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Written by Drew Edwards
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Wednesday, 24 January 2007 |
The other night I almost hit a coyote with my jeep. Now, it's not because I was out driving in the wilderness or something. He was in the gravel-bed driveway of my current home… the farm-style house of the "Deadly" family located on the outskirts of McKinney, Texas. We've been living in McKinney for the last six months while Jami finishes up her Dallas area bookings, after which we will finally be relocating to Las Vegas, Nevada.
I'll get to what the coyote was doing so close to a human dwelling in a moment. It's part of the larger issue at hand. First, let me give you some background info.
McKinney Texas is (was?) a small town about 40 minutes from Dallas and 20 minutes from Plano. It's named after Collin McKinney, one of the five men who drafted the Texas Declaration of Independence. It's also recently become two things - my home, and one of the fasted growing cities in America.
This is the reason why I almost hit a wild animal with my vehicle the other night. All of the construction is pushing all of the "prairie wolves" away from their homes and towards human dwellings. For some reason this got me on a line of thinking. I sat there in my car thinking about how the great Trickster (of American Indian lore) almost ended up as my new hood ornament. The next day I find myself
looking around McKinney with different eyes and hearing things with different ears.
This is the second time I've lived in McKinney. The first time was in 2001 prior to moving back to Dallas proper. The town was a very different place then, and Jami assures me that it was even more different when she was growing up.
To my eyes, McKinney is a rural town that's slowly being eaten up by surrounding suburbia. Something about this makes me sad in my soul. I know most people wouldn't feel the loss of what basically amounted to a hick town - It's progress right? Texas is full of little towns. It bothers me though. Can't help it. Dallas keeps growing larger and swallowing up the surrounding area like the Giant Gila Monster eating an old Buick.
In a way I represent the problem with what's going down. People are moving out to McKinney to escape life in the big city, but they want their fast food, bookstores, and strip malls. So the big city moves with them, carving up the wide open spaces to make room for a flood of Super Targets and TGI Fridays.
I'm a smalltown boy at heart, but I've grown used to living in the city. So I help strangle the life out of this town as well. I drink at Starbucks and eat at Chilis. Like a vampire supping up blood, I'm helping to turn this town into a suburb. Only I feel guilty about it. Somehow I doubt many others feel the same.
Texsylvania
So what's this have to do with my writing, or what this column normally speaks about? Well, I'll tell you, it has to do with Texas and something I've been working on for some time now. Texas is a central figure in a lot of my writing (you might have noticed), as is a love/hate relationship with small town America. I grew up in a small town, even more isolated than McKinney and it helped shape the writer I am today.
At the time of writing this, I am finishing a long overdue project called "Texsylvania." It's sort of the epic of my Halloween Man web comic. Bringing together almost a decade of growth as a writer and as a man. It's about growing up in a small town then leaving for the big city. It's about how a relationship can be torn apart by jealousy, confusion, and lust. And because it's a Halloween Man story, it's about a distillation of classic monster films, the kinds that Universal and Hammer used to make.
I've always sort of seen the Texas of popular myth as something similar to what Transylvania is in Eastern Europe. Texas certainly has its fair share of romantic lore, with its cowboys and whatnot. But it's also got a darker side, one with cannibalistic rednecks, dead presidents, and an infamous couple named Bonnie and Clyde. It's both of those primal energies I want to call on here. It's a process that's been scary for me. I'm holding up a mirror to myself with a deep fear that I won't have a reflection.
In a way, it's fitting that I finish this story during a time where my life is in the middle of being split apart. Much like McKinney, I grow with change, but find the process painful. The idea of leaving my beloved home state is breaking my heart. I'm afraid of two things, that I won't fit in there - or that I'll fit in all too well.
The first fear, of course would lead to a long, lonely exile in a place that I'm trying to make home. The second one would mean that I'd never be able to return to my roots. I'm hoping reality will meet me somewhere in the middle. No matter how far I go, I need to find myself back here. Back to "Texsylvania."
Holy ground of the Drag Cowboy
The title "Texsylvania" comes from an act of creative grave robbery. My deceased brother came up with the name when he was going to make a "chapbook" of his short stories. He died, but his play on words lived on. I'd like to think that he'd approve, but something tells me he wouldn't.
The sitting of my story is Solomon Hitch's home town of Possum Kingdom. It's very loosely based on my real home stomping grounds of Graham and its surrounding lakes. This li'l burg was where my brothers and I spent a good ninety-five percent of our childhood.
Ben also loved Texas, a feeling that might seem strange coming from a cross-dresser. It's safe to say that many parts of Texas wouldn't love him back. Ben (gender bending and all) was a breed apart though. And I can't think of anything more Texan than that.
This simple thing is a bond I still feel with him even though he's gone. By leaving the Lone Star state, I some what feel like I'm betraying his memory. Which is ironic, since Ben considered moving to San Francisco once back in '98. Some things you just can't place a finger on. This is one of them.
I don't fit the idea of the stereotypical Texan either. I'm not a cowboy, preferring zoot suits to jeans and hats. My accent is apparently hard to place. (People have placed me everywhere from Ireland to New Orleans.) And I don't really care about the Dallas Cowboys, which is beyond blasphemous.
I do however, love drive-in movies, Dr. Pepper, red meat and country music. So maybe I'm picking up the slack here. The reality is that the idea of a "true" Texan has always struck me as somewhat un-Texas. Texas is big, loud, and eccentric. So people of all walks and talks represent the state well so long as they do it with a lot of pride and a little swagger. I have a big personality, which some people find off putting. But I plan on carrying that with me to Nevada and beyond. After all, I have both the family name and Texas to live up to.
Riding the One Trick Pony
After I'm finished with my little opus I'm planning to take some time off of writing Halloween Man. In the last six months I've written years worth of story lines. Enough to carry me a while. I can get those in production, but I need to focus on other projects. I need to branch out. The bittersweet odor of change is in the wind after all. I've been working in comics for the better part of a decade and Halloween Man is all I'm known for. I don't regret that, but at this point in my life I want more than that. The idea of only being able to do this one thing has started to scare me. I want a career after all, and there's no real money in web comics.
Besides that, I have other chords I want to strike. People only see my writing as campy or funny. I have stuff that's jet black looming down in my soul and it's screaming to get out. Stuff that wouldn't really work in Halloween Man.
The move I fueling these thoughts partly. It's made me look back on my slow trudge into adulthood and ask the hard question of "am I who I want to be?" My answer is a resounding "not really." I'm happy with who I am and I'm happy with my life for the most part. But there's a brass ring that needs grabbing. A niche that needs carving. Does the comics industry have room for a bossy eccentric from a Texas shit town? Maybe not, but I'm going to try and make a place for myself. I'm one rodeo cowboy that refuses to be bucked off.
My recent deal with Silent Devil is a good start. It's something I've wanted for years now. I've made a rather outlandish deal with myself to push for it to be one of small press success stories of 2007. One of those silent promises that you're not sure you can keep.
Even if I come through on that, it's not enough. I have to get my name out there. So I'm pushing some new pitches around and stretching my brain outward. My body is going to Las Vegas, my soul stays in Texas , but my imagination is going every which way.
Deep in the Heart
Next time I work on a column, it'll likely be under a desert sky, with Casinos looming in the distance. That makes me sad, but also a little excited. Nevada will never really be my home. It can't be. This is one of those truths I know deep down. But it can be an exciting adventure. One worthy of any Texas cowboy (or maybe just Leatherface's extended family.)
Drew Edwards is the writer of the Halloween Man comics. He doesn't drink, gamble, or involve himself with whores. He does do a good impersonation of Elvis however. Viva Las Vegas. He currently lives in McKinney Texas with his wife Jami
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