If you’re a comic book nerd like me, then you might have been at the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art convention back in June, checking out the variety of big-name and indie comic artists, writers, and animators. While wandering around on the second floor, I found Things I’ve Seen At Shows, the punk-influenced independent comic by artist Allan Norico. It’s an awesome and funny look at the staples of weird behavior from people you don’t know but always see at shows. Last week, he was nice enough to sit down with me and put up with a recorder in his face to talk about art, music, and working in video games.
What first drew you to art and comics and animation?
Allan: I tried to always do something creative. When I was in college there was a lot of good music going on at the time. I was doing very uncreative things, mostly business and I was a law major for a while. Being in New York is good because if you are creative, it keeps kicking you in the butt to do creative stuff. Comics was mostly a lark. It was a way to fund some other independent creative projects I’m working on, mostly in the video game industry. It was a way to develop merch and also remember the really good times that I had going to shows in New York, which are still some of the best memories I’ve ever had. It was a good marriage of doing art and liking music and remembering the shows that I used to go to.
Read the rest of the interview after the jump.
How’d you start out?
Allan: I was coming off the end of the Silicon Alley dot com bust. I’d been working a lot in that area with new technology and stuff and I ended up dropping out of school to work for an Angel-invested startup group doing language translation software. It was all technical sort of stuff. It was between 2002 and 2004 that I ended up going to Florida to learn how to make video games. I really wanted to stay up with new technology like video games, and I could draw, so it made sense to learn more about it. I went to school there, learned to make video games and to make art for video games. When I came back to New York, I realized that the industry for making video games was really tiny. New York is good in that sense that everything comes really hard, and if you want to do it, it makes you question why you’re doing it and strengthens why you’re doing it. Video game development is a very large corporation-type deal. It was kind of neat because the client list I was getting, and this was all through friends from school, like they might need a concept artist for a week of work or some design, and it was all remote, and it felt DIY, and that was kind of cool. I can really relate to companies and creative types that are just trying to create something out of nothing. That’s kind of how I got started. You gotta build equity with certain clients and they’ll come back to you over and over again.
So tell me about your comic Things I’ve Seen At Shows.
Allan: My girlfriend told me she’d bought table space at MoCCA [Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art], and that we should make comic books. The biggest motivator to do a comic book about music and character design is having a loved one buy table space at a festival and tell you that you’re making comic books.
One of the bigger independent comic and comic/animation artwork conventions in NY, too.
Allan: Right. She’s really into the scene, more than I am. She knows a lot of artists who were showing art there. She went to SVA [the School Of Visual Artists in Manhattan]. She knows Becky Cloonan, and Raina Telgemeier. What was really funny was that we had two months to put the books together and I had no idea how to print it [or how to] put it together. I knew I wanted to do something with music and I’m not much of a writer so I figured little blurbs with snippets about things I’ve seen at shows made sense to me. I remember the majority of shows I went to. The most memorable moments, sans the music, was always the people. The culture of night people coming out and hanging out with people I didn’t normally see in my neighborhood and share space with them for like an hour or two and it’s cool. I remember that there were just these eccentric kids that I’d see, and I’d always have some sort of note in my head to do something. So Things I’ve Seen At Shows became is this good mash of taking all these ideas. Also, I always wanted to do a zine, so I took a kind of zine sensibility to it. I put together ideas and thoughts and I had some sketches that I’d made after coming home from shows, just little notes about funny things I’d seen and made some friends with people who work at Kinko’s.
This is all very DIY.
Allan: Oh yeah. This guy from Kinko’s, I’m working with him on this video game. We all have day jobs; I don’t know what they do to make a living. One of them it turns out works at the corporate headquarters of Kinko’s in Wisconsin. I traded him about three grand worth of artwork for all my printing. The book is really nice. He got the nice paper, did all the binding himself, and he’s worked on my girlfriend’s book too.
Yeah, it’s a really fancy, pro-looking book. And I think the great thing about it is that it’s the common in-joke of going to punk rock shows. Like the first page opening up, I remember that kid (“Street-Team Guy”). Except at the shows I went to sometimes he was always like “Hey, you wanna buy my mixes? And I’d look and tell him, “dude, I have all these songs already at home!”
Allan: Yeah the merchandise guy was definitely the first thing I designed. Just because you go to a show and you see him outside and he’s smoking a cigarette, probably with the guy checking ID’s and you don’t know at first what he’s doing. You figure he’s just a buddy, and then an hour or two later he’s still out there. You’re wondering, “has he been out here the whole time?” And it’s always inclement weather, and he’s kind of sad, and he’s trying to hock merch to you. I didn’t really go to shows with money to begin with, I spent it all on tickets. So I felt bad but it was kind of funny at the same time because I knew I’d see him next week at another hardcore show, so that was kind of like my quiet tribute to those kids and that DIY ethic. They have this product and they put it in their bags and go to the city and they get their hands dirty with it. I can appreciate that. Now when I come out of shows I’m a little more tolerant. I’ll talk to them and maybe buy some stuff.
You ever get any feedback from people who have read the comic and said, “DUDE THAT’S TOTALLY ME!”
Allan: I’ve been appreciating the feedback I’ve been getting from people that had no idea what the book was about but saw it came with a CD and liked the bands on there.
What do you think about music going on today, the “scene” for lack of a better word, especially here in NY? I know that you mention in the comic that you very much identify with the “reunion show guy.” Do you think that it’s making a comeback or will it become the domain of the “reunion show guys?”
Allan: Well, it’s funny because I like new bands that sound like the old bands that I love. I’ll go out and support the new music if there’s something I can relate to on some level.
Anything in particular these days you listening to that you like?
Allan: The last 10 songs I listened to are the next three shows I’m going to. A lot of Rise Against. A lot of Ignite. Alkaline Trio’s playing in NY soon, I like them a lot. I’m also gonna see Iron and Wine. A lot of stuff coming out of Canada like Wolf Parade and The Arcade Fire too.
Anything in particular you reading these days?
Allan: I’m reading a lot of books that have somehow been able to fill the gaps in my education since I’m a college dropout. I’m reading two great books, all have to do with entrepreneurial ship and small business and how that’ going to save the economy. One’s called The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. The other’s called The Four-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. It explains how outsourcing is not bad in the global scheme of things. I’m supporting a lot of small business books right now that give a global understand of how the economy is and how that filters down to artists like me and freelancers that aren’t in large corporate settings. As far as fun reading, I’m re-reading a lot of science fiction that I’m doing little visual projects into. I’m a huge fan of Neil Stevenson and I’m re-reading Snow Crasher and Cryptonomicon. Those are probably my two most favorite science-fiction books. I’m working on little visual development projects on those books, drawing characters and elements that might be turned into something one day.
Any chances of seeing more issues of Things I’ve Seen At Shows?
Allan: Yeah, totally. I have been so surprised and happy and thankful that it’s received a lot of positive attention by people that are just into the art, and also the kind of bigger corporate entities that I derive work from. We’ll definitely see another issue of Things I’ve Seen At Shows, and hopefully an issue of Things You’ve Seen At Shows. People have far better stories than I’ve ever had, so it’s gonna be interviews, representing an eccentric cut of music out now. As far as projects in the future, [there's] one I can’t really talk about right now involving Buddyhead, and the other will be Things You’ve Seen At Shows.
Favorite show you’ve ever seen?
Allan: Probably At The Drive-In when they opened for Jimmy Eat World. I never imagined seeing JEW or ATDI on the same bill. That show was at the Knitting Factory and could definitely not hold the amount of people in there. I saw a lot of comradery and a lot of strangers getting together and enjoying the music safely and it was a great set. I’ve never seen a singer throw a guitarist across the room, and it was very rock and roll.
You got any advice for people looking to break into freelance art and animation like you?
Allan: Try not to think about it as doing one particular drawing or getting one particular gig that will make your career. Just keep drawing and remember it’s about mileage. How often you put pencil to paper or tool to digital tablet. That’s what counts. It’s very much a long-term plan as opposed to a short-term plan, but just put your hours in.
