Meet Your Neighbor: Mike Dawson

By: LiliAnn Paras | April 30, 2021 |  Meet Your Neighbor |  Fair Haven

Fair Haven resident, author & illustrator releases new book

Graphic novels, (books written in cartoon form), are more popular than ever with readers of all ages. Illustrator and author Mike Dawson was years ahead of the trend, bringing his musings and stories to life through cartoon drawings and his keen observations of human nature. He is the author of several graphic novels, with his latest, The Fifth Quarter, released this month for young readers. Inspired by his daughter’s foray into local sports, it tells the moving, relatable story of a fourth-grade girl’s determination to improve her basketball skills, as she also faces those preteen issues and family dynamics. He has written other graphic novels, mostly for an adult audience, as well as many short comics published online at The Nib, and in The Comics Journal, Slate, and The New Yorker. Mike was born in Scotland, lived in England, and moved to Monmouth County when he was an 11-year-old fifth grader. He lives in Fair Haven with his wife Aliza, their children, Orli and Ewan, a dog, and two guinea pigs. Read how the self-proclaimed “nerdy kid who had hated sports” was transformed into a sports enthusiast.

CM: What challenges did you encounter in moving to America, and did they influence your work?
Mike: I came to the US with a strong English accent, right as I entered middle school. I left for high school sounding just like any other American kid. Those were the exact wrong years to be sounding like Oliver Twist. My first published graphic novel was Freddie & Me, a tongue-in-cheek memoir telling the story of my family’s move to America using all of the memories I could muster of being a superfan of the band Queen.

CM: When did you first start creating comics and graphic novels?
Mike: In high school I started self-publishing comic book series with some like-minded friends. We would get local businesses to place ads to help offset the cost. Despite majoring in painting, I spent most of my Art School years at Rutgers making comics for The Daily Targum, the student run newspaper. After college I kept at it, drawing comics on the side while working different day jobs, mostly in online education. It wasn’t until recently that I was able to make drawing graphic novels my full-time occupation. Even now it’s not completely full-time, as I handle a lot of the day-to-day parenting in our household when the kids are not in school (which, this year has been a lot!)

CM: What is the inspiration behind The Fifth Quarter?
Mike: A few years ago, my daughter was playing on the Fair Haven Mid-Monmouth basketball team. She didn’t have a lot of experience with the sport, and really only went in during the “fifth quarter”. Despite that, she seemed to really love playing, and had a strong drive to improve. I casually tweeted one day, how interesting it was that I, a nerdy kid, had hated sports growing up, but now, seeing how working hard at them was helping my daughter improve her own self-confidence, loved watching basketball games. An editor at Slate who followed me online asked me to write a short essay about this, which I did. It was called My Daughter the Jock. A few months later I got the idea to turn this essay into a pitch for a graphic novel series, which became The Fifth Quarter.

CM: Do you write for adults as well as for children?
Mike: Yes, some of my prior graphic novels were written for older audiences. I also frequently publish brand new diary comics on my Instagram account (mikedawwwson), which are generally written with both young and mature readers in mind. These are comics documenting parts of my day, or things I’ve been thinking about, or sometimes larger political things happening in the world. I kept it up all through this pandemic year, and it has been an extremely rewarding and cathartic exercise for me.

CM: What is your next endeavor?
Mike: I am currently finishing up book two in the series. The Fifth Quarter: Hard Court, will be published in May of 2022.

CM: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
Mike: One of the few bright spots in this past pandemic year was stand up paddle boarding. I love going out on the Navesink for a few hours with my wife, or with friends, or just by myself. It’s peaceful, it’s great activity. I really love it. I’m hoping this summer to get up the nerve to take my board out on the ocean more.

CM: Favorite quote?
Mike: ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.’ It’s good as a creator to take deadlines seriously, and do your best work within the constraints that you have. Often, if you can learn to let perfectionism go, you find yourself capable of making work you didn’t know that you had in you.

Visit Mike at mikedawsoncomics.com. The Fifth Quarter is available for purchase here.