By Jeff Kubik
Playwright, journalist and cartoonist, Alan Cho is a figure of harsh derision and brackish demeanor. His regular comic strip “All Dead Babies Go to Heaven” has raised the ire of prominent groups on campus as well as sensible human beings across the world. This week, the Gauntlet had the rare opportunity to speak to Mr. Cho in our offices.
Jeff Kubik: Thank you for taking the time to speak to me, Mr. Cho. I know you’re a man of many commitments.
Alan Cho: Like your mother. You know, like I’m having relations with her, while your dad isn’t there. I insert my penis–
JK: I get it, yes. Penis, very funny. At any rate, you’ve been accused of being a bigot and a sophomoric wit. How do you respond?
AC: Bigot. I don’t like that word. I thought it was a word reserved only for white people. I can’t use honkey, or cracker, or banjo, or whitey; they’re so ineffective and my wit is subtle and refined like Kelsey Grammer on high-grade coke snorted off the bellies of placid maternity ward children–in that classy kind of way, of course, not that Michael Jackson watching Goonies sense.
JK: And yet, your work has caused an outcry among students, with some saying, despite freedom of speech, “your freedom ends when it infringes on the rights of another.”
AC: That doesn’t make sense. Was there an amendment I was unaware of? Go on, bitch about my comic, all it means is that you got a guest spot coming up in the next strip.
JK: Do you see your comic as an opportunity to lambaste your harshest critics?
AC: Yes. My comic is like a motherfucking napalm motherfucker of a napalm bomb. I shall melt the faces off of my harshest critics, and they’ll all be like, “my face is gone, my face is gone!” And then, blood caking on bone, they’ll turn to my comic and finally say “I get it” before expiring. Bastards.
JK: “They may be viewed by those people who have these discriminatory views as acceptable because they appear in a mass publication.” Just what is your agenda?
AC: I have no agenda. More of a loose itinerary. It’s like all that’s on it is to pick up some groceries. Like I need more oranges, ’cause I’m not getting enough vitamin C. It’s how I got these cold sores. Or it could just be from sleeping on so many penises, like mysterious penises. I’m not gay or anything, but people seem to find it funny to rub their genitalia along my bottom lip while I sleep.
JK: I’ll just pretend you didn’t say that and instead ask where you get your ideas? Where does the creative juice, so to speak, begin to flow?
AC: Well, the penis thing doesn’t help. Sometimes though I get them from homeless people. They’re an untapped and unrealized source of ideas. We should have homeless people strapped to machines and they can power the world on their ideas. It’d be trippy.
JK: Homeless people?
AC: I don’t get along with homeless people so well. They usually wipe their nose on me or accuse me of being a girly man. It’s a bit offputting. Here I am offering them an idea that’ll give them secure employment and all they do is disrespect me.
JK: Do you hate homeless people, Mr. Cho?
AC: How can I hate people that make me laugh so much? They are the jesters of the gutters. The streets would be empty and soulless without them. It would be like all these empty refrigerator boxes cluttering alleys. Kids would have nobody to bludgeon for luck.
JK: Alleys, yes. The brings me to a bit of “sticky” issue, one that’s dogged you for quite some time. The dead fetus eating jokes. Not popular.
AC: Which I didn’t make first. Jonathan Swift was all over that one. Did people even read the comic? Are people so brainwashed from Family Circus and Blondie that they just don’t get it?
JK: Are you saying that “All Dead Babies Go to Heaven” is offering something other comics aren’t?
AC: Salvation. For dead babies. So for all those mothers with dead babies, pray your dead children appear in the comic.
JK: Now, I’d like to talk about the scandals. The maternity ward, the cocaine; where does fetus-eating satire begin and mayhem end?
AC: When you’re full.
JK: Profoundly disconcerting, I feel dirty. Do you have any projects in the works?
AC: I’m working on a musical based on my comic strip. It’s explaining the back-story of these cloud guys. How they get assigned to the dead babies section of heaven, their descent into madness and imminent redemption. I’m working on the score right now.
JK: Any potential casting decisions?
AC: Gary Coleman and Gary Oldman. Gary Shandling too, but I haven’t heard anything back from him.
JK: I think he’s dead, actually. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak to the Gauntlet, I feel confident in saying it has been a singular experience.
AC: Are you hitting on me?