In Hoopleville, there are powdered whales and tilt-a-whirls. People hit each other with hammers and have blimpophobia. Hoopleville’s newsletter has been appearing in select Portland locations since last October.
Hoopleville comics creator, Dave Kish, stopped sniffing his markers long enough to answer some questions for The Free Press last week.
The Free Press: So Hoopleville is one huh? How long have you been drawing Hoopleville?
Dave Kish: I’ve been drawing these wheeled characters for a long time; it began in high school as a way to stay sane in suburbia and make my friends laugh. But last year, after 10 years practicing as a draftsman, designer and artist, I decided to see what would happen if I pushed Hoopleville as far as I could. The funny thing is that Hoopleville has reached and affected more people in one year, than a decade of “serious” art did.?There’s a lesson in that, I’ll be discussing it at Longfellow Books this Friday.
FP: What can we expect in the new book?
DK: The new book is a touching story about a cabbage moth named Mick. It is short and sweet and it rhymes.?It reads like a children’s book and it has a moral…kind of.
FP: What is the population of Hoopleville?
DK: It’s bigger than a bread box, but smaller than a significantly larger breadbox.? I’d say it’s not small nor big…but growing.
FP: How many square inches of Hoopleville Comics have you drawn?
DK: If I just count the square inches of the final drawings on paper or vellum, the best I can figure is 30,000 square inches.? But the original sketches and thumbnails and hundreds of other things I drew but didn’t develop, are probably a factor of five times that.? Plus all the things I drew on walls, arms, bits of cardboard, structural columns, chalkboards and such are at least another 50,000 square inches. So, I guess I’ve drawn around a quarter of a million square inches of Hoopleville. I’d like to improve on that.
FP: Is there a presidential election in Hoopleville? If so, who is favored to win?
DK: Hoopleville has a mayor.? He hunches over and wears a sash, even though he doesn’t have to. His eyes are yellowed-possibly from some secret vice. There will be an election which just might be decided by the Hoopleville
Supreme Court. The challenger Bruno is currently very popular with young voters.
FP: Do you dream about Hoopleville?
DK: No, I dream about horrible things and then I draw those things, Hoopleville-style, and I feel better.
FP: Why do Hooplevilles have wheels?
DK: Frankly, I’ve been afraid to ask them that; I don’t want to piss them off. You know how touchy people are these days.
FP: Is there a drug/alcohol/teen pregnancy problem in Hoopleville?
DK: It’s one of the best things about Hoopleville! We also have problems with illiteracy, vanity, greed, random fatness, stubbornness, scrofula and Jumping Out Of Window Syndrome.
FP: Do any Hooplevilles attend USM?
DK: Yes.
FP: Why do you draw Hoopleville?
DK: To make a better mirror.? Seriously, what better thing can an artist do than teach people about themselves. I never have to look far for material; every day I meet people who seem completely ludicrous.?Maybe they don’t actually have wheels instead of feet, but they are rolling back and forth like a Mexican jumping bean on the poop deck.?And maybe they sleep with blow up dolls instead of Swiss cheese, but what’s the difference??When people tell me (and they often do) that a certain Hoopleville character reminds them of a certain real person, I know I’ve done my job.
FP: What does your audience think about Hoopleville?
DK: I’m truly surprised at how many people seem to totally “get it.”? Meaning: I’m using classic Surrealist techniques to blend high-brow and low-brow commentary into a carefully designed package.?Then, there are the readers who don’t think of any of that and just find them funny because they can relate to the situations or characters.?And then, there are those who are pretty straight-laced people but laugh anyway and are surprised that they are laughing!?I’m actively courting all three groups.
FP: What kind of cupcakes do you have?
DK: I have cupcakes the color of blue-green algae.