[Editor's note: this discussion was recorded at the end of 2003. Some outdated references have been preserved intact so as not to alter the flow of the conversation.]

You can read the first part of this discussion here.

NEIL KLEID: We were talking about Peter Bagge. I think all humour comics today owe a nod to him, but something Cheese mentioned to me recently was, "When do people stop being funny?" Because Bagge's mainstream stuff that he's been doing recently, SWEATSHOP for DC and the SPIDER-MAN thing for Marvel, they weren't that good!

CHRIS RADTKE: Man, I swear if he wanted to dole out crap the rest of his life, he'd still be great because he created one of the best underground comics of all time in HATE. What I find disappointing is not that YEAH and SWEATSHOP weren't that funny, but that he had some guy apeing his style. I think even the last two issues, he just wrote it.

CHEESE HASSELBERGER: Who did the last two? I remember Stephen DeStefano did the first ones...

KLEID: Bill Wray, I think.

HASSELBERGER: So why not just have Bill Wray draw like Bill Wray? Because he's amazing.

KLEID: Don't you think that was the thing though? I mean, in the end the book was about a guy who has other people write his comics, and other people draw them...

RADTKE: Ooooh, the irony...

KEVIN COLDEN: Maybe he's really a genius.

RADTKE: There's also this... Well, look at HATE. In that you had the Buddy Bradley character, and you could read it and point and say, "Look, it's me!" With SWEATSHOP you didn't find that. All the characters were nice enough, but they all had these elements about them that were really unlikeable.

MIKE DAWSON: I don't think Buddy Bradley is the most likeable character either. It's his flaws that make him funny.

RADTKE: But we get the same criticism about our book. In GABAGOOL, there's four assholes in it. And I think it was Johanna Draper Carlson, she came up and said, "There's no one in this I like". And I think that works. I mean Buddy Bradley was a dick, but he was still likeable.

KLEID: Back to accessibility and women in comics... I noticed at SPX a lot of women walking around with BEG THE QUESTION, Bob Fingerman's comic, which is very porn heavy.

RADTKE: It's a great book, but yeah, heavy on the porn.

COLDEN: Do you own a copy and can I borrow it? I'll have it back to you in five minutes, maybe less.

KLEID: No, It's fantastic! I would put it up there with BOX OFFICE POISON as one of my favourite books. It's not sad boy, but it's realistic! I just feel that when people hear the words "porn comics" they immediately think, "Oh no, I can't touch that". I was talking to a guy this afternoon who buys a lot of the Oni/Slave Labor type stuff, and today the TRUE PORN book hit the stands. He was telling me, "Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to buy it because I don't know if it's really smutty or if it's like poignant romance autobio stuff. And I don't think I'd want it on my shelf in case somebody sees it". And I'm like, is porn wrong?

COLDEN: He reads a comic, who's going to see it, his mom?

BRIAN MUSIKOFF: If it's good, no. If it's bad, yes.

HASSELBERGER: What's the difference between good porn and bad porn? To me, good porn is the nastiest shit you can buy!

COLDEN: Now are you talking in general, or just in comics? Because you're talking to King Porno here. I worked in porno for two years.

RADTKE: What?! What did you do in porno?

HASSELBERGER: Fluffer.

COLDEN: I did the graphic design for DVDs.

RADTKE: Which company?

COLDEN: New Machine Publishing.

RADTKE: You know Randy West?

COLDEN: Not personally. The closest I ever got was I talked to him on the phone. But the fact that you not only know who Randy West is, but also which company he runs, is awesome. You've seen my work!

KLEID: Uh, guys, comics...

DAWSON: Yeah, BEG THE QUESTION... It's not like that's real smut... I mean, even REAL PORN wasn't y'know, real porn. I don't imagine anyone sitting around spankin' it to any of it.

COLDEN: I got aroused.

HASSELBERGER: "Careful Rachael, there's semen there..."

RADTKE: Now I wanna go on record and say, I live for Randy West, but I can't read porno comics. I find...

KLEID: Would you call BEG THE QUESTION a porno comic?

RADTKE: No, I wouldn't.

RADTKE: To me, porno comics are something someone's gonna read and spank off to.

DAWSON: So, one thing I'm still not sure on. Do you guys think there's something wrong with the scene as it is right now?

MUSIKOFF: I think the scene is flooded, there's just too much out there. I'm not aware of half the stuff out there so I can't possibly be a critic. And you have to buy and consume and read, and there's a lot out there to read. I'm not upset by that. I just think it's gotten huge, and there's a lot of stuff to weed through.

'I think the scene is flooded, there's just too much out there.' HASSELBERGER: Yes, I think the market is flooded. Yes, I believe the market is flooded with utter and complete crap. Not all of it, I think the majority of it is just ego. People do these things thinking people are going to want to read it, and to tell the truth, I just don't care. I don't care how many shits a guy takes in a day, or how another guy might love this woman that will never love him. I just don't care. I have my own issues to deal with. For me it has to be entertaining, and diaries by boring people aren't entertaining. I mean there's a lot of drama stuff in all of entertainment, but I don't sit around watching...

COLDEN: THE PIANO.

HASSELBERGER: ... THE PIANO, well there's that. But they don't make movies about boring people. I think in comics, because it's so accessible and so open to it, and there is such a glut of that stuff, that people are that much more willing to get into comics to tell their 'important' stories that I don't give two flying fucks about.

RADTKE: So Cheese, if someone wrote a comic about how many shits he's taken or the woman who will never love him, but they told a good story and did it in an interesting way...

HASSELBERGER: Well that's why I didn't say all of it's bad, I just think the majority of it's bad.

RADTKE: There are a lot of bad storytellers is what you're saying.

HASSELBERGER: I think the majority of storytellers out there are bad. I think ninety per cent of people get into it because they think it's easy and they really haven't studied the craft. Even some of the more popular people out there in the indie scene, I think are still feeling their way through the storytelling side of things.

KLEID: Sure there's a lot of crap out there, but back to what Radtke was saying, what about - and I love these kids - the FLAMEBROILED kids. If you don't know them, it's these two kids who come to every convention with their dad, handing out mini comics about how they met Harvey Pekar. And the drawing is bad...

DAWSON: It's like thirteen-year-old drawing...

RADTKE: ...But the guys can tell a joke. And that's what makes them so endearing.

KLEID: And they're the nicest kids around too, they just walk up to you and ask, "Do you like minicomics?" And you're like, "Sure, I love minicomics!" And he goes, "Here then, take some of mine", and walks off!

But to answer Mike's question from earlier... Do I think comics are in trouble? Well, yes and no. I think I'm like Radtke, I'm a big Team Comics kinda guy. If you wanna make a comic, great, go ahead. My problem is, I don't think comics challenge people anymore. I don't want to read another journal comic. As a reader, I want to read something that's challenging.

DAWSON: And you didn't find JIMMY CORRIGAN challenging?

KLEID: No, I like CORRIGAN, but I know people who couldn't finish it.

HASSELBERGER: I'm waiting for the Reader's Digest version.

DAWSON: I think you have to be very comic literate to get through it.

KLEID: I want to come home from Jim Hanley's Universe with a copy of NICK FURY, a copy of OPPOSABLE THUMBS, a copy of SCROOGE McDUCK and a copy of JIMMY CORRIGAN. I want a diverse range of stuff, but I want it to challenge me, not treat me like an idiot.

There was a big to do last week, and I know Cheese is gonna get in on this with me. Johnny Ryan did a strip called THE GAYTRIOT and everyone got all up in arms because it was offensive to gays, but it leads to the question, "When did comics stop being funny?"

MUSIKOFF: Who got up in arms?

HASSELBERGER: Specifically some of the people from PopImage, whom we did some stuff with that we like, but we disagree on this.

RADTKE: I'm gonna kick Ed Mathews' ass!

MUSIKOFF: Oh no! There's no boxing in comics!

RADTKE: Except long boxing...

HASSELBERGER: I would pay to see that, because it'd be the worst fight ever.

KLEID: On the other hand I'm a Jewish creator...

RADTKE: Yid!

HASSELBERGER: Rouse! Jüden!

KLEID: Yes, I've read MAÜS, but I've also read Grant Morrison's NEW ADVENTURES OF HITLER. Which, y'know whatever, it's entertaining... I hear Jon Stewart wrote in his book, what if Hitler came back and did an interview? It's not offensive, it's funny, and I'm not offended.

I just read that Judd Winick is doing a book with Farel Dalrymple through DC called CAPER. It's about Murder, Inc. in San Francisco - a four issue mini series - and the front cover had this dead guy and a the blood dripping away forming the shape of a Jewish star... and the internet went nuts! "Oh, it's so anti-Semitic, oh we hate it!" But it's like, it's about Jewish gangsters! Everyone's just so damned touchy nowadays!

HASSELBERGER: Why do you guys think there are no comics out these days like the original underground stuff? Why did they die out so completely around the late eighties and early nineties?

RADTKE: I think what was being done in the late sixties and seventies - the Crumbs, Vaughan Bode, a lot of the National Lampoon cartoonists - had never been done before. The only cartoons you had were your MICKEY MOUSE and your SPIDER-MAN. So it was new and original, and I think that stopped being original by the time the early nineties came around. I think that everything original has been done, so now it's a matter of if you can stand out above everything else you can escape being covered in crap.

COLDEN: I think the indie stuff is becoming the new mainstream, and the danger is it's being run by people who have no appreciation for the craft. Cheese?

HASSELBERGER: Well, let me change that to what I think will become of it... I believe that we've hit a period where everything has been stagnant for a very long time, and while comics are getting more appreciation in the mainstream I think there's still very few things coming out that are interesting. But I can see that changing. I saw a lot of stuff at SPX that was in the right vein, a lot more so than the year before. A lot more outrageous stuff. One thing, for example, was FUCK FARM, a little sixteen-page mini. That was great, a lot of fun.

KLEID: There was some really odd stuff too. There's Harris O'Malley, who does a book called BETWEEN THE CRACKS, which is this sort of precious book about angels... And so, for whatever reason, he did a mini about angel porn!

HASSELBERGER: Got my dollar.

KLEID: My title for SPX this year was The Year Of Sex And Drugs.

HASSELBERGER: Without anyone actually having either the sex or the drugs...

DAWSON: Well, I don't agree with any of you guys. I don't think the underground was about being the new thing, I think both the undergrounds and the mainstream both came of age in the sixties, and both were revolutionary just as the whole culture was at the time. In the eighties there were a lot of reactionary comics, superhero parodies, people rebelling against the mainstream as they saw it. And what I think what happened in the nineties and is happening now, are many people who do their work with no connection to the mainstream whatsoever.

I think that's why you see a lot of poetic non-narrative comics. And a lot of them are bad, I agree with that, but I think there a lot of things coming out right now, such as JIMMY CORRIGAN... No, actually that has plenty of references to mainstream superheroes in it, but I feel that's what we're doing now. And I don't think it would necessarily be a good thing to go back to the sex and drugs thing because the sort of, "Fuck You!" radical explosion has already happened.

'I think ninety per cent of people get into comics because they think it's easy.' KLEID: I dunno that when I say underground I really mean sex and drugs, I mean something new. Something that hasn't happened. But on the other hand, now there's that feeling that anyone can do comics and they think, "Well what kind of comic should I do?" And they look around and see what everyone else is doing and they just start doing that. I think that if there were some more of these types of books out there, and not just the sex and drugs or dicks and farts, but humour stuff then I think more people would be into them.

DAWSON: What I want is a good satisfying read. Sure, there are a lot of anthologies and art object comics out these days, but it's rare that I come across a really good, solid read. They're out there, just not as much as I would like.

KLEID: the problem at this years MoCCA show was there were all these art object books - KRAMER'S ERGOT, BLANKETS, et cetera - and then you had a guy like Scott Mills, who had some of those things but then he also had these little minis that were more sex, drugs, rock and roll, that he was much more proud of. And my question is, why isn't he pushing that? I mean, I've seen TRENCHES, about Word War I, and it was WHITE DEATH by Robbie Morrison. I wanna see the stuff that they do that's smaller, more personal... More unique.

RADTKE: I think for me, everything has already been done, so what I'm looking for now is how it's being done. I'm in search of good stories. It doesn't matter if... I mean, there are a thousand books out there about a group of nerdy guys and the shit they get into, like GABAGOOL! And I think what has to separate us from the rest is good stories. It doesn't matter if you're doing sex and drug comics, elf comics, or slit-your-wrists sad boy stuff. Whatever the fuck you have, as long as it's a good story then I think it's good not only for me, but good for comics as a whole.

DAWSON: That's why mainstream comics are completely entertaining.

RADTKE: Like what you were saying about the undergrounds separating from the mainstream. I mean, Marvel is putting out books on a level they haven't done in twenty-five years. I think the stuff coming out now and in the last four years are some of the best superhero comics ever done. They're doing the same sorta superhero stories, but they're good stories.

KLEID: Now what are we talking about, like NICK FURY like the regular book, or NICK FURY MAX, which is basically NICK FURY with tits?

RADTKE: I'm talking about the Ultimates line. I am a huge superhero dork, and the Ultimates line has been really mind-blowing. THE ULTIMATES, like the first five issues up until the Hulk went nuts in Times Square? That was like the best Avengers story I had read since the Masters of Evil destroyed the mansion back in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue.

KLEID: That was a great story...

HASSELBERGER: I hate to admit it, but I have that one where they destroy the mansion.

KLEID: What about a guy like Dean Haspiel... I mean, he does stories about getting the shit kicked outta him while he's on crack!

HASSELBERGER: Well, that's an autobio story I can get into. I can see myself spending half an hour reading about a guy on crack. What I can't fathom is me spending half an hour reading about a woman who fucks her way into a nice apartment in Mexico.

RADTKE: I love that book.

DAWSON: I disagree, for me it's all in the telling. I don't think Dean's is any better just because it's about him on crack.

KLEID: Some journal comics are fun to read, and then some are "I went to the store today... I bought milk..." I mean, look at James Kochalka. Sometimes his journal comics are okay, and a lot of the time they're boring, but sometimes they're...

HASSELBERGER: 9/11 explosions?

KLEID: What I can't abide is when his comic is, "Today I drew another page in my comic".

RADTKE: Okay so you mention Kochalka, and you may not like him or whatever, but you have to admit he has a good sense of humour. Does that mean I go out and buy everything he does? No, of course not, I have some disagreements with how he operates. But what I do appreciate is that some of his stuff makes me laugh, and I can deal with that.

HASSELBERGER: I think a lot of the autobio stuff coming out is done by people who just aren't living interesting lives.

DAWSON: Did you enjoy THAT POOR BASTARD by Joe Matt? I find that to be the standard that all autobio should be held up to.

MUSIKOFF: I just wasn't interested. Not that I wanna slam anyone on this, but...

RADTKE: It's my favourite comic book of all time.

HASSELBERGER: All time? What, no SECRET WARS?

KLEID: I really like Tony Consiglio.

RADTKE: Tony Consiglio is hands down the funniest guy in the comics business.

MUSIKOFF: He did a back up in GABAGOOL, right?

COLDEN: Oh, did he do THE MAD SHITTER? I love that one.

KLEID: Do you guys think people take offence too easily? I mean you guys bust on me all the time for being a Jew...

COLDEN: Jew!

KLEID: Exactly. It's not a personal thing. I don't think you guys are...

HASSELBERGER: You're gonna cry now aren't you?

KLEID: I'm not gonna make it out the door...

COLDEN: I love Jews!

KLEID: Yeah, well your girlfriend is Jewish.

HASSELBERGER: I thought I was gonna marry a Jew, I work for Jews, thanks to Brian I am sharing a house with a Jew. I am, in many ways, the hero of the Jewish people.

RADTKE: I love Sabra.

HASSELBERGER: The obscure Israeli super hero?

KLEID: Ahhh, Sabra I love you!

HASSELBERGER: Was her only appearance in CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS?

RADTKE: No, she's in THE HULK!

KLEID: I think every minority out there has to just lighten up a bit.

MUSIKOFF: That's a valid statement

COLDEN: Especially those white men.

KLEID: Yeah all those eighteen-to-forty-five year old white men. Goddammit, lighten up!

MUSIKOFF: What is the future of underground/independent comics?

'The definition of underground comics is something that pushes moral standards.' RADTKE: The future of indie comics is exactly what has been happening for the last thirty years. As long as people are making comics that are good, I think it'll keep going just as it has. And when people say it's the death of pamphlet comics or whatnot, as opposed to graphic novels or trade paperbacks... I think so long as there are disgruntled kids who pick up a SPIDER-MAN or a Peter Bagge book, and go off and tell good stories, then I think comics are here to stay.

MUSIKOFF: I hope it gets a little smaller because I think if there's too much, and the quality suffers, then perhaps people will get disappointed because of a glut of not so good stuff. On the other hand, I think as more people get into comics, whether it's kids in school or whatever... You never know what's gonna happen, so I dunno. I dunno.

COLDEN: I actually disagree with Chris. I think the future lies in trade paperbacks, as long as there are well told stories and well drawn stories then it doesn't matter if it's commercial or not. I think "commercial" means that you're actually trying to create something that caters to the most amount of people, but I think if you make something that doesn't, and it finds an audience, then that's what is gonna be good for everyone. Things like HOUSE OF TWELVE and MAULED and GABAGOOL! are good reads, and that's the key. Entertaining, well told stories. The End.

HASSELBERGER: The definition of underground comics, which we never actually pinned down tonight, is something that pushes moral standards. And we're at a point in this country now where moral standards have been rolled back to a point of, maybe not the Middle Ages, but for sure a pre-seventies standard. So, I think the books that push that envelope are defined as underground comics. And from what I saw at SPX this year really got me in better spirits, because I saw a lot of that stuff being made, which is good. And I think that all the art books, precious objects, auto bio, sad boy comics...

KLEID: Aren't there any sad girl comics?

HASSELBERGER: All girl comics are sad. That's so bad... I'm going to hell for that one, that's so not true. Anyways. There's a lot coming out of New York now, a lot of cartoonists have moved to New York recently, so I think there is a chance that New York might become a hub for a new underground movement. Something more politically viable and morally reprehensible.

KLEID: My opinion is kinda what I touched on before, that it now lies in the minicomic. I think there is a lot of focus on the minicomic now, and that it really has a chance to change the industry. Look at GABAGOOL, it started as a mini and is now a full comic and soon, hopefully, a trade paperback. Look at the students at the School of Visual Arts who all copied and folded their own minicomics, the MEATHAÜS guys, the HI HORSE folks, HOUSE OF TWELVE, MAULED, and so on. A lot of people are just picking up and doing it themselves and that's what changes things.

I don't know if it's a content issue or not. I know when Cheese and I discussed underground comics before we talked about Johnny Ryan, Tony Millionaire, Danny Hellman... people who are doing comics about sex and drugs. And people say that's underground. But now I think you have such a building up of genres, the 'new mainstream' people like Oni and Slave Labor, Alternative Comics, and then your self publishers and indie guys... I think that's who's going to change things. For better or worse I can't say, but I think over the next ten years it's going to be interesting to see what happens.

DAWSON: I feel like there are good comics out right now, and there will continue to be good comics. It's just a case of the cream rising to the top. In the end, I think the question of whether there's going to be a new underground is irrelevant. I think craft and story are gonna win out, just like how throughout the history of comics there have always been good comics and bad comics. There are a lot of experimental comics and unstructured stuff out there, and I think that's all good. Because when it snaps back, I think a lot will have been learned.

Cheese Hasselberger is the publisher and mastermind of HOUSE OF TWELVE comics.

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