BT Livermore aka RADROBOT

 

Pure chance really. In August 2005, I got laid off from my job as a graphic designer at a small internet advertising firm in Minnesota. I had visited Portland on a whim about four years earlier, fell in love with the personality of the city instantly, and with the lease on my house in Minneapolis ending and some unemployment money coming my way, it seemed like the easy decision to move to Portland. I was also getting more and more into biking, and Portland's bike scene and temperate winters seemed so much nicer than the thought of spending another snowy winter in Minneapolis.

 

Most of the illustration gigs I do professionally have a very quick turnaround time, whereas the assignments I have to do for my illustration classes at school usually have around a three week deadline. Because of this, my method of working differs in the two situations. As a freelancer, I also have to deal with clients and art directors who, for the most part, already have a vision of what they want. At school, besides the input and critiques from teachers and classmates, I have more free range to roam creatively. I find myself doing more personal, involved, and time-intensive work for school.

 

 

Yes, and starting in September, I will be teaching classes in perfect binding at the Center as well. The IPRC is a very special and unique place. For a small yearly membership fee, anyone can have access to the IPRC's resources: computers with graphic design and page layout software, a variety of donated papers, the cheapest copy machines in town, a letterpress studio, a range of bookmaking, craft, and art supplies, and access to instructional classes in all manner of self-publishing studies. If all of that wasn't enough, what the IPRC is really good at is establishing a community of self-publishers here in Portland that is second-to-none. There always seems to be someone else working on their project, but rarely have I come across anyone not willing to stop and chat about what they're working on or talk technique.

 

 

The RCC started out of a bit of a mid-life crisis, you could say. I really did not grow up reading any comics besides newspaper strips; truthfully I was into my 20's before I caught the comics bug when a friend introduced me to “Hey, Wait...” by Jason. I didn't seriously attempt to create a comic myself until 2006. After some period of “what am I doing with my life?” thoughts in early 2007, one night I just started writing. Four pages later, I had an entire outline for the creation of the collective, including a list of possible members (mostly made up of friends from art school), plans for upcoming comic shows, membership guidelines were in place, the website was planned; it was fairly well fleshed out I thought. I talked to the friends I felt might be interested, and the next weekend we had our first meeting at a coffee shop. Within two months, we released our first anthology, Creation, and took a road trip to Spokane, Washington for our first show as a group.

 

In the early days, the group had upwards of 14 members, but we have leveled out to around 9 for the last year or so as some people have moved on or realized that the comics game just isn't for them. We've since released five collaborative books as a group, our members have self-published countless solo works, and we have tabled at as many comic or zine shows as we are able.

 

 

We just released a coloring book, Operation: R.O.B.O Rescue, in late July, so for the moment, members are working on their own solo projects until the group gets the bug to put out another group book. We try to meet at least every few weeks to throw ideas around, draw some jam comics, and plan future shows. Since most of our members have come from the ranks of Pacific NW College of Art, we are currently planning an art show in the school's library in October.

 

 

First off, Banner Year Press would not exist without the RCC coming before it. The idea of the RCC becoming a small press publisher at some point in the future was actually in my original, frantically-written notes that sparked the group. Eventually, I came to realize that the group itself was not headed in that direction, but I was. The time that I put in to organizing the group's early anthologies was my first taste of creating a book with other artists' works in it, and as stressful as it can be, I found I really had a passion for it.

 

I absolutely love the process of making books, and attempt to only release books of my own creation that I can be proud of both inside and out. As people took notice of my books, other artists started asking me to put their books together for them, but either I was not in a position to do it, or they were not in a position to pay me enough for the labor

involved.

 

At least for the next year, as I will be busy finishing up my degree at PNCA, Banner Year Press will be kept fairly quiet, only releasing books as I have the time and ability to. On the burner though, I have plans to release two collaborative art anthologies, and a how-to guide to handlebar moustaches (facial hair is, and has always been, an obsession of mine; I also co-founded a moustache wax business, Man's Face Stuff). Once I have a few of those books under my belt, I would like to approach other artists about publishing their work.

 

 

In 2003, I earned a two-year degree in web design and development, and it has been a blessing and a curse ever since. If I had not had the background in web-work that I do, the number of sites that I've created over the years would probably be cut in half. I've recently become more focused on my various sites' stats, in an attempt to see where my traffic is coming from and see what I can do to increase that, but the only stats I really get a kick out of looking at are the search terms that people use to find me. I get a lot of hits from “Russian Prison Tattoos” due to a PNCA illustration assignment from a few years ago, but my favorite regular search term that leads to one of my sites is “gaping (or huge) vagina.” I used to draw a robot every day and post it on my blog, radrobot.org. One of those was a gigantic, pregnant robot giving birth to a slew of small appliances; I'm guessing those folks are not necessarily looking for robots when they make that search.

 

 

Honestly, it looks a lot like what I'm doing right now, but perhaps only in larger quantities with greater financial payoffs. I would like to continue working as an artist, freelance illustrator, publisher, and moustache wax purveyor, just for starters; the variety of things that are meaningful to me that I have been able to assemble into a career never ceases to astound me, and I really can't imagine ever paring that list down to focus on any one thing specifically.