An Interview with Dan Boris,
Cartoonist of Hoxwinder Hall
Image courtesy from Dan Boris
Interview with Daniel Boris about his Comic Strip HOXWINDER HALL, which is one of the five finalists in the Washington Post contest "America's Next Great Cartoonist Contest"
UPDATE OCTOBER 28, 2011: Interview with Dan Boris at K12 where Dan is a visual designer for a variety of items. Read it online here at the K12 site.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2010: Boris' strip is given a good review by Ron Masters at Yahoo.com: "Hoxwinder Hall features an animal loving 10-yr old young boy named Byron Hoxwinder. During a family trip to Florida he secretly brings back a heavy souvenir packed in his luggage. In the first cartoon strip, Rowdy, Byron's 16-yr old brother, complains about the weight of Byron's suitcases. "Hey! Everybody!" Rowdy calls out. "I think Byron smuggled Mickey Mouse back from Florida!" Byron responds with: "Or maybe I packed an alligator in my suitcase.""
UPDATES OCTOBER 2010: Daniel Boris' launched the Hoxwinder Hall web site over the Columbus Day 2010 weekend - see the Hoxwinder Hall website here.)
[Note: Dan used every Hoxwinder Strip he had for his contest entry at the Washington Post, and they cannot be published here simultaneous with the contest. Be sure to follow this link to the Washington Post to see his 6 black and white daily strips and a full color Sunday strip - - voting for the strips is still going on, be sure to take a look.)
Stan Lee: "The gags are good and the concept of a kid and his big brother living with a wise-cracking baby alligator is a unique angle. I'm guessing that the alligator will be the mainstay of the strip. It should be, because that's what makes the strip unique." [From the Washington Post judges comments]
This interview was conducted by email in July 2010 by Erik Weems.
1.) How did you learn about the Washington Post " America's Next Great Cartoonist" contest?
A friend of mine IM'd the contest link to me one day at work. He thought I'd be interested. He was correct.
2.) You've made it into the last top five category - - was this a surprise to you or did you expect it?
I didn't know what to expect. I had confidence in the strength of my strip, but had no idea how the voting would go. Advancing into the Top 5 felt great. It meant that the public actually LIKED my work, and that was an awesome realization. It validated my work even more than being chosen for the Top 10 finalists.
3.) You got some good remarks off the WP Judges - how'd you feel about Stan Lee's remarks?
Yeah, reading that cultural icon Stan Lee liked my work was pretty crazy! It really blew me away. I mean, c'mon! The guy created Spider Man for crying out loud! What an honor to hear him make positive comments on my work. Still can't get over that·
4.) How long have you had Hoxwinder Hall as a concept in your head? How did you develop the idea?
I first started developing this strip when I was in Art School, back in the late 1980's. There was a woman in my class named Chris Hoxwinder. I remember hearing her last name and immediately loving the sound of it, and telling her I was going to use it in my comic strip someday! That's a true story. The title is just a way to describe an extended family living together in a sort of college dormitory style arrangement. The Hoxwinder family in this case. Hoxwinder Hall.
As far as the concept goes, I remember thinking how so many of the really great comic strips involved people and animals. I don't think that's an accident. Human beings have lived with animals since the beginning of time, so it's only natural that we relate and identify with the basic concept of people and animals interacting. Anyhow, I thought an interesting twist to that classic formula would be a strip with an animal that nobody had ever used before - a unique animal. I got to thinking how so many people have pets that live in aquariums, but that had never really been represented in the comics. So I got to thinking what KIND of animal would be interesting to use. Eventually I thought of an alligator. A baby alligator. I decided it was a cool angle, and so I created Dozi. The character's name is the word "Izod" (the embroidered alligator brand everyone used to wear) spelled backward. The name just sounded perfect. Still does. Dozi. Dozi the alligator.
5.) What are your influences? What comic strips or other art areas did you look toward as a kid?
The entire reason I became an artist was because I wanted to someday be a syndicated comic strip artist. I was a pretty reclusive kid when I was young, and all I did was draw. I grew up reading comic strips and comic books. When it came to comic strips - Peanuts. Wizard of Id, Hagar the Horrible· all the standards.
As for comic books, I preferred Marvel. I just liked the way the Marvel artists drew. And throw in some Conan the Barbarian and other miscellaneous subjects that caught my eye.
And of course Frank Frazetta was a big influence. I loved everything that guy did, and I know I am not alone. That guy was a genius.
I spent endless hours trying to copy Frazetta art, from his pen and ink drawings to actually trying to copy his oil paintings. As a student, you really learn a lot copying somebody else's work. By trying to recreate the pen lines or paint strokes, even down to trying to mix the same colors they used, you sort of get inside their heads and start thinking like them. My older brother Ed took one of my copied Frazetta paintings off to college with him. I think it was "the Outlaw of Torn". Haha!
6.) What strips do you enjoy now?
You know, for a long while I really lost interest in the comic pages. When strips like the Far Side, Bloom County, and Calvin & Hobbes left the scene, nothing else really appealed to me anymore. It was like all of the FUN was sucked out of the comics pages for me. It was sad; I really did not look forward to reading any comic strips anymore. Lately there have been some good ones. Dilbert of course continues to be great. I love Get Fuzzy - that one is brilliant. ( I actually e-mailed Darby Conley back when that strip was just getting started, telling him how much I liked it and how I thought it was going to be a huge hit· Darby responded to me too, which I thought was a pretty cool thing to do! ) Pearls Before Swine is good. Then there are good web comics. Penny Arcade is fantastic. Those strips all are very well written, which I think is really THE most important thing for a comic strip. You can mostly get away with bad art if you have strong writing, but it doesn't work the other way around. Anyhow, what I hope to do with my strip is bring some of that FUN back to the comics page!
No big, underlying deep messages. I just want to make people smile and enjoy my strip.
Additional internet resources:
- Voting is still going on at the Washington Post "America's Next great Cartoonist Contest"
- Daniel Boris official site.
- UPDATES OCTOBER 2010: Daniel Boris' launched the Hoxwinder Hall web site over the Columbus Day 2010 weekend - see the Hoxwinder Hall website here
Art sample image courtesy Daniel Boris
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