The Fabler

This week, The Fabler Blog reached around to the other side of the world in order to showcase the pleasantly perverse art of Australian illustrator Matthew Dunn.

Why the global reach-around from an interview blog usually focused on North American creative-types? (You may ask.)

Well, The Fabler originally contacted Matthew as a result of some unpleasant controversy  (that is now fortunately behind us), and we found ourselves so enamored of his work, it occurred to us that we ought to share with you what we know about the artist Matthew Dunn.

Fact: Matthew Dunn wrote and illustrated a graphic novel called Lonely Monsters about a neurotic gas-mask-clad antihero who goes by the relatively unassuming name of Leroy.

Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape populated by zombies and mutants, Lonely Monsters was originally published in 2008 and saw a recent re-release through FEC Comics. Matthew also began work on a sequel to Lonely Monsters in the form of a webcomic titled LM2. LM2 is currently on indefinite hiatus, though Dunn has plans to continue the adventures of Leroy in a different format in the near future.

Fact: The character of Leroy became so wildly successful that not only did Matthew extend his presence from a minor character to a central protagonist, but he has also held art exhibitions dedicated solely to the gas-masked zombie hunter.

In fact, he just recently wrapped up an exhibition on Leroy art in September, which was titled ‘The Lonely Hunter‘.

Fact: Ain’t nobody draws an anthropomorph quite like Matthew Dunn.

Without further ado, an interview with Matthew Dunn:

KD: Tell me a little bit about yourself, and what it is that you do.

MD: I’m a full-time artist, working from a home-studio which I share with my lovely wife, 2 cats, toy robots, and tonnes of comics.  I split my time across a wide range of projects, always balancing a minimum of 4 – 5 things at a time.

These projects include comics, exhibitions, t-shirt design, commissions, prints, and I’m also partner in an art/toy project called M+M and a soon-to-be-launched art/clothing project called 4PMART.

KD: Where and how did your career in illustration start?

MD: I’ve been drawing all my life.  Back in Primary School, at around the age of 9, I wrote/illustrated my first comic and charged other kids 10 cents to read it. Throughout High School I did illustrations for some school magazines, and after finishing school I started doing random commissions for people. However it wasn’t until I relocated to Melbourne 10 years ago that I started taking a more serious approach to my art and its direction.

Since then I’ve had comics published in anthologies, self-published my own graphic novel, worked in various fields including film storyboarding and CD packaging design, and designed more t-shirts than is probably healthy for me to have done.

KD: What are some of the earliest influences you can recall that helped you build your own distinctive artistic style?

MD: Batman and the many artists who have worked on the character.  These stories developed within me a deep appreciation for capturing mood and emotion within my own art.  In my younger years it was the work of Jack Kirby and Neal Adams that stuck in my mind the most.  But then I discovered the work of artists like Bill Sienkiewicz and that completely blew my mind and made me realise that non-traditional comic art could work, if done well.

After that the biggest inspiration came via my ongoing obsession for the work of Mike Mignola, Dave McKean, Ashley Wood and JH Williams III (his work on Promethea with inker Mick Gray is comic book perfection).  Rather than allow these artists to influence the visual look of my work I instead try to channel their influences in ways to help push me towards refining my own approach and individual style.

KD: Tell me about Leroy, and how you came up with him.

MD: When I started working on Lonely Monsters I wanted to incorporate my own take on a traditional superhero, and this evolved into the non-traditional and slightly unhinged Leroy.  I wanted him to be a character who saw his situation (of being surrounded by zombies) as a chance to act out in ways that normal society doesn’t allow.

I initially planned on killing him off a few pages after he appeared, but he very quickly became too much fun to write and draw, so I kept him around and he has since become the creation that is more closely associated to my art than anything else I do.

KD: At what point did you start to realize the potential for Leroy to become such a predominant focus in your art? How did he come to be so significant to you?

MD: Leroy is kind of like my first born child in a way, and he’s named after a close cousin who passed away a couple of years prior to his creation, so I’m very protective of the character.  Initially it was just a lot of fun drawing a guy in a gas mask, but the more I worked on the him the more I embraced the challenge of using a relatively faceless character to express mood and emotion within my work.

The character is flexible enough for me to take him in various directions, from goofy t-shirts to melancholic exhibition pieces and beyond.  The new comic I’m working on gives me a chance to show his past, present, and potential future, which is all very exciting.

KD: What’s the premise behind Lonely Monsters?

MD: Zombies take over Australia, most of the population evacuates but some stay behind.

I wanted to do a story that focused on what would become the “normal” life of those people after having spent a year in this new world.  It’s also my own little love letter to the zombie genre, a genre that wasn’t quite so over-populated when I first started working on the book.

KD: The webcomic sequel, LM2, is currently on hiatus. What are your plans for resuming work on that title?

MD: LM2 started as a weekly outlet for me to just goof around and try new things.  I never had any idea what would be on the next page until I sat down that 1 day a week to put it together.  As the story did progress I also started to develop an idea of a different direction I wanted to take Leroy in, and that ended up being the complete opposite direction of where LM2 was heading.

As I tried to work out how I could twist things around my workload got really hectic (having 3 exhibitions in the space of a year, adding up to over 300 pieces of art, can have that effect) and LM2 just fell by the wayside.  I plan on resurrecting it soon-ish, but instead of continuing it as a Lonely Monsters sequel it’ll just be a weekly 1 page art journal of sorts, sometimes featuring Leroy, sometimes not.

KD: Much of your art features anthropomorphic animal-headed people, the undead, or some combination of the two. What is it about beast-people hybrids and the walking dead that appeals to you creatively?

MD: I’ve always enjoyed drawing monkeys, and one day I was doodling away and ended up drawing a human with a monkey head.  The combination just clicked with me and so I kept on doing it, also adding in other animals to the mix.

The monkey-headed people became popular enough that they ended up being used for a CD design and also resulted in the creation of “superviolentmonkeytime”, a line of toys soon to be released by M+M art/toys which was born from an LM2 page.  Zombies are just something I’ve always found interesting and terrifying, and despite how widely used they have been they still contain endless potential in regards to how they’re used in storytelling.  Plus they’re flat out fun to draw.

KD: Which of your creations would you least like to run into in a dark alley at night?

MD: The Unfortunate Man (who has a large tentacle growing out of his mouth as that would freak me out), or Leroy if he was in one of his “moods” haha.

KD: What projects do you currently have on the go/are forthcoming in the near future?

MD: Now that my exhibition commitments for the year are wrapped up my main focus is being split between the proper follow up to Lonely Monsters, preparing 4PMART for its launch, and the M+M art/toy project.  I’m also continuing to produce regular t-shirt designs and working on various commissions here and there.

I also hope to catch up on some sleep, but as always that’s low on the “to-do list”.

For more from Matthew Dunn you can check out his official website.

-Interview by Kevin de Vlaming