Paste: The first issue came out about a year ago. It’s not like acting, or a huge premiere of a movie, or you sing the last song and get off the stage to applause. You finish something up, and then you go downstairs and do the dishes.

I’ve had this in my head for a long time. I finished up these pages a few months ago. It didn’t really register that I was done with it. Paste: What were your feelings when you first looked at the new issue?Įvan Dorkin: I was working, so I put them aside and kept working. An edited version of our conversation follows. Paste spoke with Dorkin about the evolution of these characters, his take on the changes to the comics industry over the last decade or two, and much more. (The characters also starred in an Adult Swim pilot as well as Dork.) This closing issue features a litany of great comic moments, as well as a number of scenes in which Dorkin addresses the ugliness, insecurity and sexism found just below the surface in some sects of fandom. This month brings the final-and second-issue of The Eltingville Club, in which Dorkin brings closure to four of his longstanding characters, a group of science fiction and comics obsessives whose dedication to fandom often heads in disquieting directions. More recently, he’s collaborated with artist Jill Thompson on the multiple Eisner-winning series Beasts of Burden, which revolves around a group of animals barking and screeching up against supernatural threats. In the ‘90s, his comics Milk and Cheese and Dork approached humor from all sides, from riffing on pop-culture tropes to haunting explorations of Dorkin’s own demons. As a writer, he veer between the bombastic and cartoonish, or delve into a more complex psyche with insight and empathy. As an artist, his style is immediately recognizable, equally suited to over-the-top slapstick and minutely observed facial obsessions.

Dork evan dorkin