Mike Conway (Hot Food Zine) Interview (June 2008)

Mike Conway is one of the funnier people you will meet, provided you have at least a shred of sense of humor. Conway is the brains behind Hot Food, a zine that follows no formatting whatsoever. I pulled quotes from this e-mail Q & A into a larger culture piece about underground/DIY comics for AirRaid. For more of Conway's antics check out the always entertaining tranwreck of a band named The Catburglars.

When did you start to draw?

I've been drawing as long as I can remember. When I was three or four I used to draw city landscapes and I'd play out the Ghostbusters fighting big ghosts on them. Then I took a big plunge into the world of superhero comics. My grandma sent me a package a few years ago with some artwork I did at school in kindergarten and first grade, there was this one drawing of me freaking out at my desk pulling my hair out while a teacher was yelling at me and the whole class was laughing, there was homework and books flying everywhere... My life has not changed.

How would you describe what you do with Hot Food?

Before I got the idea to print Hot Food, I'd sit in front of the T.V. with my roommates at the time who are two of my best friends, smoking and drinking some various stupefacients, and we drew tons and tons of pictures to make each other laugh. None of us were active in the "zine community", I just thought the drawings we did deserved to be seen and I wanted to pay the same respect to other people's funny thoughts and artwork that wouldn't have otherwise ever had an audience, but other than all the curating, layout, printing, assembling, and other tedious boring shit work, not to mention footing the bill, I'd describe what I do with Hot Food as still just trying to make a few of my friends crack up.

Why did you decide to do Hot Food in zine format? Have you done one before?

I decided to do Hot Food in a zine format because print is the natural format for comics, and not only is owning a printed publication way better than checking a website almost 100% of the time, but I've got no idea how to make a website or get people to visit it anyway. Digital media is cool and everything and it has its place and certainly makes my life very convenient, but I will resist it until the bitter end of the printed word. (although you can visit my online blog at hotfoodcomics.blogspot.com)

Have your drawings been used for anything else outside of your own zine work?

Yes, I've done some drawings and graphic design work outside of Hot Food. I've also done several hand drawn flyers for shows I've helped my friend Darius put on as well as flyers for my own band, The Catburglars. I've done all the artwork and graphic design for our records and a couple other bands as well. I've also done flyers for plenty of shows I haven't played, whenever I've been asked, and I'm definitely willing to do more, but if the bands suck I'm afraid I will have to charge you to make up for compromising my name and my artwork.

Hot Food has been a little controversial around town; why do you think so?

I think the Hot Food controversy comes from it's close proximity to the world of hardcore punk and the sometimes over sensitive sometimes reactionary P.C. politics that go along with some of the cliques banging around inside it's confines. I listen to a lot of that music, even the reactionary over-sensitive P.C. shit, (the feminist shit, the straight edge shit, the political shit, etc.) and a lot of it goes of half cocked and half informed, don't get me wrong... there are some truly brilliant ideas in there as well and I love it all... but in the same way, you could say the same for the people involved in it. Everything I've heard people say they were offended by was intended to be cynical or sarcastic, I'm not an offensive person but I do find those things funny, maybe I've got an offensive sense of humor. Even my own friends have filed some complaints, I don't really care. Still, I'd like to think that Hot Food lampoons ignorance as much as it revels in it.

If given the offer to do more traditional but less interesting comic work for pay, do you think you would do it?

Probably not considering I know how much that line of work pays. However, money talks and I'm sure as hell listening.