EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW !      

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID MALKI !
CREATOR OF WONDERMARK FAME TALKS WITH RAGING CHEETAH
ABOUT HIS COMICS AND UPCOMING BOOK

April.06.2008
By Alan Shih
Staff Writer

According to his profile, "David spells his name with an exclamation point, insisting that one space be left between the punctuation and the 'i' in his last name, for aesthetic reasons." That brand of wit translates very clearly to his stories; come across one of David Malki !'s Wondermark comic strips, and you'll immediately get a robust sense of the author's resourceful humor. Off-beat. Original. Refreshing. Very, very funny. Go check out David Malki's Wondermark.

RC: Hi David, give me a quick nutshell summary of Wondermark.
Malki !: Wondermark is a comic strip that's made entirely from images taken from 19th century books. So old engravings, old wood cuts - I scan them, chop them up, put them together in collages, make them into comic strips.

RC: I'm guessing these aren't superhero comics...
Malki !: Oh, no, no. It's not a comic book in the traditional sense. It's more of a comic strip in a newspaper style. New comics are posted on wondermark.com for free twice every week, and there's a whole archive on there you can browse for free. I've also self-published a couple book collections, and I have a major book collection coming out from DARK HORSE in June.

RC: Wow, that's great! DARK HORSE is a major player.
Malki !: Yeah, absolutely. It's a hardcover collection. It's gonna be really great, cloth-bound, very handsome collection.

RC: Your concept for Wondermark is very interesting. How did it come about?
Malki !: One day, many years ago, I was rummaging around in an old bookstore and I found a tattered copy of a book called "Diary of an Engraver." It was a heartbreaking story of an artist who used to work in copperplate engraving and woodcuts around the turn of the century, but whose livelihood had been totally eradicated by the advent of photography. This was a guy at the top of his profession, paid for a supremely valued skill, who suddenly found himself out of work and on the street.

And this sort of thing happens all the time. The classic example is buggy-whip manufacturers driven out of business by the advent of the automobile. Or, more recently, record companies forced to adapt to the new reality of the online music business. Change is inevitable.

So really, Wondermark is half metaphor for the unending march of progress, and half paean to the wonderful, lost arts of yesteryear. If you read it with that sort of social-commentary underpinning, it becomes either very dull, or winningly ironic -- you be the judge.

RC: Definitely not dull, Sir! I understand you've worked in film, firearms and aviation, but you certainly seem to have a deep knowledge of historical events. Do you have a formal background in U.S. history?
Malki !: I'm not quite sure how a background in film, firearms and aviation might suggest a formal background in U.S. history, but no, I don't. My professional background is mainly in film and design. Aviation is a dear hobby, and firearms is sort of a ringer that I throw in there to keep people off guard. For a short while I worked as a movie armorer but I don't really do that anymore.

I am MAKING U.S. history, though, if that counts. Though I guess we all are, every day.

RC: Have you ever considered applying your Wondermark technique to, say, early Superman or Spider-man comic images?
Malki !: Well, there'd be copyright issues to contend with in that case. But Jeanne Martinet has done something similar with a comic called "Truer than True Romance," in which she's rewritten the dialogue to old DC romance comics. (Presumably with permission.) Frankly, I'm most interested in telling my own stories, so I don't think I'd like the narrative baggage that would come with Superman or Spider-Man characters. But if Stan Lee asked me to do a comedy book using old Spider-Man pages, I sure wouldn't turn him down.

I don't think his heart could take it.

RC:I guess he is getting up there in age. Do you read any superhero comics yourself? Any issues of Batman or Danger Girl hanging around in your room or office?
Malki !: I used to read superhero comics back in the 90s, and I still have boxes full of long runs of IMAGE books. (Mainly because nobody will buy them from me.) I will still occasionally buy trades of different titles, but over the years I've gravitated away from superhero books and more towards shorter stories and strips that I read on the Web. Web comics take up a lot less room in my house than paper comics, and at this point in my life, I have to measure the worth of everything by the footprint it makes in my house.

RC: Wondermark has a new book coming out in June from DARK HORSE COMICS. Tell us about this upcoming publication.
Malki !: "Beards of our Forefathers" is a hardcover collection of individual Wondermark strips. It's actually my second strip collection; the first, "The Annotated Wondermark," is self-published and is available through my website. "Beards" picks up where "Annotated" left off in the archive, but it also includes loads of new material that I've written just for the book. I consider myself a writer/designer more than, say, a cartoonist, so the book is really more of a "humor in general" book than strictly a comic book or strip collection. There are a lot of pages in the book that don't have comics on them that I still think are pretty funny.

RC: Where do you see Wondermark five years from now?
Malki !: I figure by then my face will probably be on money.

RC: (smiles and nods) ... I like your optimism. If so, it'd give me even more reason to work hard! Thanks very much for your time.
Malki !: Alan, it's been my pleasure, and I hope your readers enjoy Wondermark!