
{"id":5997,"date":"2009-05-28T07:11:09","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T15:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=5997"},"modified":"2009-05-28T07:11:09","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T15:11:09","slug":"epic-from-an-inkwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/05\/28\/epic-from-an-inkwell\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic from an inkwell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/resizedrecently052809.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Dixon, who has been cartooning since childhood, will debut a fourth edition of Gilgamesh in New York City on June 6. Photo by Valarie Schwartz.\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" align=\"left\"\/><em>By Valarie Schwartz<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Chapel Hill became a mainstay for Kevin Dixon long before he moved to the area in 1983 at age 18, though he was not born here.<br \/>\nHis mother, artist Beverly Dixon, was raised in Chapel Hill. She met Kent Dixon at UNC and they married then moved to Baltimore, where he studied medicine at Johns Hopkins (until discovering that he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand the sight of blood) and Kevin was born. They moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where Kent began teaching creative writing, and two years after Kevin, his brother, Laird, was born.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nKevin and Laird grew up in a home where imagination and creativity were put to constant use. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was always drawing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kevin said. He thinks he was about 8 years old the first time he saw a 1930s vintage \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Adventures of Tintin\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comic book at the Little Professor Bookshop in University Square, and he became forever hooked on comics. The (politically incorrect) Belgian-created books featured a pint-sized reporter who explored the world, providing a mystery that would be humorously solved. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had my own version that was named \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcZinc,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dixon said recently in his Chatham County home. <\/p>\n<p>When he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t inking \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Zinc,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he and Laird would make up their own dramas. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Laird and I had huge battle scenes with armies fighting. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d draw and make up stories, providing sound effects.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Those sputtering, whistling, fighting sounds that only boys can make. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You knew you were really into one when it was covered in spit from all our noises.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>After years of living with his father in California and Ohio following his parent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s divorce, Kevin moved to Chapel Hill to be close to his mom and also attend UNC. He additionally did other Chapel Hill things, like odd jobs (working in copy shops), playing in bands and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153doing my art.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He played guitar in the much-loved Zen Frisbee, with Dex Romwebber in the New Romans (a band that was started to pay for a friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dental bills) and, most recently, Bringerer. He also plays keyboards and bass. <\/p>\n<p>Among the contrived wars, spit and rock and roll, a little love must come. In 2000, Kevin met Brenda Wichmann on a soccer field. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had been in a longstanding pick-up soccer game at Frank Porter Graham every Sunday for at least 10 years. We called ourselves the Hangover League,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dixon said. <\/p>\n<p>One Sunday, Wichmann was there and Dixon thought, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cute and she knows how to play. Then, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had the ball. She executed a legal shoulder charge at me \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and I was smitten.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They were married at Topsail Beach in 2005 during the same weekend as Hurricane Katrina. <\/p>\n<p>All the while, Dixon has put his wit, ink and creativity to use originating comic books, including \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mkele Mbembe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Origitals,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And Then There Was Rock,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mickey Death\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (a series in collaboration with Eric Knisley) and the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gilgamesh\u00e2\u20ac\u009d series, which will debut its fourth volume at the MoCCA (Museum of Cartoons and Comics Art) Festival in New York City on June 6 and 7. <\/p>\n<p>Kevin said his father regularly suggests topics for their possible collaboration, none of which interested him until mention of the oldest story known to man \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which Kent used to read to Kevin when he was a boy. The first edition, which is based on a translation from the first tablet, creatively twisted by Kent and Kevin and illustrated by Kevin, was published in 2006. <\/p>\n<p>Apparently, the hardest part of the process for Kevin is finding ways to keep the costs down \u00e2\u20ac\u201d after all, these are comic books. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I paid a dime or so \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00c2\u00a0less than a quarter as a kid,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. He has to sell them via Facebook or the back of his car to keep them available for $8 each. Most stores demand 50 percent of sale price, which leaves his profit near what he paid for his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Popeye,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Crazy Cat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pogo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comics back in the day. <\/p>\n<p>He still works the odd jobs (house painting, yard work) to make ends meet, and sells oil paintings and sculpture molds.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Each year, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m making a little more, almost justifying the time spent doing it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.  <\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Valarie Schwartz at 923-3746 or valariekays@mac.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Valarie Schwartz Chapel Hill became a mainstay for Kevin Dixon long before he moved to the area in 1983 at age 18, though he was not born here. His mother, artist Beverly Dixon, was raised in Chapel Hill. She met Kent Dixon at UNC and they married then moved to Baltimore, where he studied&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5997"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6000,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997\/revisions\/6000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}