Everett Peck - Creator of "Duckman"

Comedy On Tap Interview Everett Peck A conversation about comedy, art, commerce, and the current whereabouts of Duckman, with the humorist, cartoonist, illustrator, writer and animator.

You probably wouldn't recognize Everett Peck in a supermarket, but I guarantee that you've seen his work. Just check the magazine rack.

Everett's distinctively hilarious ink lines have been in everything from The New Yorker to Playboy to Time, as well as on countless books, comix, and movie posters. He has had gallery shows in Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington D.C. He's even written animated cartoons for Rugrats, and designed characters for The Critic. Then of course there's the TV series based on one of his own cartoon characters, Duckman (you can now see the show on Comedy Central--click on the link for time and schedule).

On top of that, just about every commercial illustrator working now was inspired by (ie: copies) Everett's style. But nobody can draw like Everett. (After reading this, see for yourself at Everett's amazing web site).

TEN QUESTIONS WITH EVERETT PECK

COT: How did you create Duckman?

PECK: My wife and I were on a train returning from New York city after my "Renegade Rabbit" character was taken away from me by an evil studio boss. I couldn't just tell my animation staff that we were out of business, so I doodled a little duck character. I showed my wife and asked, "What do you think of calling him 'Dickey Duck?'" She thought "Duckman" was a better-sounding name. Later in the dining car I was having a ham sandwich and thought, "How about a pig as a partner?"

COT: Do you prefer illustration or animation?

PECK: They're different. I like them both I different ways. Working in in illustration, you're on your own, there's nobody around to alter your vision. It's very contained and satisfying in that sense. But in animation you have to deal lots of other people. Including studio executives, who are a breed unto themselves. It takes a certain type of person to deal with studio people.For instance, if you are the kind of person who enjoys draining your pool and filling it with venomous snakes, then jumping in headfirst, you'll probably enjoy working in this business.

COT: Who are your favorite artists?

PECK: When I was a kid, Walt Disney was my favorite artist (and the only one I knew about). Later I found some 19th Century artists that were a big influence on my style: Mainly Sir John Tenniel (he was the illustrator of Alice in Wonderland), and Heinrich Kley--he had a lyrical quality to his lines, combined with odd imagery of dancing elephants, crocodiles and hippos (his work infuenced Disney's Fantasia). After high school I got interested in underground stuff like Zap Comix and Rat Fink, and artists like Robert Crumb.

COT: Who wins in a fight between Duckman, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, and Quacky Doodle?

PECK: Quacky's the first to go down. Donald gets too mad, so he can be manipulated... Daffy is the challenge--he's a slick one. Sure Duckman has a gun, but Daffy's been shot many times--he just picks up his eyes and his bill and reattaches them. I have to give the edge to Daffy.

COT: When you create a comic like Duckman, do the images come first or the personalities?

PECK: Personalities. Duckman was actually based on a friend of mine and his relationship with his business partner. It all started with the idea of the abusive boss/employee relationship that I saw with my friend. The employee is actual the brains. I've always found the loud-mouthed know-it-all to be funny. Duckman's completely beat up by life's slings and arrows, with a crumby job, crumby family, crumby kids, but he remains optimistic. Then the detective aspect allows you to go everywhere with your storylines.

I also keep a sketchbook and the ideas for character designs and backgrounds are developed from that.

Park City Sketchbook: Everett is legendary for his personal sketchbooks. Xeroxes of the pages are secretly passed around Hollywood, and samples have been displayed in his gallery shows. Here are some samples from a sketchbook he created while in Utah.

PECK: I've always been a fan of classic cartoons, and the characters in those have always been based on animals instead of people. So we decided to build on that iconography. Of course in Duckman we also mixed in people, to really confuse things. But we always tried to instill them with realistic human feelings--they're people first--which is why it always used to make us mad when we read reviews like "it'll quack you up."

COT: So Duckman began as a comic book?

PECK: It started as a series of comic strips in college newspapers, then a one-page story in Darkhorse Comics, and then I did an entire comic as I developed the TV show at Klasky Csupo.

COT: What other shows have you worked on?

PECK: One of my favorites was Jumanji. I designed the look for the show. In the film the Jumanji game was seeping into the real world, so for the cartoon we went into the world of Jumanji, instead. It was a richer world to create. I was awarded the National Cartoonists Society's Award for the Best in Television Animation (which was a big honor, because you're being recognized by other cartoonists and animators). It was an adventure-oriented series, but instead of superheroes, our characters were more whimsical. My partner Richard Raynis and I also have a company called Dogwash, and we do projects for Sony, Hallmark and other companies. When we first started we thought the name "Peck/Raynis" wasn't too catchy, so we stuck our names into a xcomputer and tries some anagrams. The only one that made any sense at all was "Rover penis," so we opted for Dogwash, instead.

"ITV": This Peck comic satirized television with some ideas for better shows. Here are a few samples from the book. (Note the early versions of Charles and Mambo, who became Duckman's twin boys, in the last sketch).

Idea #1

Idea #2

Idea #3

COT: Does Duckman's family parallel your own?

PECK: Of course not. Well, maybe except for the yellow skin tone.

COT: What are your upcoming projects?

PECK: I'm currently working in association with Klasky Csupo to develop properties for television and the Internet. I enjoy working with Gabor Csupo -- I consider him a modern-day Walt Disney. He has a unique vision about what animation should be, and isn't afraid to follow it. One of the shows I've created with Gabor is called Sandwich Boy, about a kid named Andy who lives in a dual world while making sandwiches at the Paranormal Institute. He works there with his friend, Marla Carla, and they get involved in supernatural mysteries and all things other-worldly. Then I'm working on a new prime-time show with some similarities to Duckman, called Stinky Pierre. It's about an eccentric middle aged guy, set in his ways, who discovers he's the last surviving relative of his estranged 10-year-old nephew, named Buster. The fun is the contrast between this obnoxious, hard drinking guy and this introverted, innocent little boy. Stinky must rise up to the challenge becoming a legal guardian. Stinky's the kind of guy who's clueless--not sure if ten year olds need diapers or not.

Buster from Peck's upcoming show, Stinky Pierre, spending time with his pets.

PECK: We're also creating an adult Internet site with Klasky-Csupo, featuring anthology stories under the name Modern Living. The idea was to feature characters or story notions that wouldn't support a running series or even a show, but were interesting and could be featured in a collection of shorts. Each character and show has its own look and style. Right now it consists of "Porky's Auto-Body," a story that revolves around the nuveau hot-rod scene. It's about a guy who owns an auto body chop-shop, but fancies himself as not only sheet-metal man, but an artiste; Then there are "The Dickersons," a litigious father-son lawyer combo who are both divorced and sharing an apartment together while they sue everybody, including each other (their business cards say things like "WE SAW EVERYTHING," and "YOU CAN'T SPELL 'SUE' WITHOUT 'U'"); "American Workbench," which is sort of a parody of This Old House on acid; "Painting with Raoul," starring a 3-dimensional rabbit who has his own how-to paint show; and "Sally Gogo," a career girl who's built like a month of Sundays, but can't understand why men don't love her for her mind. The Internet has taken a hit lately, but it will be back. But you can't put any piece of junk out there. Like any other form of entertainment, if you have a good story it can work regardless of the format. It's extremely refreshing not to have to work with a network. There are lots of TV shows that fail, but it still goes on, and so will the net. One day everyone will be watching real-time animation on their computers, but today there are still some people tapped into a phone line in Wisconsin on a Mac II who can't access them yet. To them Internet cartoons are nothing more than $2000 flip-books. But it'll happen.

COT: Who can we contact to demand more Duckman?

PECK: Write to the good people at Comedy Central. I am actually considering either a reunion show or a new comic book, called The Morning After, which would cover the lives of all the characters since the show ended.

Duckman Interview: We caught up with Duckman at his office in Los Angeles, which looks remarkably like the set from his TV series (you can see episodes on Comedy Central). After we finally convinced him that we weren't prospective clients and wouldn't be offering any money, he grudgingly agreed to a short interview.

Mr. Man

Interview by Jeff Hause