I first discovered Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles just strolling through my local comic book store and I saw the cover of the first collection. It was a happy little teddy bear smoking a cigarette watching a dog on fire. I knew automatically this would become one of my favorite comic strips. Its been over three years since Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles creator, Neil Swaab, and I first spoke. He released a second volume of strips with a major publisher through fellow controversial comic creator Ted Ralls Attitude series.
Buy Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles Volume 2
Daniel Robert Epstein: Why has it taken so long to get out a second Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles book?
Neil NS: I needed three years worth of material for this book. I like to give the reader a good deal.
DRE: The first book was self-published. How did the second book get to NBM?
NS: I became friends with Ted Rall when he included me in the second Attitude book. One day we went to go get drinks and at that point he was talking about how he wasnt sure if he had enough artists to do any more Attitude books. He was saying he really wanted to do some single artists who were not as well known as they should be for the Attitude books. He wasnt really sure who to do and I was saying, Well, Im looking for another publisher for my next book. We both just looked at each other and it was like Well, duh.
DRE: Were you aware of the Attitude anthologies before you got asked to be in one?
NS: Yeah, I had seen the first one. I hadnt read it, but Id seen it around and heard good things about it. Then Ted had just emailed me out of the blue for the second one.
DRE: Were you surprised about that, just because Ted is so political?
NS: Yeah. I was. But Im always surprised when anybody prominent even knows who I am.
DRE: What storylines are in the second book?
NS: We have alcoholic Jesus is in there. Mr. Wiggles has to buy a baby shower gift or. Neil going blind is in there and Neil dates himself. But the big one in there is Alcoholic Jesus.
DRE: What hate mail have you gotten as the strip has grown in popularity?
NS: Not much. It really hasnt changed. Im always surprised that I never get any hate mail, but mostly I just get a lot of Viagra email.
DRE: When the second book came out did your website receive a lot more hits and were you invited to more conventions?
NS: Oh its great. I am a millionaire now actually.
DRE: Who lives In Queens.
NS: Im keeping it real. Actually Im sitting on my solid-gold couch right now.
DRE: Its a soft metal.
NS: Yeah.
But the books release hasnt been a tremendous boon, but its good. The sites stats are up. The books selling. Its not selling like giant numbers or anything, but its selling a little bit here and there. Its selling better than the first book and its helped the sales of my first book.
DRE: Thats great.
NS: Yeah. Im not seeing huge results but that stuff builds up after awhile.
DRE: I see that Mr. Wiggles is no longer being published in the New York Press. Where is it published right now?
NS: Right now Im in Real Detroit Weekly, New Times Broward-Palm Beach and Italys Internazionale where its translated into Italian.
DRE: Thats cool. How did Internazionale find you?
NS: That was another Ted Rall thing. After the second Attitude book came out he had a show in Italy. He had invited all the artists who were in the first two Attitude books to exhibit some of their comic strips in there. So my comic strips were up in Italy for a while and I guess somebody there had seen it and was friends with the editor of Internazionale. That editor went and saw the show and just loved them. So he contacted me and Ive been publishing there for over a year now.
DRE: Sometimes jokes that are a little more subtle in English can be translated badly. Do they have trouble translating material about a pedophile teddy bear?
NS: They had to ask me one time what I meant by Sideways Vagina. They needed me to clarify.
DRE: Did you send them a sketch?
NS: Well, theyre on my list of emails I send out every week of my comic. So they get the English version and then they have somebody in-house translate it. Then they put all the translated dialogue back in using a font created from my own handwriting.
DRE: Do you get much international mail?
NS: I get some stuff every now and then from people in Italy.
DRE: Do they ask about Sideways Vaginas?
NS: No. Only Inside out ones. Whatever that means.
DRE: Do you know of the book The Bunny Suicides?
NS: Actually I do. Somebody I talked to who was looking for content mentioned them as a possibility.
DRE: I interviewed the creator of that, Andy Riley. He said that he decided to give up on all the people who post pages from the books online. How do you feel about people reprinting your stuff?
NS: If its something thats making money, then Im definitely not cool with that. But if its somebodys personal blog then I feel that is promotion. I dont really see that as too much of a violation, especially because theyre not making any money off of it. I have really only gotten on people when Ive seen that they post basically all my comics. You cant have a whole entire archive of stuff on there. Thats just not cool. If they have a few on their site, thats not a big deal to me as long as its properly credited.
DRE: Do you feel like youve settled into the style that youre always going to draw Wiggles in?
NS: I think Im pretty set now with how its looking. I think the whole second book is a lot more consistent than the first one. There might be slight nuances and variations and things like that changing over time, but I dont think anything drastic.
DRE: Do you do merchandising beyond CafePress stuff?
NS: Right now Im doing CafePress t-shirts but Ive got these other guys that I hooked up with that Im looking to do some new t-shirts with. Theyre just waiting for me to give them the designs so they can start producing them. These will be real high quality silkscreen shirts. Thats all the merchandise stuff Ive got. Id love to do a Mr. Wiggles talking doll and a couple of other things but I just dont have the money to invest right now. If I can find an investor or something, then totally Id be down with putting out some more merchandise.
DRE: Your new website is really nice. When did that launch?
NS: Thanks! I launched it the month the second book came out. I was just busting my ass to get that thing done. I wanted it to be easier to navigate. First of all, the comics on the main page so you can see it right away. You dont have to dig for anything. You can see all the books and everything thats available. I really wanted to overhaul the site so when the second book came out I could promote it and myself so much better.
DRE: Do you still do that all yourself?
NS: Yeah.
DRE: Cant you find a big fan who is willing to do it for free?
NS: Id feel bad about making someone work for free because Im pretty demanding and controlling. I know exactly what it is I want, so its like Im not really looking for a collaboration. It actually wasnt too bad for me to code and build the website because I was teaching that in my illustration class at Parsons. I hadnt really done as extensive a site as this one, so it was nice to actually learn for myself so I could teach them a little bit better.
DRE: Now that Wiggles isnt in a paper in New York, where you live, does it feel like an online strip to you?
NS: It still is in my hometown in Michigan. But I feel like I have two hometowns because Ive been living in New York so long. I really identify with the whole New York art scene and attitude. Its a little bit different because theres less of a I know you factor. If youre like Oh yeah, my strip is in the thing and people go Oh, I see it. Now it feels like people in New York are going to be forgetting about it because people have such a short attention span. Like only the real fans will remember. I think the rest are like, Oh yeah, there was some strip. I think it had this bear thing or something. I dont know. I never read it. I think that will eventually be the attitude in New York. It does feel more like a web thing right now, but Im hoping to get back into a paper in New York. Maybe if things settle down with The Village Voice I can hit them up again. Its just things with The Voice are just so insane right now. Things there are a little too much in upheaval for me to submit my comic.
But a lot of people refer to it as an online comic but it has never been an online comic. Its a print comic and I just happen to post it online. Do you know that comic The Perry Bible Fellowship?
DRE: Yeah, Ive seen it.
NS: That comic is always referred to as an online comic. It wins like all of these awards for best online comic and stuff like that. That comic is in five times more papers than Im in.
DRE: Thats bull.
NS: I dont understand why they keep referring to it as an online comic.
DRE: Its because he wants those awards.
NS: Yeah, those web awards. Very prestigious.
DRE: Then you get that gold seal on your website.
NS: Yeah, I guess they wouldnt send you anything physical. Maybe you get like an icon to put on your desktop.
DRE: A laurel.
NS: Yeah.
DRE: Not that you ever censored yourself but do you ever feel any responsibility to an editor once you started getting into papers?
NS: Well, I always try and do the best work that I can. Of course you dont always do the best work that you can, but you certainly try to. I definitely felt certain allegiances to certain editors like Jeff Koyen, when he was editor of the New York Press. He did a lot of stuff for me in his time there and his time outside of the New York Press. He started as a production manager at the New York Press and he was a big fan of my comic. He was known for doing the zine Crank in the early 90s so he started putting ads for my comic on his Crank website. When he left the Press and moved to Prague, he started editing a paper there. Then he was able to get my comic in Prague for two years while he was editing that paper. Then he came back over when the paper got sold and became the editor of the New York Press. I really felt like he had gone out of his way to do a lot of stuff for me. When he was editor of the Press, hed give me covers all the time. I didnt want to move over to The Village Voice even when there were some issues with the New York Press in terms of payment and things like that. As long as he was editor, I was always like Yeah, I owe him.
DRE: Where should a person that wants to do a comic strip start?
NS: Its a really tough field right now because anyone whos going to do something thats controversial or that isnt your daily paper stuff, has to get published in these alt-weeklies. The alt-weekly market sucks right now. Things like craigslist are making a lot of ad revenue going way down so these papers are just shutting their doors. Every other week theres some paper closing down or in financial trouble. Also if you look at the papers, a lot of them have the same comics already so a lot of these doors are already shut. With that in mind, you just have to do what you can. Send your stuff out to the papers. If they dont want it, you put it online and you build up an audience and maybe at that point theyll start seeing that your stuff is good or that youre getting more recognition and then they will run it. For instance I was in this monthly paper called The Toilet Paper in Colorado, which lasted almost a year. It just closed like a month ago. It was great paper though. The editor there, Noel Black, used to work at whatever the alt-weekly is out there. I think its the Colorado Springs Independent. He was a big fan of my comic and I think had tried to get it into that paper there and he always got shot down. So when he started his own paper, I was one of the first people he contacted. I think you get a lot of younger guys like that who want stuff but just get shot down. I think as they rise in power or start their own ventures, hopefully theyll pick you up and do things with you. Outside of that you can take a look at making a living on this online stuff. Its hard to do. You dont really make money on the online comic. You make money off of the merchandise.
DRE: How tough is it to build an audience?
NS: For an online comic I dont think its that tough to build an audience. The more frequently you update, the easier it is to build an audience. So if you were to update every day, youd probably get a pretty big audience after awhile. Since people are so incredibly bored at their work they just want to log on and read something. I dont even feel it has to be that good necessarily for people to read it. Its like Oh, let me just take five minutes and go read that comic. Its not that good, but its got this cute little donkey. I like the donkey. Hes funny. So theyll just go on as a time killer. The more you update, the more that happens.
Thats my theory anyway. I have absolutely nothing to back it up. Im talking purely out of my ass here.
DRE: When do you post a new Wiggles?
NS: Usually late Sunday night, early Monday morning. Officially its Monday. So my biggest numbers are on Mondays.
DRE: When we last did an interview you wouldnt let me take a picture of your face. Thats changed now obviously.
NS: Yeah, Ive gotten past my reclusiveness.
DRE: How come?
NS: I was always apprehensive, thinking Im doing these dirty comics and I really dont want people to know what I look like or associate me with that because maybe itll ruin their enjoyment. Sometimes youre picturing the artist and youre thinking, Oh, hes like probably this really badass dude and this total anarchist. Then you see the guy and hes just some regular dude. Hes got a sweater vest on and youre just like, What? I dont want to read this comic. Like that scene in Ghost World where they go to the Dan Clowes signing. So I was just really paranoid about that. Now Im past that. I think thats just some maturing on my part. Feeling more comfortable with myself.
DRE: Now that you have steady girlfriend and are happier, is it tough to make the angry bear?
NS: Yeah but theres always something to get pissed off about. Whats harder is writing jokes that you havent already done before. Youre sitting down and youre like, Man, Ive got a good dick joke. Then youre like Goddamn it. Ive done like 200 dick jokes. Does the world really need another dick joke? Im trying to look at this dick joke from a completely different angle. Nobodys ever done a dick joke like this. Then youre like, But its still a fucking dick joke. Ive done 200 of them. So you start trying to find something new with it. It gets tough. It also gets tough because Ive done 350 of these things so you want to push the characters a little bit more and push the humor a little bit more. But youre also still trying to keep whats relevant while you and your audience is maturing. But it is also not something that you can consciously think about. Its more like you just have to think, Whats funny today? Whats funny that I havent done yet or that I might have done but I can do in a completely different way? It means I have to work harder but I dont think theres actually much of a difference in what you see in print but more of whats in my head.
DRE: Whats the new storyline?
NS: Wiggles gets a girlfriend.
DRE: Is it a person?
NS: It is not a person.
DRE: Is it a surprise?
NS: Its not a surprise, but lets just say he builds his ideal girlfriend and shes not everything he thought she would be.
DRE: Then wackiness
NS: And zaniness ensues.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles Volume 2
Daniel Robert Epstein: Why has it taken so long to get out a second Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles book?
Neil NS: I needed three years worth of material for this book. I like to give the reader a good deal.
DRE: The first book was self-published. How did the second book get to NBM?
NS: I became friends with Ted Rall when he included me in the second Attitude book. One day we went to go get drinks and at that point he was talking about how he wasnt sure if he had enough artists to do any more Attitude books. He was saying he really wanted to do some single artists who were not as well known as they should be for the Attitude books. He wasnt really sure who to do and I was saying, Well, Im looking for another publisher for my next book. We both just looked at each other and it was like Well, duh.
DRE: Were you aware of the Attitude anthologies before you got asked to be in one?
NS: Yeah, I had seen the first one. I hadnt read it, but Id seen it around and heard good things about it. Then Ted had just emailed me out of the blue for the second one.
DRE: Were you surprised about that, just because Ted is so political?
NS: Yeah. I was. But Im always surprised when anybody prominent even knows who I am.
DRE: What storylines are in the second book?
NS: We have alcoholic Jesus is in there. Mr. Wiggles has to buy a baby shower gift or. Neil going blind is in there and Neil dates himself. But the big one in there is Alcoholic Jesus.
DRE: What hate mail have you gotten as the strip has grown in popularity?
NS: Not much. It really hasnt changed. Im always surprised that I never get any hate mail, but mostly I just get a lot of Viagra email.
DRE: When the second book came out did your website receive a lot more hits and were you invited to more conventions?
NS: Oh its great. I am a millionaire now actually.
DRE: Who lives In Queens.
NS: Im keeping it real. Actually Im sitting on my solid-gold couch right now.
DRE: Its a soft metal.
NS: Yeah.
But the books release hasnt been a tremendous boon, but its good. The sites stats are up. The books selling. Its not selling like giant numbers or anything, but its selling a little bit here and there. Its selling better than the first book and its helped the sales of my first book.
DRE: Thats great.
NS: Yeah. Im not seeing huge results but that stuff builds up after awhile.
DRE: I see that Mr. Wiggles is no longer being published in the New York Press. Where is it published right now?
NS: Right now Im in Real Detroit Weekly, New Times Broward-Palm Beach and Italys Internazionale where its translated into Italian.
DRE: Thats cool. How did Internazionale find you?
NS: That was another Ted Rall thing. After the second Attitude book came out he had a show in Italy. He had invited all the artists who were in the first two Attitude books to exhibit some of their comic strips in there. So my comic strips were up in Italy for a while and I guess somebody there had seen it and was friends with the editor of Internazionale. That editor went and saw the show and just loved them. So he contacted me and Ive been publishing there for over a year now.
DRE: Sometimes jokes that are a little more subtle in English can be translated badly. Do they have trouble translating material about a pedophile teddy bear?
NS: They had to ask me one time what I meant by Sideways Vagina. They needed me to clarify.
DRE: Did you send them a sketch?
NS: Well, theyre on my list of emails I send out every week of my comic. So they get the English version and then they have somebody in-house translate it. Then they put all the translated dialogue back in using a font created from my own handwriting.
DRE: Do you get much international mail?
NS: I get some stuff every now and then from people in Italy.
DRE: Do they ask about Sideways Vaginas?
NS: No. Only Inside out ones. Whatever that means.
DRE: Do you know of the book The Bunny Suicides?
NS: Actually I do. Somebody I talked to who was looking for content mentioned them as a possibility.
DRE: I interviewed the creator of that, Andy Riley. He said that he decided to give up on all the people who post pages from the books online. How do you feel about people reprinting your stuff?
NS: If its something thats making money, then Im definitely not cool with that. But if its somebodys personal blog then I feel that is promotion. I dont really see that as too much of a violation, especially because theyre not making any money off of it. I have really only gotten on people when Ive seen that they post basically all my comics. You cant have a whole entire archive of stuff on there. Thats just not cool. If they have a few on their site, thats not a big deal to me as long as its properly credited.
DRE: Do you feel like youve settled into the style that youre always going to draw Wiggles in?
NS: I think Im pretty set now with how its looking. I think the whole second book is a lot more consistent than the first one. There might be slight nuances and variations and things like that changing over time, but I dont think anything drastic.
DRE: Do you do merchandising beyond CafePress stuff?
NS: Right now Im doing CafePress t-shirts but Ive got these other guys that I hooked up with that Im looking to do some new t-shirts with. Theyre just waiting for me to give them the designs so they can start producing them. These will be real high quality silkscreen shirts. Thats all the merchandise stuff Ive got. Id love to do a Mr. Wiggles talking doll and a couple of other things but I just dont have the money to invest right now. If I can find an investor or something, then totally Id be down with putting out some more merchandise.
DRE: Your new website is really nice. When did that launch?
NS: Thanks! I launched it the month the second book came out. I was just busting my ass to get that thing done. I wanted it to be easier to navigate. First of all, the comics on the main page so you can see it right away. You dont have to dig for anything. You can see all the books and everything thats available. I really wanted to overhaul the site so when the second book came out I could promote it and myself so much better.
DRE: Do you still do that all yourself?
NS: Yeah.
DRE: Cant you find a big fan who is willing to do it for free?
NS: Id feel bad about making someone work for free because Im pretty demanding and controlling. I know exactly what it is I want, so its like Im not really looking for a collaboration. It actually wasnt too bad for me to code and build the website because I was teaching that in my illustration class at Parsons. I hadnt really done as extensive a site as this one, so it was nice to actually learn for myself so I could teach them a little bit better.
DRE: Now that Wiggles isnt in a paper in New York, where you live, does it feel like an online strip to you?
NS: It still is in my hometown in Michigan. But I feel like I have two hometowns because Ive been living in New York so long. I really identify with the whole New York art scene and attitude. Its a little bit different because theres less of a I know you factor. If youre like Oh yeah, my strip is in the thing and people go Oh, I see it. Now it feels like people in New York are going to be forgetting about it because people have such a short attention span. Like only the real fans will remember. I think the rest are like, Oh yeah, there was some strip. I think it had this bear thing or something. I dont know. I never read it. I think that will eventually be the attitude in New York. It does feel more like a web thing right now, but Im hoping to get back into a paper in New York. Maybe if things settle down with The Village Voice I can hit them up again. Its just things with The Voice are just so insane right now. Things there are a little too much in upheaval for me to submit my comic.
But a lot of people refer to it as an online comic but it has never been an online comic. Its a print comic and I just happen to post it online. Do you know that comic The Perry Bible Fellowship?
DRE: Yeah, Ive seen it.
NS: That comic is always referred to as an online comic. It wins like all of these awards for best online comic and stuff like that. That comic is in five times more papers than Im in.
DRE: Thats bull.
NS: I dont understand why they keep referring to it as an online comic.
DRE: Its because he wants those awards.
NS: Yeah, those web awards. Very prestigious.
DRE: Then you get that gold seal on your website.
NS: Yeah, I guess they wouldnt send you anything physical. Maybe you get like an icon to put on your desktop.
DRE: A laurel.
NS: Yeah.
DRE: Not that you ever censored yourself but do you ever feel any responsibility to an editor once you started getting into papers?
NS: Well, I always try and do the best work that I can. Of course you dont always do the best work that you can, but you certainly try to. I definitely felt certain allegiances to certain editors like Jeff Koyen, when he was editor of the New York Press. He did a lot of stuff for me in his time there and his time outside of the New York Press. He started as a production manager at the New York Press and he was a big fan of my comic. He was known for doing the zine Crank in the early 90s so he started putting ads for my comic on his Crank website. When he left the Press and moved to Prague, he started editing a paper there. Then he was able to get my comic in Prague for two years while he was editing that paper. Then he came back over when the paper got sold and became the editor of the New York Press. I really felt like he had gone out of his way to do a lot of stuff for me. When he was editor of the Press, hed give me covers all the time. I didnt want to move over to The Village Voice even when there were some issues with the New York Press in terms of payment and things like that. As long as he was editor, I was always like Yeah, I owe him.
DRE: Where should a person that wants to do a comic strip start?
NS: Its a really tough field right now because anyone whos going to do something thats controversial or that isnt your daily paper stuff, has to get published in these alt-weeklies. The alt-weekly market sucks right now. Things like craigslist are making a lot of ad revenue going way down so these papers are just shutting their doors. Every other week theres some paper closing down or in financial trouble. Also if you look at the papers, a lot of them have the same comics already so a lot of these doors are already shut. With that in mind, you just have to do what you can. Send your stuff out to the papers. If they dont want it, you put it online and you build up an audience and maybe at that point theyll start seeing that your stuff is good or that youre getting more recognition and then they will run it. For instance I was in this monthly paper called The Toilet Paper in Colorado, which lasted almost a year. It just closed like a month ago. It was great paper though. The editor there, Noel Black, used to work at whatever the alt-weekly is out there. I think its the Colorado Springs Independent. He was a big fan of my comic and I think had tried to get it into that paper there and he always got shot down. So when he started his own paper, I was one of the first people he contacted. I think you get a lot of younger guys like that who want stuff but just get shot down. I think as they rise in power or start their own ventures, hopefully theyll pick you up and do things with you. Outside of that you can take a look at making a living on this online stuff. Its hard to do. You dont really make money on the online comic. You make money off of the merchandise.
DRE: How tough is it to build an audience?
NS: For an online comic I dont think its that tough to build an audience. The more frequently you update, the easier it is to build an audience. So if you were to update every day, youd probably get a pretty big audience after awhile. Since people are so incredibly bored at their work they just want to log on and read something. I dont even feel it has to be that good necessarily for people to read it. Its like Oh, let me just take five minutes and go read that comic. Its not that good, but its got this cute little donkey. I like the donkey. Hes funny. So theyll just go on as a time killer. The more you update, the more that happens.
Thats my theory anyway. I have absolutely nothing to back it up. Im talking purely out of my ass here.
DRE: When do you post a new Wiggles?
NS: Usually late Sunday night, early Monday morning. Officially its Monday. So my biggest numbers are on Mondays.
DRE: When we last did an interview you wouldnt let me take a picture of your face. Thats changed now obviously.
NS: Yeah, Ive gotten past my reclusiveness.
DRE: How come?
NS: I was always apprehensive, thinking Im doing these dirty comics and I really dont want people to know what I look like or associate me with that because maybe itll ruin their enjoyment. Sometimes youre picturing the artist and youre thinking, Oh, hes like probably this really badass dude and this total anarchist. Then you see the guy and hes just some regular dude. Hes got a sweater vest on and youre just like, What? I dont want to read this comic. Like that scene in Ghost World where they go to the Dan Clowes signing. So I was just really paranoid about that. Now Im past that. I think thats just some maturing on my part. Feeling more comfortable with myself.
DRE: Now that you have steady girlfriend and are happier, is it tough to make the angry bear?
NS: Yeah but theres always something to get pissed off about. Whats harder is writing jokes that you havent already done before. Youre sitting down and youre like, Man, Ive got a good dick joke. Then youre like Goddamn it. Ive done like 200 dick jokes. Does the world really need another dick joke? Im trying to look at this dick joke from a completely different angle. Nobodys ever done a dick joke like this. Then youre like, But its still a fucking dick joke. Ive done 200 of them. So you start trying to find something new with it. It gets tough. It also gets tough because Ive done 350 of these things so you want to push the characters a little bit more and push the humor a little bit more. But youre also still trying to keep whats relevant while you and your audience is maturing. But it is also not something that you can consciously think about. Its more like you just have to think, Whats funny today? Whats funny that I havent done yet or that I might have done but I can do in a completely different way? It means I have to work harder but I dont think theres actually much of a difference in what you see in print but more of whats in my head.
DRE: Whats the new storyline?
NS: Wiggles gets a girlfriend.
DRE: Is it a person?
NS: It is not a person.
DRE: Is it a surprise?
NS: Its not a surprise, but lets just say he builds his ideal girlfriend and shes not everything he thought she would be.
DRE: Then wackiness
NS: And zaniness ensues.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
courtneyriot:
I first discovered Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles just strolling through my local comic book store and I saw the cover of the first collection. It was a happy little teddy bear smoking a cigarette watching a dog on fire. I knew automatically this would become one of my favorite comic strips. Its been...
xenophobic:
i love neil swaab. he's a funny, funny bastard.