Adult Swim: Celeb-Nerdy with Andrew W.K.

At some point along the way, "nerd" became the new cool -- it can probably be traced to 1993, when donning taped-up glasses and protected-up pockets became a viable and popular Halloween costume. In the years since, celebrities have collectively relaxed their cracks about letting the world at large know that they, yes, too have secretly been getting in on the nerd fun.

In Celeb-Nerdy, we ring up the upper crust's most entertaining entertainers and get them to gab about their fossilized solar-powered watches and antique peanut brittle collections with pride. In this edition, we called up our rock star friend Andrew W.K. to talk about how '60s underground comics blow his mind on a daily basis, and how that fascination actually helped launch his music career.

Party Hard

I understand you're a big fan, specifically, of '60s comics -- but how did you zero in on that decade?

I'll say for starters I've been a fan of comic books for just about as long as I could remember. Probably going back to about age 8 or 9 I got very interested in Golden Age comics, as I understand it, those are comic books that were made in the '50s. Certainly was interested in new and independent comic books. Throughout my junior high and high school years I got just way into comic books in general, drawing my own, making my own with friends, but also collecting them.

I was a little bit overwhelmed by the quantity, especially in that era -- the late '80s, early '90s -- there was a lot of comic books being produced. That was a real high point in terms of the modern comic-book industry. They hit a stride there. I participated in that version of fandom a little bit, but I was overwhelmed. I didn't have what it took to keep up with every issue of X-Men, X-Force, and X-Factor. Every single X-offshoot, let alone Spider-Man. But I really did try to keep up. The stories were very advanced, which I appreciate now as an adult, but as a young person I was overwhelmed so I started to try to focus in a little bit and find an area of comic books that I related to the most and that I was able to process and comprehend.

In the '60s, there was a whole movement, really the first time ever, with real real real fringe underground comics. Those are really adult. It became more evident that this storytelling medium was strong enough and powerful enough to engage an adult audience. And that's what gave birth to the '60s underground comic-book movement for young people who had grown up reading all kinds of comics, but wanted subject matter or even a philosophy that was more adult. Now I was a young person when I first got into this but I liked the idea that I was skewing older, that it was beyond me. I was always very attracted to the secrets and the knowledge and the wisdom of the people older than me or who had more experience in the world than I did. I could open up an issue of Zap and just be completely blown away. My mind would be blown. There would be ideas I had never thought of before, people I had never heard of before, entire avenues of thought and reality that I just wasn't aware of. I thought, "This is where it's at."

“It became more evident that this storytelling medium was strong enough and powerful enough to engage an adult audience.”

The artwork was very radical. Rick Griffin, look him up. You can count the real influential and important underground comic-book artists of that era on one hand: Robert Crumb, who really becomes a cultural icon for all of western pop culture; Art Spiegelman, who went on to do Maus; Drew Friedman who drew for Topps trading cards, and Rick Griffin.

Last Gasp Celebrates 40 Years

Zap seemed to be the real flagship of that era. That was published by a company called Last Gasp. They're based out of San Francisco. I believe they're still going. They may still be going. If not they've been incorporated into a company like Fantagraphics or something like that. There were these other artists like S. Clay Wilson, just extremely gruesome, like a hellish depiction of reality. Robert Williams is a master artist who chose to use his advanced drafting skils in comic-book form. Everything that he was illustrating at this point, even when it was just pen and ink, black and white, it was like you could see the chrome shining. The rendering was so high level. He did a better job. He did better art than was even necessary.

Do you remember the first comic from that era that caught your attention? Or the first one you bought and read all the way through?

I don't have it in front of me. They're back at my house. In all the moves that I've made from moving to Michigan to New York and within New York to many houses, I've always kept my comics collection close to me. I've added to it. There's been a few times where I've found additional issues. There's so many artists. There's a later-era publication I'd like to mention called Raw. It was more of a book, a real publication, paperback, bound, thick. Just when I thought my mind couldn't be blown any further, this was a group of guys -- a lot of the guys who had been working and operating in the '60s making stuff in the '80s and '90s. Raw was just this mind-blowing example of this sensibility carrying over and continuing on.

What sort of things about adult life do you remember learning specifically through these comics?

That's a great question. I guess on one hand there was the shock value, much like Howard Stern, or Marilyn Manson, or even Lady Gaga have specialized in this ability. At a certain point those kinds of folks weren't doing it for me.

But I had already grown up in a pretty liberal environment. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is one of the most radical towns in the entire world. It really is. I wasn't aware of that at the time, but I certainly benefited from it. So it took even more outside-of-the-box thinking to blow my mind. It wasn't so much any one of the stories I would've read in the comic book, it was more that, "These are adults. Drawing these pictures. Working in this format. These are grown people choosing to live this way where this is what they choose to do with their time." That's what was inspiring to me. It wasn't so much the subject matter of any one of the stories. It's that, "Wow, you really can do anything."

I have a great story that I just remembered. When I was probably about 12 years old, my family visited San Francisco. We had done a couple trips to San Francisco when I was a younger person. My dad is a law professor and they would occasionally have these law-professor conventions for everybody that was working in legal research or the field of law. One of them was in San Francisco and I went on that trip with my younger brother and my mom and dad and we had a great time. But all I wanted to do during that trip was try to find Robert Crumb. It was '91, '92. In the hotel room they had a Yellow Pages phonebook in the drawer in the bedside table in the room. I started looking through this phonebook.

Cheap Thrills With Robert Crumb

My mom said, "Andrew, what are you doing looking through the phonebook?" I said, "I'm looking for Robert Crumb." I had a good enough, a strong enough, and an open enough relationship with my parents that allowed me to tell them about things like Robert Crumb without them completely freaking out. My mom, she already knew who I was talking about. Lo and behold, I found a listing for Robert Crumb in San Francisco. Since this time he's moved to France. He lives in a relatively small town in France, but I think at this point it was possible he still was living in San Francisco. I found his number and I called his number. My hands were so clammy. I had nothing planned out to say to him. What was I gonna say? "Oh, I really like your drawings. I'm in San Francisco. I'm 12 years old." I don't know. I felt compelled to at least call.

“Lo and behold, I found a listing for Robert Crumb in San Francisco.”

I got an answering machine. I think it was a regular, stock message. So I left a message. I probably said, "Hey, I'm a big fan of your drawings." The fact that he was listed in the phonebook, that was huge to me. Actually, if I may say, that was the first time I ever took a risk and tried to reach out to somebody who was completely outside of my realm, outside of my world, outside of my age group and made an attempt. Since then, it kinda set a tone. It set a precedent where you could go for things like that. I've since then cold-called on a whim heroes of mine and people I'm a huge fan of. I think it all started with that R. Crumb, San Francisco call.

What was the next time you reached out to someone after that call?

As much as I love this world of art, I've never really connected with anybody. Robert Crumb is in France, and I understand he's a little bit crabby. He doesn't want to meet up with somebody just for the sake of it. So I kinda gave up on the idea of connecting with him. Robert Williams, he's still very active. He's more popular than ever. People understand the importance of his contributions to modern art. I would love to meet him, just to tell him, "Hey. You blew my mind." If that's all I could say to him? That's all I'd want to say.