This article was run in the March 2001 issue of gear magazine. Written by Michael Martin.
Drawn to the Deep End: Inside the Supercute, Sociopathic World of Mr. Wiggles
"I don't want to say it has a fuck-you attitude" says Neil Swaab of his comic strip Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles. "It has this weird little edge that's kind of intangible." How else to describe a cartoon about a walking, talking, swearing, screwing teddy bear and his balding, celibate human companion? "There's really no premise," the 22-year-old illustrator insists. But it's far from pointless: with storylines involving fecal art, sexual desperation and suicide-provoking Old Navy commercials, Mr. Wiggles may be the sharpest, funniest riffage on loserdom since Life in Hell.
The strip was born three years ago in the student newspaper of Syracuse University, an institution known for revisiting the concept of liberal arts. "It's a place where people would shit in bags, staple it to a wall and call it an art project," Swaab elaborates. Now Mr. Wiggles runs in The Real Detroit Weekly and the New York Press, where even its most over-the-top ironi-thons are confusing and endearing the masses. "I have friends who make a joke about somebody being fat, and they catch hell," claims Swaab. "Meanwhile, I ran a seven-episode strip where Mr. Wiggles buys an elderly woman, feeds her cat food and kills her, and I get mail saying, 'The teddy bear is so cute!' And I'm like okay..."
Although sex and art are common targets, "pretty much everything pisses me off," says Swaab, who reserves a special place in hell for Kinkos copy shops ("like standing in line to slit your wrists") and pop music. "I'm really disturbed that the younger generation is being raised by Britney Spears," says Swaab, whose other projects include the comic novel I Got Pregnant Off a Pity Fuck and Now My Baby Looks Like Jerry Springer: A Book For Kids. "Our society is secretly run by 12-year olds, and I think it's, uh, really sad."