Portland resident Ben Bishop is living out every 12-year-old boy’s dream – drawing comic books, designing action figures and making his living doing it.
Bishop celebrated the reissue of his first graphic novel, “Nathan the Caveman,” at Coast City Comics during last week’s First Friday Art Walk.
The book, which was first published in 2008, opens with the discovery of the title character’s remains. From there, the comic follows the present day story of an artist who falls in love with the woman in charge of an exhibition about the caveman and his paintings. The narrative draws parallels between the present-day lovers and the Caveman’s own love story, using the relationships to explore the connection between creativity and loss.
The reissue boasts better paper and image quality, giving the black and white pages a much richer look. “It’s what the files look like on my computer after I scan them in,” he says as he compares the slightly paler dot printed pages of the old book to the glossier laser printed ones in the new edition. “It’s so much better than the original printing.”
Bishop has drawn a different cover for the new edition, something he hopes will entice people who already own the book to buy another copy. As further incentive, he is offering free shipping on orders for the new edition to people who show him a picture of themselves with their old one. The new cover shows a more muscular Caveman, a look that ties in with the Caveman action figures Bishop has begun creating.
“This is the first time I’ve done action figures just because I’ve gotten into customizing lately, which is really nerdy,” he says as he cuts a small loin cloth out of a square of fabric and attempts to fit it to a nude Caveman figure. “I’ve been making Mega Man action figures out of other action figures [and] as I was doing it I thought ‘oh, I should make a Caveman one, that would be super easy,’ and of course it wasn’t–it’s taken me forever.”
Once he has more figures, they will no doubt join him at the numerous comic conventions he attends each year. So far, Bishop has had tables at twenty conventions since Nathan the Caveman was first printed. Although a spot at some of the conventions can cost $500 or more, Bishop sees it as a worthwhile expense to pay for the people that you meet there. One person he met at a convention ended up writing a piece for MTV.com that suggested adapting “Nathan the Caveman” into a film. “I can’t really picture it being a live action movie just because of the caveman aspects,” Bishop says with a shrug, “I think it would work really well as a Disney animated movie like they did [with] Tarzan a few years ago.”
Another reason he is being careful about adapting his comic is because of what it would mean for his control over his work. He recently turned down an offer from a company who wanted to publish both “Nathan the Caveman” and his upcoming book, “Something Like Falling”, because the company wanted to own the copyright to both comics.
Although he wants to sign with a major publisher, Bishop is not worried about waiting for a better offer to come along. He is also unconcerned with the recent trend of popular culture wanting super heroes in their comics. “I’m trying to get it published, and, in the comic world, they don’t want super heroes,” he says. “But in the movie world there’s a lot of that being made” He is quick to add, however, that “there’s a lot of movies coming out that a lot of people don’t know were comic books, like ‘Road to Perdition’ and a ‘History of Violence.'”
Bishop believes that just putting his work out in stores and on tables at conventions will grab people’s attention because of the fact that he writes, draws, and publishes by himself. “When people come over to the table it’s easy to interest them because they go ‘wait, this is a comic?’.it’s just like a real life thing.”
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To order “Nathan the Caveman” or take a look at Ben Bishop’s artwork, including the first 30 pages of the upcoming “Something Like Falling,” check out www.BishArt.com.