Blog or web site: http://dangoldman.net
Currently working on:
I'm entering my third year of working on my comic series Red Light Properties, which is coming soon to Comixology and Graphic.ly and a host of others. It tells the story of a family-run Miami real estate office that exorcises and flips "previously-haunted" houses.
First memory of 2000AD?
I grew up in Miami pre-internet, when you actually had to find things, special order imports as well. One day on the way home from a short-lived series of bass guitar lessons, I found a comic shop I'd never seen before called BAM! (unbeknownst to me patterned after London's GOSH! by its Anglophile owner Alex Gimeno, who's gone on to become superstar DJ-producer Ursuala 1000). I pulled into the shop and found that they not only spotlighted in pre-Vertigo fare (I'd been reading Shade and Sandman and Animal Man before the imprint launched), but BAM! also featured a wall of imports... and it was there I found 2000AD.
Long after my interest in bass guitar faded, my lust for UK comics was stoked by this shop: Alex always played the best Madchester and Britpop bands (and their remixes) while I stopped, and I found myself hanging out and talking with him and the other cat I remember who worked there, a talented fellow named Georges Jeanty. I picked up many many things there, it was a doorway into a whole education of UK comics/music/culture that informed my own tastes and techniques as I inevitably picked up the bristol on my own soon after.
This was the early 90's, mind, and American comics absolutely sucked then. Without 2000AD (and Deadline and Tundra and BAM! Comics) showing me how flexible and intelligent the storytelling medium really was, I don't think I'd still be mucking around with comics today.
Favourite Character or Story?
"The Gothic Empire" from Nemesis the Warlock which still rattles my teeth to look at, any/all volumes of ABC Warriors, naturally The Ballad of Halo Jones as a single piece of work. And of course, Zenith.
What do you like most about the 2000AD?
Its unbridled energy, almost musically blasting off the page with anger and satire and ugliness. I learned a lot of about how to make comics by studying the self-contained shorts in each prog, how they worked standalone and were even better read together. It was clear to me from my first contact with 2000AD that these were a smarter calibre of creator writing up to a smarter audience.
It took the US a long time to catch up, mostly by imitating this work and TV/film.
What would you most like to see in 2000AD as it heads to its Forties?
To be totally and unabashedly sincere... a comic of my own creation running in its pages. That would be a thrill and an honour and a tick off my dream list. I know Tharg isn't fond of hiring Yanks, but I'm currently living in Brazil. That's got to count for something, no?
• This post is one in a series of tributes to 2000AD to mark its 35th birthday on 26th February 2012. More about 2000AD at http://www.2000adonline.com/
2000AD © Rebellion
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