Dog Boy ain’t your usual Fido
Take a hike,
Huckleberry
Hound, move over
Marmaduke and
watch yourself,
Garfield.
Dog Boy is
here, and he’s
hungry for a piece
of the cartooning
action.
Dog boy was a
figure of Steve Lafler’s imagination until
he came to life a few weeks ago in Dog
Boy Number One, the sixth edition of the
Cat-head Comics series.
Lafler, a Eugene artist and
entrepreneur, began the series a few
years ago in the hopes of making a
living as a cartoonist. The dream still
survives, but
inventories of
back issues are
mounting to the
critical point.
“I’ll know by
May whether this’ll
be something that
will go, that I can
make a living at,”
says Lafler. “I’m
confident that I’ll
succeed.”
But don’t expect Dog Boy to grace the
comic section of the Sunday paper, at least
not in his (or its) present form.
In Dog Boy Number One, we discover
that the protagonist has a fetish for
members of the opposite sex (species?)
wearing open-toed shoes. Dog Boy gets into
trouble when he accosts a store clerk who
is wearing a pair of provocative pumps.
Dog Boy fails in his attempt to procure
the shoes for his girlfriend, but it turns out
that Dog Girl is already wearing a pair of
open-toed shoes when her fella comes
home. Suffice it to say that on Page 12, Dog
Boy and Dog Girl become Dog Couple.
Lafler acknowledges that overtones of
bestiality may not be every reader's cup of
tea.
"If some people get bummed out about
it, that’s OK,” says Lafler. “But they’ll
probably go away thinking that’s what the
magazine is all about when it isn’t.
Sometimes I like to bounce a few
non-sequiturs off people’s heads, not so
much to confuse them as to make them
think."
Lafler’s idea of a non-sequitur, a
conclusion that does not follow from the
premise, is illustrated on the comic book’s
last page, which is devoted to “more Pope
jokes."
After asking the standard question "Is
the Pope Catholic?” Lafler considers — with
supporting graphics — "Does the Pope shit
in the woods?" Lafler’s contention is that
the Pope does indeed defecate in the
woods and in decidedly unsaintly fashion.
Like the Pope, Dog Boy is not free from
common vice — and not endearing vices
such as Fred Flintstones's weakness for
brontosaurus burgers.
Born years ago in a crude sketch on a
table napkin, Dog Boy, says Lafler,
eventually evolved into “a basically
grotesque, sort of funny character, but he
was a manifestation of the macho, blunt,
piggish male. And sort of perverted too.”
Lafler finances his publishing venture
with profits from a silkscreen T-shirt
business based in Eugene and from fees
earned by freelance work for ad agencies
and art directors,
"The T-shirt business makes a good
profit, and I invest that back into the comic .
books," says Lafler. "I have friends who are
heavy capitalists that say if I reinvested the
money into something else I’d make a good
profit, but I want to make the cartooning
work.’
Lafler, a native of Massachusetts, says
■
he gets part of his inspiration from Alberto
Salazar, Oregon’s top-ranked long-distance
runner. As a miler in high school, Lafler
competed against Salazar, who was a year
younger and a student at a rival high school.
While Salazar “blew me away” in the
race, Lafler admired his competitor’s
attitude.
“Talent like his is more determination
than anything physical, I’m certain of that,”
says Lafler. “He wants to be the best
long-distance runner in the world, and I
want to be the best cartoonist. You find out
that if you do certain things and do them
with enthusiasm and heart you’ll succeed,
but you have to do it professionally.”
Lafler says he began doodling at age
three and drawing cartoon formats by age
10 or 11. Early influences include Richie
Rich and Sad Sack. Later it was Spiderman,
Fantastic Four and other Marvel Comics
characters. Then it was Will Eisner, who
drew cartoons in “The Spirit” from 1940 to
I952.
Lafler, 25, earned a degree in oil
painting at the University of Massachusetts
“But what I really did in college was get my
cartooning degree,” he says. He penned
500 strips of “Aluminum Foil” for the
college newspaper while earning his
degree.
He eventually headed west and settled
in Eugene, where from January to June of
1981 he authored the comic strip “Mixed
Nuts" for the Emerald.
Lafler’s East Coast perspective was
ill-received by many University students “I
got a good amount of hate mail, which I sort
of enjoyed,” says Lafler, revealing a
personality trait he finds essential in the
publishing business.
“Self-publishing is for the true
masochist with thousands of bucks to
blow,” writes Lafler in Dog Boy. "... try like
hell to sell thousands of copies to
distributors, band together and do it with
other artists!”
Dog Boy Number One already has sold
nearly 900 copies of the 2,500 press run.
“I'm pretty jazzed up by the original
reaction." says Lafler. “The last book only
had initial sales of 300 copies.”
However, 5,500 unsold copies of
previous issues sit gathering dust in
storage.
Lafler sells some copies to area outlets
like Emerald City Comics and Warp Factor
7. But he says the “big money” is in finding
a distributor who will make bulk purchases
at 40 percent of the cover price.
Making money isn’t Lafler’s only goal,
Sieve Lafler hopes his cartoons will make people think some "crazy, crazy thoughts.
however.
“I want to redefine what a cartoon book
is. I want to change people s sensibilities
about what to expect from a comic took,”
says Lafler. “Things like (Dog Boy) throw a
curve ball with people. Hopefully, this will
help them think some crazy, crazy
thoughts.”
Story by Sean Meyer
Photos by Elisabeth Podesta
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THE OPENING OF
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OLD TOWN PIZZA COMPANY
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HALF FULL
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Big Italian meatballs smothered with our own
marinara sauce and accented with parmesan
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MED. LQ.
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