GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

MAY 19, 1995

Evenings Out

The mostly fabulous life of Eric Orner

Cartoonist divulges Ethan Greene's past and future secrets

by Christine Hahn

Eric Orner, the cartoonist behind The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Greene, was recently in Columbus to sign copies of his book, The Seven Deadly Sins of Love, at Open Book on High Street. Before the book signing, Christine Hahn met with him for coffee, and a look into the man behind Ethan.

Christine Hahn: Eric, where are you from?

Eric Orner: I'm from Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CH: Did you grow up there?

EO: No, I grew up in Chicago, but I moved to Cambridge as fast as I could get out. I moved to go to college. I didn't have a particularly unhappy growing-up experience, but like many gay people I found it easier to address all that by getting as far away from mom and dad as possible.

CH: Did you go to school for art?

EO: No, history. I'm a real history fanatic. I always tried taking art courses, but art courses and I never got along well. I love the art aspect of what I do and I enjoy going to the art store and buying the supplies, I love my drafting table, but I really think of what I do as writing. My notebook looks like a writer's notebook. I make little teeny drawings in the margins as kind of like signposts to show me the way a little bit. I write reams and reams of stories that never actually make it into a strip. CH: How long have you been doing the Ethan Greene thing?

EO: I've been doing the Ethan Greene thing for over five years. My five-year anniversary was in November.

CH: Did you and Ethan celebrate? A quiet dinner?

EO: Yeah, we did. My idea of celebrating is just to be able to sit and draw for long stretches of time without any other pressures from my life. So celebrating is when I can clear my calendar and get to sit there for three days.

CH: I have to ask, is Ethan Greene autobiographical?

EO: People ask me that all the time. No. Ethan isn't me. But if any writer tells you it's not drawn on some personal experiences, you kind of have to look at that askance. I admit, part of Ethan's sensibility, the rhythm of what he says, he's got kind of a surly sense of humor, some of that is

like me. But basically he's not.

You don't like to get too far out

in front of the

character because then their voice

is dis-

rupted. So I'm always not how

sure

much about me

to tell people. But

I have been with a

lover for six years, and

HELL

DEU

w

7111

Eric Orner signs his books for happy fans at An Open Book bookstore in Columbus.

Ethan has clearly not been with a lover for six minutes. I'm more political then he is, even though he gets political sometimes. Ethan is kind of immature. He's intelligent and he thinks about stuff more than his friend Bucky, but he's a little bit bratty, and I don't think I'm like that.

CH: Do any of the other characters represent your friends or things that they have said? Do they ever get mad at you if you use something they've said? EO: The Hat Sisters do exist. They are anything really

not

like

my Hat Sis-

ters, but they do look like my Hat Sisters. The Hat Sisters are these two

men that live in Bos-

ton. They were called the Hat Sisters before I

drew them. They are these outrageous, I never know what to call them, they are not like messy drag, they are smart. They are also enormously creative and they do cook up some wonderful hats.

The reason I write about them is because of the very first time I was ever taken to Ptown by one of my earlier boyfriends, who was so horrid that I'm still shivering. I'm still congratulating myself that I had the brains to walk away from that relationship. Anyway, he took me to Provincetown, this was close to ten years ago, and I was at a large outdoor bar there called the Boatslip, and the Hat Sisters were there, and they somehow have this heat-seeking ability to find the most frightened, conflicted, disgusted guy in the crowd which as far as I was concerned was me. They are the size of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. CH: Their hats?

EO: No, them. They are just enormous people. Then, with the big hats and big dresses, they move like Mardi Gras floats. They glide into spaces. One of the Hat Sisters kind of bent down and planted this horrid, giant lipstick kiss and she said all she was doing was bestowing the kiss of pride upon me. She thought I needed it to get over my feeling of “God, what will they do when they find out about this in Illinois?" Anyway, that's how I met them. You know, I write about them lovingly because of that.

Other than that, none of the characters, like Ethan's string of boyfriends, or Doug and Charlotte are real. But on the other hand, I listen to what people say. A lot of times I excuse myself at a party and sneak into a bathroom, and write down dialogue. So the characters are not people in my life but are

BETH LEONARD

often based on things I've been exposed to.

CH: When you said the thing about hiding in the bathroom at the party, it made me think of the strip about the Christmas party where the "competition was fierce for best holiday blouse.”

EO: To me each strip is a little bit like something in a collection, and the experience of drawing them is something I cherish. I wrote that strip when we were on a beach last summer and all of the sudden, I don't know why, but it was Christmas, and I was thinking real mean Christmas jokes, and my lover Steve was like, "What is with you?" So I asked him, "At Tony Tigno's party, was that the party with the big elk head centerpiece?" He was like, "What?" So anyway, I have some affection for the moment of writing that line you mentioned, because you come up with a good line and the rest of it falls into place. If you know enough gay men-you know we are competitive with our party blouses. It's a big deal.

CH: What has been one of your favorite story lines?

EO: I shouldn't admit it because it's sort of yesterday's news with Ethan, but his heartbreak with the first boyfriend Leo. He's not over it and I'm not over it either. I go back to him. You know Ethan had the long romance with Doug who was HIV positive, and I loved writing that stuff, but I think it's Leo. My favorite strip was on the back of my first book. It's called "Ethan sleeps with Leo for the first time." It's about all these strange things that went through his mind at different times during the night.

CH: Who are some of your favorite comic strip artists?

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