Mike Dawson Comics

Another sketchbook page. I think this one is interesting because of what I wrote on the right-hand side. This was back in 2004 or 2005, and I’d just started posting some pages from F&M online, after I’d been working on the book for a long, long, time. Heidi MacDonald linked to me from The Beat, and I was psyched that this sent a bunch of traffic my way, as well as leading to my first real publishing offer (which was from a French publisher who did a lot of US translations).

As you can see, I wrote “Have to remember that not every day is a positive day” underneath. This is a little embarrassing, but it’s was a good thing to remind myself. For me, writing could be tough, and there are definitely days when it seemed like a pointless thing to be doing. I think it’s important to never let those days overwhelm you, just as it’s important to not let the days when you feel like great things are happening go to your head either. Same thing with reviews. Don’t take the good or the bad ones too seriously (except for when I got a really positive review in the London Sunday Telegraph. That one counted!).

Finally, it’s kind of fun to see that I must have been gearing up for the scene in F&M where I imagine myself singing “Somebody to Love” in the cafeteria, judging by the doodles of me wearing Freddie Mercury clothes.

A few places posted online excerpts from Freddie & Me. These are the ones that can still be found online:

Pop Candy
NPR
Publishers Weekly

Here are some of the print interviews I took part in to help promote Freddie & Me:

The Comics Reporter – June, 2008
Newsarama – June, 2008
BlogCritics Magazine – June, 2008
The Daily Cross-Hatch – October, 2008

These are links to some of the audio interviews I did to help promote Freddie & Me. There were some others (including a bunch on the BBC radio, that sadly I may never hear again), but these are the ones I could find that are still online:

Pop Candy – May, 2008
Indie Spinner Rack – June, 2008
Comic News Insider – June 2008
Indie Spinner Rack – recorded @ HeroesCon with Alex Robinson, August 2008
Comic Geek Speak – February 2009

Photo by Seth Kushner

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Freddie & Me was published in the Summer of 2008 by Bloomsbury in the USA and Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom. Here’s a slew of links, sampling some of the press the book received:

The Sunday Telegraph

Charming, sincere and, above all, expressively drawn, in an uncomplicated way it has much to say about what remains after we’ve gone.

Comic Book Resources

Perfectly captures the high drama of adolescence … encapsulates what it is to be a Fan of something, and love a bit of culture so much that you tie that love into the most meaningful moments of your life

Read About Comics
Entertainment Weekly
NPR

There’s a wistful air of self-deprecation in Dawson’s writing and illustration, as well as a killer backbeat.

Syndicate Product Covert HQ
Culture Catch
Booklist

This quiet, slice of life graphic memoir emphasizes the incredibly important role music plays in our lives, especially during our teen years. Dawson’s art is realistic and fearless–he isn’t afraid to depict himself in all his adolescent glory, bad haircut, braces and all.

Daily Cross-Hatch
Down the Tubes
Satisfactory Comics

Freddie & Me manages to deliver both the manifest awesomeness of Queen and the patent absurdity of an elementary-school boy who has given his soul to them, or a high-school boy whose emotional life is wrapped around the band he loves. In fact, sometimes it gives us both of these things (the sublime and the ridiculous) at the same time, in a way that seems totally appropriate to Queen.

Queenzone