In the post-adolescent world of underground comics, superheroes get the funhouse-mirror treatment as a matter of course. Even so, one costumed character sticks out like the 20-gallon mug of java permanently fixed to the top of his noggin.
His name is Too Much Coffee Man, but be forewarned: He doesn`t spend much time battling bad guys or slumming at Starbucks. Angst-ridden, manic and pot-bellied, he wields a cigarette and about as much superpower as Charlie Brown after Lucy yanks the football from under him. Imagine a botched clone culled from the DNA of Woody Allen and Homer Simpson.
Then there are his sidekicks: Too Much Espresso Guy, Underwater Guy and Too Much German White Chocolate Woman With Almonds. Depending on their moods, they act like savvy observers of `90s malaise or whiners in the “Seinfeld” mold, only from some surreal parallel universe.
Born as a throwaway gag–the real-life cartoonist drew a fictional cartoonist, who in turn dreamed up the coffee character as a way to cash in quick–“Too Much Coffee Man” is now in its fifth year as a comic book, with all the makings of a major contender. The rubbery red mughead appears weekly in the Austin American-Statesman and has guest-starred in a Converse shoe commercial for TV (since then, his “sellout” has inspired the plot line for several strips).
No one is more surprised by the success than the creator of “Too Much Coffee Man,” a former architecture student who has drawn comics since his college days.
“I definitely didn’t think it would get big enough to be the main focus of my life,” said Shannon Wheeler, 31, of Austin, Tex. “I do freelance work as well, but this is my full-time job. Hard to believe.”
To date, Wheeler has self-published seven black-and-white issues and two color issues on his Adhesive Comics label; his first issue has shipped 40,000 copies. Next summer, Oregon-based Dark Horse Comics will release a collection in book form, “Too Much Coffee Man’s Guide For The Perplexed.” Fans of the comic include Mike Judge, creator of “Beavis and Butt-head” (and a fellow Austin resident).
On local comic stands, ” `Too Much Coffee Man’ is pretty popular,” said Eric Kirsammer, president of Chicago Comics, 3244 N. Clark St. “It doesn’t sell like the (real) superhero stuff; it’s kind of the underdog of comics. But it still sells better than a lot of the Marvel or DC stuff.”
While Wheeler’s parody might not be as popular as “X-Men,” give him his due. “The people who are reading `Too Much Coffee Man’ are not typical comics fans,” Kirsammer said. “I would say it’s sort of the literate-type people — the people who go to coffee shops, oddly enough.”
Or cybercafes. The caffeinated crusader has really caused a stir on the Web, where the “Too Much Coffee Man” site (www.tmcm.com) has recorded more than 160,000 hits since its launch in April of last year. Thanks in large part to the Web site, Wheeler gets fan letters from as far away as Japan and Australia.
A typical admirer writes, “You have made a hit out of one of the most sacred and cherished elements of mankind . . . coffee, the nectar of life. `All hail Too Much Coffee Man.’ “
That many of Wheeler’s faithful readers hang out in coffee bars cracks him up. “Not too many people notice this,” he confided, “but there’s not a lot of coffee humor in the book.”
Wheeler admits he drinks coffee. “And I’ve thought about quitting just to p – – – people off,” he mused.
A native of Berkeley, Calif., Wheeler read comic books as a kid but outgrew the habit “basically when I got a girlfriend,” he said. Then came college at University of California at Berkeley, and the love affair started all over again.
“That’s when I got sucked back into comic books,” Wheeler said. Meanwhile, “I found out the student newspaper paid $10 a day to do a daily cartoon, which really blew my mind.” He got the job and an early taste of success: His strip “Tooth and Justice” ran in The Daily Californian and a dozen other college papers.
After graduating in 1989, Wheeler relocated to Austin. He started cartooning for The Daily Texan at the University of Texas at Austin, even though he wasn’t taking any classes there. “I just pretended I was a student; I’d hang out with my backpack,” he said.
Then came 1991 and, as Wheeler put it, an inspiration born out of a marketing gimmick.
Wheeler was pushing a comic called “Children With Glue,” and to promote it he created a 50-cent mini-comic to sell at conventions that first featured his hooked-on-Joe hero. “People would come back and say, `Do you have more “Too Much Coffee Man?” ‘ I said, `Hey, this (“Children With Glue”) is the same writing, same sense of humor.’ “
But the people wanted “Too Much Coffee Man.” Wheeler got the message and bowed to public demand. “It’s really embarrassing, it’s horrifying,” he confessed. “I know you’re not supposed to draw things because you want them to be popular.”
Not that he tried to hide his capitulation from his readers. In recounting the birth of “Too Much Coffee Man,” Wheeler’s first strips showed his fictional counterpart desperately mulling his stalled career. His comic-book version “was thinking, `My cartoons are not that popular, and I need to have something that’s popular. I need to have a hook, a handle,’ which was a visual pun,” Wheeler said.
The clever setup shows Wheeler’s penchant for deconstructionism. To this day, “Too Much Coffee Man” features two independent plot lines — one spotlighting the cartoonist (a quasi-Neanderthal recluse forever cranking out “Too Much Coffee Man” strips), the other a freaky reader of the comic who can’t get over his ex-girlfriend.
“I talk about the creative process in part to create enough variety so that I’ll remain interested in the comic,” Wheeler said.
Should he need a break, Wheeler has plenty of side projects to keep him busy. He just finished illustrating a book for Henry Rollins, “Do I Come Here Often?”, does holiday greeting cards, Too Much Coffee Man phone cards and is overseeing the graphic design for a van the Austin newspaper plans to use for special promotions.
Then there are opportunities like the Converse commercial, which came from a phone call three years ago. “I was asleep on the couch one morning at about 11 or 12, and this guy wakes me up with a message on my machine, `Yeah, this is Harry from Converse.’ ” Wheeler said. “I thought it was a crank call, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. Then I figured it was one of my friends, so I called back and was really indignant: `Yeah, sure, whatever.’ “
The 15-second animated spot spawned a sequel, in a sense. In the comic’s most recent color issue, Too Much Coffee Man is approached by a Hollywood mogul who wants him to be a spokesman for a major coffee company. Too Much Espresso Guy, ever the cranky purist, vilifies our hero: “You sold out! . . . I had hoped never to see so vile a wretch as you!”
“At different times I’ve dealt with Hollywood people, and it’s just this wild enthusiasm,” Wheeler said. “They tell you how they don’t want to change stuff, and then it’s just a nightmare. I’ve stopped getting excited about Hollywood.”
But the challenge of keeping his strip fresh still gets his juices up–especially at night, coffee pot or no.
“When I go to sleep at night, that’s when the day’s events start to regurgitate,” he said. “I’m all comfortable and warm, and then an idea comes, and, oop, I have to get up and turn on the light and write it down,” he said.
“My girlfriend gets really upset,” he added. “But I have to. It’s my job.”
