Demsey’s Gang

In my Midwestern youth, I imagined New York City as the place where poets, novelists, actors, dancers, singers, composers, painters, and illustrators congregated in concert halls and cafes, in dive bars and bookstores and parks to discuss Kafka or Kurosawa. Indeed, the 20s had Dorothy Parker’s writers, wisecracking around the Algonquin Round Table. The 50s had the abstract expressionists, knocking back pints at the Cedar Tavern. The 60s had the folk music revivalists, loitering at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal. And the 70s had the punk rockers, moshing within the walls of the CBGB. Was I not to find my own group of artists in New York?

One evening, I was standing in the kitchen of my Hamilton Heights apartment – stirring a pot of black beans with one hand and scrolling through social media feeds with the other – when I chanced upon a little announcement.

It read something like, “We are a group of cartoonists that call ourselves the House of Twelve. We have been meeting on the first Friday of every month for the past fourteen years at Jack Demsey’s on 33^rd street right off Herald Square. We’d like to celebrate our fourteen years of cartooning by expanding our group.”

(source)

The bouncer at Jack Demsey’s must have been familiar with the sight of people showing up with sketchbooks in hand, for he directed me to a room on the second floor of the bar where I met the so-called House of Twelve. 

There were fewer than twelve cartoonists there. According to the founder, a man who introduced himself as “Cheese”, there had originally been twelve of them, but some left and others joined and not everybody came to every meeting, yet the name stuck. I went around the table and introduced myself to Dave, Darryl, Brendan, Andrea, somebody else named Vernon, and a woman who went only by “Miss”.  Miss lifted her pen and pointed between me and the other Vernon.

“We’ll have to figure out a way to tell you apart,” she said.

The other Vernon and I glanced each other. He was twice my size, both taller and stockier, black, and maybe twice my age.

“I don’t think there’ll be a problem,” he said, but for good measure, he dubbed himself “Vernon Prime” and decided to call me “Neo-Vernon”.

Photo by Vernon Williams.

The cartoonists chatted as they drew. Darryl explained how everybody loves superhero teamups, how the sight of our favorite heroes working together to take down their foes is powerfully inspiring, and how the idea of pitting one hero like Superman against another, like Batman, undermines that power.

“And that’s why I will continue my proud tradition of not watching bullshit-ass movies,” Darryl said, punctuating his declaration with a flick of his pen. Something about his rant jostled a memory.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “But are you Darryl Ayo?”

“I am,” he said.

It was an odd moment. Darryl Ayo is perhaps not a famous cartoonist by mainstream standards, but his presence on twitter and tumblr had, prior to my move to New York, provided me with a window into the world of modern cartooning. His strong moral compass and eloquent tweets made me imagine him as a powerful force in New York’s comic artist community. Shall I say I was star struck?

Darryl handed me his sketchbook. At these meetings, everybody draws in every sketchbook, adding new panels to ongoing stories like a game of visual telephone. 

“We have an unspoken rule that nobody can draw on the same page twice,” Dave says, “Nobody can guide the stories too much and, well, they mostly devolve into dick jokes.”

I began adding my own touches to whatever sketchbooks came my way. They’re all so much better artists, I thought to myself, but the desire to keep pace eclipsed my self-deprecation and I felt no shame in adding whatever sloppy doodles I wanted to their sketchbooks.

“That’s the thing with being around other cartoonists,” Vernon Prime said, “You can sit at your desk in your office for hours and draw one panel, but as soon as you’re surrounded by other people doing what you’re doing, then you can just keep popping them out!”

It didn’t matter that here I was, a nobody cartoonist, surrounded by real deals. I could draw with the best of them, without fear of failure, and I could approach them as equals. Darryl wasn’t the only star there. Miss, I quickly discovered, was a celebrated illustrator who had just published her newest graphic novel, Henni. And Dave…

“Dave,” I said, “Your name seems familiar. Might I know some of your work?”

“I doubt it,” Dave said, “I mostly do pornography.”

Photo by Cheese Hasselberger.

I left that night thinking about what Vernon Prime had said. As artists, we need one another. Our own thoughts can be oppressive, our own criticisms, disheartening, our expectations, limiting. But if we surround ourselves with others striving towards the same end, we can feed off each other’s energy and break past those mental barriers. Creativity should never be a solitary endeavor. The communities of artists throughout New York’s history recognized that, and made their art a social activity. I go back to Jack Demsey’s every month, as long as I am able, to draw alongside the House of Twelve, but it matters not that I am in New York, nor that my drawing companions are stars in my eyes. What matters is that you find artists you can work alongside, for it will make you better at what you do.

Read more of Vernon's excellent work on Floodmark.