It is a great old start to the week this week as we bring you not one but two What The Author Says articles from Abby Denson and Tim Fish. In fact, Tim’s piece is a double-barrelled WTAS piece because he has his new collection Something Fishy This Way Comes due and also a complete collection of his acclaimed Cavalcade of Boys due to come out (no pun intended) which will please a lot of readers (a good volume to have next to, say, your Love & Rockets volumes on the shelves, or Abby’s Tough Love). Not content with this Tim also has a new digest edition of Strugglers due this summer, with extra pages of new story and art.
On Something Fishy This Way Comes
Some people think they’ve figured out what sort of guy I am from reading my graphic novels and Web comics—how wrong they are! While I probably shouldn’t admit it, SOMETHING FISHY THIS WAY COMES is a far better window into my soul.
Folks discovering my work sometimes say, “wow, you came out of nowhere!” which puts a wry smile on my face, because I’ve been drawing and publishing comics for years. Admittedly, coming of age in a rural setting, pre-Internet, and with no money, put limits on my ability to share the full range of my work. Many factors played into the printing of this book, my fun-spirited attempt to reveal a bit more of what has escaped my readers’ attention. Some of the offerings are comedically bad, and some are newer and better.
I didn’t start doing sequential work until I enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of New Hampshire. I drew strips for the college paper, and mini comics one to three pages long. These were a side venture from my portfolio work. The strips were, well, pretty bad. A quick three panels or pages is not my forte. Over the years I’ve definitely improved.
It was fun to look back at the newspaper strips I included in this book, bringing back many memories. I also revisited some old stories such as “Hop To It!” and “Joey Mundane” and added new pages of story and art. Included are the mini comics I’ve created to sell at comic conventions, and several new and never seen before ditties.
When you finish reading SOMETHING FISHY THIS WAY comes, you’ll have no doubt about how I feel about kids; the only bodily function I find amusing; which cartoons I loved as a kid; and probably a bit more still. Oh yeah, I hope you enjoy it, too.
On Cavalcade of Boys:
It’s difficult to summarize everything I could say about CAVALCADE OF BOYS. As my first big-time venture, I produced over 500 pages of material in just over 3 years, while I was also working a day job. I learned so much about writing and publishing, the series is certainly an evolution of me as well as my work.
I think it’s fair to say that when I wrote and drew the original segment (which was a pitch to magazines as a serial), I was in a fairly negative mindset about men, and dating. As I completed the first issue (intended as a one-shot at the time), it was painfully clear I had painted myself into a corner. It was a real challenge to turn the story around and infuse a bit of hope into it. Despite that, many readers really connected with the material and asked for more. I ultimately produced 9 issues, and several stories for anthologies that fit into the CAVALCADE world.
Over time, I was applauded for condemning certain behavior, and criticized for condoning behavior—the very same behavior! It was really interesting to me to see how readers interpreted the stories, and my personal views about the situations and characters. But really, I was doing my best to imagine the types of people we’ve all encountered in our dating lives, and think of what they would do when they met certain other people.
While I have been enjoying other comics work since I finished CAVALCADE (mini comics, a bit for Marvel, and a graphic novel in progress), I also really miss the series. It will be some time before I can get back to the guys, but rest assured, I am already plotting and planning.
Tim Fish
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