughout fandom. Certainly there are plenty of gamers that take themselves too seriously. In a sense Goth gets a bad rap for this because the ones that do take themselves too seriously are so incredibly visible and are easy to make fun of on Saturday Night Live.
DRE: I loved that sketch though. It was so funny when the big brother came downstairs to pound on his gothy little brother on TV.
JK: Yeah it was. I try to do it with more sympathy. I dress in black [laughs]. Most of the stuff I write about in Dork Tower I love. So if I'm making fun of a character I really am making fun of myself more so than the actual culture.
DRE: By coincidence I went to a LARP [Live Action Role Playing] for the first time ever about six months before I first picked up your book. That was a big help in understanding a lot of the humor in it. At the LARP I thought it was ok but a little too much.
JK: Well LARPing is a lot like role playing. You need people who can run them well. That makes all the difference in the world. It's very easy when you're role playing or LARPing to be extremely self conscious. I myself don't find acting comes easily to me which am why I tend to be more of a dungeon master than a player. A good LARP is fantastic fun.
DRE: It's different. I could see the appeal of it.
JK: I myself don't have a lot of time for it anymore. I can only fit one night of gaming and role-playing in a week. LARPing is not that far from a war reenactment group or a historical recreation society with adding one more element to it. But it's so visible and it is so easy to make fun of it from the outside. "Look at the weirdos. Aren't they strange?" The most prevalent humor out there directed at gamers is mean spirited and easy. I hope that with Dork Tower that I take it from an insider's perspective. I'm trying to make light of some of the conventions of the culture whether it's Goth or gaming itself.
DRE: When did you first discover Goth culture?
JK: Probably musically. It's if you consider Siouxsie and The Banshees and the early Cure, Goth. I was in school in England when punk hit. So that would have been my first step into what would lay the foundation for Goth culture. It comes from many different areas. Artistically, musically and the gaming Goths.
DRE: Probably with music being the biggest one.
JK: I would assume so and fetish being the second. The spanky Goths. I still haven't come up with a logo for that yet. The basic Goths in Dork Tower are divided into the perky Goths, mopey Goths, artsy and spanky Goths. I haven't even started to introduce the music Goths yet.
DRE: That's a whole other book.
JK: Yes which I look forward to writing. I've started bringing a lot of musical elements into Dork Tower. In issue 21 which was about Matt, the dungeon master, which was all about his musical tastes. Also one of these days I'm going to have an issue of Dork Tower which doesn't mention gaming at all just to see if people notice.
DRE: Are there big differences between the different kinds of Goths?
JK: Some will have more interest in music and others in gaming. A lot of it crosses over. It's very hard to pigeonhole but being a cartoonist I will pigeonhole all day. I'm going to do a whole issue soon which will focus on Walden who really was a minor character up until issue 20, the Gilly issue. I will throw a lot of curve balls when I start dissecting him.
DRE: Are there really perky Goths?
JK: Oh yes there are. In fact Gilly is probably the most popular character in Dork Tower. She actually came about because I released Dork Tower number one and I was supporting it at DragonCon in Atlanta. I was trying to come up with a story for the second issue and I knew I wanted to throw the non-Goth gamer characters into a Goth party. They would have completely lost it. I was writing a story when a friend of mine came up to me and introduced me to his friend. He introduced her as "Gilly, she's a perky Goth." That was my first introduction to the perky Goth genre. There are a lot of them out there.
It's been really gratifying writing the Gilly character because I get a lot of feedback from the people who describe themselves as perky Goths. Of course they're wonderful happy people so they're nice to get feedback from.
DRE: So is the whole Matt getting together with Gilly thing going to be resolved soon?
JK: Well issue 17 was the last issue of the Matt/Gilly/Kayleigh triangle. At that point I got a little sick of it. Not sick of the character dynamics. But I just wanted to try writing something else. There had been about five issues where this had all brought forward and it was very popular with readers. There was a lot of great feedback and circulation went up. I just wanted to break from it for a while. So issues 18-23 I tried to step back from all of that and just do some issues that were concentrating on the individual characters.
Kayleigh had just left when Matt said Gilly's name instead of hers. She left in a huff and hasn't been heard from since. She is the focus of issue 23 and that will bring her back into the fold. But it's going to be a while until we get launched into the next Matt/Gilly/Kayleigh thing. I want to do a story that all takes place in the gaming store and pokes fun at High Fidelity. Top five modules involving dark elves. I've got the next fifteen issues plotted out in terms of character development. There's going to be some fun.
Every sitcom in the world has a relationship where people always want them to get together. But with Matt and Kayleigh, they are completely wrong for each other but neither of them realizes it. There are lots of times where you are in a terrible relationship and you don't realize it. Sometimes people need other people and they will latch onto someone just to have them. It's going to take them a while to find they are unsuited for each other.
DRE: I think he was just happy to have sex.
JK: Exactly. That's what I can't go into in the book because a lot of my readers are kids. In fact I had a guy come up to me a couple of years ago and wanted to shake my hand. He said that he was glad someone was doing a comic he could give his eight year old son. That's been weighing on me since then. There was episode where I had Matt get rip roaringly drunk. I had to try to do it in a way that's kid friendly.
DRE: That's something you do to your own work because no one censors you.
JK: Self censorship can be the worst kind. But it's not like I'm going to do a lot of nudity anyway. I can only draw three things so you can only imagine.
DRE: Is Goth culture overseas different than it is in America?
JK: Actually no. The amazing thing about Goth/gaming culture is that it's fairly universal. A lot of that has to do with the music first then to a lesser extent gaming. Dork Tower is very popular in Germany. It's translated into five different languages. Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. It looks like we're going to get Japanese, Cantonese and Mandarin. I now know how to say "Hey Marcy, come see the Satanists in five different languages." I went to six conventions overseas last year and it was marvelous. Goth and gamer cultures are very similar in Europe to the culture in the States but there is probably more alcohol involved over there. American is still in many ways a puritanical society which filters down to the gamers. At the European gaming conventions there will be beer flowing because the beer companies sponsor a lot of them. In London there is a bar right in the convention. I love that. Beyond that it's very similar which is why Dork Tower translates well. I've tried to stay away from puns and wordplay and keep it situational.
DRE: At what time did the books start doing so well?
JK: It's been a slow gradual thing. The first printing of the first trade paperback was in 2000 so it hasn't been that long. It's now in its fourth printing. But it's sold about 20,000 copies. One hand it's wonderful and the other it's scary because I keep waiting for it to stop. I'm a cartoonist so I have an utter lack of self confidence. The new trade paperback is going to come out soon. We're also going to do some animation soon because a cable network wants to see some short pieces. Maybe about a minute or less.
DRE: I spoke with Jhonen Vasquez recently and he hates the fact that you can buy his stuff at the mall.
JK: Wow. That's surprising. There are different levels to this. Just because you got a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac lunchbox at Hot Topic doesn't mean you've sold out. That's just an easier way for people who enjoy your work to get something.
DRE: I think he just doesn't want the annoying people to get his work.
JK: You see, annoying people's dollars help pay the bills just as much as cool people. I'm frankly amazed to be living in a society where a cartoonist can make a living. I'm hoping this year for there to be a Gilly, the perky Goth action figure and a Carson plush doll. That's mostly because I want those.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to John Kovalic. As the creator of the comic book Dork Tower, John pokes fun at Goths, gaming Goths and gamers through his main characters of Matt, Igor, Carson the muskrat, Ken and Gilly the Perky Goth. Dork Tower fans are not limited to Goths and gamers. It really is one of the funniest books out there. John and I decided to have a bit of fun with this and just dissect Goth culture through a humorist's eyes.
Now who out there considers themselves a perky Goth?
Check out John's website at www.dorktower.com.
Daniel Robert Epstein: For lack of a better term I'm going to keep tossing around the word Goth. What's the funniest thing about Goth culture?
John Kovalic: Oh god. I'd be interested in your take on that?
DRE: Probably because some take themselves too seriously.
JK: That's the Walden character in Dork Tower. He takes himself too seriously. Most of the humor in Dork Tower is fairly self deprecating. When I write Walden I've been writing myself into him a lot more than I ever used to. Initially Walden was the two-dimensional mopey Goth. I made Walden and Gilly [the perky Goth] brother and sister. So I've had a lot more fun since I made him her big brother. I think taking one self's too seriously pretty much crosses all culture. I think Goths who do tend to be more visible. I know a lot of music geeks who take themselves too seriously. It's something which occurs in many different subcultures all throughout fandom. Certainly there are plenty of gamers that take themselves too seriously. In a sense Goth gets a bad rap for this because the ones that do take themselves too seriously are so incredibly visible and are easy to make fun of on Saturday Night Live.
DRE: I loved that sketch though. It was so funny when the big brother came downstairs to pound on his gothy little brother on TV.
JK: Yeah it was. I try to do it with more sympathy. I dress in black [laughs]. Most of the stuff I write about in Dork Tower I love. So if I'm making fun of a character I really am making fun of myself more so than the actual culture.
DRE: By coincidence I went to a LARP [Live Action Role Playing] for the first time ever about six months before I first picked up your book. That was a big help in understanding a lot of the humor in it. At the LARP I thought it was ok but a little too much.
JK: Well LARPing is a lot like role playing. You need people who can run them well. That makes all the difference in the world. It's very easy when you're role playing or LARPing to be extremely self conscious. I myself don't find acting comes easily to me which am why I tend to be more of a dungeon master than a player. A good LARP is fantastic fun.
DRE: It's different. I could see the appeal of it.
JK: I myself don't have a lot of time for it anymore. I can only fit one night of gaming and role-playing in a week. LARPing is not that far from a war reenactment group or a historical recreation society with adding one more element to it. But it's so visible and it is so easy to make fun of it from the outside. "Look at the weirdos. Aren't they strange?" The most prevalent humor out there directed at gamers is mean spirited and easy. I hope that with Dork Tower that I take it from an insider's perspective. I'm trying to make light of some of the conventions of the culture whether it's Goth or gaming itself.
DRE: When did you first discover Goth culture?
JK: Probably musically. It's if you consider Siouxsie and The Banshees and the early Cure, Goth. I was in school in England when punk hit. So that would have been my first step into what would lay the foundation for Goth culture. It comes from many different areas. Artistically, musically and the gaming Goths.
DRE: Probably with music being the biggest one.
JK: I would assume so and fetish being the second. The spanky Goths. I still haven't come up with a logo for that yet. The basic Goths in Dork Tower are divided into the perky Goths, mopey Goths, artsy and spanky Goths. I haven't even started to introduce the music Goths yet.
DRE: That's a whole other book.
JK: Yes which I look forward to writing. I've started bringing a lot of musical elements into Dork Tower. In issue 21 which was about Matt, the dungeon master, which was all about his musical tastes. Also one of these days I'm going to have an issue of Dork Tower which doesn't mention gaming at all just to see if people notice.
DRE: Are there big differences between the different kinds of Goths?
JK: Some will have more interest in music and others in gaming. A lot of it crosses over. It's very hard to pigeonhole but being a cartoonist I will pigeonhole all day. I'm going to do a whole issue soon which will focus on Walden who really was a minor character up until issue 20, the Gilly issue. I will throw a lot of curve balls when I start dissecting him.
DRE: Are there really perky Goths?
JK: Oh yes there are. In fact Gilly is probably the most popular character in Dork Tower. She actually came about because I released Dork Tower number one and I was supporting it at DragonCon in Atlanta. I was trying to come up with a story for the second issue and I knew I wanted to throw the non-Goth gamer characters into a Goth party. They would have completely lost it. I was writing a story when a friend of mine came up to me and introduced me to his friend. He introduced her as "Gilly, she's a perky Goth." That was my first introduction to the perky Goth genre. There are a lot of them out there.
It's been really gratifying writing the Gilly character because I get a lot of feedback from the people who describe themselves as perky Goths. Of course they're wonderful happy people so they're nice to get feedback from.
DRE: So is the whole Matt getting together with Gilly thing going to be resolved soon?
JK: Well issue 17 was the last issue of the Matt/Gilly/Kayleigh triangle. At that point I got a little sick of it. Not sick of the character dynamics. But I just wanted to try writing something else. There had been about five issues where this had all brought forward and it was very popular with readers. There was a lot of great feedback and circulation went up. I just wanted to break from it for a while. So issues 18-23 I tried to step back from all of that and just do some issues that were concentrating on the individual characters.
Kayleigh had just left when Matt said Gilly's name instead of hers. She left in a huff and hasn't been heard from since. She is the focus of issue 23 and that will bring her back into the fold. But it's going to be a while until we get launched into the next Matt/Gilly/Kayleigh thing. I want to do a story that all takes place in the gaming store and pokes fun at High Fidelity. Top five modules involving dark elves. I've got the next fifteen issues plotted out in terms of character development. There's going to be some fun.
Every sitcom in the world has a relationship where people always want them to get together. But with Matt and Kayleigh, they are completely wrong for each other but neither of them realizes it. There are lots of times where you are in a terrible relationship and you don't realize it. Sometimes people need other people and they will latch onto someone just to have them. It's going to take them a while to find they are unsuited for each other.
DRE: I think he was just happy to have sex.
JK: Exactly. That's what I can't go into in the book because a lot of my readers are kids. In fact I had a guy come up to me a couple of years ago and wanted to shake my hand. He said that he was glad someone was doing a comic he could give his eight year old son. That's been weighing on me since then. There was episode where I had Matt get rip roaringly drunk. I had to try to do it in a way that's kid friendly.
DRE: That's something you do to your own work because no one censors you.
JK: Self censorship can be the worst kind. But it's not like I'm going to do a lot of nudity anyway. I can only draw three things so you can only imagine.
DRE: Is Goth culture overseas different than it is in America?
JK: Actually no. The amazing thing about Goth/gaming culture is that it's fairly universal. A lot of that has to do with the music first then to a lesser extent gaming. Dork Tower is very popular in Germany. It's translated into five different languages. Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. It looks like we're going to get Japanese, Cantonese and Mandarin. I now know how to say "Hey Marcy, come see the Satanists in five different languages." I went to six conventions overseas last year and it was marvelous. Goth and gamer cultures are very similar in Europe to the culture in the States but there is probably more alcohol involved over there. American is still in many ways a puritanical society which filters down to the gamers. At the European gaming conventions there will be beer flowing because the beer companies sponsor a lot of them. In London there is a bar right in the convention. I love that. Beyond that it's very similar which is why Dork Tower translates well. I've tried to stay away from puns and wordplay and keep it situational.
DRE: At what time did the books start doing so well?
JK: It's been a slow gradual thing. The first printing of the first trade paperback was in 2000 so it hasn't been that long. It's now in its fourth printing. But it's sold about 20,000 copies. One hand it's wonderful and the other it's scary because I keep waiting for it to stop. I'm a cartoonist so I have an utter lack of self confidence. The new trade paperback is going to come out soon. We're also going to do some animation soon because a cable network wants to see some short pieces. Maybe about a minute or less.
DRE: I spoke with Jhonen Vasquez recently and he hates the fact that you can buy his stuff at the mall.
JK: Wow. That's surprising. There are different levels to this. Just because you got a Johnny the Homicidal Maniac lunchbox at Hot Topic doesn't mean you've sold out. That's just an easier way for people who enjoy your work to get something.
DRE: I think he just doesn't want the annoying people to get his work.
JK: You see, annoying people's dollars help pay the bills just as much as cool people. I'm frankly amazed to be living in a society where a cartoonist can make a living. I'm hoping this year for there to be a Gilly, the perky Goth action figure and a Carson plush doll. That's mostly because I want those.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
VIEW 15 of 15 COMMENTS
morgan:
fej:
John was the coolest. Check out my profile pic...