Alan Oldham Reintroduces JOHNNY GAMBIT For A New Generation (Interview)
Alan Oldham is what society now calls a multi-hyphenate, but in times past, the term was Renaissance man.
For the past three decades plus, he has been an innovative purveyor of electronic music and a comic book writer and artist extraordinaire. Oldham started his trek as an eclectic art fan during the ‘80s in his Detroit hometown. He combined his love of the German Expressionist movement in film, the clean lines of Art Deco-inspired objects and more to start writing the narrative and visuals for his characters. The first major result was his trench coat-laden hero JOHNNY GAMBIT. Oldham hit paydirt and was signed to Hot Comics out of Chicago in 1986. The company folded soon after and the character would have two more issues published in 1987-88 by Detroit’s Eclectic Press.
Oldham did not have any time to think about the next move for JOHNNY GAMBIT because he was busy creating the cover art for the first Detroit Techno releases from childhood friends like Derrick May and Juan Atkins. These same friends also supplied him with music for his influential Fast Forward radio show being broadcast on WDET. This writer remembers listening to Oldham play Detroit Techno, house music and industrial in the early morning hours as listeners would call in and get an education on the new sounds that have laid the foundation for today’s myriad of electronic artists. He also worked as a DJ for Mike Banks’ sci-fi and funk-dipped techno crew Underground Resistance. As the ‘90s moved on Oldham started making his own music and founded the Generator and Pure Sonik labels.
Today, Oldham is just as excited about creating as he was years ago. A current resident of Berlin, he still travels the world as a DJ and has had art exhibitions in several countries. He is having a rebirth of sorts with JOHNNY GAMBIT and a Kickstarter relaunch. The new graphic novel is bringing GAMBIT back with a remastered 2 CD set. I spoke with Oldham last month shortly after his set at the Charivari Music Festival in Detroit. We talked about GAMBIT, the early days of Detroit Techno, and what it is about the city that drove him to greatness among his many other career-defining moments.
“It just motivates you to push further so that’s one thing about Detroit. It’s not an easy place. No one’s going to pat you on the back and tell you good job. If anything, they will shit on you. So, it motivates you to push forward, to push internationally and outside of the city.“
How did you decide to bring Johnny Gambit back now?
I’d been working on the book for almost 15 years now. I started it in 2007 and it’s been kind of in the back of my mind to bring back JOHNNY. We did a run in the ‘80s and I didn’t get a chance to finish the original story because my publisher(s) went out of business and then time went by so I thought I’d just reboot it completely.
What was your original inspiration for the character?
Well, that’s a really good question. JOHNNY GAMBIT is basically the kitchen sink character for everything I liked at the time; Japanese animation, Japanese Manga, “Miami Vice,” “Love & Rockets,” the movie “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang, Art Deco design, prototype cars that were never made, and there was a comic back in the ‘80s called “Mister X” that was a huge influence.
I saw where Marvel later came out with the character in “Uncanny X-Men” #266.
There was a girl, well, woman now, that I met at the old Chicago Con back in ’86, and we became friends. Turns out she worked for Marvel so we stayed in touch. It turned out I was going to New York for my first visit back in ’87 and she invited me up to visit Marvel. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me ‘cause you got to see the real Mighty Marvel bullpen with your own two eyes. So I got to NYC, went up there and I had a bunch of my old JOHNNY GAMBIT number ones with me and she introduced me to a few of the editors like Archie Goodwin and Carl Potts, and I was just leaving my comic as a calling card.
Fast forward to 1990, I’m at Todd Johnson’s old comic shop in Ferndale, and I notice a character named Gambit with the hair to one side and a trench coat. But they gave him powers and they changed it enough so where you can’t sue them. You know how it is, they take the idea and add just enough to it so they can say hey, we came up with this on our own. But the resemblance was uncanny, no pun intended. So yeah, there’s nothing you can really do about it. At this point, it’s just an interesting story. Read more.
