Hail Doofus:
Two-Handed Man interviews Rick Altergott

       Rick Altergott is a cartoonist living in Seattle, and is the creator of a strip set in Flowertown, U.S.A. featuring a sad sack named Doofus and his equally socially-inept best friend Henry Hotchkiss. For some reason I find the Doofus strips to be a really good time, so I interviewed Mr. Altergott in early February of 2002. Before you read the interview, click on the lines directly below to check out a few Doofus strips for yourself. These strips are © Rick Altergott.

Click here to see Henry Hotchkiss get a job.

Click here to see Doofus in college.

Click here to see Henry Hotchkiss get a nickname.

Click here to see Doofus' dog farm.

THM: Now, the hat that Doofus wears is called a `straw boater,' is that right? What's the story on that kind of hat, and why did you pick that instead of a stetson or something? Are some kinds of hats more hilarious than others?

RA: Well, Doofus can never appear without his hat, the straw boater. When I came up with the character, the comic publisher Kitchen Sink was reprinting `Lil' Abner' by Al Capp. On Sundays, Abner always dressed up to go a-callin' in his own straw boater. I lifted it because I thought it was funny, and I liked how Capp drew it, I guess. Incidentally, Doofus' hairstyle was lifted from another classic strip, `Prince Valiant' by Hal Foster, which was being reprinted by Fantagraphics at the same time.

THM: What was Doofus like as a child? Or more specifically, and without giving too much away, what terrible sequence of events turned him into the creepy weirdo he is today? His habit of swiping girls' dirty panties so he and his buddies can spend the evening sniffing them—was this one of the things that caused women to reject him or did he develop this habit only AFTER his inadequacy with the opposite sex was made apparent, and he was forced to find alternative sources of satisfaction?

RA: What little I have mentioned about Doofus' childhood has been purposely vague. Come to think of it, I guess I have never given any details. I have a story planned with Doofus as a little kid fishing with his dad. The dad is convinced that his son is a total loser, so he decides to put him out of his misery by pushing him off the end of the pier. But just as he's about to do it, Lil' Henry Hotchkiss and his dad arrive on the scene, foiling the attempt. Doofus' dad dies soon afterwards of a heart attack or something, and Doofus grows up living with his mother, and a lot of insurance money, presumably, which is the current situation.

THM: Doofus' best friend Henry Hotchkiss has had sex, entirely due to dumb luck-will Doofus himself ever be `de-flowered in Flowertown?'

RA: I'm not really sure. It could happen, I guess, but he seems to play better as a frustrated sexual character with balls so blue he should work in the frozen food business, on account of his own two `Frosty Achers.'

THM: Did you catch a lot of heat from Foreigner fans re: Doofus 2? You show Doofus soothing his broken heart by listening to `I Wanna Know What Love Is' by Foreigner (`Jukebox Hero,' `Hot-Blooded,' `Cold As Ice,' etc.) but you mistakenly credit the song to Survivor (`Eye Of The Tiger')! How did such a glaring error make it past your editors?

RA: I have never known about this error, but it doesn't really surprise me that I got it wrong, since I only knew that song from the radio, and so I probably got the credit wrong for it. My only experience with the band Foreigner was in 1981 sitting in the middle of a crowd at JFK Stadium under a blanket in the rain waiting for their terrible shit music to end so the Rolling Stones could come on. Oh, wow! Another mistake-that opening act was Journey! Same difference anyway.

THM: That's interesting, I've talked to a lot of people who get Journey, Foreigner, and Survivor mixed up…What's Doofus' favourite movie? Is it Caddyshack?

RA: I really don't know, but it would probably be something hi-tone like `Ashes & Diamonds' by Polish filmmaker Andrej Wajda.

THM: Doofus is clearly a creepy loser, but he's still a little charming, somehow. During the panty-party sequence (in Doofus 2), I wasn't sure if I was supposed to look down at him and laugh AT him, or sink down to his level and laugh WITH him. Even when his behavior is extremely sleazy/stupid, you keep us on his side, like he's more worthy of our pity than our scorn, but if YOU lived in Flowertown, would YOU hang out with him?

RA: Doofus is supposed to be well-meaning, but he often acts inappropriately out of ignorance and lack of social grace. He can also get caught up in the momentum of something he's involved in and inadvertently hurt his pal Henry Hotchkiss, such as the time he built a robot that temporarily replaced his pal. As for that panty-party, he clearly enjoys the spotlight and being host to his friends, another favourable trait. I guess you are supposed to like the guy, but hanging out with him might be pushing it a bit.

THM: How did you `learn' comedy? What attracted you to this type of material? Were you always a funny guy, or did you have to work at getting the gags down just right?

RA: I guess I really don't know how I became interested in the comic form. I've been lucky to always have been around funny people, my friends, mostly. I can't stand stuff like `Stand-Up Comedy'; it always seems so forced and artificial to me. There are exceptions though, like seeing Redd Foxx in Vegas once. Studying why something is funny and analyzing it can come awfully close to killing it, if you ask me. As far as literature goes, I was always a big fan of MAD magazine, and the National Lampoon of the `70's. Sorry to cop out on that answer!

THM: I think a big part of what makes it work is the uneasy union between form and content-a nostalgia-evoking drawing style reminiscent of the `good old days,' servicing gags that are vulgar and filthy. How did you develop your style? How long did it take you to get to a point where it `worked'? What artists influenced you the most starting out?

RA: I have to thank you for the nice compliment, since I have a very hard time gauging the success or failure of my comics. One main arbiter I rely on is my longtime pal Dan Clowes (Note: cartoonist Dan Clowes is the creator of many fine books like Orgy Bound, Lout Rampage, and Like a Velvet Glove Cast In Iron. He was just nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay to the movie Ghost World-THM), whose instincts seem pretty right on, and who provides feedback, particularly with the Doofus strips I've done. Doing gags can be really hard for me, particularly coming up with funny ones. I had a stint in a weekly alternative paper here in Seattle about a year ago, and it forced me to be economical with the delivery of the jokes because of space constraints.      Although I don't think I always succeeded, I think I gained some experience in staging and timing, which are traditionally terms that apply to theatre, but are equally important in making good comics. During this time I was consciously trying to improve my layout ability and pushing the poses for humorous effect. I still am. To me, layout is the hardest part of the process, because you have to select the best pose or angle etc from hundreds of possibilities.      As far as the art goes, I like the MAD cartoonists the best. I am a second-rate Wally Wood, as I have been referred to. Mea culpa. But I've also been compared to Jack Davis, which I consider a compliment. It sometimes cracks me up that my style is now referred to as `Old School.' That happened in the 15 or so years that I've been serious about comics. I'll take that as a compliment too, considering the abysmal level of ineptitude that speaks for 99% of today's comics, particularly in mainstream `Super-hero' comic books, but also in newspaper comics which are equally ugly and poorly done.      Even the elite of the Comics Journal in their `100 Best Of All Time' retardo list excluded Alex Raymond from their tally. He created 4 newspaper features in his lifetime, including `Rip Kirby' and `Flash Gordon.' No one is going to claim `Flash Gordon' as a writing masterpiece, but I think `Rip Kirby' sure was up there. Hal Foster's `Prince Valiant' just made their list at #100.

THM: I did notice the way you exaggerate the postures of the figures-poses that would look too hammy or over-the-top to work on the stage work just fine in your stories, and help to make them funny instead of just amusing. When you're planning a funny page, how conscious are you of the elements you'll have to employ to make it work: gesture, posture, dialogue, drawing style…? Or is it all mainly just instinctive for you?

RA: I'm still learning the stuff as I go along. I wish I had the natural knack of knowing what would work in each situation, the way that Jack Kirby seemed to know just where to put the `camera' every time. To me, Kirby's modern-day equivalent is Gilbert Hernandez (Love & Rockets), who just seems to be so at home working in the comics medium. He gets the maximum effect out of the juxtaposition of his words and pictures. Others working that can do this well have been able to elicit a real emotional response from their audience, which contributes to the maturation of the form. I'd cite Jaime Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, Seth, and Charles Burns as the type of artist I mean by that. For me, I am mostly trying to be funny, but usually in a believable context, which is why I prefer the realistic art style. I just built a strip around what I had to admit to myself was a perfect `Doofus moment,' with Doofus being bonked on the head with a baby toy that had just been up someone's ass. I showcased that panel and built the story around it. I hope people laugh!

THM: I'm laughing already! What got you into comics in the first place?

RA: Like I said, I was and still am to an extent a fan of MAD magazine, and particularly Mort Drucker, the famous caricaturist. That fixation easily carried me into my college days where I met and befriended Dan Clowes, whose interest in doing comics clearly reinforced my own.

THM: I understand you work with Ditko at some point in the past-tell us what that was like. Did you actually get to meet him???!!!

RA: I inked 2 comics drawn by Steve Ditko in 1987, while living in Chicago with Dan. The guy who published the books--`The Face' and `The Return Of Skyman'-turned out to be an asshole who stiffed me on payment of the second comic I inked. I never got to meet Ditko, and I sure hope he didn't get stiffed like me. He did respond to a letter I sent him asking him if liked what I had done with his awesome pencils. His reply was vague and non-demonstrative. I doubt he had a lot of emotional currency tied up in that work. (Note: Sturdy Steve Ditko is one of the finest cartoonists ever. He's best known for co-creating, along with a two-bit slimy weasel named Stan Lee, Dr. Strange, Master Of The Mystic Arts, and The Amazing Spider-man-THM)

THM: Did you ever think about doing a syndicated strip, as opposed to comic books?

RA: I have, but it would have to be an adventure strip of some kind, with continuity. That way, I wouldn't have to churn out a gag every day. Of course, there are hardly any of that type of strip in the paper anymore, so my chances are almost non-existent.

THM: I'm asking because I was just struck by the fact that there are all these brilliant folks doing excellent comics that are distributed as comic books with a worldwide distribution of 5000 copies or whatever, and at the same time all the strips in all the newspapers that are seen by millions of people are invariably TERRIBLE! I'm sure that whatever paper you read is similar to mine in that it features a page of comics by a bunch of lame, untalented, unfunny bastards. I'd love to see something like a Studs Kirby strip or a Doofus strip in my paper-why do we have to settle for such bland tripe? Seeing as how you're `in the business,' can you shed any light onto this situation?

RA: I wish I knew a good answer to that one. Newspaper comics today, and newspapers in general, do suck pretty hard. I tend to think that they have been co-opted by the politically-correct liberal media which force rules and quotas onto everything, and simply censor anything that doesn't fit their set agenda, a practice that is institutionalized to a much worse degree in the rest of the average newspaper. See Coloring The Media, by William McGowan. But be that as it may, I think that the main problem is that most of the cartoonists submitting to the syndicates are really trying to fit the mold, and come up with something popular that will take hold with the readers. That generally translates into a family-oriented, rather bland strip, of the type that dominates today's comics page. To me, the ones who are the most reprehensible are douchebags like that guy `Wiley,' who must be an editor's wet dream: perceived as `edgy,' but in fact towing the line of the Liberal Media Elite, a virtual mouthpiece for any position whatsoever that the liberal media might endorse. A good company man. Worse yet is his obnoxious way of `educating' us poor slobs about all this. Aaron Mcgruder is another dupe, keeping blacks down with his kneejerk opinions. He just enables Democrats to keep taking the black vote for granted. They know they don't have to work for what blacks need or want, because, with aid by polarizers like Mcgruder, at the end of the day they go for the Democrats, and since the Republicans know it too, neither party gives a shit about them. Your own Garry Trudeau is better than most, but essentially a lap dog to the left. And don't even get me started on Lloyd Dangle. I used to really enjoy his Troubletown strip. It used to have balance but now it's obvious he's just carrying water for the liberals, who, after all, pay his salary. My wife his big disagreements with me on a lot of this stuff, so don't go blaming her for my strident opinions!

THM: What led to your material appearing in Peter Bagge's HATE comic? When did you meet him? Do you have any good Peter Bagge stories?

RA: Peter just asked me if I was interested, and I certainly was. To this day, most people who know me are HATE fans who discovered my stuff in those issues I appeared in. I've known Pete for a number of years, and had met him a bunch of times before I moved to Seattle. I can't think of any stories at the moment. I don't see much of Pete these days. The whole cartooning community is kind of dissolving up here recently. A lot of the guys have moved away. Pete used to throw a lot of parties. Maybe he still does, and just doesn't invite me. (Note: Please visit www.peterbagge.com -THM)

THM: Do you make enough $ from cartooning for it to be your full-time job? You mentioned that you did strips for The Stranger--what other cartooning work do you do?

RA: There aren't too many cartoonists I know who do their comic as a full-time thing. Most of us do illustration and other art-related work on the side. Fine art is a direction a lot of us have gone in, lately. I paint watercolours of bridges and houses and stuff, which I enjoy very much. I'm almost at the level of gallery quality, but not quite. I spent 4 years working at a kids' software company as of 6 months ago, but I was laid off. Now I am trying to get by as a freelance artist. God help me!

THM: What comics are you reading these days? What inspires you?

RA: I read anything by the Hernandez Brothers, Black Hole by Charles Burns, any work by Dan Clowes or Robert Crumb. I like all of the books that Drawn & Quarterly publishes: Seth, Chester Brown, and a particularly strong new Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine, who's on a roll with his last three comics.

THM: What new comics projects do you have lined up for the future?

RA: My wife Ariel Bourdeaux and I are working on a new comic tentatively titled `Raisin Pie' which will be a comic that has both of our longer continued stories debuting in it. I'm doing a long Doofus story in which I try to address some weightier issues and hopefully humour, titillation and suspense as well. I'd love to create a cast of characters as `real' as Pete did with HATE. Despite the cartoony drawing style, I know a lot of people who cared for those characters as if they were real! And even got pissed at Pete if he did something with them they didn't like. That's a pretty tall order, I know. I'm not really that strong of a writer to pull it off, but I'll try it just the same. I'm betting Ariel can do it; she's really good with dialogue.      Another project in the works is a collection of my comics being published by Fantagraphics Books in about a year. It will feature a lot of stuff that has never been reprinted and hasn't seen the light of day in over a decade, as well as more obscure material. It will be a trade paperback format book with a colour section.

THM: I'm looking forward to it! Thank-you for your time, Mr. Altergott!

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To buy Doofus 2, visit www.fantagraphics.com and type `doofus' into the search box. Original Altergott artwork can be purchased through www.comicartcollective.com.

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BONUS FEATURE! Click here to see Joey Ramone in bed with Debbie Harry!

Click here to see Richard Nixon shaking hands with Elvis Presley!

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Send emails to darrellepp@hotmail.com!