Marvel vs. DC Toy Fight by Ryan Dunlavey.

By Fujis

Okay, he doesn’t have an evil twin. It’s the name of his company: Evil Twin Comics. But if he did have a twin I bet his name would be Nayr. Just like the Crimson Guard Commaders Tomax and Xamot…

Ryan is a freelance illustrator and animator based in Brooklyn, New York. Part of the independent comic scene for over a decade he has recently found commercial success with the Xeric award-winning Action Philospohers! which he co-created with writer Fred Van Lente. He is also the art director for Royal Flush magazine where he is known for his Diarrhea Dog, Dr. Cowboy, and Tommy Atomic strips.

Ryan is also the artist behind two of the best pieces of minimate art: Marvel vs. DC Toy Fight pictured above and Power Man and Iron Fist #50 pictured below. I spoke to Ryan about these blocky masterpieces, his Xeric award, and what it means to be an Action Philosopher!

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MMHQ: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, Ryan.

Ryan: No problem!

MMHQ: Can you talk a little about when and why you created the two minimate pieces that you’ve done?

Ryan: Both pieces were commissioned by Toyfare magazine in 2004. I did the Power Man and Iron Fist one first – they needed it because they were selling some exclusive toys that hadn’t actually been made yet and they needed a graphic for the ad. I make my living as a freelance illustrator and Toyfare is one of my steady clients – I mostly do cartoon and humor stuff and they also use me because I have a knack of imitating other drawing styles, so they knew I’d be able to do a cartoon version of the minimates toys pretty easily. They told me to just draw some minimate versions of the characters posed like they are on the cover of Power Man and Iron Fist #50. Now I LOVE to imitate and pay homage to old-school graphic design, so I went the extra mile and reproduced the whole cover with minimate characters – with the full background and cover graphics and extra characters and everything. They liked it enough that they offered me a second illustration job in that style for an article about all the DC and Marvel minimates that were being made at the time.

Power Man and Iron-Fist #50 cover by Ryan Dunlavey.

MMHQ: In a conversation that we had previously you mentioned that, “The minimate style is really not at all fun for me to draw and takes me about twice as long to draw as anything else…” -which is too bad since these pieces are amazing. What would it take for you to do more?

Ryan: Thanks very much for the kind words, I appreciate it. As for what would get me to draw more stuff in that style: cash, pure and simple. I know that sounds pretty cold-blooded but it’s the honest truth. Even that’s not always enough – I got another assignment recently to do accurate cartoon drawings of toys (not minimates) and it was pure hell – I was cursing and throwing fits every 30 minutes – the worst job I’d had in years. Drawing is fun and toys are fun but ironically drawing toys is not fun! At least not for me. Like I said earlier, drawing is how I make my living, and I already spend most of my time “taking requests” as it were. I still like to draw stuff just for fun, but rarely have time to do so, and when I do I will always choose to draw my own characters and ideas and subjects and in my own style. I’m happiest drawing loose cartoony stuff, and not the stiff technically disciplined work that’s required to draw blocky toys like the minimates. I could use my free time to make one full-color, technical minimate style drawing that other people would like but I wouldn’t, OR in the same amount of time I could do FOUR drawings in my own style or work on an animation project or a comic book and be 100 times happier with the result. For me, the choice is a no brainer.

I also think toys make poor subjects for hand-drawn art – especially blocky ones like Legos and Minimates. They’re prefect for 3D rendered art and animation, I think “Toy Story” proved that more than a decade ago. Just look at that minimate style Batman short that came out a while back - now THAT was amazing!

MMHQ: Have you ever been contacted by Art Asylum or Diamond Select Toys to put something together for them?

Ryan: Nope, but then again I never asked them! Maybe I should send them some samples the next time I do a round of self-promotion, it never hurts to have more work!

MMHQ: What did you use as the inspiration for these pieces? Did you pose minimates of your own or simply look at some images online?

Ryan: I didn’t own any minimates when I got the assignment so I went out to the local toy store and bought some so I would get the look of the joints and stuff right – and yeah I played with them, put them into poses took them apart and stuff. I think the ability to mix and match parts was the coolest, so I worked that into the piece – what with the Hulk tearing Robin’s arms off and Spidey losing his head. Toyfare actually wanted some generic “JLA vs Avengers” style face-off of the characters but I thought it would be more fun if they behaved like toys come to life instead of “real” superheroes. And I posed the toys on my desk as I did the drawings. They were pretty fun I was tempted to buy more of them after I was done but I didn’t - I’ve already got enough toys as it is.

MMHQ: You have been involved in the underground comic scene for many years but you might be best known for ACTION PHILOSOPHERS! which you created along with Fred van Lente - are there any plans for an action figure line to accompany the comic book? Are there Action Philosopher minimates in our future?

Action Philosophers! #1 by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey.

Ryan: A real toy line would be totally sweet – I’ve actually put together some custom figures of Karl Marx and Ayn Rand using some old 4-inch GI Joes, just for fun – they’re not finished yet, I still have to paint them and make packaging for them. I always make toys of my characters – I made a full line 12-inch Tommy Atomic figures a while back with boxes and everything.

As for having REAL Action Philosophers toys made and sold in store – who knows. We’d certainly be open to the idea but I really have no idea how to get something like that done or who I would contact. I honetly don’t think that anyone would actually be interested in Action Philosophers toys other than me!

Surprisingly enough the Action Philosophers series started BECAUSE I’m such a big toy nut, or rather, I used to be – I’ve cut back on my spending a lot the last few years and sold off a lot of my collection. Back in 2002 I wanted to do a biography comic for an anthology and asked my good buddy Fred to write it for me. Fred’s *such* a good buddy he though it would be HILLARIOUS to make fun of my love of “man dolls” (as he calls them) in the actual comic, so he wrote the script in the style of those little pack-in comics that tell the characters origin – like the old He-Man and Super Powers toys. Except since we were doing a comic about Nietzsche, the fake toy line was called “Action Philosophers” – so the first panel was a picture of a Nietzsche action figure busting out of his package, and the last page had ads for other Action Philosophers toys like “hemlock drinking action” Socrates and the Albert Camus Slot Car Set. The story ended up getting rejected from the anthology but we had so much fun doing it we went ahead and made a series out of it.

MMHQ: Action Philosophers won a Xeric Award, which is a foundation that gives grants to independent comic book publishers. What does it mean to you to win an award that was started by Peter Laird, co-creator of the TMNT - possibly one of the most successful independent comic book to ever go mainstream?

Ryan: It means I get to publish my own comic book! Woo hoo! Seriously, the money aside, it’s an honor to get the Xeric award. Fred and I really just wanted people to read and enjoy the comics – the money helped us accomplish that and the fact that Action Philosophers has actually been profitable Is just amazing. We never would have been able to take the risk of self-publishing without the Foundation’s help. I just hope we can keep publishing successfully, and long enough to help out the next generation of comic book folks like Mr. Laird did for us!

The Xeric Foundation.

MMHQ: Final word: what should everyone know about Ryan Dunlavey, Evil Twin Comics, Action Philosophers, and anything I might not have covered?

Ryan: I guess this is where I’m supposed to come up with something witty and clever but I’m drawing a blank, so I’ll just babble on about my projects and stuff.

The first trade paperback collection of Action Philosophers: ACTION PHILOSOPHERS GIANT-SIZE THING volume 1, is now available in finer comic book stores everywhere and at Amazon.com. The book collects the first three issues of the series which are now completely sold out. It features Plato, Bodhidharma, Nietzsche, Thomas Jefferson, St. Augustine, Ayn Rand, Freud, Jung and Joseph Campbell. Our sixth issue, ACTION PHILOSOPHERS: THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE hits comic book stands later this month and features the most-requested philosophers from our fans: Wittgenstien, St. Thomas Aquinus and Kierkegaard. Anybody that’s interested in checking out the series can preview full- length stories from every issue at actionphilosophers.com . You can also buy the book directly from us, as well as posters, t-shirts and other useless crap. We are currently planning out the last two issues of the series: IT’S ALL GREEK TO YOU and the SENSELESS VIOLENCE SPECIAL, before we print a mega-collection of all 8 issues plus a bunch of new material sometime in 2007. We’re also trying to decide on what to do next – most likely another non-fiction humor project, just not about philosophy. I’m getting a little bit of a break from Action Philosophers this summer which I will use to write and draw some new Tommy Atomic comic, which is my all-time favorite project. I also have some comics that I wrote and illustrated in Royal Flush magazine this fall.

MMHQ: Thanks again, Ryan.

Ryan: Anytime!

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Check out Ryan’s website Evil Twin Comics and buy some Action Philosophers! comics while you’re there- they’re entertaining and educational!