To enter the Too Much Coffee Man web site www.toomuchcoffeeman.com you must pass through a grainy, flickering, black and white television. But before you can click on the television it reminds you to "read the comics." Then when you do click it breaks, the screen shattering, and, at last, you enter the expansive and ever-changing Web site designed by Shannon Wheeler to be the home of his chubby comic book superhero with a coffee mug for a head. Although this is only the latest incarnation of Wheeler's constantly metamorphosing site, it has one of the most coherent messages about what Wheeler is doing (and all before you get to the comics contained inside). What it tells you, what is in fact encapsulated in this simple series of images, is that Wheeler is moving beyond the television technology, which has dominated the globe for thirty years and informed almost every aspect of its zeitgeist. On the Internet you really can "read the comics" or watch them or interact with them in other ways. It's a smarter medium. All of which suggests that Wheeler is a Web designer by trade and a computer engineer by ingenuity. He isn't.

Shannon Wheeler is the author and publisher of more than a half dozen issues of the comic book Too Much Coffee Man, as well as Too Much Coffee Man's Guide for the Perplexed and other collections of comic books, and the illustrator for books like Jobs that Don't Suck by Charlie Drozdyk and Do I Come Here Often by Henry Rollins. Wheeler's comic book creation, Too Much Coffee Man, often referred to as TMCM, is a cynical hero who derives his powers from a potent brew of espresso. Although TMCM is often more hampered than helped by his caffeine addiction, the comic book manages to mine the current obsession with coffee for scathing satire and sizzling silliness that often go far beyond that of most comics.

Wheeler has been lauded and awarded for his excellence. He is a powerful figure on the comic book shelf, a winner of the prestigious Eisner Prize and a truly great comic artist. Through turns both cynical and absurd, he has used his powers of drawing and animation to take a cheese grater to our world. But more than that he has realized that one of the great assets of the Web over other media is its ability to bring together text and images and make both immediately available to the audience. The only other medium that does this is comics, and with his help the two are merging rapidly.

It was my great pleasure to make the acquaintance of and interview Wheeler, who lives in Berkeley, California, a few months ago. I found that not only is Shannon one of the smartest satirical commentators in the comics scene, he is one of the few innovators who has turned to the Web himself to market his works without a middleman. In many ways he is the model of the reluctant entrepreneur, forced to make money in order to do what he wants with his time, when what he wants to do (in part) is make fun of people who are making money. This doesn't stop him from being smart about his business, but it does make his approach rather unique. For instance, when his distinctive character was bootlegged for a T-shirt, he responded by bootlegging the bootleg. Nevertheless, he seems a little conflicted about his success. In one of his comics, TMCM is humiliated by his partners -- Too Much Espresso Guy, Too Much White German Chocolate Woman With Almonds, and Underwater Guy -- because he's 'sold out' ("How much did your soul cost, anyway?"). TMCM gets the last laugh, however, running with his money all the way to the bank ... through a world in flames.

Copyright © 1999 by Jeremy Russell

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Check Out Shannon Wheeler’s New Comic: Too Much Coffee Man at: www.toomuchcoffeeman.com

I met with Shannon and his wife in a crowded downtown bar and we discussed the future of TMCM over beers. Shannon turned out to be thoughtful, soft spoken and a far cry from the snaggle-toothed cynic depicted as the artist behind TMCM in the comic. He is also a proud father (of freshly minted twins) who immediately whipped out photographs and drawings at the slightest provocation. When I left they sent me home with smiles and waves, a new drawing in my copy of the Guide and a bumper sticker with a funny little caricature of the infamous Ms. Lewinsky that said 'Monica Sucks.'

JEREMY RUSSELL -- Too Much Coffee Man is sometimes a parody of comic book conventions and sometimes a complicated comment on coffee production and modern society, but who is he fundamentally or what makes him real for you?

SHANNON WHEELER -- He's one of the voices in my head. I hear different parts of myself having conversations and I just write down what they say. Too Much Coffee Man is there at that mental party.

JR -- And who else is at the party?

WHEELER -- Richard Nixon muttering something about those damn Kennedys. He's a real party pooper.

JR -- Okay, what’s your favorite TMCM comic and why?

WHEELER -- I really like the one-page comic where TMCM is talking to his sidekick Ciggy in a cafe. The characters were both superhero type characters, but they were having a bitchy conversation. The conversation was pretty real, but then it turns out to be imagined. They're discussing imaginary conversations then the whole conversation turns out to be imaginary. I liked that cartoon because it married the layout with the meaning of the strip. The imaginary part of the conversation takes place in a thought bubble over TMCM who sits at the bottom of the page. You don't see this 'till the punch line. And I like that the punch line is TMCM sitting there saying nothing -- the punch is that Ciggy isn't, and wasn't, sitting there next to him. It had all the elements that I like in a comic, reality and absurdity. And when it turned on its ear it was such a clean and ironic turn. It was one of the cartoons that made me laugh when I wrote it.

It’s also a moment that really takes advantage of the comic page as a comic page. I feel like I usually rely more on the dialog than on the visuals, that it's really the dialog that makes the comic swing or not, then I hustle to make the page graphically interesting. But my favorite comics are the ones where there's truly a marriage of the words and pictures.

JR -- The humor that arises from visual/verbal blending is what TMCM is all about. I mean, you often talk about the fact that TMCM was invented as a “bad visual pun,” which would act as a hook to draw an audience to you, do you feel that you’ve succeeded? Do you feel that the character allows you the flexibility to work in the mode that you’d like?

WHEELER -- I've succeeded and failed. I think I've hooked a lot of people that would never otherwise have been hooked, but at the same time it's a lot harder for me to garner the respect of my peers. I'm looking at angst, alienation and anxiety, just like most modern cartoonists, but I'm doing it in a really goofy way. The character has afforded me more flexibility than I ever thought possible. Each time I work through a story I have the feeling that it will be the last one that I'll ever come up with. Then the voices start talking, one of them says something that makes me chuckle and I have another story that I feel the need to write.

JR -- Harder for your peers to respect you, what makes you think that?

WHEELER -- I sit between parody and realism. The people who do parody see my stuff as too serious or something, and the people who are doing the real 'art' comics think that I'm pandering with my superhero-costumed hero. I think they resent that I use a comic character that has an obvious hook to sell my comics.

JR -- I understand you won a Hatch award for a Converse Tennis Shoe Commercial and the Eisner Prize, which is pretty prestigious.

WHEELER -- I'm not sure what the Hatch award is. I didn't know that I'd won it 'till I got a gold (colored) cup FedEx-ed to me. I'm so outside the TV industry that it's a mystery. It might be a big deal or maybe not. I really like it. I keep my change in it.

I am involved in comics and the Eisner award is, and was, a big deal to me. I really didn't expect to win it. I know that everybody says that and secretly they really do expect to win, but I really didn't expect to win. My friends and I showed up late to the ceremony. Drunk. And we sat in the back even though the nominees are supposed to sit up front. We were being snide and cynical just to get through the emotional speed bump of not winning. I was up against Rick Veitch, a 20-year comic veteran who had just begun self-publishing an avant-garde diary of his dreams and a couple other books that were much more deserving than mine. I was blown away when they said that I had won. Speechless.

JR -- Do you do other art than comics?

WHEELER -- Not these days. I used to do little sculptures. I'm way to busy now. Soon I'll be working on some animations. I'll be putting them up on my website as I do them. They'll mostly be for fun, but they'll also be a way for me to cut my teeth on this whole animation thing.

JR -- 'Animation thing' -- so, you'll be heading into animation, then?

WHEELER -- I sold the rights for the year. We'll see if we can make something happen. I've started working on scripts. I'm having trouble seeing what I want it to be. It's hard because I've worked to expand the comic with each issue. I rethink what I'm doing every time I do it. TV is very much about repeating patterns. I'm not very good at thinking in that way.

JR -- TMCM is a fluid strip, changing registers often as I said earlier. It's always humorous, but you allow it to range from goofy to philosophical, from puns and gags to complicated ironic visual/verbal plot twists, like when TMCM saves the universe, but you skip all of the action and do so right after a three-page fight with a Martian over a misunderstanding. Given the complexity there, is there anything - like a cartoon or a movie - that you particularly want to see TMCM become or not become?

WHEELER -- I've gotten lots of offers for really stupid things. Like Popeye, but with coffee. He's in a fight, needs coffee to get his powers. Can't get it. Almost gets it. Gets it. Kicks some butt because he's so caffeinated. Yikes. That's what I'm afraid of. People have sent me script ideas like that. I mean, can you miss the point more? I turn most of them down outright. Mad TV wanted to use TMCM as a character and I wouldn't sell. Then they did Stressed out Eric or something. I'm told that it's similar to TMCM. But I'm sure it's a total coincidence.

JR -- What kind of stories can we expect from the future of TMCM?

WHEELER -- I have no idea. It's one idea at a time with him. There are some stories outside the TMCM universe that I'd like to do. TMCM is mainly situation-driven and I'd like to try some plot-driven stuff.

I really want to write The Erotic Adventures of Jesus Christ. I have a few scenes written with the Last Supper, Christ coming back from the dead and the Virgin Mary. I don't really have a venue to publish this work, but I think it's funny.

JR -- I know that you self publish via Adhesive Comics, but what are you doing to promote yourself?

WHEELER -- Adhesive Comics started off as a collective and slowly whittled itself down to a company of one. Everyone else went off to get real jobs. I was the only one deluded enough to keep doing comic books.

People think I'm better at self-promotion than I really am. I have a hard time saying that my cartoon is successful because it's funny or good, so I say that my success is a result of my self-promotion. I send my comic out to get reviewed, and I try and get my cartoons into newspapers. A big advantage I have over other cartoonists is that I do newspaper cartoons as well as comic books. I get a lot of interest outside of the comic book clique. Then I tell those fans to go to comic shops and buy my comics.

I'm still self-publishing, except for the book collections, which I do through Dark Horse Comics. I started working with DH almost a year ago. There are a few advantages with working with DH. They have a great design team. I think the production work they did on the 'Guide for the Perplexed' is better than I would have done on my own. They also have good distribution into the book market. As my little enterprise grows I need to figure out ways to delegate the work. I'm overloaded.

I work in a studio now and I'm kind of the weird one. It's good. I mean they all treat me very respectfully. And it's interesting, but they all kind of wish they could do what I do. Self-publish, I mean. But I really didn't have any other choice. I could have gone with a publisher. I had some offers, but I really didn't want to do that. I've talked to too many other artists who just complain that their publisher isn't doing enough to push their work. When I ask them why they're not doing it themselves, they say, 'oh, that's the publisher's job.' I don't feel that way at all. The best way to ensure I'd do the work necessary to succeed was to take the responsibility myself.

JR -- Do substances like caffeine and nicotine have anything to do with this work ethic?

WHEELER -- They're addictive. They're fun.

JR -- Do you drink coffee when you draw the TMCM?

WHEELER -- If I didn't would I tell you?

JR -- Fair enough. What’s your take on the current coffee craze? You’ve encapsulated it very well in your comics, but what would you say about it divorced of irony and satire?

WHEELER -- I hate things that are trendy. It's fashionable to hate trends. I guess that means I hate myself. I don't understand why coffee is a trend. Nothing has changed in Berkeley. Coffee was popular before. Coffee is still popular. I think the rest of the country is just catching up.

JR -- You lived in Berkeley, then in Austin and then moved back to Berkeley recently. How much do you feel that your comic is a product of these various environments?

WHEELER -- These places have totally influenced my comic. I grew up in Berkeley so I thought the world was like that. Anti-establishment is the establishment here. There are more communists in Berkeley than there are in the remaining communist countries. And everyone is so damn educated. The guy who serves you beer speaks four languages and two of them are dead languages. People correct the spelling on graffiti in this place. Educated and crazy. I look at my comic, and my ideas, as being pretty normal. I'm glad other people think that I'm weird or at least weird enough to buy my comic.

JR -- How much of the comic is autobiographical? How do feel transforming these aspects of your life into the comic book mode?

WHEELER -- Most of the comic is autobio. The feelings are very real. When I wrote the piece about retail workers and the dumb questions they're asked, I was drawing from my real experiences working in a video store. People always ask questions like, 'What's the one with Kevin Bacon and he's in the desert.' And after awhile, you get so you’re like [he snaps his fingers] 'Tremors!'

When I talk about a fear of death, I'm actually talking about my own fear of death. But the cartoons are slivers of my life. It's like cutting the mold off the cheese. The cartoons are the mold and I've got a lot of cheese on my brain left over.

Copyright © 1999 by Jeremy Russell