Nick and Nora.
Steve and Eydie.
Evan and Sarah.
Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer have always been the coolest kids on the indie comics scene. Dubious praise, to be sure. Their prolific mountain of work simultaneously celebrates and eviscerates geek culture. Evan's (in)famous Milk & Cheese comics brought the hate and Sarah's Action Girl let gurls into the clubhouse. But comicbooks like Dork, Hectic Planet and The Murder Family are just the tip of the iceberg of larfs. They've also created comics for Disney Adventures, Nickelodeon, and Mad Magazine to name a few. Their television writing includes Space Ghost Coast To Coast and the cult favorite pilot The Eltingville Club for Cartoon Network, Superman and Batman Beyond for WB, and now a bold new step into the youngest demographic of all. The two are contributing to Nick Jr's new show for toddlers, Yo Gabba Gabba (see me pimp it HERE). Their work on YGG has already received rave reviews from their 2 year old daughter, Emily.
NWK- What did you guys bring to Yo Gabba Gabba?
Evan- We brought signs that read, "Please Hire Us." And some sandwiches and folding chairs. And we had Emily hold a little sign that read, "I'm So Hungry. Please Give Daddy a Job". After a while we were asked to leave the premises by security. Sarah started a scuffle over one of the sandwiches.
It got pretty ugly.
I made that stuff up, by the way. There was no fight, we just left.
Um, anyway, we worked on the Super Martian Robot Girl cartoon segments. That's what we brought. Brang. Brung.
Did.
Sarah- To be, uh, serious, the main thing we brought was a comic-book aesthetic to the show. There was no other animated segment with a "comic" look until we came on to do the SMRG animation design.
NWK- How did you get involved?
Evan- Christian Jacobs called up asking if we wanted to work on the Super Martian Robot Girl segments.
Sarah-We've known Christian for years. We met after an Aquabats show and have always stayed in touch. When the first YGG! clips went online I showed them to Emily, and when we found out that Christian was one of the people behind it I wrote him to tell him how much she loved everything. We ended up talking YGG! on and off until we ended up doing the design work.
Evan- He had sent the original pilot material to us pretty early on, way before there was any talk of us doing anything for the show. We were fans, and Emily was pretty much hypnotized by the DVD, so getting the offer was pretty exciting for us.
They were doing the Martian Girl segment in live action , and they wanted us to design her costume and do the art for the facsimile comic book the characters read before the stories kick off.
They wanted the comic to look like a Marvel treasury edition. We based the back cover on back cover of the first Treasury, a Spider-Man head drawn by John Romita, with burst lines around it.
To try to make a long-ish story short, the segment was rejected by Nickelodeon, and in an effort to save it Christian decided to rework it as a Flash cartoon utilizing the original live-action vocal track. They wanted the art to match the comic book covers and interior panels, so we were hired to adapt the segment to animated form. Sarah did an animatic-style storyboard breakdown, and then we designed all the characters, props and backgrounds, using the live action as a guideline.
We also did key mouth positions and poses. Animators at Wildbrain did the actual animation.
Steve and Eydie.
Evan and Sarah.
Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer have always been the coolest kids on the indie comics scene. Dubious praise, to be sure. Their prolific mountain of work simultaneously celebrates and eviscerates geek culture. Evan's (in)famous Milk & Cheese comics brought the hate and Sarah's Action Girl let gurls into the clubhouse. But comicbooks like Dork, Hectic Planet and The Murder Family are just the tip of the iceberg of larfs. They've also created comics for Disney Adventures, Nickelodeon, and Mad Magazine to name a few. Their television writing includes Space Ghost Coast To Coast and the cult favorite pilot The Eltingville Club for Cartoon Network, Superman and Batman Beyond for WB, and now a bold new step into the youngest demographic of all. The two are contributing to Nick Jr's new show for toddlers, Yo Gabba Gabba (see me pimp it HERE). Their work on YGG has already received rave reviews from their 2 year old daughter, Emily.
NWK- What did you guys bring to Yo Gabba Gabba?
Evan- We brought signs that read, "Please Hire Us." And some sandwiches and folding chairs. And we had Emily hold a little sign that read, "I'm So Hungry. Please Give Daddy a Job". After a while we were asked to leave the premises by security. Sarah started a scuffle over one of the sandwiches.
It got pretty ugly.
I made that stuff up, by the way. There was no fight, we just left.
Um, anyway, we worked on the Super Martian Robot Girl cartoon segments. That's what we brought. Brang. Brung.
Did.
Sarah- To be, uh, serious, the main thing we brought was a comic-book aesthetic to the show. There was no other animated segment with a "comic" look until we came on to do the SMRG animation design.
NWK- How did you get involved?
Evan- Christian Jacobs called up asking if we wanted to work on the Super Martian Robot Girl segments.
Sarah-We've known Christian for years. We met after an Aquabats show and have always stayed in touch. When the first YGG! clips went online I showed them to Emily, and when we found out that Christian was one of the people behind it I wrote him to tell him how much she loved everything. We ended up talking YGG! on and off until we ended up doing the design work.
Evan- He had sent the original pilot material to us pretty early on, way before there was any talk of us doing anything for the show. We were fans, and Emily was pretty much hypnotized by the DVD, so getting the offer was pretty exciting for us.They were doing the Martian Girl segment in live action , and they wanted us to design her costume and do the art for the facsimile comic book the characters read before the stories kick off.
They wanted the comic to look like a Marvel treasury edition. We based the back cover on back cover of the first Treasury, a Spider-Man head drawn by John Romita, with burst lines around it.To try to make a long-ish story short, the segment was rejected by Nickelodeon, and in an effort to save it Christian decided to rework it as a Flash cartoon utilizing the original live-action vocal track. They wanted the art to match the comic book covers and interior panels, so we were hired to adapt the segment to animated form. Sarah did an animatic-style storyboard breakdown, and then we designed all the characters, props and backgrounds, using the live action as a guideline.
We also did key mouth positions and poses. Animators at Wildbrain did the actual animation.
Sarah-Wildbrain did the test SMRG segment, the "Jumbo Shrimp" segment from "Summer". After Nick Jr. saw that and approved the rest of the segments, the work was divided between two different animation teams: Gibbs & Keri Rainock ( http://monkeygrinder.biz/) -- who are another married couple with a little girl, funny enough -- did two; Sean Dicken and Gooby Herms did the other 5 as well as designed the one we weren't able to do.
Nickelodeon was happy with the cartoon version, and we ended up designing the rest of the segments, save one done by some other folks because of (our) tight schedule.
NWK- Did you gear your material towards a specific audience, yourselves or your daughter?
Evan- We worked a specific job with specific parameters, so things were pretty much laid out and obvious. You kind of know what not to put in all-ages material. The material has a few small nods to things adults might get, like a guy who looks like Tarzan mixed with Johnny Ramone, for instance. But a lot of that was pre-ordained by the live action, and you don't want to get too cute when your real objective is to entertain small children. We just tried to do solid work and put as much into it we could under tight deadlines.
NWK- You guys have done kids material for years. Has parenthood made you approach your writing differently?
Evan- Speaking for myself, no.
Sarah- No, although I can't say it never will.
NWK- Unless their parents are hopeless geeks, do you think kids will be reading comics in the next ten years?
Sarah- I think kids will always read comics, in magazine, on the web, in books...I don't know if kids will be going into comic stores though. Then again, how many of them do now?
Evan- They'll still be reading manga in ten years. A few will be reading Archie, and hopefully things like Nickelodeon and Mad Kids will still be in operation. Highlights still has comics, I think. But the manga books are the only real force in kid's comics now, which is fine by me.
For years there was practically nothing selling to kids. DC and Marvel obviously don't want to create kids comics, or can't, or in DC's case pays lip service to them with the Cartoon Network stepchild line. A small number of kids will read their parent's old comics, Little Lulu, Disney, old all-ages superhero stuff without any of the current "mature readers" rape or mutilation stuff.
Emily already pulls down my Astro Boy books because the character appeals to her. She flips through Pokemon storybooks and she mangled up a Superman Adventures collection we were in. She might end up liking comics. But she might also end up sick of comics living with me.
NWK- What kind of childrens shows or books do you (or Emily) enjoy or recommend?
Nickelodeon was happy with the cartoon version, and we ended up designing the rest of the segments, save one done by some other folks because of (our) tight schedule.
NWK- Did you gear your material towards a specific audience, yourselves or your daughter?
Evan- We worked a specific job with specific parameters, so things were pretty much laid out and obvious. You kind of know what not to put in all-ages material. The material has a few small nods to things adults might get, like a guy who looks like Tarzan mixed with Johnny Ramone, for instance. But a lot of that was pre-ordained by the live action, and you don't want to get too cute when your real objective is to entertain small children. We just tried to do solid work and put as much into it we could under tight deadlines.
NWK- You guys have done kids material for years. Has parenthood made you approach your writing differently?
Evan- Speaking for myself, no.
Sarah- No, although I can't say it never will.
NWK- Unless their parents are hopeless geeks, do you think kids will be reading comics in the next ten years?
Sarah- I think kids will always read comics, in magazine, on the web, in books...I don't know if kids will be going into comic stores though. Then again, how many of them do now?
Evan- They'll still be reading manga in ten years. A few will be reading Archie, and hopefully things like Nickelodeon and Mad Kids will still be in operation. Highlights still has comics, I think. But the manga books are the only real force in kid's comics now, which is fine by me.
For years there was practically nothing selling to kids. DC and Marvel obviously don't want to create kids comics, or can't, or in DC's case pays lip service to them with the Cartoon Network stepchild line. A small number of kids will read their parent's old comics, Little Lulu, Disney, old all-ages superhero stuff without any of the current "mature readers" rape or mutilation stuff.
Emily already pulls down my Astro Boy books because the character appeals to her. She flips through Pokemon storybooks and she mangled up a Superman Adventures collection we were in. She might end up liking comics. But she might also end up sick of comics living with me.
NWK- What kind of childrens shows or books do you (or Emily) enjoy or recommend?
Evan- Rolie Polie Olie, Pee Wee's Playhouse, the 60's Shirley Temple T.V. series (which adapted kid's books, including a puppet version of Winnie the Pooh), the Pippi Longstocking movies, Yo Gabba Gabba (honest), Pingu, My Neighbor Totoro, Frog & Toad and Curious George model animation shorts, Cheburashka.
That's almost everything she's watched, we don't let her zombie out in front of the tube much. She'll have plenty of time to kill when she's older and unemployed. I'm pretty sure she's seen Teletubbies and liked it but we never got back around to it. I think she'd watch Pokemon non-stop if we got into it. One day, I'm sure, it'll happen eventually. We have some of the vinyl toys and she fell for them hard.
She also likes a lot of Takashi Miike films, Audition and Ichi the Killer, especially. Okay, I'm kidding. She actually likes Beat Takeshi films.
Book-wise, we read a lot of Little Golden books to her (pretty much the "classic" and older ones which have much better art by folks like Tenngren, JP Miller, Mary Balir, et al, and aren't hack job ads for toys or movies). Emily inherited our children's book collection and she has a lot of her own. She really likes a picture book called Hug, another called Love and Kisses, some of the Pokemon storybooks, Margaret Wise Brown books.
A couple of Godzilla storybooks. I have a big 80's Bandai Godzilla downstairs and she got into Godzilla playing with that. Hardcore collectors would wince watching her knock him around the room. I got over it a while ago. Toys have been the gateway for a lot of her babyhood geekiness.
Sarah- I'd like to point out that when Evan says "big 80s Godzilla" he means like, 2 feet high. Huge. Emily drags him around the house holding his hand. It cracks me up every time.
NWK- Assume you have total control of the comics or animation industry. What would you do with it?
(feel free to include your new policies for children's music, film, literature, etc.)
Evan- Get rid of all commercials in kid's television. Same goes for DVD's, especially the Disney ones. There's more, but that's number one.
That's almost everything she's watched, we don't let her zombie out in front of the tube much. She'll have plenty of time to kill when she's older and unemployed. I'm pretty sure she's seen Teletubbies and liked it but we never got back around to it. I think she'd watch Pokemon non-stop if we got into it. One day, I'm sure, it'll happen eventually. We have some of the vinyl toys and she fell for them hard.
She also likes a lot of Takashi Miike films, Audition and Ichi the Killer, especially. Okay, I'm kidding. She actually likes Beat Takeshi films.
Book-wise, we read a lot of Little Golden books to her (pretty much the "classic" and older ones which have much better art by folks like Tenngren, JP Miller, Mary Balir, et al, and aren't hack job ads for toys or movies). Emily inherited our children's book collection and she has a lot of her own. She really likes a picture book called Hug, another called Love and Kisses, some of the Pokemon storybooks, Margaret Wise Brown books.
A couple of Godzilla storybooks. I have a big 80's Bandai Godzilla downstairs and she got into Godzilla playing with that. Hardcore collectors would wince watching her knock him around the room. I got over it a while ago. Toys have been the gateway for a lot of her babyhood geekiness.
Sarah- I'd like to point out that when Evan says "big 80s Godzilla" he means like, 2 feet high. Huge. Emily drags him around the house holding his hand. It cracks me up every time.NWK- Assume you have total control of the comics or animation industry. What would you do with it?
(feel free to include your new policies for children's music, film, literature, etc.)
Evan- Get rid of all commercials in kid's television. Same goes for DVD's, especially the Disney ones. There's more, but that's number one.
Sarah-It's far too complicated to go into here but from everything I have read and looked into, I honestly think that most of the trouble with media for kids is the ads. I'd rather her play a videogame than watch commercial tv any day. We are 100% dvd-only (except for YGG) and even then you can't escape it. When Emily is older and I can't personally zip past all ads, we will definitely be working to mitigate the effects of advertising.
Evan-I can't stay awake long enough to even think about what I'd do to the comics industry. If I was in charge a lot of books would get canned tomorrow, and a lot of people would lose their jobs, that's for sure. But that's what would happen if anybody in comics became the all-powerful Emperor of Trash.
I'd order up a ton of old strip reprints, import some foreign comics I want to read, punch up the kid's offerings and marketing, come down hard on the direct market, break up Diamond's monopoly, change a lot of contracts, cut a lot of old cartoonists in on their creations, return some artwork to the rightful owners, burn a lot of comics, and probably sink the industry or get shot at the San Diego con by a disgruntled former editor-in-chief of DC.
Books: Ban Lemony Snicket.
Music: Ban They Might Be Giants. Ban all folkies.
In general: Ban any bullcrap project designed and marketed to supposedly make kids into prodigies.
NWK- Are there any plans to expand your careers towards more toys and clothes like the stuff on Jinjur.com?
Sarah- In the long run, it's something we're hoping to do. We have had a lot going on in our lives (not just Emily!) in the last couple years and we hope to feel totally caught up sometime early next year, at which point it's something I will be looking into more seriously. I've had some conversations but nothing has actually come to pass yet. In the meantime, if an opportunity presents itself I would say yes!
Evan-I'd love to do more toys, but we aren't in a position to make our own. We've done some toy designs and one-off custom figures, for charity and for a gallery show. We may do some more toys with SLG Publishing someday, but there's nothing on the board at the moment. Recently we designed the Milk and Cheese vinyl toys for SLG, but that's not for kids. Most kids. Some folks don't mind letting their kids read Milk and Cheese, bless their drunken hearts.
I'd order up a ton of old strip reprints, import some foreign comics I want to read, punch up the kid's offerings and marketing, come down hard on the direct market, break up Diamond's monopoly, change a lot of contracts, cut a lot of old cartoonists in on their creations, return some artwork to the rightful owners, burn a lot of comics, and probably sink the industry or get shot at the San Diego con by a disgruntled former editor-in-chief of DC.
Books: Ban Lemony Snicket.
Music: Ban They Might Be Giants. Ban all folkies.
In general: Ban any bullcrap project designed and marketed to supposedly make kids into prodigies.
NWK- Are there any plans to expand your careers towards more toys and clothes like the stuff on Jinjur.com?
Sarah- In the long run, it's something we're hoping to do. We have had a lot going on in our lives (not just Emily!) in the last couple years and we hope to feel totally caught up sometime early next year, at which point it's something I will be looking into more seriously. I've had some conversations but nothing has actually come to pass yet. In the meantime, if an opportunity presents itself I would say yes!
Evan-I'd love to do more toys, but we aren't in a position to make our own. We've done some toy designs and one-off custom figures, for charity and for a gallery show. We may do some more toys with SLG Publishing someday, but there's nothing on the board at the moment. Recently we designed the Milk and Cheese vinyl toys for SLG, but that's not for kids. Most kids. Some folks don't mind letting their kids read Milk and Cheese, bless their drunken hearts.
Visit www.houseoffun.com to see anything and everything Evan and Sarah are up to. From there you can link to Evan's live journal for updates on his newest projects and much kvetching about what irks him. Also from there you can visit Sarah's blogs about cool and freaky cuisine and crafts.
You can find Yo Gabba Gabba weekday mornings at 10:00 on Nick Jr.
Evan and Sarah also have a new comic called Biff Bam Pow coming out soon. It's a compilation of their superhero stuff from Nickelodeon Magazine. They will still produce occasional comics for Nickelodeon and Mad Magazine until the grim reaper eventually comes to collect those publications as well.
Let's chat it up on the message board HERE.
6 comments:
MILK AND CHEESE HAS GOTTEN ME THROUGH SOME OF THE HARDEST TIMES IN MY LIFE
AND OF COURSE STREET FIGHTER
Milk and Cheese have gotten you through Street Fighter? I'm not surprised. They could break Guile's ass in two.
i'm glad i could contribute to the article, albeit unknowingly! cool interview.
Thanks for the pic!
www.treasurycomics.com, yo!
Great article! I love this show and so do my kids.
And fun blog too--just added you to my list of links.
Hey Guys, I have a 4 year old who wants to be SMRG for Holloween this October. She cant stop talking about being her!! SHe wants a doll, dress up costume, everything! Anything out there yet?
Thanks!
KY
Bay Area, CA
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