09/09/2023
When I was maybe 9 years old, I used to make my own dollhouse furniture for this doll set I had of mice and rabbits wearing goofy, pastoral clothing. They lived in a manufactured dollhouse made of bare balsa wood, with no decoration. So, I made a bunch of furniture for it: a full living room set and a full kitchen. The lizard show on the TV is what really got my imagination going for this comic, "Heads or Tails", which I based off the furniture. I've always thought of comics as tv shows. My interest in making comics was born of an interest in moving pictures (movies and TV). I didn't get into making comix until later in life, but the thing I've always made was images that I imagined were a still from TV or film. This Zenith TV with the lizard show is the earliest "film-still" by me that I know of. This doll house was also the site of another foundational practice for becoming a comix artist later in life, which was playing "make-believe" either with dolls or with live acting with my friends—my favorite game as a kid. Other original, self-made dollhouse accessories, portrayed here are the couch and the micro-coloring book.
I saw this comic as an opportunity to portray difficulties of childhood which I wouldn't have dared express at the time, and to give tribute to the different ways kids cope with living in a violent household.
"Heads or Tails" will be in Child Labour Comix — Tales from the Underage Underground. That's the official anthology of the Bilderberg Konferenz underground comix and zine fest in Berlin, Germany on September 23rd & 24th.
Each comic in the anthology is a collaboration between the contributor and their own former-self using an artwork they made when a child. To get a copy, go to the festival.
This is my first time getting a comic published by the comix community Berlin! I thank the Bilderberg Konferenz editorial team for including me in this edition! Can't wait to see the other entries.
Bilderberg Konferenz festival details:
https://www.facebook.com/events/250820181191214/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D&paipv=0&eav=AfZwhgQJhsKr-uky0PJGzdNq5Km2Rhrh33aZyDxoqeLFQSS3X7Y5J2rhke2_gdB3mN0&_rdr
Poster art by Oskar Wald
