Here’s the full Q&A with Brian Winkeler and Dave Curd, the creative team of “Bastard Road,” which appears in “PopGun” Vol. 2. A shorter version of this ran in last Friday’s Weekend Look section.
Matt Price: For biographical background, what are your ages and hometowns?
- BRIAN: I was born in St. Louis, MO and we moved to Bethany, OK in 1976. I’ve lived in the metro area ever since, except for a 10-month stint working in Lubbock, TX, which opened my eyes to what a cultural paradise pre-MAPS OKC actually was. I now live in Yukon, OK with my amazing wife Vi Le and our sons: 5-year old Van and 2-week old Hugh. I’m 37.
- DAVE: Born in Chicago, but spent formative years (17-29) in Oklahoma City, Moore and Edmond. Now live in Madison, WI where I continue to freelance and work at Raven software as a 2D artist. 30 Years old.
Matt Price: How’d you come up with the idea for “Bastard Road”?
- BRIAN: Greg Heanue, my best friend from Mount St. Mary High School (class of 1988), was the marketing director of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block for five years. He read and really enjoyed some of the spec scripts I’d started writing and suggested I start developing some ideas for Cartoon Network. I’d gotten to know Dave Curd as a good friend and collaborator, so he and I started brainstorming something that would be really fun and edgy and hopefully very unique. Dave started designing the characters and came up with the title, then I started filling in a lot of the details. We’ve got a ton of character designs, a complete draft of a two-part, animated pilot script and a five-year epic story arc in mind. We’re actually talking to an interested party but it’s too soon to really speak to it (nothing’s been offered or signed yet).
- DAVE: I think Brian and I both share a love of early 80’s American adventure hour-longs (The A-Team, Knight Rider, The Incredible Hulk), and cold war fueled apocalypse films. I supplied the look, and some of the base personality of the characters, and Brian gave them life, made them work.
Matt Price: Each of you, tell me about your collaborator on the story.
- BRIAN: Dave is a huge, and hugely talented illustrator. He seriously has, like, kielbasa sized fingers. I have no idea how he draws so amazingly with those things. His website is www.davecurd.com. He’s got a non-stop creative brain and he and I just clicked as collaborators - he comes up with insane ideas and characters and I’m there to flesh them out and give them voice and a narrative. It’s been a bit tough since he’s moved to Madison, but we email constantly and try to talk every few weeks to update our projects.
- DAVE: Brian is an amazing creative at Third Degree Advertising, where he gets his funny, grubby little fingers over all aspects of advertising. We met through another Oklahoma creative, Director Christopher Sharpe. Brian and I collaborated for an animated television commercial for ACOG (the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments): “The Stormwater Fairy”, and we’ve been buddies ever since!
Matt Price: How did you get involved with Popgun?
- DAVE: Popgun’s creator Mark Andrew Smith became aware of my work through his forum, and was kind enough to invite me to participate. I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce Bastard Road and immediately reached out to Brian for us to collaborate on a 12-page comic story.
- BRIAN: What he said.
Matt Price: Describe “Bastard Road” for me.
- BRIAN: It’s an action-packed, ultra-violent adventure at the post-apocalyptic roller derby. Our protagonists are Bastard, a larger-than-life, brick red amnesiac and his traveling companion Farel, who just wants some peace, but never gets it so long as Bastard’s around. Trouble finds them in the form of a beautiful mutant rollercatgirl, her luchador boyfriend and his deadly friends. It’s sort of like ‘Futurama’ meets ‘The Road Warrior’ with a bloody ‘The Itchy & Scratchy Show’ sensibility.
- DAVE: Bastard and Farel, The traveling wastelanders brave Catwomen, Mutant Chihuahuas, a Satanic Luchador, a Spanish Gunfighter, and deadly mini mariachis on a quest for booze, broads and bromance! (fellowship!)
Matt Price: How did you guys get your start in writing and illustration?
- BRIAN: I’ve dreamed of creating my own comics since my Mom first bought them for me (as a 3-for-99¢ pack at the checkout of the Humpty’s in Bethany back in 1976). I’ve worked in advertising for the past 16 years and have recently focused on copywriting and broadcast production as Associate Creative Director at Third Degree Advertising, working on recent TV commercials for the RedHawks and the Gazette. I’ve won two prestigious Fontana Awards for Humor from the Oklahoma City Ad Club - making people laugh is something I love to do - and I love being able to do it so often at my job.
- DAVE: I’ve always loved drawing, even as I was hacking away at UCO for a Design Degree. Luckily, illustrator and professor Cameron Eagle showed me the light, and I cast off the shackles of desktop publishing. After a few Gazette covers I dropped out, started freelancing, and haven’t looked back.