Hutch Owen isn't a typical comic strip

There's no lowest common denominator way to latch on here. It's not about single moms, or raising a tennager, or penguins, instead, it tracks personalities trying to respond to a difficult, antagonistic commercialized an demoralizing world. It tries to let in complexity while still allowing room for fun and farce.

It's only political when it needs to be. I'm a poet, not a pundit, and the characters have more on their minds then polarizing game playing. More importantly, on their minds: What am I going to eat? When will I succeed? Is there anybody listening?

"Hutch Owen is a modern-day hobo, a homeless guy with his sights set on the all the crass marketing in this world and the debased way this culture treats its people.

Angry, funny, and arrogant, at times wise in tutelage of the youth who look his way, and at other times desperate and stubbornly living in his own filth. His thing is to keep "telling it like it is" which sometimes means pamphleteering and soapboxing and other times means getting drunk and making a nuisance of himself. Sometimes it works and other times, it just causes trouble.

Whereas the general population answers the economic and political difficulties in their lives with "quiet desperation", Hutch Owen answers it by belting out vituperatives, ranting, throwing stones and occasional pranks. These tactics often go unheard or violently retorted by the general populace, either because they choose to believe they are satisfied or are else they are too distracted elsewhere. Thus, sometimes it takes all of Hutch's effort merely to "rally the troops."

Hutch’s weaknesses: Can be overwhelmed into inactivity. Lured by free food and any excuse to be lazy or carnal.

"Hutch Owen is the anti-Pillsbury Dough Boy. Punch his tummy and he'll punch you back. " - Time

DENNIS WORNER (sometimes: WORMSTER)

CEO of Worner Industries. General Burgermeister and Overlord of all he surveys. Ridiculous and exuberant marketer of the Next Big Thing. Arrogant and silly, embarrassing and powerful. "I'm in control. What's your problem with that?" He overriding giddiness and playfulness can sometimes trump wise business decisions, which Hutch uses to his advantage.

Born into his father’s business –which includes just about everything- he is the manipulative, exuberant, boyish and slightly out-of-touch CEO of the Vinter corporation. Dennis’ game is to increase his holdings, convince more and more of the world to walk under the Vinter flag, to have his silly ideas writ larger and larger, and to run around on his blimps, planes, boats, hang gliders, motorbikes, etc. He enjoys selling anything to anyone because it is fun.

Dennis’ weakness: Having too much fun at the expense of a good business plan.

Hutch's closest friend. A fellow "rebel" with loads of free time and a generally steady flow of cash from a relative's trust. Sharing the same principals but lacking the same urgency, Oswald becomes a contrast to Hutch and highlights the absurdity in Hutch's desperate acts.Oswald “talks the talk” but doesn’t always walk the walk. He’s usually too busy exploring new technologies or inserting himself into some media position to help Hutch tear down the latest insults to Hutch’s morality.

Oswald’s weakness: A lack of urgency. Loves the newest gee-gaws.

A resident of the local shelter and friend of Hutch, Blumer is closer to crazy than any one else in the cast. His desperation shows more transparently through his facade. He'll take any chance to get ahead, or to stay out of trouble's way. Blumer is affected by most advertising, and succumbs to any invitation to join an “in crowd.” He has little ability to self-analyze and can find himself in situations that feel like accidents but were merely the result of trying get the most that he could on what little resources he had

Blumer’s weakness: Just about everything.

I first drew Hutch Owen, after months of tossing and turning and not being able to get this bum-character out of my head in the summer of 1993. I dreamed his name.

He first really appeared in a small story in my mini-comic, Love Looks Left, as a more destitute version of me. In that story, called "Our Friend, Tom" he sat in a corner, played with himself and tutored young guys who came down his alley.

He was reborn as a real character in Hutch Owen's Working Hard which won me a grant from the XERIC FOUNDATION to self-publish it as comic book 1994.

I killed Hutch in that story. I was a cranky defiant kid, and I didn't want to stick with the same character ("laziness" I called it. "shallow.").for more than a story, so I made sure to make the story work the way I felt made the most sense. Which was kill the main character.

And so I avoided him for a few more years, concentrating instead on New Hat and The Sands.

And of course, Pitch Unger.

Japanese publisher Kodansha was interested in the Hutch Owen character. Being cranky and defiant, I told them he dead to which they responded, "Whatever happens, this character must live." Who am I to argue?

I collaborated with Jon Lewis to produce Pitch Unger, a version of Hutch that we thought would be more palatable to the Japanese reader. Boy were we wrong, but that's another story. I drew somewhere in the neighborhood of of 140 Pitch Unger pages in the years 1996-1998.

In 1998 with Pitch Unger dead in the water, I was posessed and inspired to make Emerging Markets, using, to some degree, my time in Morocco (another another story) as source material.

And soon after, I realized, quite simply, that all my good story ideas I had lying around were better if they were Hutch Owen ideas. A continuing character, not as laziness, not as shallow, but as a life's meditation.

Here we are.

In 2003, I wanted to explore him and his world further, so I enlisted daily comics genius Shaenon Garrity to write Trunktown, a daily strip that I call "Hutch Owen's Downtime." It's a romp with a dozen crazy characters, of which Hutch is probably the least crazy and probably the least active, in sharp contrato his very active roles in his stories.

2005saw the second Hutch Owen collection from TOP SHELF, andsince then there has been a few years full of strips. Stay tuned, and e-mail me with your comments and especially any "Hutch Owen Moments" out there in the real world.

An old drawing...

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LAUGH WHILE YOU CAN TOUR (2005)
The tour is over! Thanks for all who showed up.
Click here for pics.