Be Still My Variety Show Heart
First and foremost, I believe in tangents. I can never deny a new side-road just adjacent to the well-beaten track. It’s also inherently funny to put a guy who tells stories in pictures on a stage to tell stories without them, and I can’t resist a good bit. So when I was asked to be an opening act reading folktale inspired stories for a small regional tour of musicians, I said yes. Maybe that’s surprising given the hermetic nature of comics, but I’ve always had a variety show heart buried in my chest. This would be of no surprise to many of the folks that know me personally, and even less of one to my neighbors growin’ up. As there was a solid few years where my premiere childhood aspiration was to be a ventriloquist. Apologies to everyone in attendance of a Jasper Elementary Talent Show for at least a few years of my youth.
And with that I took to the stage again last week, but I did everyone a solid and left Charlie McCarthy behind for a folder full of short stories. Some of them featuring characters and setting from this very comic!
We traveled to three cities across the Ozarks, I told stories, incredible music was played, portraits were taken, and I couldn’t begin to tell you how much fun it was. We began at the American Legion of Fayetteville, flew to Lindbergh’s Tavern of Springfield, and finally landed to the lovely Thelma’s Peach of Tulsa! (we all drove, I’m being poetic) One of those questions us artists ask a lot in weird points of history like this is what’s the point of art anyways. And I find the answer more often these days in public with audiences and other artists than in the confines of my office. If you allow me a little highfalutin thought, for me it’s about sharing and conversing in our oldest languages. And comics, a medium I love and cherish, doesn’t always do the best at that. None of this to say you can expect me to run away from Backwood Folk or even comics in general. That is my most proficient language after all. I just wanna find out a stronger and less lonely dialect for it.
Now of course, I was just an opener, so don’t let me ignore the rest of the show. After me were such an embarrassment of riches that I do feel a little like I pulled a fast one getting in. It was a hell of a thing seeing their performances across the three nights, proper gift of a tour like this. So let me introduce them and tell you to seek them out! We had Charlie Jones, Guinevere Goodwin, and Jude Brothers. Each act just killing it from a different corner. The show also included lovely portraits by Emma Nelson. Also a shout out to Robert Bishop for orchestrating the whole thing (and snapping a couple pictures of me reading) By the end it felt like an old school troupe of sorts, and I can’t imagine leaving an experience like this on a better note.
OTHER BITS AND BOBS
- Of course, at the risk of biting the hand that feeds, I do wish these kind of events could more easily exist outside of the Walton orbit of Northwest, Arkansas. As I always do find myself having to make rough calculations of how comfortable I am in that gravity. My general calculus remains “does it feel like I got away with something on someone else’s dime” or “do I feel like a corporate ambassador?” and going from there. But I grant that not everyone is gunna reach the same figures in the end. Always hard math in a cultural monopoly.
- Backwood Folk Issue 2- ever closer! Unless new tangents arise, my foreseeable future is drawing. I’m married, I did my speaking engagements, and it’s me versus blank pages again. Can’t wait to get this one out. It’s very Lilian focused this time around.
- I recently just finished reading This New Dark by Chase Dearinger, and thought it was just a great piece of southern horror. It really captures the swirling down the drain sensation a lot of low population rural towns carry. Though I think it does it quite well without the sneering vantage I think these stories can often hold. It’s hollowed out and so are the people, but it’s tragic versus pathetic. It also has intersections with something that I would almost describe as celestial body horror. Enjoyed it a lot, and if you dig Backwood, you might find something here too.
- Once more, I really implore you to check out the musicians of the tour! I was just blown away night after night.