#Retro-a-go-go

[cryptofmadness]

Exclusive Interview with Retro-a-go-go's Doug P'Gosh; Interviewed about EC Comics products!

Interview by Chet Reams

Chet Reams: Tell us at Crypt of MADness a bit about yourself to start off:

Doug P'Gosh: I’m an artist, illustrator and product designer. My full time job is working with my wife, designing products for Retro-a-go-go! I also design products such as statues and tiki mugs for Tiki Farm, Munktiki, Disney and others. Finally, I try to paint and draw every day and I love creating portraits of classic Hollywood stars and alternative movie posters for films. I’ve had a number of my illustrations licensed and released for Lucasfilm and Warner Brothers. I’m very lucky to live a very full, creative life. You can see a more detailed outline of my creative career and my paintings and illustrations at my personal web site PGOSH.com.

And when I’m not working, my wife and I like to travel and haunt antique shows and stores, where I always keep an eye out for old ECs among other things. A couple of years ago I found a nice copy of a vintage Weird Science for $10! Miracles can still happen!

Reams: Fill us in on Retro-A-Go-Go, the business!

P'Gosh: Retro-a-go-go! was started nearly 21 years ago by my wife, Kirsten. At the time, she was feeling pretty burned out by her corporate marketing career. She wanted a new challenge and to work for herself and to build her own business. She took a $100 investment and created a bunch of necklaces at our kitchen table. She utilized my collection of old 1920’s and 30’s film magazines, printing the covers at a miniature size and creating a fun product. She took a table full of the jewelry and some other items she created to a Rockabilly/Car show and quickly sold out of them all. She was off to the races after that. Belt buckles, t-shirts, wallet cases and business card cases, flasks and more all with retro related, fun, humorous images. 

I had my own corporate product design job at the time and after about 7 years of my wife growing the business, I left my job and joined her as a full time product designer.

About 8 years ago, we were feeling like the company needed to go in a new direction. We were no longer inspired to create more of the same types of products and then our factory for metal work closed. Around this time, I was developing a new product using vac form plastic to enlarge old Halloween masks from the 1960’s and 70’s into 2 foot tall giant wall decorations. We pretty much poured our last bucks into getting a series of wall décor masks manufactured for us. 

The first few days after we introduced our new Horror Décor, the line was met with indifference. Our present customer base just wasn’t looking for what we had created. But by some miracle, Pee Wee Herman saw our designs, blogged about them and his own 1980’s Pee Wee Halloween costume and our sales exploded overnight. Since then, we’ve created thousands of Halloween, Christmas and monster related vac form and other products. We’ve licensed with Universal for the Munsters, Mars Attacks, General Mills Cereal Monsters and more. We’re now a collectibles and décor company that creates products for people that are looking for something different from what you find in every big box department store.  The unique, different and unusual- as long as we have a passion for the product, we’ll create it. If we like it, we figure we’ll have customers that like it too. We’re usually right.

Reams: What initially led Retro-A-Go-Go to start producing officially licensed EC Comics merch?

P'Gosh: That was me. I pushed to get the license. I loved the comics since I was a kid and thought there was room for the kind of products that we can create. And I loved the idea of contributing to the EC legacy- if only in a small way.

Reams: Did you read EC Comics (reprints or originals) growing up? If so, what was your initial take-away from them?

P'Gosh: I have thought of this question a lot. It’s a bit fuzzy as to when I first was introduced to EC…or rather the artists I love so much that drew for EC and MAD. My Dad was in his early 20’s in the 1950’s, so I know I remembered him talking about “Tales from the Crypt”. But I think I found my way to EC through MAD. First it was the magazine, then someone gave me “The Brothers MAD”, the paperbook reprint of the early comic book MAD. I think that had the Wonder Woman parody in it and I couldn’t get enough of Bill Elder’s drawings. I was hooked. And that sent me down the rabbit hole of chasing down the early MAD comic books. First with the stitched in reprints, bound into the MAD Super Specials. Then it was discovering Jack Davis, Wally Wood and the rest of the gang. Then somewhere around that time (this is the late 1970’s/early 80’s and I’m in grade school) I was really into the Warren Magazine re-prints of Will Eisner’s the Spirit. In the back was an ad for the re-print set of EC comics. All of them for one price. Once those came in the mail and I got a taste of the EC line, it really demonstrated how great comics could be, as opposed to the stuff that was in print by the big houses DC and Marvel. The more EC I could find, the better. I loved the horror stuff, but the War and Sci-fi lines were fantastic too. All these years later, I have a stack of EC originals and a shelf full of various reprints, from the Cochran volumes to the recent GIANT Taschen book.

Reams: Fill us in on the EC Ghoul-unatics bust/sculpture of The Old Witch (which is currently up for pre-order on Retro-A-Go-Go)…

P'Gosh: Our first big EC intro was the “Tales from the Crypt” ornament set. Those sold out pretty quickly after we received our shipment, so we knew there is a passionate audience for the product. But I wanted to do more with the Ghoul-unatics. Last year we started a line of 5.5” Creep-tastic statues. They’re affordable, highly detailed mini statues of classic monsters and Halloween related characters. We started with Lagoon Creep, our version of the Creature, and then introduced the Trick or Treat Devil Creep, which is an homage to classic kids' Halloween costumes.  I really wanted to introduce the EC mascots in this series, and worked up a number of sketches. I landed on poses and looks that I thought captured the look of the Ghoul-unatic AND the artist that was most famous for each. The Old Witch is closely associated with Graham Ingels, of course. My personal design sensibility with these monsters is to have fun with their looks and proportions, while keeping the essence of each character. As I mentioned, I grew up on MAD and the over-sized head and hands and feet are inspired by all those years of reading the magazine and loving the art and artists that created the work.

Reams: What was the design process for the EC Old Witch piece … 

P'Gosh: Once we had drawings we were excited about, we submitted them to the licensee. Happily, they were as excited about the concepts as we were. The next step is to create digital sculpt and when the sculptor saw the drawings and was supper excited to work on the designs, I knew we were onto something great. Once we create a digital sculpt, it’s sent to the factory for creating a sample. I take my drawing and work on a detailed color break and indications as to how we want the finished sample to look. Some weeks later, we see photos of a painted sample, where we then make changes and adjustments. A few weeks after that, a revised sample is shipped to us for photography and promotion.

Reams: I am assuming from the design sketches you shared on the Facebook group “EC Fan-Addict Club” ..; That is, I’m assuming that there are also a Crypt-Keeper, and a Vault-Keeper in the works for this particular line of products?

P'Gosh: Yes, that is the plan. Our hope is to  give a 3-4 month lag between introducing the next Ghoul-unatic. We’ll probably start sculpting the next one in a couple of months.

Reams: What about Drusilla, the fourth EC Ghoul-unatic? Will she have an item in this series?

P'Gosh: I hadn’t considered her yet. I’m not sure she would lend her good looks to having her head oversized to match the rest of the mascots… let's say the jury is out on her at the moment.

Reams: Are there any plans .. plans to produce items of the new EC Comics horror hosts for EC/William M. Gaines Agent, Inc? The various new EC comic book titles (that Oni Press has been co-publishing with EC Comics), that is?

P'Gosh: Our present license does not include those characters. The new EC line came along after we had our agreement, so there’s no plan for that at this time. But never say never!

Crypt of MADness sends a Big Thank-You to Doug P'Gosh for lending his time to this interview!

Retro-a-go-go! can be found online at https://www.retroagogo.com.

EC Comics can be found online at https://www.eccomics.com.

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Ko-Fi.

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