DC Conspiracy[dots pattern]

10.08.2007

Tagtown: Hitting the Streets

Being an artist can be a solitary business.

We hole ourselves up for god-awful amounts of time, making messes and playing music at levels that drive our neighbors crazy. We'll sit and stare a works-in-progress, stewing and cranky when some piece or panel isn't flowing, watch movies, play video games, surf the web, do anything... all in hopes for hitting that little spark that makes us push out pages and drawings and make it less like work and more like the fun it is in movies.

And then we all hit that point where we say "Enough!" and we run out of our apartments screaming, craving human interaction.

Sometime on those nights, I hit the Metro and head in to Chinatown. I head off the train, head across 7th street, say hey to my friend Doorman Mike and down in to Rocket Bar. Nestled right between Ruby Tuesday and some other place I don't like, Rocket Bar is a great little bastion of normalcy in the middle of Caps fans and Doctors. The place is owned by the same people that own Bedrock Billards (and about a half dozen other bars according to my exhaustive research).

My buddy Conowingo was born to bartend. He works most nights at Rocket
Bar. Beer orders are coming in left and right making our conversations pause mid sentence. At the next lull he starts right back up again without missing a beat. He looks like he could snap an obnoxiously drunken customer in half, but he's a good guy. Just the type you need to serve angry sports fans and yourself when you need to clear your head. As the night gets on and the bar gets more customers, he slides notes my way about the crowd as its gets busier and busier and yells out "It's never busy until you show up!"

At some point I just stop and listen to bits of pieces of conversation, people watch for hairstyles, clothes, mannerisms. Anything I can poach, steal, pilfer and use in my comics and illustrations. The girl in the corner chewing her hair, the guy to my left talking this deal or that deal with slicked back hair and still tight tie, the couple on their third date but the guy just isn’t that interested.

A few hours later, I pay my tab, say by to Wingo and Doorman Mike, stumble out, hit the Metro, and head back home. The next morning I'm powered by a hangover and good stories and start drawing again.

The true moral of this story, is that most comic book artists are fueled by beer, and there's a good chance that your sassy going out outfit or your awesome tattoo or out of context one liner will show up in one of my panels or one of someone elses.

Mal Jones at 7:59 PM  |  link to this   

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