An Interview with Joshua Cicerone, creator of Bob Hates Andy

Launched a mere nine months ago, Joshua Cicerone’s webcomic Bob Hates Andy has quickly become an internet sensation, so much so that Rolling Stone recently placed the comic as #6 on their top ten “best in TV, the web, books and beyond” list.  The comic is presented in monthly “episodes” that feature conversations between music legend Bob Dylan and pop art phenomenon Andy Warhol.  Cicerone uses the comics not only to send up these visionary artists’ public personas, but also to explore relevant issues in contemporary culture.

It is a work of contrasts.  Dylan’s metaphysics smash up against Warhol’s realism, Dylan’s earthy sexuality with Warhol’s sterile modernity, Dylan’s timelessness with Warhol’s awareness of the here and now.  Each episode gives the reader a unique opportunity to eavesdrop in on a conversation between these two mythic figures… and, oh yeah, it’s also hilarious.  Joshua shared his thoughts on Bob, Andy and the comic itself with (Cult)ure’s Kevin Johns.

(Cult)ure: The lore regarding Dylan's use of a Warhol painting as a dart board and/or trading it away for a couch, as well as his belief that Warhol was  in some way responsible for Edie Sedgwick’s drug use, is well known.  Were those stories the origins of the strip?

Joshua: I’ve always loved the photo of Dylan and Warhol at the factory, in front of the Silver Elvis painting. That painting is loaded with symbolism about idolatry and American pop... then you have the two most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century standing there. When you look at the photo, there’s something uncomfortable and self-conscious about it all. I was aware of those stories and their supposed animosity, and I just wondered what they were talking about. One day, I got stoned and started doodling…

There seems to be a real resurgence of interest in Bob Dylan as of late.  With rave reviews for Dylan's Modern Times and Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, the Newport film The Other Side of the Mirror finally being released, and now your webcomic, it seems Dylan is everywhere…  Why do you think that is?

He’s the man. He’s this true and timeless minstrel, yet he belongs to our time. I thought I’m Not There was a brilliant study of his mythology. He’s constantly relevant, mysterious and somehow above self-destruction. He is a living symbol of everything he’s created, and yet he stands defiantly outside of it all. America loves that.

Bob Hates Andy works with a limited number of images, which are repeated episode after episode with slight variations in sizing and order.  Were you influenced by other comic strips, such as David Lynch's The Angriest Dog in the World or Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics, which maintain the same art strip after strip?

I’ve never seen either of those until just now. It’s definitely a style I’ve seen before, but for me it had more to do with laziness. I actually have a few images I haven’t used yet.

Can you tell me a bit about your art style?

The drawings are all freehand, and the layout is all done in Photoshop. At first I considered using a loose, scribble-style of drawing, but I always seem to revert to clean, realistic lines. I found a bunch of great photos and I wanted to capture the real emotion in them. Also, I felt that if I was going to repeat the same images over and over, the characters should be familiar and defined.

Are there graphic novelists or cartoonists that have influenced your BHA style?

Not really. I am a big fan of some old-school titles: Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Ted McKeever’s Metropol, but BHA was really a big accident.

It is fairly easy to view Dylan as the hero of the comic, but at the same time Andy's reactions to some of Bob's poetic ramblings are pretty similar to how the average person might respond.  Do you view the comics as a debate in which Bob has the upper hand, or do you think some readers will see Andy as the hero and Dylan, perhaps, just a curmudgeon?

Sure. Andy values fashion and friendship… he’s the life of the party. Bob is self-aware and cranky to a fault. In a way, they’re warring sides of my own psyche. I’m a cynical New Yorker. I’m lucky enough to attend all kinds of cool parties and events, and I’m the first one to be disgusted by all the self-promotion and pretense. Andy is like the average person in that he’s just living life without worrying too much about the philosophy of it all. Bob’s a curmudgeon, but he’s still going to the parties. 

You are a graphic artist working in webcomics, something I'm sure Warhol would have been all over, and yet it's the musician, Dylan, who gets a lot of the good jabs in.  Do you approach the two characters as specifically a musician and a fine artist, or simply as two cultural thinkers?

I can’t help but see these guys as towers of cultural significance. I love Dylan the musician. I live by Warhol’s conceptual revelations. But both artists transcended their craft. They’re modern archetypes of genius. I approach them as extreme models of the modern, liberal, volatile, urban intellectual perspective. I definitely look at them as cultural dialogues. 

I'm interested in your choice of fonts for the character’s dialogue.  Was it difficult settling on the right fonts to capture Bob and Andy’s voices?

I knew I wanted to keep things simple. I started with the title font, “Cooper BlkHd BT”. Bob’s voice is in the same family, “Cooper Md BT”. It sets the bias. Andy had to have a total outsider’s voice. His font is “ArabBruD” and it reminds me of the handwritten letters from old Marvel comics. Come to think of it, it’s probably very similar to the font on a lot of Lichtenstein’s stuff.

While in the early episodes it is definitely Bob who comes out on top, in some of the later episodes Andy gets a lot of the great lines.  "Yes! On behalf of every Chinese garments worker asleep in my closet. Yes!" for example.  Do you see the comic shifting more in that direction?

I’ve only got two characters. Andy can’t be simple. He might be shallow or willfully ignorant, but he’s also wealthy and talented and having one hell of a time. Sometimes he makes a good point. All the more reason for Bob to hate him. 

Despite being very funny, each episode presents a philosophical or cultural debate.  (I'm sure some grad student will be writing a thesis on BHA before long, tying each episode into the theories of different philosophers like Socrates and Freud.)  Do you find it difficult balancing the humor with the philosophical explorations?

I have a small group of friends that are in on my process, and the first thing I say to them when I finish an episode is “Well, I don’t think it’s funny, but it’s done.” My own sense of humor is pretty dark. Anger, depression and pathos strike a chord for me, and I wasn’t ever sure that others would hear that.  I’m finding out otherwise.

The Bob Hates Andy website has an "Apropos" section that includes supplemental information for some of the episodes.  How did that section come about?  Were you worried that some of the references, such as to the Salinger short story, were too obscure for your readers?

I can’t believe how many people never read Nine Stories! I’m 32. It’s not like I’m this old literary geezer, but I do feel connected to history through art and literature. Writing that first episode, I decided my audience would be people who got the Bananafish reference. But almost nobody did. Once I explained it, though, people got the joke. Eventually I realized that I could use the “Apropos” as tongue-in-cheek footnotes, a way to be obscure and inclusive at the same time. 

Bob Hates Andy has been going strong for nine months now.  What does the future hold in store for the comic?

I’ll keep it going as long as I can. I’m blown away by how many subscribers the site has. I’ll try going more absurd… I might do a few guest appearances (Nick Cave, Norman Mailer, Elvis Costello) or a political endorsement (Obama!). I’ve received dozens of merchandise requests. It’s all pretty fun. Sometime it’s hard to hold onto the little peeves that fuel the fire. You can’t hate everything.

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