This Sunday, March 4th, the Dill Pickle Club is hosting a release party for Oregon History Comics: Vol. 1-10 at Powell’s Books (get the full details here). Don’t forget you can pre-order the box set of all ten comics at our shop (just $25/ members, $30/ non-members).
For the next four days, we’ll be posting interviews with some of the participating artists to provide context for Sunday’s release event. Today’s featured artist is Shawn Granton, illustrator of Oregon Bikes, a 40-page work that focuses on the story of Portland’s early bike builders.
Q: Were you familiar with the subject of the comic prior to this project? What kind of research did you do while creating it?
A: A little. I knew that Fred Merrill was a fairly big player in the “bike scene” during the turn of the century, but didn’t know how big he was. I didn’t do a heck of a lot of research since Sarah Mirk provided me with a goodly amount of reference photos and a decent script. I needed to find additional reference photos, though.
Read the full interview and check out more images after the jump…
Q: What can be learned from the history told in the story?
A: “Keep Portland Weird” and “bicycles as a big deal in Portland” are nothing new.
Q: What challenges did this project present to you?
A: Trying to draw accurate representations of the people involved in the story. Imagine having one small, blurry photo of the protagonist’s face from when he was young. Then imagine having to draw him in many scenes, in various poses, throughout the course of his life. That’s what I was up against.
Q: What were the things you most enjoyed about working on it?A: Filling in areas of black. Soothing, soothing black.
Q: How can we find out more about your other illustration work?A: Check out my art website: http://id.sito.org/sgr or see what I’m doing around town and elsewhere at http://urbanadventureleague.
blogspot.com/ . Or write me at tfrindustries@gmail.com or P.O. Box 14185, Portland OR 97293-0185
4 Comments
Fred Merrill claimed – plausibly! – to be the biggest bike dealer on the west coast. He was not, however, primarily a bike builder. A small quibble perhaps, but he was selling bikes made out east and shipped by rail into Portland.
Nevertheless, he is indeed one of the most colorful characters in Portland’s history! He served on City Council and, as Shawn says, was an early fan of “keep Portland weird” sentiment.
Thanks to Shawn & Sarah for a great look at a forgotten chapter of Portland history!
i love that you request a web site instead of an address or phone number!!! sign o’ the times.
i have a really fabulous suggestion for a future zine, which is the history of WWI in portland, there was a strong unionization effort, as well as worker repression. i wrote my master’s thesis (in 2002) on a radical lesbian abortionist, dr. marie equi, who was jailed for opposing the war. would be a great zine and of course a historical documentary starring michelle williams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Equi
sounds like a great project, i am very happy for the success you have been having. i see multomah county library has a few of your titles, i’ll be sure to take a look at those!
hi dove, thanks for writing! great idea. dr marie equi has popped up in several of our programs — a red tour of portland with mike munk a couple years ago, an upcoming tour we’re doing with the bus project this spring and a gay and lesbian tour we’re planning for the summer. she was also the subject of one of sarah mirk’s “oregon history comics” that appeared in bitch magazine last year!
and yes, multnomah county library has copies of some of the comics. feel free to suggest they buy the box set! http://www.multcolib.org/catalog/suggestapurchase.html
huzza, Dill Pickle! another triumph!!
(… meat me in the back ally, bring your schwing)