@’s by ONE MODEL NATION’s Courtney Taylor-Taylor!!!
Hey out there in comicland! It is I, superhero, here with a small e-chat I had with genuine rock star Courtney Taylor-Taylor (of The Dandy Warhols) regarding the re-release by Titan Books of his comic/graphic novel project ONE MODEL NATION. The book came out last month. You can check out my review for it by clicking here! It’s a decent read and I recommend everyone give it a try.SUPERHERO: Firstly, please let me apologize for incorrectly typing the name of you band, The Dandy Warhols in my review for ONE MODEL NATION. It was an honest typo and I should have noticed it before I submitted it. I hope it didn’t offend too much.
COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR (CTT): Thank you--that’s quite all right. And by the way, did you mean to say "your band..."
SUPERHERO: Sonofabitch I did it again!
From what I understand this is another edition of a book that was initially released from Image comics. Why a new edition? Why did you do it through Titan Books?CTT: Lance Kreiter at Dark Horse was into getting it into other countries, so I guess he talked to Titan first. A couple months later this British kid shows up at a Dandys gig in Chicago and said he worked at Titan, so we hung out and had a pretty amazing Halloween night together. I guess that’s how that started. BTW, that dude is JP Rutter and he's awesome.
SUPERHERO: It seems as if ONE MODEL NATION was initially envisioned as a movie project. Now that it’s a graphic novel are there any plans to revisit the movie project? Or have you moved on from that?
CTT: My friend Dan Berry has started animating a scene from the book. It’s the same scene that is on Youtube under the title "ONE MODEL NATION ANIMATIC" (, which can be seen by clicking here!) but he is now hand-drawn-animating that scene. He says it’s almost done so maybe look for it in a couple weeks if you remember.
SUPERHERO: What challenges were there in getting the comic together? How did it differ from, say, getting one of your albums out? Did you find it difficult at all to find a publisher or was it easier for you being that you are somewhat of a celebrity?CTT: Well, the whole thing has been a series of other people’s ideas that I just actually followed through with, kinda. The first book was Mike Allred leading the charge, and this was Lance, then JP. It was really confusing to me transferring it from basically a play to being a comic, so Joe Keatinge did most of the grunt work and I just kinda went "um, okay I guess we'll just see". Then, of cours,e a lot of damage control at the 11th hour. I'm glad I got the chance to fix a few more things in this Titan version, too.
SUPERHERO: How did you find your artist, Jim Rugg? How much input did he have to the story? How much input did you have as far as the art was concerned? How does your comic writing process work? Is it panel-by-panel full description or sort of an old “Marvel-Style” kind of writing? The reason I ask is because on the cover of the book the credit is “COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR with Jim Rugg”. I was just wondering if that was because it was your project with Mr. Rugg as a “hired hand” or if it was determined that your name carried more marketing weight?
CTT: I chose a few first round draft picks to send the script to, but he was getting to be pretty hot then, so we really didn’t think we could get him. Because of the 70’s layout in AFRODESIAC I knew he was really the guy, but whatever. Anyhoo, he emailed me back and just said, "Hey, man, I really want to do this". Um, really? Sweet, so great. Here we go. Jim and I worked out the look and feel of the world and characters and then we got started. Jon Fell (colorist/ralf) would get Jim's thumbnail sketches on Monday at noon and we'd get on the phone with Jim and go over any changes, like which side of his body would he walk the bike on or is she less angry here and whatnot. Then we would get to see the final art that were last week’s thumbnails. I can't seem to stop saying how awesome that was. To see this thing taking form and becoming a living thing--wow. I’m addicted to that feeling but just hadn’t quite had this particular drug before.SUPERHERO: How did you get into comic books? Can you remember what your first comic was? If you are still reading comics, what are some of your current favorite books?
CTT: I was way into MICRONAUTS as a kid. THOR and STAR WARS, too, but they weren’t nearly as cool. Then again in the mid nineties, because of Matt Wagner (GRENDEL), I got into a lot of the new styley graphic novels a bit too. A bunch of my friends have worked at Dark Horse over the years so I've always been aware of when anything stupendous came out. Mike Allred's RED ROCKET SEVEN is my fave. I really dig The Pander Bros BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT series. And for sensitive little indie guy I dig BLANKETS, but if you don't have time for a zillion pager get NUMB--its short.
SUPERHERO: How much of your own musical experience informed what happens in ONE MODEL NATION?CTT: Well, not much, in a way. Well, then tons in a way. Although “Transmission” is my only song on the record (EDITORS NOTE: An album for the fictional band ONE MODEL NATION was released on January 31st of this year) I still ended up doing a lot of klanging on bicycle frames and general mix-shaping. The record is mainly the other three dudes, cuz I spend tons of time in the studio anyway and they were having such a lot of inspiration. This record was quite a freeing-up experience for me. There's nothing like working on a project with people who consistently blow your mind--the trick is usually just letting them do it.
SUPERHERO: Why set ONE MODEL NATION in West Germany in the 1970’s? What is it about that era that made you want to set your story in that time period? Why make the Baader-Meinhof Gang a particular focus of the graphic novel?
CTT: We set it there then because of the style of music and film and anti-fashion that came out back then. Donovan and I were both art Germanophiles as teenagers. The Baader-Meinhof Gang were something that one can’t avoid when discussing 70’s Germany, as far as I could tell.
SUPERHERO: There’s some pretty direct commentary on media in ONE MODEL NATION, aimed mostly at opinion or review columnists. How do you balance making that sort of jab at that type of writer while at the same time possibly needing them to get the word out for whatever project you’re working on?CTT: I like to make stuff. I'm doing this interview right now instead of working on some chairs I've designed. Do you wanna guess which I'd rather be doing?
Unfortunately a lot of people are counting on me now to do these, cuz when it was fun and creative we all decided to let people "put it out" and wouldn’t that be fun. Ya see, I don’t like the "putting it out" process; therefore I don’t think about it much ahead of time. Besides, who's gonna give a shit about a fictional German art noise band that disappeared in 1978? So SURPRISE, here I am two years later not building my chairs cuz I would be letting down my friends in the band and my friends who are working to get this out if I didn’t do interviews. It’s a good thing I don’t mind doing it...it’s just that I prefer building chairs.
As for critics, the fundamental problem with the "critic" is built into the job description: run your mouth off about things you're not good enough at to do professionally, assigning a value to it, and nobody can say anything about it. It is important to me that not only "everyone" be aware of this, but that the people who are fucked up enough to want that kind of cop job need to be aware as well that they have some real issues with not getting enough air time and need to take it up with their parents and/or a therapist. Now that everyone can comment on everything, it’s not so bad. We've seen all the comments from all the useless fuckwits of the world, so folks understand a bit more, but in the 70's or for me the 90's can you imagine how infuriating that kinda crap would've been?SUPERHERO: Are you working on any other comic/graphic novel projects? Or is there anything else you’re working on that you’d like to mention here?
CTT: Oh I've always got a lot of shit I'm doing. It very nearly keeps me from clinical depression.
SUPERHERO: Well, that’s it! Be sure to check out the graphic novel ONE MODEL NATION as well as the CD, both of which are available now at all the best multimedia outlets!
Discovered as a babe in an abandoned comic book storage box and bitten by a radioactive comic fan when he was a teenager, superhero is actually not-so mild mannered sometime designer & cartoonist, Kristian Horn of Los Angeles, California. Some of his work can be seen at www.kristianhorn.com and check out his blog at www.parttimefanboy.com. You can check also out his webcomics at www.babybadass.com and thediplomatics.com, which is currently in development.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
