This is an interview about Mickmo’s upcoming project, Bug-Slayer. The responses he had really surprised me. I sat down with him on a blackened evening in his apartment to talk to him about it. He was watching some Twilight Zone episodes at the time and enjoying the company of his red spotted black cat, Pumpkin in late June of 2001. Enjoy.
Mistress Venusia: So tell me about the concept behind Bug-Slayer.
Mickmo: Well Bug-Slayer is about the working class but it is put in the theme of a futuristic time, around 2030 or so. It is humanities struggle against real life and struggle, set in a distant apocalyptic time. It was a comic book that I really wanted to do for a long time, roughly about 10 years. But i wasen't set financially to do it and it was not quite developed till now. I guess I decided to start on this when I had a really vivid dream about it, It was like watching a movie or something and i didnt wake up for like 12 hours because of it.
In the beginning Bubba Frank (the main character) looked sort of like Ziggy from the comic strips. He sort of got a nose job! (Laughs). He underwent a few changes along the way but I held the ideas back when I was doing stuff like Tales of Retribution. Even Trish went through some changes along the way. She is just a smarter character then she used to be. I wanted to call it Insect-Killer but I went back to its original name.
Mistress Venusia: So what caused a new style in your art?
Mickmo: I went back to take a Photoshop class from a guy who got his masters from the Kansas City Art Institute. I swear I learned more from him in one semester then 2 years of drawing and painting classes. He always would say my stuff was too dark and creepy, but thats just the way it came out. I dig deep out of my subconcious to do the stuff I do. When I did Ambiance: the Dark Graphics of Mickmo, I had to make the stuff more dreamlike and photographic. So that made people take notice.
Mistress Venusia: What do you think about the current state of indie comics right now?
Mickmo: I want to say its all a budget/who want to back you thing. Most of the people who do indie comics have to work a regular job. So that sort of dictates how much goes into your book.
Mistress Venusia: Why was there so long a gap in between Tales Of Retribution and the one your working on now? It is going on roughly 4 and a half years.
Mickmo: I was not ready for this comic until now. Usually when I do a comic, It is based off a nightmare that I had. Sometimes the stuff either scares the crap out of me or just really facinates me. But either way it sticks with me in some way.
I waited awhile because I wanted Bug-Slayer to have a sci-fi look of some type. I was hovering broke and I had priorities to take care of. I was having to get my life in order a little bit.
The old publishing company, Lybra Comics, sort of broke up.
Mistress Venusia: Will you be doing any comic shows in the future?
Mickmo: The funny thing about comic shows is this, you go there and you sit behind this table and you almost see it through a different scope. After I heard about some kid killing himself because of something I did in Tales Of Retribution, I was just shocked. I didn’t thing something like that could have such an impact. That was one of the reasons why I didnt want to do a book.Then letting me go from Planet Comicon 3 really sucked for me. It is something I just don’t want to go through again. Oh and plus the fact that I sucked when it came to drawing Spider-Man for kids. (Laughs). Well there was this guy wo came there in a Superman suit supported me, so I gave him a book! I had to take a picture of that!
I didn’t like the stigma about it at all, because I could barely hold a normal job for awhile. It was really tough for me for a good 8 months. Things did get better after the struggle.
Then I realise this. The guy who ran Planet Comicon was just a middleman anyway. As far as I know, he has never contributed or pushed a comic book. He just orders from a catalog and pushes a sale. I don’t feel as if I was allowed to be myself at that show. They should just end up calling it Planet Monopolycon! (Laughs). But aside from that, I was just really distraught.
Mistress Venusia: Thats freaking hilarious!
Then I heard about how a 50s celebrity was signing stuff at a show he never even wrote or drew or published or anything like that. To me that’s just not right cool. You know there are people who work really hard on projects who get little recognition.
Mistress Venusia: I agree with that.
But Planet Comicon, the original, was really cool! I wouldn’t trade that expierence for anything. But the last cool thing that happened was my Ambiance website got accepted to Relapse Records and Century Media's website. I thought it was really nice that those guys were in support of me.
Mistress Venusia: Yeah I Think there should be some more shows geared towards small press.
Mickmo: I think the lesser-known guys who do comics should get more support from people in all of this. At least in smaller shows. There are a whole world of underground press people who really have good stuff. This includes zines and other forms of expression. There should be more small press expos all across the country. You would get smalled crouds but the people there would be way more openminded and they would be cheaper shows, maybe even free shows. If this becomes a more sought after scene, then I will gladly be a part of it, at least some time in my lifetime.
So don’t count on my comic being in like a Barnes and Noble or anything. It’s only going to be a one shot deal because it it self-published. Hell I am just glad its going to be out there. But I feel like its going to be really cool. If there is a second one, it will be called Bug-Slayer 2: The search for more money! (Giggles). But this project has normal characters in it who are in an extraordinary circumstance.
Mabye it will become more like the underground metal shows, I have a lot of respect for those guys. Well at least you can go to my links section on the Bug-Slayer page and sign up for my webring. It is both for small press and metal heads alike! The lesser known you are, the more then likely thats your cooler then all of the clones out there.
Mistress Venusia: So what do you think about Previews anyway?
Mickmo: I think it can be good if you can afford it, but damn its expensive all the way around. The distro can be the hardest thing about a book. But your end result is this, just get the stuff out there! If you can sell it, thats a step in the right direction. So I encourage anyone to at least give my books a try. I hear about indie guys getting broke from Prevews. Call me old fashioned but I there has to be a better way. Either way it equals out.
You have to just get it out there to somebody!
Mistress Venusia: So do you feel your imagination haunts you?
Thats an interesting question. It can haunt me. If I am sitting in a room by myself, the visuals of bad things that happened to me just get to this point where they can be very disturbing to me. Now these are memories of abuse and death and things that i grew ip with. I try not to let it get to me sometimes, but sometimes those events are where I get my most powerful visuals. But sometimes the more i think about the swirl of bad events, the more i need and outlet for it. Some days I just lash out in terror, because it mounts on me sometimes.
Mistress Venusia: So who are some cool guys in the comic book scene?
Mickmo: I am really into the Richard Corben stuff, anything he does is awesome, but I am also digging on quite a bit of the foreign artists who do stuff in Heavy Metal Magazine like Aspiri. Of course HR Giger is a demented genious. But I take everything I ever saw or learned about and i just blend it into my own. My stuff is really spontaneous. The images just comes out on its own. I don’t want to forget about Alonzo Washington, he’s a pretty good guy. And I cant forget Wes Bencoater and his stellar artwork. I grab stuff from just about every infleuence in art.
Mistress Venusia: Well I better let you get back to your comic and your life, anything else you want to add in.
Mickmo: Yeah support the true underground scenes and stay brutal! Thank you so much for the Interview! Here goes with page 4!
Interview conducted by Mistress Venusia
