Pants Crapping

John got in touch a while back because some folks want to screen Root Hog or Die in Minneapolis at a real theater, and they're asking for a '50-minute edit' to make sure it'll be up to snuff. Crapped pants #1.

#2 was when Kelly Froh (whose comics I love) got in touch about screening it at the Short Run Festival in Seattle in November. This was fine -- THEN SHE ASKED FOR A POSTER. That's when everything hit home, hard.

Anyway, I have to get back to actually editing, but here are two posters I made yesterday. I'd love some feedback!

Gonna make, gonna make it, gonna make it......

I'm still pouring through tape -- and there are three more interviews I need to conduct -- but I'm getting there. As of yesterday, I'm up to 50+ minutes of basically edited content for the movie, most of which is John P., and I have about three hours of non-John P. interviews edited down.

Chatting with Crystal about it last night, I made the claim that if, given a full weekend, I could come out of it with a 70-90 minute movie that would be pretty good.

My plan from here is to:

- finish the interviews - it'd be tempting to skip them, but I need to interview John's second wife, Misun Oh, John's artistic blood brother Patrick Porter, and Felt Pilotes bandmate Doug Miducki, so not insignificant content there. This will require a trip to Denver and a trip to Albany, NY. Fun!

- finish editing - by June 30, I want to have ~200 minutes of usable good film. If you're keeping track, I'm currently at 230, but I need to add to that pile (the interviews mentioned above), plus I haven't really touched on any of John's illness', which I need to do -- I presume that'll be 20 minutes or so. This means that by the end of June I need to get up around 350 minutes, and whittle it back to 200.

- final editing and sequencing - this is taking those 200 minutes and cutting them down to 70-100. This is July. In July, I also need to finish editing the bonus materials.

- August will be spent doing the final mastering to make sure everything looks good, the sound is as good as can be, and then producing this in whatever way it's going to be produced -- do people still use DVDs?

Then we premier at SPX, and move into a fall tour. Exciting!

Music and John

I had the pleasure of chatting with Doug from Built to Spill at his show in Wilmington, DE recently. Doug's a comics guy, and we always have a nice chat about that. I told him about the documentary and -- without missing a beat he said -- 'I love that guy! We played a show with him back on our first tour!'

Doug went on to say that he remembers John as being super friendly and that he sold comics at the show which were really good. Anyway, kind of neat the way the universe works. I looked it up and, yes indeedy, on Built to Spill's first tour in '94, they played the Club 156 on the CU Boulder campus for $5 with Felt Pilotes opening up.


I then remembered this gem. I love Luna, and when I lived in Denver in the 90's, I'd see this poster for sale from a '95 show at the Fox. I didn't know John P. of King Cat was in Felt Pilotes, I just liked that the opener was seemingly named after a pen (not true).  I really regret not buying it now.

I also dug up an article about FP opening up for Guided by Voices on their swing through CO in 1995 as well. Kind of neat!

I bring this up because dealing with John P. and King-Cat is one thing, but man, the music thing is another. He was in many great and legitimate bands. Smile, FP, T.A.C. -- bands that played lots of shows, toured, put out records -- the whole deal. It's a little hard figuring out incorporating some of that into the doc, outside of peripherally.

But I'll get there!

In the meantime, here's a clip I'm trying to get Paul Westerberg's manager to let me use for free. I think I can post it here without pissing anyone off, but Darren, let me know if you want me to pull it for now.

Black Squirrel

While driving around the Moon Lake subdivision in Hoffman Estates with John, we created this gem of a clip. 

We were driving by the house he grew up in from 1979-86, so if you love Perfect Example, October, or any of his other middle/high school stories, this is the neighborhood for you. 

This clip sums up many of my favorite things about John. In pointing out the deck his dad built (which I'm sure both father and son have some pride about), he gets super excited upon seeing a black squirrel. After the squirrel interlude, he answers a question asked an hour earlier. The line that gets me is, 'I can't think I've ever seen a black squirrel….'. It's hard to describe, so I'll just let you watch what I think is a really funny and touching clip which won't make it into the final project. 

A King Cat review thirteen years later

I've been obsessively reading and re-reading King-Cat related stuff of late, and I just have to share my opinion about the 'best' issue of King Cat. Let's not say best. Let's say, the issue that I've read the most times, and the issue which always brings tears to my eyes and a smile to my face.

Back in January of 2001, ole John P. put out the incredible King Cat Comics and Stories #58 for the extremely fair price of $2. It was the middle of winter in Elgin. John was living at 212 N. Melrose in the Sears model home he'd purchased in 1998 (and which he would leave in 2002). Maisie K. indubitably curled up nearby while John wrote and drew the stories that would make up this issue.

King Cat #58 is a strange one, by KC standards. No Catcalls. No Snornose. No Top 40. There's nothing cute about this issue. This one is all heart. 100%. The issue is comprised of five simple (and nearly perfect) elements:

- the cover drawing of a tall bare tree on a sparsely populated hill
- 'An open letter to Dough Mioducki' - John thanks Doug for a letter and check and then describes being sad in one short paragraph
- 'Forgiveness' - a 31-page story about John as a boy getting a sling-shot, killing a bird, and that fact eating him up inside, until he emotionally explodes after accidentally sending the dog into the basement after a ball. This story grips me every time. The secret shame you have as a child when you do something wrong. Without an adult's ability to rationalize, justify, or simply not care, a child can be so susceptible to agony over wrong-doing. This story is gut wrenching every time I read it, and when I asked John about it one time, he told me it was one of the hardest stories he'd ever written, because he still felt that shame about the bird. I believe he said he'd been trying to put out that story for years before he actually did.
- 'Rockford Station' - a 2-page JP classic. This story feels like John closing the door on his first marriage, in a sweet, nostalgic way. The story starts with 'We….' and you expect it to be one person remembering something fondly to another. Then, in panel 6, he says, 'One day I was hungover and I laid my head in her lap'. Not 'your' lap, but 'hers'. The final panel of this story would make up most of the cover to 'Map of My Heart' & on his book tour, John always included this comic. It's really a classic.
- Back page gag panel - two rich ladies walking tiny dogs past a diamond store - one says to the other 'So I said, 'No- You listen to me!'" Just a perfect knee-slapping palate cleanser.

This issue, for me, sums up pretty perfectly why single issue comics exist and are critical. The five elements of King Cat #58 work in a way that they simply don't in a collection. In 'Map of My Heart', 'Forgiveness stands out, because it's such a singular work. But the way it's juxtaposed with the letter to Doug and 'Rockford Station' get lost in the collection, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, this issue is out of print, and while I could find two copies on Amazon, they're priced at $20. Who knew that investing $2 in John P. thirteen years ago would give you a tenfold profit!

Aren't you working on a documentary?

Some neat stuff I've scanned recently for the doc.

Vonnegut & Martsch

A handful of years back -- around 2006 -- I sent off a handwritten interview request to Doug Martsch, of Built to Spill. These are interviews I do where I send 10-11 questions to an artist, cartoonist, musician, author, etc. and ask them to respond in their own handwriting, because I'm a nut for handwriting.

I had met Doug outside the Fox Theater in Boulder and asked about doing one, he was game, and gave me his address to send the questions to, so I did. When I do these, I try to include a 'thank you gift' to the person doing it. I sent Joe Matt $5, I sent Seth the uncollected Salinger, and so forth.

I sent Doug an orange shirt with Kurt Vonnegut's face screened on it, with a bunch of questions & return postage, but never heard anything back. A couple years went by and a buddy of mine emailed to say she had just seen Built to Spill in Portland, and Doug was wearing a Vonnegut shirt. She didn't know I made the shirt, just that I was a Vonnegut freak. So I did some Google image searching and found a bunch of pics of Dough wearing my shirt. Neat-o!

Here's a nice video of the band, with my shirt heavily featured, six years after I sent it to him. I did a decent printing job -- it's holding up pretty well!