click for full size
Today I went to catch up on the stuff at Dumm Comics, a comics collective consisting of some folks I knew in the Hollywood animation scene and their friends. And I got a surprise: Ricky Garduno’s comic 1930 Nightmare Theatre has ended, due to an impending bout of heavy soul-searching.
I met Ricky in animation school. He, my roomie Gabe, and myself, bonded over a love of… anarchy, I suppose. Everyone else in school was aiming for Disney. We were more down with WB, UPA, and Fleischer stuff. When one of us got in trouble, we all got in trouble, because we were always hanging out doing crazy drawings. We were also the ones who stayed late working like crazy on our projects; funny how that happened. I got kicked out of school near the end, Gabe left when his Spümcø internship turned serious. Ricky stuck it out, but barely. I think.
Gabe’s a bigshot show-runner now, Ricky’s doing boards on “Family Guy” last I heard. I kinda lost touch with ’em both when I burnt out on Flash 5 and left Hollywood. I keep on intending to make a visit down that way sometime now that I’m on the West Coast again and catch up in person; until then we just send random bits of e-mail every year or so.
Good luck sorting out what needs sorting out, dude. Here’s hoping I see you doing something new and cheerier soon.
Do you know of Kyle Carrozza? If you do, here’s a short skinny: He’s over at Nicktoons now, and was once working on Fanboy and Chum Chum’s second season. He also is writing and singing music. http://tvskyle.net/ is his site.
I only know him as “one of the other cartoonists on Dumm”; I’ve never met him in person.
My Dumm connections: Gabe – animation school roomie, co-worker @Spümcø. Ricky – animation school classmate, co-worker @Nebulous. Fred, Katie, Luke: co-workers at Spümcø.
I only know him from his music on The FuMP, which is very good, plus his interviews on the FuMP podcast where he mentioned his history.