Saturday, May 05, 2012

Space Ducks

I've told the story here before about how I met musician Daniel Johnston back in 1986, in Austin, TX. How he spotted me in McDonald's, then found me later at the Austin Chronicle. He even introduced me to Rick Linklater during those three winter months I lived in Austin, and we all went to see a Bunuel movie together at UT.

This was all so long ago, and seems unreal now. If I didn't have cassette recordings of me interviewing Daniel in his little room behind Dobie Mall, if I didn't have a stuffed donkey named Balthazar that Rick won me at Coney Island skeeball in 1988, I'd almost think these were dreams. Or delusions, same as most things seem to be decades later.

I used to try to get Daniel to draw an entire comic when I worked at Marvel, but it was impossible to get him to concentrate, and back then I couldn't justify him using Captain America.

I'm impressed that someone pulled it off with his new graphic novel, Space Ducks. And almost not a single Cap reference in the entire volume. Okay, one.

My hope now is that Marvel will eventually print another issue of Strange Tales. They use alternative cartoonists for these, and I'm sure there would be room for Daniel to draw a Captain America short story.

In the meantime, here is Space Ducks on display at the BOOM! table at MoCCA last weekend.







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