Naughty Funnies: An Interview with Dexter Cockburn

avr. 15

Temps de lecture : 9 min

117

Three decades of adult underground comix output is nothing to scoff at. Vancouver-based Dexter Cockburn can certainly claim that merit. May it be football training, a haunted house, prehistoric discoveries, gnome shenanigans, a goat’s misadventures or even swiss cheese, any context is fecund with great sexual feats and an overall good time. His work continually demonstrates that, yes, so-called funnies can be fun and sexually enticing, and that’s alright.

Cockburn, the self-titled “chief cook” behind the Comix Company, is continuing his contribution to the british underground culture through Hoopla Comix, a new series published through Black Ink Comix. He’s some sort of acting ambassador for Canada’s underground comix industry, if you think about it for a second. Couldn’t think of a better representative!

Q: You’ve been highly involved with the UK underground scene, even to this day. Where did that relationship begin and what keeps you coming back year after year?

I grew up in England back in the 70s and early 80s - we actually bounced back & forth from the UK to Canada because of my dad's businesses - so I've always had a love of British comics. Years later, when I started collecting Undergrounds, I built up a fair collection of UK titles and I was really happy to discover a new group of artists to admire!

Now I'm working with Leslie Wenlock from Black Ink Comix and we're planning on launching a series called Hoopla Comix which will feature a mix of brand new Dexter Cockburn comix along with some out-of-print material. This will help satisfy our fan base in the UK and, hopefully, across Europe!

Q: It’s not just the UK scene you’ve been involved with, but also the Australian underground scene! The farthest I can find about your involvement there is 2009. Tell us a bit about how you got involved with the Aussie folks?

I haven't been too involved with them as of late, but they're a great crew! I contributed the odd comic to Stu Stratu's Blackguard series, but nothing recent. Stratu was also behind Sick Puppy, which was a great - and twisted - series! I'll never rule out heading back Downunder, though!

Q: You published some incredible female artists. Right off the bat, I’m thinking of Carrie Q. Contrary. Do you think it’s still hard for women to break into the underground scene or has some progress been made?

I think there are some amazingly talented women artists out there, and they should definitely be lauded! I'm of the notion that if a comic is good, and it turns me on, then I don't care if the artist is male or female. I think we should celebrate art and the creation of such - and be grateful that people are still making it, regardless of their sex. That said, some of my favourite female artists are Carrie Q. Contrary, Phoebe Gloeckner, Kelly Campanile, and Kayla E., and Sadie Bella.

That said, some of the worst pushback from a comic that I've published was due to a story called Shameless that appeared in Carrie Q. Contrary's Hot Little Cut. To be fair, the brunt of this was put on Carrie, but Dan Fogel also got a few knocks, most of which came from John Thompson, one of the UG Comix pioneers. Of course, Thompson thought that Carrie and I were actually the same person so I really didn't put much stock into his comments.

Trina Robbins also voiced displeasure which was surprising because Carrie showed her the comic thinking that she'd be supportive. I guess there are still some things that women shouldn't discuss in polite comix company - especially around other women. She should've sent it to Phoebe instead! I won't expand any further on this, but I still have all the emails which I will release when I'm six feet under, or if there's a good book deal!

Q: You contributed to plenty of anthologies. Just in the past three years, I can think of Pus zine, Zine-Tail, Spread Love Comix. But some are pretty obscure, such as Nicolas Meija’s Youth Authority no.2 (but we do hope it gets known a lot more, it’s a thoughtful series). How do you find some of those anthologies and make sure your art aligns with their editorial line?

I really do enjoy contributing to different publications, and I'm at the stage where I don't really have to show a portfolio and wait to see if I get vetted or not. Folks who know what I do will ask me to do it for them, and pretty much give me carte blanche.

I do occasionally work from actual scripts - in the case of The Trenchcoat Crowd from Youth Authority #2 - but most times I'll be given a concept and I can run with it. My days of rejection are pretty much over - of course, it helps that I cherry pick my publications so as to minimize any let downs.

Q: In late 2015, you began work on your very own webcomic series, The Mloff, inspired by Jordi Bayarri’s Enchantae. Throughout the following two years, you came back to this series for a few chapters (a bit more than 180 pages so far!)

Did you envision this series with a specific plot and endgame, or did you just ride this story through the years and see where it led you? Also do you intend on coming back to this story in the future?

I wish I had Jordi's discipline. I have a few hundred pages of The Mloff that still need to be published but can't until I come up with the bridge chapters to connect them. At least I've been occasionally serializing them in my Goofy Funnies series.

I've given up on having them in webcomic format - mainly because I'm too lazy to colour the pages for posting, and also because I can't keep them up with any regularity. It'll all come to fruition... eventually. Hell, I haven't even introduced the main critter - the Mloff of the title - yet!

Q: With each story you write comes along a strong array of contextual quips. Just recently you had a caveman story where a guy and two girls “invented” the threesome and described the guy’s dick as feeling bigger than a T-rex’s. Why are you so fond of quips and how quickly do you come up with these?

Very quickly. I love wordplay and innuendo and bad puns. My comix are, for the most part, sex comics so I want to keep things moving and interesting for the viewer. Adding some jokes or little eyeball kicks (chicken fat, to Will Elder) helps to keep the comic from being mundane and repetitive.

Q: Do you still rely on Paint for your coloring process or have you upgraded to Photoshop? What’s your process for selecting your color palette?

I do. I'm a technotard, so I'm sticking with MSPaint. I choose a very basic palette just to give my work an old-time look, so I don't go too crazy with adjusting my RGB values.

Q: You’ve been hard at work for several decades and the sketchbooks must be piling up in a storage closet somewhere. Do you still have your 90s sketchbooks? And have you ever considered scanning and selling those?

Everything in my 80s and 90s sketchbooks that survived multiple moves, a divorce, and my own attrition have been collected in two slim publications: Doodlin’ Funnies #1 and #2. During my cocaine/uppers years, I produced a huge volume of comix pages - some of which were published back in Ontario - but I destroyed most of them during a binge of self-hatred back in the 2000s. No great loss as the quality was sub par.

That said, my only surviving sketchbook was given as a gift to a friend of mine years ago. I do have a large number of binders in my closet, though, and they are jammed with penciled pages, partially inked pages, and completed stories.

I just discovered a binder with over 200 pages that I had sketched out 15 years ago when my kids were babies. I have no recollection of drawing any of it, but I just finished a 13-page comic - The Magic Pillow - that was part of it.

I also have my art broker, Jesse Campbell, who has about six binders full of my original art. I'm sure it'll all go for 1000s a page once I've shuffled off this mortal coil...

Q: Brand marketing is nothing new for you, and the means to push your products have changed with each passing decade. What would you say are your best marketing tools at the moment? Is marketing your books easier today than it was, let’s say, ten years ago?

I've pretty much relied on social media & word of mouth. Marketing nowadays in this fashion is harder because social media algorithms favour those who pay for their checkmarks or have a marketplace set up. I'll just keep posting when and where I can and see where that takes me. I've been fortunate to have built up a substantial fan base, so I'm grateful that they're sticking around with me!

Q: There’s a renewed interest in zines and underground culture across Canada and that interest also translates into conventions. You did a few conventions here and there. Do you like the convention experience? And do you feel you get a fair amount of exposure from these?

I've done the occasional convention - Robin Bougie & I shared a table at the Fuck Art show years ago and that did well, and I also tabled with Carrie Q. Contrary at VanCaf back in the day - but they seem to be too much work for what they're worth.

I'd really need to be hitting multiple cons throughout the year, and I just don't have the funds to allocate. Also, my stuff also has to be VERY carefully displayed or else folks will start running for their safe spaces in terror!

Q: I remember Bougie once writing it was a hassle dealing with adults at conventions telling him he shouldn’t be doing the kind of art he does, as it was too explicit and not suitable for younger audiences (duh). Uncle Gil, editor of Spread Love Comix, also revealed in an interview he would sometimes receive angry private comments or emails about the explicit nature of his anthology. Is that something you’ve had to deal with too?

I have, but in this regard I don't suffer fools gladly. I'm generally a polite person, but I pretty much tell them to fuck off if they don't like what I do. That gets rid of them fast. Too many people try to take the diplomatic and apologetic route and all that does is lead into a discussion or argument that you never wanted to have in the first place.

I draw cocks and cunts and it's not that difficult to figure that out off the bat. My comix certainly won't get mixed up with anything drawn by Johnny Christmas or Doug Savage, so they can have the youth market and I'll keep the open-minded pervs to myself!

Q: I want to ride on Bougie a bit more. In 2022, he released Mount Pleasant. In his introduction, he writes about how he met Rebecca, the love of his life, and is clearly thankful she’s a positive force in his life. In 2011, you confided in an interview about your own love story with your significant other. You’re a father too! Have you found balance between your work, your family and your art or are you just kind of juggling all the time between those three?

I'm now separated. She's a wonderful woman, and a great mother, and I love her dearly, but we're just not meant to be. I have a gal, and we've been together for a while now, and she's incredibly supportive of my work and is a perfect fit with me emotionally.

My kids are now teenagers so that gives me more time to get work done - there certainly was a period of about 10 years where my productivity was down due to my parenting duties, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Q: You and Robin Bougie have been best friends for several years now. He’s clearly one of the key individuals in your life that encouraged you to publish and do more art, get involved with the scene. What’s the origin story of this long standing friendship?

Bougie was the first comix person I met in Vancouver back in 2007. It was at a comic jam (the Vancouver Comic Jam - check them out!) that was held at a Japanese restaurant on 2nd. He really helped me to get a toehold with the Vancouver scene as well as recommending a printer to me - I still use them to this day! We've also published two volumes of Dirty Deranged Doodles. There's still a third volume percolating and I really hope we can get back into it some day.

I don't get to see him as often as I like, but he's a good dude and is putting out some great stuff (Gutter Hunter, Sonic Sewer) over at: cinemasewer.storenvy.com

Q: You contributed an important piece to Uncle Gil’s Slice of Life anthology. It shows how difficult it was for Uncle Gil to distribute your work, despite having an honest and real passion for it. Do you feel it’s still difficult to get a foot in brick and mortar businesses today, similarly to how hard it was back then? Or do you see some openness?

l'd love to see my comix in more places, but I'm delinquent when it comes to doing the legwork and knocking on doors. That said, you can find my comix in Atomic Books in Baltimore, and Push/Pull in Seattle. Gotham Central in Mississauga did have a few of my books - they might still be under the counter if you ask politely - and I'm also on a few shelves in the UK, courtesy of Black Ink Comix. I will do wholesale (with minimums), and split the shipping if any brick & mortar places are reading this...

By the way, Uncle Gil was and is a HUGE supporter of my comix - and a great friend - so I'm ecstatic to see that he's got his publishing biz, Spread Love Comix, up and running and is attracting some great talent!

I'd love to see head shops start carrying Underground Comix again - now that weed is legal here, they won't have to worry about getting busted. We can only hope!...