Interviews - Shannon Wheeler

About the author: Descended from old English money, Vidicon was raised by spiny echidnas in the mountainous rainforests of the North American Southeast. Lured back to society by time-traveling gray/reptiloid alien hybrids posing as renegade Jesuits, he has managed to maintain his outsider's perspective and an appetite for crunchy insects. Today, Vidicon is a world-class synchronicity surfer and an unlicensed quantum mechanic. He has a fourth-degree black belt in weird. About his bi-weekly column: Tales from the Third Lobe are the unfocused meanderings of the World's Smartest Moron. Topics range widely over the sciences, religion, philosophy, technology, modern culture, mysticism, Vidicon's personal history and viewpoints, and whatever pissed him off in the media last week. View all articles by Laszlo Q. V. St-J. "Vidicon" Xalieri, 2HC Columnist...

Shannon Wheeler is the artist and originating mind behind a couple million "Too Much Coffee Man" comics and the free-wheeling "Too Much Coffee Man" magazine. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon -- which is where your faithful war correspondent cornered him with the crepuscular glow of his own cathode ray tube.

Truth to tell, I was 3,000 miles away and more-or-less unarmed for the duration of the interview, so these answers were provided pretty much free from duress.


2HC: Name, occupation, and favorite televangelist.

SW: Shannon Wheeler. Cartoonist/publisher. Tammy Fae. That movie of hers won me over.

2HC: Wow. Wake up and smell the mascara. Yeek. But on that middle thing, are you successful yet? Explain your answer. Show all work, or no credit.

SW: Success? I'm happy with what I've done and what I'm doing. I'm not rich. I'm not famous. I have respect from people I respect. I sleep late when I want to but I don't drive an SUV. Sure. I'm successful.

2HC: Any twit with a modem and a six-year-old personal computer can read your website and learn where you got the idea for Too Much Coffee Man -- the character and the comic. But why do you draw your comics? What drives you?

SW: I have a burning beast that lives in my chest. Drawing cartoons feeds that beast and quiets him for short amounts of time and during those times my soul can rest.

2HC: Does that beast have a name?

SW: The illusion of productivity.

2HC: What do you do when the ideas stop flowing? Do you resort to violence?

SW: When the ideas stop flowing I do something stupid. Then people quote me my stupid cartoons and tell me how funny they were. Ya can't win for losing. Maybe that's "something you can't complain about".

2HC: Do you listen to music while you work? If so, what music and why?

SW: I listen to books on tape when I ink and cross hatch.

2HC: Assuming that you shell out precious funds to support other artists in the industry, which comics do you read, and why? Who are your artistic influences?

SW: Gilbert Shelton, Kyle Baker, and Peter Bagge ('til I found out that he was a jerk and that killed his work for me).

2HC: But many artists get labeled assholes.... Dave Sim has a horrible reputation as a misogynist. Harlan Ellison's "victims" have formed a club. But both can be argued to be consummate artists -- or rather, their work, if not themselves, is worthy of acclaim. Is there no hope, then, for Bagge and others who may not exactly be "people-people"? Is talent for public relations necessary for the production of art?

SW: No. I just wish I had never met some of them because it colors my experience of their work. I wish I was able to have a more schizophrenic life where I could separate a person from their creations. I met Mouse (of the partnership of Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, '60s rock-and-roll poster artists) and he wanted $20 to sign a poster of his. I was a student and I had no money. He said that if he signed the poster it'd be worth $50 -- so I'd turn a profit. I explained to him that I didn't want to sell it -- I just really liked his work and it would mean a lot to me. He told me he couldn't because he hadn't gotten paid much to do the poster and this is how he made his money. I gave him his poster because I couldn't look at it anymore without thinking about what a jerk he was. I don't know if he lacked a talent for public relations or if he was an idiot or if he was a bitter old asshole artist.

2HC: Lessee.... Rumor has it that you've had some legal troubles. Relate your favorite personal anecdote concerning the American legal system -- either criminal or civil court.

SW: I got a fixit ticket when I biked at night without a light. All I needed to do was buy a light and show an officer that light on my bike and mail it in. Unfortunately that same week my bike was stolen. I had already bought a bike light. I tried to get a cop to sign off on my ticket. He wouldn't because I didn't have the bike.

Later I was caught having sex in the park. They called in my name and I had a warrant. It turned out that because I had never taken care of my fixit ticket I was now going to jail.

In court, the judge tried to make some sort of lesson out the whole thing for me but the people in the courtroom, including the bailiff, were laughing at the retelling of my story so he just wrote it all off and apologized.

2HC: Are you bitter? If so, do you enjoy it?

SW: Nah. What's the point? I'm annoyed but not bitter.

2HC: Speaking of bitterness and the law, how will you get your caffeine when it finally becomes illegal? What form will it take?

SW: People are addicted. And it's an addiction that makes people more productive. And it's an addiction that makes a lot of people a lot of money. It won't be illegal.

2HC: They said that about tobacco and alcohol, too -- and we still had the Prohibition. And tobacco is being regulated/taxed in highly restrictive ways. Caffeine has decidedly negative health impacts -- hypertension and other forms of heart disease, in addition to a few other things, some gender-specific. For that matter, maybe the FDA should be looking into the McDonald's french fry and its link to obesity and resultant heart disease. Are you so sure that caffeine and caffeine-users will never be persecuted?

SW: They should be regulated. Drugs should be expensive -- expensive enough to pay for the health care needed to pay for the problems they cause. We should have some sort of public obligation to try and be healthy. We should also have health care.

2HC: What's the biggest challenge concerning the regular publishing of your magazine? Name names -- unless it means you'll get sued again.

SW: It was a pain when people compared the magazine to the comic. If they liked the comic better than the mag, I was sad. What, don't you like my magazine? If they liked the magazine better, I was sad then, too. What was wrong with the comic? But more recently people are treating the magazine on its own terms, which is how it should be.

2HC: I take it from your answer that you're concerned with public opinion. What sort of recognition are you going for, either for yourself or your comics or your magazine?

SW: Nah. It's nice to be respected by the people you respect. Public opinion is really hard to gauge. It runs the gamut. Half (or more than half) of people base their judgments on wrong information anyway. Achieving mutual respect is a good goal -- one that's a little more realistic.

I meant that it's nice to not have my comic compared to the mag because they're very different animals. Comparing them is a like playing a football team against a long distance runner -- nothing good can come of it.

2HC: Name your most favorite and least favorite facets of pop culture. Feel free to rant briefly about each.

SW: I like movies because I like watching things blow up. I hate fame. Fame is currency. People prize fame over talent. It's a shame. Pop culture nurtures the myth that fame is a legitimate goal in life. Fame answers no questions, enlightens no one, and does nothing to make the world a better place. Talent and fame are coincidental in their overlap. We should worship talent, not fame.

2HC: I'm with you on blowing things up -- there's plenty of shit out there that needs to make room for new growth. But that fame thing.... What good is talent without fame? If you're the best in the world at what you do but no one knows how to find your stuff -- what good is that? And what about the art versus the artist? Which of the two deserves recognition more?

SW: Fame and recognition are two different things. Recognition for talent is good. Fame has helped create an upper class of recognition and money. People confuse fame with talent. A lot of talented people aren't respected because they're not famous. We need a middle class of artists that don't need fame to support their craft. We've had that middle class -- and it still exists, to some extent -- but it disappears as celebrity becomes more and more important.

2HC: Why couldn't I find a single damned thing made out of an armadillo when I was in Austin earlier this year? What gives?

SW: You probably didn't make out off 6th street, the alcoholic tourist trap. You need to go to the east side where taxidermy flourishes as an art. Blame yourself, not the town.

2HC: Fair enough. Speaking of Austin, why Portland?

SW: I reached a plateau in Austin.

2HC: How has modern technology improved and/or ruined your life?

SW: I love emailing art to newspapers. I love getting credit card numbers from people. I love putting together my magazine.

2HC: What human being (or perhaps a group thereof) scares you the most?

SW: Bush and his rich friends who he's making richer.

2HC: How will it all end?

SW: With a whimper.

2HC: State the question you most wish I had asked -- and answer it.

SW: How did you get to be such an amazing fucking talented artist? Where can I send your check?

2HC: Are there any other projects besides TMCM that you are working on or would like to work on if/when TMCM gives you time?

SW: I work on the things I like. I have a couple other side projects. It's all about deadlines and inspiration. You'll see more and more anthologies with non-TMCM stuff from me.

2HC: Rant. Your response may be monitored for quality-assurance purposes.

SW: Your consumption is your politics. See a movie -- you support Hollywood. Buy Fantagraphics and you support Gary Groth. Buy a TMCM magazine and you support my idiocy. Choose your poison.

2HC: So you're saying that the only true voting is done with dollars -- that the end market for art is a consumer market. Is that the case?

SW: The most powerful voting is done with the dollar. There are other ways to support what you like. I have no problem with people who don't have money who read my mag in the store -- or read it online where we post it for free. I'm not trying to squeeze money from people -- especially if they don't have it. But when you spend $3 on coffee it's better to buy Fair Trade Certified organic -- help the farmer, help the environment.

2HC: The coffee point is a good one. My favorite cafe, Java Monkey, uses Equal Exchange coffees exclusively.

Starting in on the wrap-up.... Do you have cats? If so, their names and occupations, please.

SW: Not yet. Soon.

2HC: Such is our vast influence here at Two-Headed Cat that we can have fans bombard your offices with hundreds of adoptable kittens. Would that help?

SW: Just one good cat is all we need.


And there you have it.

If you missed the smattering of hotlinks above, you're heartily invited to peek in on Too Much Coffee Man's website, http://www.tmcm.com, which has archives of pretty much the complete run of his comics and a healthy selection of articles from the magazines. You are even more heartily invited to proceed to your local newsstand or comic shop and buy a copy of his magazine. If they don't carry it, harangue them horribly, leave nose-prints on their windowpanes, and order a copy from the website instead.

Maybe you should only bombard him with pictures of eligible kitties and let him choose the one he wants.

Send the pictures -- and any check you feel Shannon deserves for being such an amazing fucking talented artist -- to Adhesive Press, PO Box 14549, Portland, OR 97293.