FEATS ILLUSTRATION CHARLIE MEDEIROS DESIGN SAM STEWART TEXT CHARLIE MEDEIROS 09
a kid was ne of the more boyish things I did as e the comic wer s focu collect comic books. My main der Zim, Inva e: hom spin-offs of TV I already watched at en. X-M al sion occa Adventure Time, sometimes even the ) ctor colle ic com er Once, my dad (former boy, form rdiffe two with d fille brought down from the attic a box g Dou or auth the by ent comics: Steven and Idiotland, both e Guid er’s hhik Hitc The Allen. I was thrilled. I had just read one of my favorite to the Galaxy and couldn’t believe that (My 13-year-old s! authors had written two comic serie novelist Doug for n brain mistook cartoonist Doug Alle ed.) ensu ing Adams, but nevertheless comic read : a surretime the at Idiotland was a little beyond me irrev1 and rdity absu alist, plotless jam strip prioritizing ng seei in ed rest inte erence above all else. (If you were or g, bon a ng hitti oid an overtly feminized rabbit-human ng arni re-le ally tion emo perhaps a man with dicks for legs ’t didn I 13, At you. for how to walk, Idiotland is the place think I was ready to move there yet.) ky, bratty Steven was a little more my speed, a pun (Imagine ng. ythi ever little boy named Steven who hates on Anlived and hat if Bart Simpson wore a white top to Dead ning liste ted gell Street, or if Charlie Brown star it very es mak en Stev Kennedys.) Flipping off the reader, s hate he you, s hate clear that he does not like you. He he fact, In ce. iden Prov his friends, and he definitely hates and , beer TV, be may doesn’t really like anything, except a Black Flag music music. It is as if Steven walked out of zingy one-liners ing video and onto Kennedy Plaza, issu personal favor(my like: “Eat Paste!,” “I hate you!,” and ite) “no!” ds. There was Unlike Steven, I really enjoyed his frien e, sincere, war una ick, Brock, his sweet—but naive—sidek tiki-man, the was re The and often Steven’s punching bag. e). them a ing sens the owl-man, the local mailman (I’m , beau ham Roc Mr. was r My personal favorite side characte begly tant cons an, the flamboyant, aristocratic poodlem ging Steven to be taken on a walk. the-man-whoMoving away from the boy, and onto originally from ist oon draws-the-boy, Doug Allen is a cart idence in Prov to ed Greenwich, Connecticut, who mov . At RISD, RISD at r 1973 to enroll as an Illustration majo recura as ly inal he would go on to create Steven, orig s. Allen Pres RISD The r, ring jam strip in the student pape erund ce’s iden would later move the project to Prov in ng uati grad r afte ground newspaper, The New Paper, ce, iden Prov of en Stev , 1978. He would continue this strip The of out ing mov r for the next three decades, even afte en would later go Creative Capital and into Brooklyn. Stev these editions ns, ctio on to be compiled and sold in colle . read being the ones my dad bought and ect, I first Wanting to interview Allen for this proj through his it for ing needed to find his email. I tried look izing real n upo cult website; however, that became diffi t in Firs s. time ral seve that his website had been hacked ) hine mac back Way the 2016 (I found these dates using in n agai then and , pany by a dropshipping furniture com Indonesia. While I 2018 by a group of poker players from site, I did leave web the may not have found his email on ional poker rnat inte with an appreciated knowledge of INE SLOT ONL G AYIN cultures. (Did you know that “PL DE”?) ITU ATT AN GAMES WITH REAL MONEY IS n Alle with h touc I was eventually able to get in RISD the of e forc e through the incredible connectiv abeth at RISD). alumni network (special thanks to Ann to be intered agre On November 3, Allen graciously York as I reNew in viewed, calling in from his home sponded from my Slater triple.
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THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
CM: Hello. Is this Doug?
DA: Yes, Charlie?
CM: How did your relationship with Providence shape what your comics looked like in their early stages?
DA: I always had a connection to Providence. My mother and grandmother were painters, and I would visit an aunt in Providence off and on when I was a kid, so we were always driving up there. My mother encouraged me to be an artist from an early age; I was an only child, and she was always sticking crayons in my hand to keep me busy. I had a stack of newsprint paper, so I was always drawing from an early age, and I definitely wanted to go to art school, and RISD seemed like the clear cut choice for me. I really fell in love with Providence in 1973; it was so down and out, and it’s such a gritty kind of Rust Belt looking town. So different from where I grew up in Connecticut. CM: What were the most influential parts of the city? Was there a specific community, or maybe the infrastructure?
DA: It was just the look of it. I was a big fan of Edwa rd Hopper’s paintings and that desolate down-and-out New England look. Factory decay, I guess you’d call it. I used to be able to walk around downtown and go into these old factor ies that were abandoned. There was one called Dorette Incor porated, where I would find tap handles, old plexiglass, every different beer brand buried into the ground. Everything was just inside these open warehouses. You could wander around anoth er factory that made leather cigarettes, cigarette cases, and purses. There were all these different creations you could just pick up. I still have a cigarette holder made with red leathe r that I just picked up off the floor. I applied to RISD in 1973. When I got there, there were all these second hand clothing stores, and everyone looked like they were from the ’40s. There was a big music scene playing big band jazz. You could see a room ful of blues playing downtown with Big Joe Turner and Scott Hamilton playing saxophone at the Met Café. Everybody sort of looked like they were Robert Crumb characters. I was in the Illustration department at RISD, and everything I drew kind of looke d like a cartoon. My teachers would say, “Oh no! Everything you do looks like a comic.” So I thought why fight it. The RISD paper had a weekly rag called The RISD Press, and my room mate and I did a comic strip series for that in ’74.
CM: Did this comic for The RISD Press bear any resemblance to work you would go on to create later in your career?