What inspired you to become the gloriously sick and twisted artist that you are today?
My love of Jesus. No seriously though, I've always liked monsters, ghosts and any other morbid stuff I could find. When I was young, like 5 years old or so, I wanted more then anything to do comics because I dug on Spider-Man so much. I guess I've always wanted to tell stories and I slaved away at the art table until I was happy enough with my drawing abilities. So while everyone was growing up, meeting girls and playing sports I was drawing the X-Men and monsters and growing into emotional retardation.
Tell us about some of graphic art projects you've been involved in, such as Slave Labor's Haunted Mansion, Satan's 3 Ring Circus Of Hell and your Classic Monsters series.
I hooked up with Robert Rhine a couple of years ago at an art show (or was that the bath house in Bangkok... I don't remember.) and he asked if I wanted to do some art for his Satan's 3 Ring Circus he was writing. "Hell yeah! Doing horror comics!" I thought. I did a couple of stories for him quickly and he asked me what kind of story I'd like to do and I pretty said "Anything that's excessively gory with zombies." So he wrote up Zombie Eating Contest which is probably the most fucked up and graphically gory thing I've ever drawn. Robert's considerate like that... I started on Haunted Mansion after my friend Gris Grimly introduced me to Dan Vado from Slave Labor. I sent Dan some of my mansion artwork and he liked it, so I started on Haunted Mansion . I did a couple of stories and really enjoyed the response I got. There are some huge Haunted Mansion fans out there and they've been really cool. I started doing the Classic Monsters series and got as far as the zombies. I'm going to be doing more of those in the near future but right now I'm concentrating on my magnum opus of a comic The Journals of Rohauser which I'm an issue and a half into right now. I'm really looking forward to getting this one out there. I've been coming up with this comic for years now.
Besides being an artist, you have an impressive professional animation/illustrator background, including work for companies like Hannah Barbera, Disney, Universal and Activision. Can you give us the rundown on some of the memorable work you've been involved in?
Thanks! I worked on Tube Dwellers for Disney and that was great. I started on the show as a storyboard artist. Then through deceit, lies and trickery I became the animatic maker, to 3D animator, to finally Director of the show. I worked with one of my oldest friends Pat Gehlen on this show who did the animation. We used to sit there and laugh about how funny it was that we were working on such a dumb show and getting paid for it. I worked with Universal on their horror site. Talk about bureaucracy, I met so many career weenies who wanted to be Hollywood producers at Universal. I remember there was one guy there that was such a dick that I wanted to jump him in the parking lot. I didn't want to kill him or anything like that, just break his knees or something. Hollywood producer types need to fear for their lives more often...
You've got a nice commentary section ( The Darren Probe ) on your website where you unleash your personal beef on various topics such as Di Vinci Code , overbearing parents, religion, In-N-Out Burger and more. Your commentary is a hell of a lot more interesting than most of the talk shows out there. Ever thought of starting your own show?
I chalk up my commentary section to the fact that I'm simply an asshole with an opinion. If you know me certain things really piss me off, mainly hypocrisy and bullies. I grew up being treated like shit by tons of people from family, teachers and especially the church. As I got older I realized that all of these people who would treat me badly growing up were basically a bunch of hypocrites and pathetic assholes. Now it's my duty as an asshole with a website to post what's making me crazy that day. I'm doing a show with Spooky Dan called Secret Society of the Macabre which is a horror interview show. I'm really proud of Dan since he came out of the closet. Hold on... I'm joking. Dan's not that gay.
What are your plans for 2007 (besides continuing to corrupt the clean-cut youth of America and scaring Christian housewives)? And do you have any upcoming in-person events/signings planned?
My goal for 2007 is mainly my Rohauser comic. I'm doing regular work on GirlsAndCorpses.com drawing those zany zombies and making ads. In my personal life I'm checking into the possibilities of being excommunicated from the Catholic Church. I might find some chick and hunker down... have a kid or twelve...become a Republican and become closer to Jesus. (Saying that just gave me the creeps. I can't even joke about that...)
What's the meaning of life according to D.W. Frydendall?
If it feels good do it. When it starts to hurt...stop. That or stay.
www.dfrydendall.net
Interview by Ron Sawyer
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So many corpses....so little time! _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
