Ed Piskor has been working in comics for the past decade, collaborating with Harvey Pekar on books like "Macedonia" and "The Beats" and then his own book, "Wizzywig." He is best known however for his current project, "Hip Hop Family Tree."
Piskor has been serializing "Hip Hop Family Tree" on boingboing for a few years now and Fantagraphics has been publishing the series in hardcover volumes, which have been New York Times bestsellers. This year the third volume has been released covering the years 1983 and 1984. This month Fantagraphics also launches a monthly "Hip Hop Family Tree" comic book and Piskor took the time out to discuss the projects.
ALEX DUEBEN: By this point, a lot of people know what Hip Hop Family Tree is. Where does the third volume pick up?
ED PISKOR: The third volume is 1983-84. Each volume very naturally has its own tone and its own arc to it and this third volume really is about the popularization of the very first superstars of rap. Run-DMC becomes Run-DMC. The Fat Boys become The Fat Boys. LL Cool J. The Beastie Boys decide to become rappers. It’s very exciting.
AD: I was going to ask about that because it’s really clear reading this volume that it’s a history, but each book is its own unique thing.
EP: I feel like history took care of that for me. I’m pretty much just curating things. I have no plan in the first, say, half a year. I just try to discover whatever I can. Then when I have more than half the book finished, that’s when I have to revisit the work for that year, see where things are going, and I can start to close all these little gaps. The second book was about hip hop going to an ostentatious place of flamboyance and then by the end it got brought back to the streets by Run-DMC so it’s this trajectory of moving towards the theatrical and then Run-DMC is like, no, we’re taking it back to the streets. That just happened naturally in real life.
AD: This volume is really about hip hop taking off to a different level where it’s no longer a New York City-based phenomenon.
EP: Yeah and it’s ramping up more and more. The entire project is just a world building exercise for me. That’s how I look at things. I’m really interested in those moments that bring the form to a wider audience, little cultural milestones are crucial. It’s interesting to see how crucial it is at the time, to see what kinds of cultural gaps needed filled and how hip hop and rap filled those little niches.
AD: You have one scene in the book talking about breakdancing and imagine what it was like seeing it for the first time, never knowing that such a thing existed. I really can’t imagine what that must have been like.
EP: Right. There’s a lot of those instances in hip hop. Some of the rappers names. You have to be a pretty cool guy to call yourself Ice-T or Ice Cube, if you think about it. That’s a corny name if you carry it the wrong way. It’s interesting how that stuff works. We were born into this. It already existed, but these kids are innovating stuff. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. That’s why I had to explain it in that exact way in the caption because I couldn’t accurately express, panel to panel, what it must have been like seeing that for the first time, never being exposed to it. I can see why those kids got picked up by the cops because it is aggressive. You get close and if you touch someone the wrong way, a fight will break out.
AD: The book also has a lot about graffiti and this is when the art form really breaks out in a big way and gets a lot of attention.
EP: When you’re talking about the elements of hip hop it’s graffiti, breakdancing, MCing, DJing. Graffiti was the first element that was able to be monetized. When guys like Basquiat and Keith Harring started spray painting canvas they were making more money than any rapper.
AD: It was fascinating to see all these people thinking everyone else was doing well and making real money, but none of them were.
EP: Yeah there’s a parallel to that in comics. [laughs] Where folks think that just because you’ve got something published that you’ve got a million dollars or something like that. It’s possible, but it just does not work like the click of a finger.
AD: What are the key elements in this third volume that really play a role in the fourth volume that you’re drawing now?
EP: Book 4 is going to be 1984-85. Introducing LL Cool J at the end [of the third book] fit within the narrative, but it also seems strategic because that’s going to be expanded upon a whole lot in 84-85. Def Jam put out more records from Rick Rubin’s dorm and this got the attention of CBS Records which gave them a distribution deal which put them on a path. The movie Krush Groove came out. The Beastie Boys went on tour with Madonna. All this crazy stuff happened.
AD: The third book is just out, but this month you’re also launching a monthly Hip Hop Family Tree comic book coming out from Fantagraphics. Was this your idea?
EP: It was mine. I saw that they put out Gilbert Hernandez’s Blubber and I like that format. I like the idea of monthly comics better than anything. When I was a kid that’s what I wanted. I wanted that monthly jolt of having something new on the stands. As I came into the business, that was an impossibility the way Diamond has a stronghold on distribution. I know that my books sell better at regular bookstores and record shops than comic book shops so for the past couple years I did the Free Comic Book Day comic for Fantagraphics. Those go like gangbusters at comic shops so this monthly is an attempt to extend a hand to the comic shop customers who might not want to put down 25 bucks on a big book but they’ll give me work a shot at a five dollar level.
AD: So how will it work out exactly?
EP: Each volume yields four issues of monthly comics so at this moment I have 14 issues ready to go. I think each issue is satisfying–it’s certainly more dense than any monthly comic you’ll get. I also like the idea that if you look at the history of comics there has never been a situation where one cartoonist does every component of the creation of a comic on a monthly basis. The closet you can come is Dave Sim and he had Gerhard and it was in black and white. I had a three year lead time, but I think it will be an interesting thing to experiment with by having this monthly thing out there. It’s also an unprecedented move to go in this reverse order and publish work that’s already out there. We’ll see if it’s unprecedented for a reason. We’ll see if it’s a dumb decision or if it’s an interesting way to go. Time will tell.
AD: Are you going to include new material in the monthly comic?
EP: There’s definitely going to be new material. There’s a directors commentary section in the back, like how Chester Brown’s stuff works in the back of his comics or Alan Moore’s From Hell notes. I’m not an academic and I have no interest in learning how to do citations and shit. I never went to college, but I know what was on my mind when I was putting that stuff together. I think that as a fan of comics, that’s an interesting thing to give to people. I would to read an issue of Forever People and flip to the back and see what Jack Kirby was thinking. A lot of the back matter will be that. I think I’m going to start serializing another comic. It’s going to be chock full of stuff.
My true motivation is just to make cool stuff. I don’t want to seem too egotistical, but I go to a comics shop and I’m not inspired by a lot of the stuff I see. I’m going to try to make some cool stuff and hopefully the audience shows up. If not, I’ll move onto the next thing. You get to keep making whatever you want if an audience is there and they keep showing up for stuff. I’m not interested in work for hire or having a boss so I am going to try to make good stuff. I mean, I know we don’t live in a meritocracy where you make good things and then you get rewarded for them, but that’s my main motivation. If you’re going to cut down trees you better make some cool shit.
AD: This is not to knock anyone else, but there are plenty of artists who have the attitude of, I made this work, now back to the drawing board, but you’re really out there hustling and making sure the books find an audience.
EP: Here’s the thing: I need a publisher. I use a couple of guys who are putting up the dough to print my stuff and to get it out there in stores. These guys are cool enough to invest money in my ideas and I’m in debt to that. It’s a mutual thing. I’m giving them something that’s going to make them money and they’re allowing me to express my ideas. Now you get to keep doing that forever if you make those guys their money back. It’s like Hollywood on a super super low level where you fall into director hell if you don’t make back the money that the investors put in. It is on my mind to make sure that my guys Gary and Eric see rewards on their investment in me. They’re putting up some money and they could put that money elsewhere but they decided to bet on me so I don’t want to let them down. That said, I’m going to make the work I’m going make. But there’s that other mental component, making sure these dudes make their bread back.
AD: I know that the book has been translated and published in a number of other countries. Have you gotten a good response form overseas or from places you wouldn’t have guessed were the target audience?
EP: I’ve been doing lots of world travel and hip hop is almost more well respected everywhere else besides America in its truest form with the breakdancing and with the graffiti component. It’s almost every other country because they romanticize it. They probably still think we still have subway trains with graffiti on them–but that’s been dead for thirty years. So I’ve been in this circuit of world travel and I see how that works. You go to a place and then you do your jazz hands and talk about your project in front of everybody. Nothing’s free so they want you to give a presentation and I think one of my skills is that I can actually talk like a normal person. I’m not shy like a lot of other cartoonists so I give my presentation that I’ve been working on for a long time and I think it’s pretty attractive. Other people who put together festivals in other countries will be at these festivals so every time i give a talk some place, I get invited to give that talk somewhere else. This year I’ve been to Denmark and Norway. Last year Germany. I’m going to Korea and Denmark again. Next year New Zealand and Finland. I’ll never say no to those opportunities because I have a lot of readers from these other countries.
AD: It’s easy to say that Scandinavia may not be a big place for hip hop, but they’re big comics fans and hip hop is everywhere.
EP: Hip hop is everywhere–and it’s easy to find the hip hop heads. All I have to do is throw on this bucket hat and they’ll find me. It’s like a beacon, you know what I’m saying? [laughs] Some of the events that I did in Denmark were totally hip hop centric with Scandinavian MC’s It’s everywhere.
AD: I enjoyed your bio on the back on the book, but you mention that a film is being developed from the books. Has anything come from that?
EP: It’s pretty new and they haven’t made an announcement yet. It’s something that we’ve been working on before I even had a publisher. I think I did maybe five months worth of strips when we started talking about it. That took two, two and a half years. We’ll see. That’s the big secret among cartoonists. Everyone sells their stuff and almost none of it sees the light of day. I still have my comics so I’m not going to hold my breath. Options are a dime a dozen but if you get a serious investment from a studio, that is a more serious thing.
AD: Are you busy for the rest of the year promoting the books?
EP: I’m teaching a workshop in Denmark and then I go to a beatbox festival in Korea in September and honestly I think that’s it. The way I block things out, I should have the fourth book finished by the end of 2015.
"Hip Hop Family Tree Book 3: 1983-1984" and "Hip Hop Family Tree" #1 are out now.
