Dan Wright & Tom Spurgeon:

IT'S A WILD, WILDWOOD!

interview by

Mike Nappa

“Half a valley over from the middle of nowhere lies the small town of Wildwood, where modern diversity meets old-time community and practical philosophy meets hard-won reality. The small town of the new century---that’s Wildwood!”

Thus begins the premise for the delightful new syndicated comic strip, Wildwood, from cartoon creators, Dan Wright and Tom Spurgeon. Seen daily in newspapers nationwide such as the Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis/St. Paul Star-Tribune, and the Detroit News, this faith-based strip has already won a loyal following.

So what makes a cartoonist tackle faith in the funny papers? That’s what we wanted to know, so recently we chatted with Dan & Tom about Wildwood. Care to listen in?

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Mike Nappa (MN) What’s the story behind WILDWOOD? How were you inspired to create this comic?

Dan Wright (DW): In March of 2000, Jay Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief of King Features syndicate, called me up and told me he’d been reading a large quantity of [our comic strip, “Bobo’s Progress”] in one sitting. He said the most distinctive material we (meaning Tom and I) were producing was the more philosophic/theological stuff. He then asked if we’d mind taking the strip in that direction in a more focused way…It was just what the strip needed. Bobo became a pastor over the next month and the rest of the cast shaped up very quickly. The new direction brought out so many fun things in the characters, we felt very good about the new direction. So did the syndicate and in March of 2001, we re-launched “Bobo’s Progress” as “Wildwood”

Tom Spurgeon (TS): I didn’t join the strip until after Dan had created it, but what inspires me about working with Dan is that I believe his art has the kind of lovely-to-look-at and energetic quality that you don’t see on the comics page as much as you used to. The opportunity to work with an artist of Dan’s caliber to use that kind of art to do something brand new, to talk about things that are important to people’s lives in a way that brings about laughter, that’s a tremendous opportunity and inspiration enough to get to work every day.

MN: Which character in WILDWOOD is most like you?

DW: If I had to choose one, I’d say Bobo [the Pastor]. He’s like me most in how he thinks of his own life. This moment is the only time you really have to make a connection to anything, God, other people, yourself. So, spend it wisely and remember that it’s your relationships with others that will wind up as having been important.

TS: I may look the most like Bobo! [But] I think the characters have a little bit of both of us in all of them. Personality-wise I’m most like Carol, the assistant pastor. She tends to look at things in an analytical fashion, and has a hard time making the faith that she nurtures through reading and prayer work for her in the real world.

MN: What’s the typical process that goes into creating a WILDWOOD strip?

TS: I live in Seattle and Dan lives in Indiana, so ours in a long-distance partnership. I try to e-mail Dan jokes twice a week, both jokes I’ve written from scratch and those taken from his ideas. We talk about the jokes on the phone, and when we’re happy with one, Dan will put it in the stack to draw up and send to the good people in Orlando who distribute the strip to newspapers and webmasters worldwide.

DW: Sundays are the same with the exception that after I scan a strip into my computer, I color it, then send it off.

MN: Why do you believe that the comics’ page of the newspaper is a good place to address matters of faith?

TS: Because it’s so easy to see ourselves in the characters and situations they offer, I think that comic strips are a great way to introduce readers to discussion of faith and belief and the way we treat one another – very complicated and magnificent ideas that have simple, everyday applications.

DW: I think the comics’ section has always been the place in the paper where you can encounter daily life without all the catastrophic events which comprise most of the other sections. People love comics in the newspaper for some reason. And I think a big part of the reason is that a lot of cartoons show them a fun-house mirror version of their own life or at least something they can relate to 

MN: What do you hope families will gain from reading WILDWOOD?

TS: I hope that people see themselves in the strip, in the characters’ good qualities or even their not-so-good qualities, and recognize the amazing differences in size and shape and personality we’ve all been given. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever know if we’re successful at doing that, but I think it’s a worthy enough goal to keep on trying.

MN: Why is it important for families to laugh together?

DW: C.S. Lewis said that “Joy” is the serious business of heaven. Laughter is one of those things in this life that gets us kind of close to joy. I think anytime you are enjoying something to the point of laughter, the most natural response is to turn to the people you love and say, “Come look at this!” One’s joy usually isn’t full until the cause of joy has been shared with someone else. So, sharing a laugh with your family is a little bit like a shadow of what heaven might be like.

MN: What’s the most unusual inspiration you’ve used for a specific WILDWOOD strip?

TS: I get jokes from a lot of places. The first joke I ever wrote for the strip I built around an oddball observation a professor made at seminary. I’ve taken jokes from things I’ve heard standing in line at the grocery store, things my mom says I used to talk about when I was five, and even based one joke on my high school senior class prank. But the strangest inspiration I had for strip was an amazingly realistic dream -- the only time I’ve ever dreamed a joke -- that one of the characters was sitting on the edge of a pier singing the Oscar Mayer Weiner song, but with lyrics about the Oscar Goldman character from “Six Million Dollar Man”. I wrote it down the next morning convinced it was the greatest joke in the history of comic strips, but it ended up not even being funny enough to make it into print!

MN: 100 years from now, how would you like WILDWOOD to be remembered?

DW: I think about that question a lot. I’d like it to be remembered as marked by excellence. Excellent writing, having never under estimated the intelligence of the audience, and excellent art, having done the best work I knew how every single day I did the strip. It would be a huge bonus if I were also able to add to the medium of strip cartooning in some way.

TS: I guess I would like for the strip to be remembered as the early career highlight of Tom Spurgeon, the amazing 132-year-old, completely healthy man!

MN: What can readers do if WILDWOOD isn’t currently appearing in their local newspapers?

TS: If anyone likes the strip enough to see it in their local paper, they can write or call the editorial department of that paper and ask for it by name. If they’d like to see the strip in the meantime, the King Features web site and some newspaper web sites (the Houston Chronicle, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the San Jose Mercury-News all spring to mind) carry the strip in an on-line version.  

Hey! Want to Read a Few Wildwood Cartoons Right Now on FamilyFans.com? Then Click Here!

All Wildwood cartoon graphics featured on this page are copyright © 2001 Dan Wright, and are reprinted by permission. Any unauthorized reproductions of these cartoon graphics is expressly prohibited by law.