The Butt Ugly Weblog

John Kovalic

Brief notes from John Kovalic's (the creator of Dork Tower) speech:

• My first game was edited by Steve Jackson. Little did I know he would become such a horrible, horrible figure in my life.
• Physics classes would go much faster, if you sat in the back drawing cartoons.
• My influences are my mom (a columnist) and Charles Schulz
• Roleplaying games in high-school (loved creating my own worlds)
• Liking "Traveller" is not a good reason to go study astrophysics
• "I'm very bad at the games I drew. I've never won a game of Munchkin - even when they let me draw my own cards at a con in Cork, Ireland."
• "I'm a complete mercenary - I work for anyone who is not a babykiller"
• "I got a call from someone in Hollywood making the Dork Tower movie." *The audience erupts in laughter*
• Chez Geek characters were taken from actual University of Wisconsin students - John spent a lot of time drawing them :)
• "Are you here, honey? [Referring to wife] Good - then I can tell this. I introduced her to gaming via MtG. I used Call of Cthulhu to introduce her to role playing games. Big mistake! Don't do it!"
• "People ask me to draw Ginny naked. People, I draw them with three fingers - what do you think I would do with the rest of their anatomy?"