Stout on Mark David Chapman

ARCUDI: Let's talk about Mark David Chapman for a second here.

STOUT: Oh yeah. Rhino got this idea to put out an album called Beatle Songs. Now these weren't songs by the Beatles, these were songs about the Beatles, songs that had been issued over the years, especially during the height of Beatlemania, that made reference to the Beatles. There was a song called "Ringo For President," here was "We Love You Beatles (Oh Yes, We Do)." These were all novelty songs. Richard and Harold asked me to do the cover for that album. And I thought, "What I'd like to do is a scene at a Beatlemania convention." In the process of drawing up the cover I thought, I'll put one of every type of fan that you could find at a Beatle convention. There would be the greedy dealer, there would be the guy who won the Ringo look-alike contest. There will be the little 12-year-old girl who was too young to have been around for the Beatles the first time but she's really into it now. There were other, older people -- all different kinds. The more I thought about it, I thought, This wouldn't be complete unless I put the fan on the cover who actually collected one of the Beatles, so I included, off to the far left side, standing within this crowd of people, Mark David Chapman, the guy who assassinated John Lennon.

ARCUDI: And this wasn't very long after he had done this.

STOUT: Not too long after that had happened. I've got John's broken glasses on the floor and...

ARCUDI: Yoiks! A detail I didn't know.

STOUT: ...Chapman's got Catcher in the Rye in his pocket. I've got the Nowhere Man hugging his leg, because I'm thinking if ever there was a Nowhere Man, it's this jerk. I just thought, "It's dark but it's funny. It's the kind of black humor that John loved himself." I gave it to Rhino and they put it out. That's when everything started to get really ugly. Rhino started to get death threats. I started to get death threats. Stores started returning boxes of the LPs to Rhino unopened. Rhino tried to put the record out in a plain brown wrapper sleeve. That didn't work. Eventually it got so blown out of proportion we ended up on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. People magazine did a write-up on us. I was interviewed on National Public Radio and asked to defend why I had done this. Rhino was not very happy, to say the least. They ended up recalling all of the albums; they re-issued them with the back cover as the front cover: a photograph of miscellaneous Beatle memorabilia. I still think the original is one of the very best album covers I ever did. I've got the original art framed on my wall. I'm looking at it right now. It's just a really nice piece of work.

ARCUDI: Did the sleeves get pulped? I imagine it's a collector's item at this point.

STOUT: Before they did, I bought a couple hundred of them. I always invest in myself. I stashed them away. They sell for about $250 now. Which brings me to a philosophical point as to one of the reasons I'm my own biggest investor in my own work. I always get and stash multiple copies of everything I do and put that stuff away. Part of my work philosophy comes from reading Norman Rockwell's autobiography, My Adventures As An Illustrator. He expressed his work philosophy this way: He had the numerals "100%" carved in wood and painted in gold at the top of his easel. What that meant is that once the negotiations were done, no matter what he'd negotiated, how much or how small, he would do 100% of his best effort on whatever job he had taken. I took that as my philosophy, too. If you do that, you're never embarrassed by anything that you've done in your past. You never have anything to look back upon and cringe. You'll also constantly improve; it pushes you to do your best work. It's the fastest way I know to get good and get better. Because of that, I'm always very proud of what I do, which is why I self-invest. I figure its work that's worth investing in.

[To read the full version of this interview, please see The Comics Journal Winter 2003 Special Edition.]

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