Start with FZ, End with ME

Right now I'm taking a vacation in Florida, visiting my family and such. Traveling cross-country means I spent most of yesterday in airports and in the air. I used this time to read a big chunk of Barry Miles' Frank Zappa biography. I've been plugging away at it for months. I am an incredibly slow reader. No matter the book I usually only get through a few pages a day. I tend to take a long time just taking it in. I'll often read a couple paragraphs and then reread them just to make sure I got it all. Yesterday I got through about 70 pages, which for me is a goddamn miracle!

Despite everything I--as a committed Zappa junkie--already know about the man, Miles' book has given me much more insight into him not as just a musician and composer but as a person. FZ died when I was 13 so I wasn't old enough to know what he was doing when he was still alive. I'd read and heard many stories about how poorly he treated those around him but this book brings it out much more clearly. FZ's music has been my biggest artistic influence and it's so strange to finally understand that when it came to people he was barely more than a cold businessman.

What's even weirder is that despite his desire to create product that would sell he constantly produced material that couldn't possibly be embraced by Mainstream America. He often complained about how much he had to pay musicians and yet he created bigger and bigger bands that often failed to make a profit. He was his own worst enemy, whether he realized it or not. I think much of this came from his complete disgust towards American society and consumerism. He loved the ideas of freedom in America but hated society's hypocrisy when it came to allowing truly free expression. An interesting example is a beautiful orchestral piece he wrote, one that orchestras around the world would theoretically love to play--if he hadn't titled it "I Promise To Not Come In Your Mouth." No respectable orchestra is going to print that on their playbill, in just the same way that no "respectable" comic book company is going to put out a book called "The Morning Fucker."

I see a lot of Zappa's attitudes toward freedom and art and society in myself. However this does not mean I believe Zappa's work gave me the ideas I have. Rather, I believe that his work allowed me to realize that I can and should express myself as freely as possible. This brings me to another point.

Much of Zappa's work includes explicit sexual lyrics. He loved to write about sex, especially of the sexual adventures and tastes of the guys in his bands. However, in song these stories were rarely sung from the point of view of Frank himself. It was always about things other people were supposedly going (i.e. "I have this 'friend' who's really into such-and-such.") He would never acknowledge that this stuff might somehow be related to him psychologically. And hey, guess what? I have this same problem!

Everything I write is from the point of view of my characters and I rarely freely claim their tastes as my own. However their tastes must come from somewhere, right? How can I say my comic is personal artistic expression when at the same time I tell people "Oh, that's just my crazy character, haha!" At some point I'm going to have to make a decision and just admit "hey, this is all me." But I'm not ready to do that yet. It all has to do with me still being uncomfortable with myself. Maybe one day I can be happy with who I am and what my art says about me. But I'll probably need some help with that.

Anyway, back to the whole commericality vs art thing. This is something I really need to work on. "Pope & Pig," "Satan Funnies," "The Morning Fucker," "Two Goats Bathing in Milk"....do any of these titles say "mainstream cash" to you? At the moment they're barely providing and "niche cash." Actually, none of them are. Only "Load" is. Trying to get any comic into alternative papers is an uphill battle, but trying to do the same for one about sex and love? Good luck, pal. I'd love to say I'm going to rethink my work and attack it from a different direction, but honestly, I've always gone where my desire for expression takes me. I'm at the mercy of whatever it is that makes me write the things I do. I don't know if that's my passion or my spirit or my ADD or my OCD or my fetishes or God or Satan or the Celestial Tranlogath. Whatever it is I go where it takes me, whether that's drawing a comic about boner pills or doing a portrait of a cute little kitty cat. It's all me, baby. Although for the record I do not need boner pills!