Waylon Bacon Update
#3 in a Series of Updates
edited by Anthony Servante
https://www.instagram.com/waylonbacon/
What's on everyone's mind? What's new with Waylon Bacon in 2024?. Let's find out. Here's the latest update on all the projects Waylon is working on.
Waylon Bacon lets us know:
https://www.instagram.com/frownlandcomic/
I've been drawing a webcomic called Frownland since roughly 2015. It's an observational humor thing, done in the single panel format (I'm a devoted Far Side fan) that, for a time, I was posting once a week. However, in 2021 I put Frownland on hold to concentrate on a long form comic project.
Cut to October of 2023: my alternate comic project had stalled out, and I had a number of Frownland concepts that I'd been writing down in a book. In light of this, I decided to start posting the comic again, with the difference being that I'd only be posting once a month instead of once a week. Not only did this free me up to do more quality control, but it also appealed to me because it's the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do on social media.
I've been lucky enough to draw about ten covers for Beatdom, a literary magazine founded and edited by writer David Wills. The theme for the latest issue was the environment, and explores how the beats prefaced the later environmental movements generated by the hippies . After pitching a few ideas back and forth, David and I settled on portraying a protest in front of City LIghts Books, circa 1971. That year a large oil spill occurred in San Francisco, and as a direct result many environmental groups were formed, such as International Bird Rescue. It was very interesting to research City Lights Books to make sure I drew the building and surrounding area as it would have looked 50 odd years ago. Surprisingly, not much has really changed! A miracle in the San Francisco of today.
A Room Above a Convenience Store
William Taylor Jr. is a great poet from San Francisco, whose latest book, "A Room Above a Convenience Store" is an astounding collection of reflections on memory, identity, and urban isolation.
I was honored to be tasked with generating both a cover and a title page for him, and choose to draw the skyline of San Francisco (since the city is a recurring character throughout) and an arrow presumably pointing towards the "room" of the title. It was a bit of a challenge at first, but once I decided that the imperfections of my drawing might give the cover more personality, I ended up having a lot of fun with it!
For years, I've thought it would be cool to do a comic adaptation of the famously lost vampire film "London After Midnight". Directed by Tod Browning ("Freaks" "Dracula") and starring Lon Chaney ("The Phantom of the Opera" "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), it seems unbelievable that a lush, gothic film combining these talents can't be seen: yet the last known print was accidentally destroyed in a fire sometime during the 1960s. A few years ago I decided to give this reconstruction a shot (the main reason Frownland went on pause), and spent a considerable amount of time trying to piece it back together in comic form, using production stills and the cutting continuity sheet (a document detailing all the shots in the original edit) as a guide.
However, I never actually finished it, due to a combination of dissatisfaction with the art and general life nonsense. Of course, I continue to pick at it because I'm stubborn, and hope that someday I might actually finish it- unless someone actually finds a copy of the film somewhere...
The Podcast
"In other news, I am now also a co-host on a podcast! "My Dad's Video Store" is the brainchild of friend and filmmaker Bradley C Jones, whose dad owned a video store. As a kid, this gave him access to tons of obscure b-movies, as well as first hand knowledge of the many trends the advent of home video created. In every episode, Brad, myself and fellow friend and filmmaker Gray Creasy delve into specially curated blocks of VHS titles "plucked" from the shelves, discussing the weird, the campy and the forgotten. Our first episode is available now on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts, in which we discuss a late 80s film trend, where executed convicts return from the dead to take their shocking revenge. The episode is called "Capital Dismemberment", and covers the films Prison (1987) Destroyer (1988) The Horror Show (1989) and Wes Craven's "Shocker".
Waylon adds, "I also drew the logo for the podcast, with Brad supplying many of the fake film titles you see on the VHS spines!"
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Always good to hear from Waylon Bacon. Things always happening. Stay tuned for our next update when the time is right. I know I have my sights set on London After Midnight. Hope you do, too, dear readers. See you soon.
