When you see the intricacy of Dave Cooper’s drawings the first thing that comes to your mind is "kew-el." But once you really start to evaluate the time and energy that went into developing his craft, you start to get a little pissed off. Why does he get to practice drawing whatever he wants, sixty hours a week for the past fifteen years? Who died and made him art guy?"
I know what you mean," Cooper says, sitting in the basement studio of his own house. "It’s unbelievable, really, that I’m permitted this kind of self-indulgence. It’s like the philanthropists of the seventeenth century that would sponsor some lunatic artist they thought was interesting, even if there was no market value."
Some critics, like Drawn and Quarterly’s Chris Oliveros, describe his work as "looking like it was done by someone that likes to smoke too much pot" and they’re right. Cooper can be telling a story in pictures for page upon page and then disappear into a dream where a chubby girl wants you to cut a pig into 52 equal pieces. But it works.
His comic, Weasel, won the Harvey Award for best series of 99, and he later won two Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Artist and Outstanding Series of 99. It seems the weirder and less market driven his work becomes, the more people want it. Now he’s branching out with animation for The Comedy Network and is establishing a strong presence as a painter. Still, in all the frenzied popularity, there is nothing there that is not fun. "I really enjoy painting big naked women in uncomfortable positions. Sometimes I get so horny I have to stop. Then I might ask the model to leave and draw some cartoons for a while. Then I’d do some more the next day." Cooper was sketching as he spoke and got up to make some hot chocolate. He asked me if I wanted any and I said yes. Then I curled up on the couch with one of those grandma blankets and an old Playboy that had Liz Taylor in it.
MARKY SPENSE
