Ex-Punk Rocker Plays to His True Love: Illustration

"It's starting to get stinky in here," says Kurt Dinse, drawing in his damp basement studio. He looks up from the sketch he has just drawn of Conrad Lant, America's "smartest death-metal vocalist" and hero in Dinse's original comic book series One Year in Indiana, which he plans to combine into a single volume before next spring.

It's a hot, muggy day outside and inside, it's not much better. The fact that Dinse named his website PungentBasementArt.com is no accident.

"It stinks down there and that's where I do all my work," he said with a laugh. 

The venue seems appropriate for a former punk rocker. Dinse was the bass player for Chicago-based Apocalypse Hoboken, a popular punk band that toured globally and signed with with labels Rocco Records and Dyslexic Records among others. Dinse was a member for almost 10 years and when the group disbanded, he went back to his first love: illustration.  

After five years of working as an illustrator for custom and promotional clothing company Carter & Holmes, Dinse became dissatisfied when the company shifted gears and his design assignments started to become less frequent. Soon he found himself answering phones.

At that time his wife of 11 years, Stacie, gave birth to their first child, Jack, now 6, (who was later followed by brother Max, 3). The couple decided to save on day-care costs by having Dinse stay home with their son and rebuild his portfolio. And thus, his comic book, One Year in Indiana, was born. 

One Year in Indiana is based on one year that Dinse, himself a graduate of Columbia College in downtown Chicago, spent on a college campus (no, he won't tell us which one--it's a secret). The comics are semi-autobiographical, slightly embellished tales about the adventures of Conrad Lant, a singer in a band and his sidekick Ziggy.

The design for the comic was born out of Dinse's frustration with the classic superhero archetype. He tried his hand at drawing them--even taking classes--but it just wasn't his thing.

"I wasn't satisfied drawing superheroes," he said."It wasn't until almost college that I started seeing comics that weren't mainstream and they were really funny or really weird and the art varied from the standard superhero mold."

Dinse said he was first influenced by his older brother Eric, who liked to draw while they were growing up. His also admires artists from 1960s and '70s--illustrators such as Robert Crumb, Moebius and Richard Corben. He also has been influenced by other indie comic book creators, some of whom he met recently while manning a display booth of his books at the Chicago Comic Con gathering in Rosemont.

"Just meeting guys and seeing what they do, you absorb different styles.  I like all different kinds of art, so it's nice to be able to draw from different places," he said.

Dinse credits these differences with giving him the confidence to try his hand at developing a personal style.

"There's no real rule. I should just be able to do what I want and enjoy doing it," he said. "When I finally focused and figured out what I could draw, I decided to go with it."

And that he did. He started promoting the first issue of One Year in Indiana in 2006, when he shared a buddy's table at a comic convention and sold copies for $1 apiece. Since then, he hits regular conventions such as the Small Press Expo and Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo with a new issue every year.

Like many artists, Dinse isn't exactly raking in the dough, and is fortunate to have a very supportive wife in Stacie.

"I'm very proud of him," she said. "He's a very creative person and he works so hard.

"And, I didn't marry him for his money. Our careers gel really well and make a really happy family. We're very fortunate," Stacie added.

Besides his comic, Dinse has also designed many fliers and posters and appeared in anthologies small town/BIG CITY by the now defunct Young American Comics and Slam Bang. He also has been commissioned for his work in poster design.

"He has a distinct, almost underground style," said Jason Young, who does the illustrations for his comic, Veggie Dog Saturn.

Young met Dinse at a convention when he bought one of his comics and later commissioned him to illustrate a page for the unofficial Fantastic Four No. 9 project that Young contributed too.

"His style really shines through, even in stuff like that," Young noted. "He has a great sense of humor and layout."

Dinse's comic book peer calls One Year in Indiana, "one of my favorite mini-comics I've ever read."

Dinse has hope for the future and for the next project in finishing the series.

"It's a finite series because it was only one year in my life," he said. "And I only have so many stories, but I have it mapped it out."

After adding one final issue to Indiana, his ultimate goal is to compile all of them into a sleek, glossy book in time for the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo (SPACE) in April.

"One thing that will never change is people are never going to give it [my work] real respect until it's glossy, it's shiny, it's colorful," said Dinse. "People never gave musicians real respect back when you had a demo tape, but when you had a CD...."

Once the book is completed, he'll do more promoting.

"I'm never gonna make a million dollars on this comic," Dinse acknowledged,  "but if enough people buy it, maybe someone will say, 'Hey that guy draws really well, maybe I'll have him draw my comic' or be commissioned for projects. People seem to like the art and that's what's most important to me."