8th Wonder Press

With our anthology set to come out next month, we’re going to take a few minutes to talk to some our great creators to give you a taste of what you can expect.  Mister V is a Denver-area cartoonist whose strips are equal parts rage and comedy.  His work for Uncanny Adventures — “Revenge of a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” — brings to mind 90’s mainstays “Milk and Cheese,” “Hate,” and “Eightball.”

Mister V, tell us a bit about Who You Are And How You Came To Be.

My name is Mister V, but my friends call me V, or Matt. I’ve lived in the same city my entire life.
My wife used to be my next door neighbor. I watch Ken Burns documentaries and professional
wrestling for fun. I’ve been driving the same car for fifteen years. I own a Chihuahua named Angel Love.

How did you find yourself making comics?

Comics have been in the forefront of my life for as long as I’ve been able to read. I began
making my own comics in elementary school to combat my unending fucking boredom. Today making
comics is more of an obsessive-compulsive tic than a pastime. I couldn’t stop making them even if I
wanted to. I can’t imagine my life without them.

Without giving too much away, tell us about your story Revenge of a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and how you approached it.

In my personal life I have a lot of anger issues. One of the ways these unpleasant neuroses
manifest is though my unhealthy ability to hold grudges forever. I’ve been working on letting go of
some of these old, dusty peeves, and for some reason thought it’d be healing to do so in a public forum,
like a flasher on a crowded subway car. That’s all a flowery way of saying there was an art teacher who
fucked with me in college, and I never got to pay him back for it until now. And I did it in the way that
would have pissed him off most of all: I put him in a low-brow, Looney Tunes inspired comic. It feels
good …

What are you reading right now, comics or otherwise?

I read sooooo many comics. Right now I’m thoroughly enjoying Mind MGMT, The Manhattan
Projects, Saga, Rachel Rising, and Harbinger. Generally I pick up anything from Avatar. I read an
unhealthy amount of corporate comics too, like Wonder Woman and Ultimate Spider-Man. The last
really good graphic novel I read was Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire. I’d probably read more than I
do today if I weren’t already habitually broke.

How did you meet up, and what’s your creative process like?

I get ideas for comics like people get cancer. I wake up and that shit’s spontaneously inside of me, waiting to get cut loose. Craft-wise I’m fairly unorthodox. I script using the Harvey Pekar method (stick figures and whatnot). I draw on plain ol’ computer paper, and ink using pens that are only a step or two above your average bic. If I didn’t pour so much love into each page it’d be shameless how ghetto I am.

What else is in the works for you, and where can readers find your work next?

Oh so many things. My new book The House of Whorror debuts at Denver Comic Con this May, hopefully alongside my new mini Karl Marx Guide to Ultimate Revolution in 10 easy steps). I’ll be starting a new webcomic before the year is over called Poser. While attempting to keep The She-Ma’am
Fella Hatin’ Sorority produced on a quarterly basis, I’ll be introducing Arborcides Menage A Trois, yet another (hopefully) quarterly mini-comic. Plus I’m working on some other stuff too. Busy busy busy!!! Nearly all my comics can be read for free at my website www.arborcides.com . Go and see for yourself.