Seattle Weekly: Which do you prefer, “comix” or “comics”?
David Lasky (cartoonist): “Comix” is OK, but it implies underground-ness. I like to think I’m making “overground” comics, but I could be fooling myself.
You’ve drawn everything from Belle & Sebastian lyrics to Pres Young’s porkpie hat, but what music do you actually listen to?
I love Beethoven. There would be no Led Zeppelin or Clash or Pixies without Beethoven. He was part of my elementary-school curriculum. It was a disco version of his Fifth Symphony that first made an impression on me, but in college, I learned how he broke all the rules of composing to make the music he wanted to make. To us, it’s “classical,” but at the time, people were like, “What the fuck?”
Hendrix is another staple, right? Have you ever visited his grave?
On my first day as a resident of Seattle. The grave marker was all over television in the commercial for Singles, so I posed the way Matt Dillon did and had someone take my photo. It was cheesy, but I had to do it.
In the new Hotwire Comix and Capers, edited by the widely respected New York artist Glenn Head and published by Fantagraphics, you illustrate the story “The Last Days of Joe Strummer.” When did you first hear the Clash?
That would be back when “Rock the Casbah” was a hit on rock radio. I didn’t really start listening to them till around 1989, when a college roommate had Combat Rock on a homemade cassette. That’s still my favorite Clash album. Favorite song: “Ghetto Defendant.” While working on the comic, I listened to a lot of Clash songs. Eventually, I had to stop and play something else.
Why haven’t you drawn any female artists?
A magazine wanted me to draw Sleater-Kinney as superheroes fighting the Beastie Boys, but [the magazine] changed their mind. I have all these ideas for bio comics—Ronnie Spector, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf—but reality limits how much I can actually get done.
Reality? You deliver bread, right?
Yes. I go to work at 3 a.m. I’ll usually spend an hour or so in the Ballard Library after work, take an afternoon nap, get up to make some dinner, and try to sleep a little more. It’s a weird existence. I draw primarily on weekends, when my sleep schedule reverts to normal.
What makes good bread?
Good bread, as with good comics, as with good anything, is made with integrity.
And your favorite sandwich?
The current favorite is turkey and Swiss on hominy bread. Toast it in a toaster oven; add mayo but no mustard, lettuce, and tomato. Mmmmm.
