FAQ with author Rob Merritt
Why the hell did you come up with “Mad Reindeer?”
What illegal drugs were you smoking at the time?
What style and software program did you use?
Are you anti-hunter in real life?
Why is the book so excessively violent?
Why don’t you make the graphic novel available through Amazon or PayPal?
What’s the deal with a slug sidekick named Zee?
Will God ever forgive you for unleashing this crap upon the world?
Why the hell did you come up with something as weird as “Mad Reindeer?”
While “Mad Reindeer” was first published in November of 2004, Annihilator Bart has actually been around since 1990. As a kid, I thought it would be funny if I drew a comic called “Bambi: The Revenge.” After all, what would be funnier than Disney’s cute little deer going postal and taking up machine guns against all the hunters?
However, it didn’t take long to realize that – while funny – there was no way Bambi’s hooves were going to get around the trigger guard of an M-16. Besides, Disney might not take too kindly to such a horrible perversion of their lovable little moneymaker. So I realized that my character had to be original – and a mutant, so that he could have hands. Thus, Annihilator Bart was born. The sketch shown at right was the first-ever, drawn in late 1989 in the cafeteria of St. Patrick’s Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Wow, that drawing sucks. Why is there a reference to the New Kids On The Block there?
Well, it tells you something about how old it is. Through 8 th grade and into my freshman year at Jefferson High School, I drew “Annihilator Bart” as a goofy comic book for my friends to read. Sometimes they would laugh. Most of the time they would regard me with concern. Eventually, I got into theatre and no longer had time to draw him. But I always held a fondness for him in my heart. And I was thrilled to finally bring him back in graphic novel form with “Mad Reindeer.”
What illegal drugs were you smoking at the time?
A: Funny enough, no illegal drugs were involved; I created Bart while completely sober, and continue to draw him that way now. I can’t help but wonder – if my mind is this messed up normally, what the hell would I do if I were high? Since I’ve never been high, I guess we’ll never know. It’s probably too scary to think about.
Your last book was about the shootings at Columbine. Why would you follow that up with something so violent and dumb?
Because it’s called satire. And it’s funny. Yes, Bart kills a lot of people. But for crying out loud – he’s a mutant reindeer, and his best friend is a slug. If you’re going to draw parallels with Columbine from that, then something’s seriously wrong with you.
Besides, after Columbine, I got really mad at some of the actions schools were taking. The crackdown on kids who drew violent pictures, the labeling of outcasts as “troublemakers,” and the suggestions that violent movies and videogames were directly responsible for Columbine was ridiculous. I mean, I was one of those kids once. And I never wanted to kill anybody. I just thought that drawing a violent comic book was fun, and that the more nasty it got, the more my friends would laugh. But if I were in grade school today, drawing “Annihilator Bart” would get me into terrible trouble. I was drawing realistic M-16s, I had hunters getting shot and beheaded, I had Zee getting stuck in a blender … It was okay back then. Today I’d be in the counselor’s office. Possibly even suspended or expelled. Why? Because I’m creative? What kinds of stories did Quentin Tarantino write in junior high? Or Jhonen Vasquez? Probably some violent stuff. They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves today.
That’s part of the message Brooks and I tried to push in “No Easy Answers.” Eric and Dylan didn’t kill people because they watched “Natural Born Killers.” It was far more complicated than that. So should I feel the least bit weird about drawing a comic like “Mad Reindeer” after being immersed in researching Columbine for so long? Absolutely not. In fact, I feel emboldened to do it. Bringing “Mad Reindeer” back was my act of defiance to those people who say that kids who draw violent pictures need to be watched. I mean, here’s my horribly violent drawings as a kid. Here’s my love of violent videogames and movies. And yet I love people. So there goes that Columbine theory. For me, there was no better personal follow-up than “Mad Reindeer.” For myself, if nothing else.
Wow. You’re a real dick.
I know.
Why would Bart drive a Fiero?
Because it’s cool. And because I like to sprinkle 80s references throughout my stuff. For example, Bart talks to Jerrica online. It’s totally an inside joke for people who remember “Jem & The Holograms.” Some of Bart’s stuff has been updated; I mean, in the old comics, the love of his life was Samantha Fox. Now it’s Angelina Jolie. But for the most part, Bart loves the 80s and so do I. And the Pontiac Fiero is the quintessential 80s car. It started production in 1984, ended in 1988, was THE trendy car to own when it first came out, and is still lovingly preserved by collectors today. Like me. I actually own two.
On a side note, as far as comics go – there’s a comic strip called “Non Sequitur” drawn by David Wiley Miller, who used to live in Iowa. And he drove an ’88 Pontiac Fiero Formula from the time it was new until about three years ago. And then I bought it. So if David ever sees “Mad Reindeer,” he should know that his old Fiero now serves as the model for The Deermobile, and that I still care for it lovingly to this day. Wow. I am such a geek.
What style and computer program did you use?
I drew all the characters by hand, and did the backgrounds using Adobe Photoshop. Then I scanned the characters in, colored them with Photoshop and merged everything. It gives it kind of a different look.
You mean kind of a crappy look. Why didn’t you use Adobe Illustrator like a normal person?
Because I’m too lazy to learn it. And because I wanted Bart to look a little deliberately crappy. I mean, he looked terrible back in school, when I was drawing him on notebook paper. I needed to pay homage to that, even as I reinvented him. But at the same time, I wanted the backgrounds to look really sweet, so people wouldn’t think that I completely sucked. Hence, a book that looks like it doesn’t know what the hell it wants to be. Fact of the matter is, I’m not much of an artist. I’m a writer. But I can’t afford to hire an artist. Thus, Bart is drawn by me. If anyone knows of a good artist who comes cheap, then maybe Bart will undergo a facelift. Until then, this is what we’ve got.
Are you anti-hunter in real life?
All right, let’s clear something up here, because I get asked this all the time –
Of course you do. That’s why it’s in the FAQ section, dumbass.
Thanks. All right, look. I when I created Bart, it had nothing to do with being anti-hunter. I just thought it would be really funny to have a deer running around in the woods with a machine gun. Because it just makes sense; if you were a deer, and you mutated to the point where you could carry weaponry, who would you go after? The people who are shooting at you!
That said, I’ve developed a real distaste for hunting in the course of working on “Mad Reindeer.” Especially sport hunting. I mean, I really respect that in Native American tribes, hunters used to say prayers over the body of the animal they killed, asking its spirit for forgiveness because the hunter’s family needed to eat. That’s cool. But you compare that with these photos in deer hunter magazines, where this big fat asshole is kneeling next to the dead body of a deer he just killed, and he’s holding its head up by the antlers and grinning like an idiot at the camera. That’s just infuriating. Talk about disrespectful. I think hunting for sport is bullshit anyway – I don’t see what’s so sporting about shooting an unarmed deer while hiding in the bushes. Now, if you tied antlers to your head and fought the deer to the death that way, then maybe. Because then the deer’s got a pretty good chance, too. Chances are that if no gun was involved, most of those dead deer you see in the photos would kick the crap out of the hunters who come after them.
There are vegans who love “Mad Reindeer.” Which had never occurred to me while writing it, but after I talked to them, I was like, “Sweet.” They love seeing the animals fight back. And I do too. But here’s the thing: At the end of the day, it’s a comic book. It’s funny. It’s a joke. There are hundreds of thousands of hunters out there killing deer. I don’t really think one cartoon character with a machine gun is going to affect things all that much.
Why is the book so excessively violent?
There’s very little that Bart does to hunters that hunters don’t do to deer. Okay, so hunters don’t throw grenades at deer, but other than that … In the very last panel of “Mad Reindeer,” there’s a shot of severed hunter heads hanging on Bart’s wall. I originally had reservations about doing that, because I thought it might be a little too much. But then I realized, “Hey. Isn’t that exactly what hunters do with deer? If people find this image shocking, then why don’t they complain about severed deer heads hanging in lodges or living rooms?” Most of Mad Reindeer is comedy. But if I get a chance to make people think about something, then I’m all about it. Irony is cool.
Why don’t you make the graphic novel available through Amazon or PayPal?
Because I’m poor and dumb.
What’s the deal with a slug sidekick named Zee?
Zee wasn’t originally Zee. Back in junior high, a friend commented that Bart should have a sidekick. And we tossed around Zippy The Wonder Slug. Don’t even ask where it originally came from. This was 1990 and I was a weird little kid. But it just seemed so absurd and ridiculous that it was perfect for “Annihilator Bart.”
Unfortunately, when I decided this year to do the graphic novel, I made an unpleasant discovery thanks to Google: Someone else was already using the name Zippy The Wonder Slug. There’s some girl who draws it and posts it online. I don’t know if she has a copyright on it or not, but I didn’t want to mess with it. I just thought, “Aw, crap. I gotta change Zippy’s name.” Well, I shortened it to his initial, Z, and then that became Zee. Then I dropped the “Wonder Slug” part, and so now he’s just good ol’ Zee. I miss being able to call him Zippy, but I didn’t want to mess around with people saying that I stole it. Mind you, the sheer odds that someone else would create a comic character called Zippy The Wonder Slug are mind-boggling. But nonetheless, it happened, and so Zippy is Zee now.
Will God ever forgive you for unleashing this crap upon the world?
Probably not. But people might laugh. And that makes things worth it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A 1998 graduate of the University of Iowa with a double-major of journalism and theatre arts, Rob Merritt is a writer and performer who grew up in Iowa before moving to his current home in New York. He spent over a decade in the journalism industry, writing for The Daily Iowan, The Marshalltown Times-Republican and the Cedar Rapids Gazette, as well as magazine work for various trade publications in the construction industry. Rob also worked with Columbine High School graduate Brooks Brown on “No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death At Columbine,” an account of the 1999 high school massacre and its aftermath; and coordinated, edited and co-wrote “Lest We Forget: A Tribute To Central Iowa’s Veterans In World War II.”
Also an actor, Rob has appeared in more than four dozen productions over the past decade, including three different productions of Cabaret (two as the Emcee), the title roles in Jesus Christ Superstarand Young Abe Lincoln, Death Of A Salesman, The Foreigner, The Fantasticks, A Few Good Men, Sweeney Todd, The Merchant Of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing. As a playwright, he has authored Driving To Bermuda, Savage Records, By Dawn’s Early Light and The Mercury Stone, and seen his work produced at the University of Iowa and the American College Theatre Festival. He is also a veteran of No Shame Theatre in Iowa City.
PUBLISHED WRITING WORK
LEST WE FORGET: A Tribute To Central Iowa Veterans
By Ken Black, Chris Buls, Chuck Friend, Chris Long, Rob Merritt, Bryan Schultz, Sarah Stambaugh, Vic Verney & Jenny Welp
Ogden Press, 2002
From July to December of 2001, the daily newspaper in Marshalltown, Iowa ran a 50-part series that profiled Iowa veterans from World War II. Due to overwhelming response from readers, the series was then compiled by project coordinator Rob Merritt into this paperback book in 2002. The book features stories from pilots, engineers, infantrymen and medics, with representatives from every branch of the service in both the European and Pacific campaigns.
Lest We Forget” features more than 200 photos, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series and reflections from all nine authors on their experience. The result is a tribute to 50 heroes from a bygone era whose sacrifices will not be forgotten.
Copies are still available. Call (641) 753-6611 or visit www.timesrepublican.com.
NO EASY ANSWERS: The Truth Behind Death At Columbine
By Brooks Brown and Rob Merritt
Lantern Books, 2002
FROM LANTERNBOOKS.COM: On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two seniors at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, walked into their school and shot to death twelve students and one teacher, and wounded many others. It was the worst single act of murder at a school in U.S. history.
Few people knew Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris better than Brooks Brown. Brown and Klebold were best friends in grade school, and years later, at Columbine, Brown was privy to some of Harris and Klebold’s darkest fantasies and most troubling revelations After the shootings, Brown was even accused by the police of having been in on the massacre—simply because he had been friends with the killers.
Now, for the first time, Brown, with journalist Rob Merritt, gets to tell his full version of the story. He describes the warning signs that were missed or ignored, and the evidence that was kept hidden from the public after the murders. He takes on those who say that rock music or video games caused Klebold and Harris to kill their classmates and explores what it might have been that pushed these two young men, from supposedly stable families, to harbor such violent and apocalyptic dreams.
Shocking as well as inspirational and insightful, No Easy Answers is an authentic wake-up call for all the psychologists, authorities, parents, and law enforcement personnel who have attempted to understand the murders at Columbine High School. As the title suggests, the book offers no easy answers, but instead presents the unvarnished facts about growing up as an alienated teenager in America today.
You can also order this book from amazon.com at:
Or at Barnes & Noble at:http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=gu5nw0MAiq&isbn=1590560310&TXT=Y&itm=3
ACTING WORK
Below are links to photos and web pages from some of my theatre work. Just click on the show title for cast and production info, and for photos from the show where available.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (Martha Ellen Tye Playhouse) – Jesus
Additional photos:
htt p://www.mctiowa.org/Season%20Bill%20Archive/JCSuperStar/JCSS64.jpg
http://www.mctiowa.org/Season%20Bill%20Archive/JCSuperStar/JCSS60.jpg
CABARET (Theatre Cedar Rapids) – The Emcee
Additional photos:
http://jasoncoyne.smugmu g.com/gallery/121743/1/4384126
http://jasoncoyne.smugmug.com/gallery/121743/10/4378855
SWEENEY TODD (Starlighters II Theatre) – Anthony Hope/Pirelli
A FEW GOOD MEN (Martha Ellen Tye Playhouse) – Daniel Kaffee
Additional photos:
http://www.mctiowa.org/Season%20Bill%20Archive/AFewGoodMen/AFGM46.jpg
http://www.mctiowa.org/Season%20Bill%20Archive/AFewGoodMen/AFGM4F.jpg
CABARET (Martha Ellen Tye Playhouse) – The Emcee
DEATH OF A SALESMAN (Matha Ellen Tye Playhouse) – Biff Loman
FLYER ( University of Iowa) – Jack (Original Cast)
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (Marshalltown Community Theatre) – Marcus Lycus
THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO (Martha Ellen Tye Playhouse) – Joe Farkas
THE FANTASTICKS (Martha Ellen Tye Playhouse) – El Gallo
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) – Martha Ellen Tye Playhouse
IN SEARCH OF ALICE (Staged Reading, Dramatists Guild, New York)
THE FOREIGNER ( Clinton Showboat) – Froggy LeSeur
YOUNG ABE LINCOLN (Lincoln Amphitheatre) – Abe
Additional info: http://www.perrycountyindiana.org/attract/youngabe.html
THE MUSIC MAN (Starlighters II Theatre, Anamosa)
VISIT www.atlasisshrugging.org for even more insanity!
Rob (center) with friends and LBIW posters (from left) Justin (Psycho), Brooks (LilBro) and Eddie (DeadBoy), during a serious “Monkeyball” session on GameCube. See? We’re all friends at atlasisshrugging.org.