John Colpitts, aka Kid Millions is a drummer, composer, drum teacher and writer based in Queens, NY. He is best known for his work in the experimental rock band Oneida and his percussion group Man Forever. His latest album with Oneida, Expensive Air, is out now on Joyful Noise.
I’ve known illustrator, comics artist, and musician Leslie Stein for decades. We probably met at Mondo Kim’s (where she got a job at 19) or at Daddy’s, a Williamsburg bar founded in 2002, that was the default hangout for plenty of 20-30 year olds in the Brooklyn DIY music scene. (It’s now re-opened in Ridgewood.) Some Leslie superlatives: thoughtful, genuine, talented, hard-working, friendly, generous, funny. I’ve followed her art through the years, and went to her self-published comics release parties at Daddy’s for her first major black and white fantasy work, The Eye of the Majestic Creature. Originally published on newsprint, it followed the travels and travails of a young girl, Larrybear, and her humanoid guitar pal Marshmallow. The books were later collected and published by Fantagraphics. They only hinted to the heights her later work would reach.
Then something extraordinary happened on New Years Day in 2014. Stein decided to break out watercolors, and her work exploded — borders expanded and often were obliterated, wild multi-colored washes burst off the page, and her writing became more explicitly personal. Bright-Eyed at Midnight was the result of this burst of new creativity, a “diary comic” that captured Leslie’s life with startling intimacy. A book of graphic short stories, Present, and a powerful memoir, I Know You Rider, followed, each one building on the strengths of the last.
It was her comic road novel, Brooklyn’s Last Secret, created during the pandemic and published in 2023, that pushed me to delve more deeply into her work. The story follows the ups and downs of a fictitious Brooklyn band, Major Threat, at the tail end of the indie explosion that pulled the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, and Walkmen out of the chaos and left a bunch of wreckage and awkward striving in the rubble.
Leslie is also an accomplished songwriter and guitarist/bassist. You can check out her recent New Yorker cartoon about watching a movie at Film Forum next to a snoring Lou Reed. We hung out recently and talked about Brooklyn’s Last Secret and her creative process. Our conversation has been edited.
Kid Millions: When did you move to New York?
Leslie Stein: When I was 19. It was 2002, I was going to the School of Visual Arts and my first job was at Mondo Kim’s. The first show I went to was Sightings at Mighty Robot. Immediately I was like, “This is my scene, these are my people.”
Kid Millions: Were you playing music yet?
Leslie: I wasn’t. When I was working at Kim’s, I had a little four track and I made a tape to show people that I could play guitar. I gave it to every person in the store.
Kid Millions: What was that the first comic you worked on in the city?
Leslie: After SVA, I started working on this series called Eye of the Majestic Creature. It was supposed to be a hippie stoner comic. Eventually I met Fantagraphics and they published the first collection. It’s old work to me now. I don’t think about it.
Kid Millions: Why?
Leslie: [Laughs.] I think I’m dismissive of anything that I’ve finished. If I thought, Oh this is my perfect book, let me put it on a pedestal — how do you move forward from that? I always just see [the books] as stepping stones to the next thing.
Kid Millions: Where did this attitude come from?
Leslie: Probably me being from the Midwest. I noticed that a lot of Midwestern people in comics have a very strong work ethic and they also have this mentality of, “here’s my work. I worked as hard as I could. Sorry, it’s not good enough.” [Laughs.]
Kid Millions: Forgive me, but how does that relate to being Midwestern?
Leslie: Where were you born?
Kid Millions: New Jersey.
[Both laugh.]
Leslie: There’s a humility there that I don’t see as much in other pockets of the country. But also I think it has to do with comics being a medium that’s seen as low brow. There’s not a lot of ego in comics. I love comics and I wanna make the best comics, but it’s not a big deal.
Kid Millions: What was your experience at SVA? Was it useful or clarifying?
Leslie: I actually started college at the San Francisco Art Institute. It was a very conceptual art school and I was trying to get away with drawing comics there. My work was really poorly received, and then I was dating someone who got into Cooper Union and I heard that SVA had a comics program. So I moved on a whim and landed in New York and stayed. I think he stayed for six months and I’ve been here 22 years.
Kid Millions: How did you get the confidence to do your work?
Leslie: I don’t think I was very confident. I thought that I was gonna do really bad work for a long time, but that if I worked hard enough I could eventually get to be OK.
Kid Millions: Where did that come from?
Leslie: There were a couple teachers at SVA. Painter Keith Mayerson was wonderful and supportive. I had Gary Panter, but we were not close at that time. Now we’re really close. It was always something I did and had my life revolve around.
Kid Millions: I remember talking to you at Daddy’s a number of years ago. You said, “I draw every day.” What’s your schedule?
Leslie: I start in the morning. I like to run outside, that helps me sit down for hours to draw. On a day like today, I’d wake up really early and run and then I would draw for about five hours and maybe take a walk. It’s a practice and it’s physical. There’s a book at the end of it, but it’s more of a daily practice. I’m trying to get better and at the end I have something to show for that time. It’s a spiritual approach.
Kid Millions: Has there ever been a huge breakthrough in your work?
Leslie: Yeah. When I switched from black and white to watercolor, that changed a lot because before I was working with very rigid line work. All of a sudden I had to change my line and incorporate the watercolor since it’s a little messier and a little bit more out of my control. The style shifted around my materials. The first page of Bright Eyed at Midnight looks totally different from the last page. That was just from doing it every day and allowing the materials to show me how they wanted to be manipulated.
Kid Millions: Do you have a quota?
Leslie: I try to have 10 finished pages a month, which keeps me going. Today I was like, “If I get this done, I get an interview and I get some housework done and then tomorrow I start a new page.” [Laughs.]
Kid Millions: OK, so it’s July 5 — how many pages have you done this month?
Leslie: Two.
Kid Millions: What are you working on?
Leslie: It’s a psychedelic adventure story of my character going to a place called the Church, which is a giant saxophone and having all these different experiences that are psychological in order to break through to another aspect of understanding herself through looking at art.
Kid Millions: Do you have the narrative in place before you draw?
Leslie: Yes. For those Present stories, my idea was always to have two conflicting experiences and find how they connect with one another. Because art is really just two things you’re putting together in the way that only you can.
Kid Millions: Wait, what two things?
Leslie: It could be your pen and the paper. Simple as that. This exists and this other thing exists. Making art is just bringing them together. So I would think of two experiences and figure out how they overlap. Then I would sit down with my thoughts at the end of the day and I’d write a little thumbnail script.
Kid Millions: So your script is next to you on the work table? Like a storyboard?
Leslie: Yes, it’s like little stick figures and then I make them better.
Kid Millions: I love your new graphic novel, Brooklyn’s Last Secret. When you start a project, are you consciously applying a genre?
Leslie: I get excited about an idea and then I let the idea be whatever it wants to be. So for example, for [Last Secret,] it was the beginning of the pandemic. I had just finished, I Know You Rider, which was hard to write and draw because it’s very personal. So afterwards I wanted to do something that was light.
Kid Millions: Yes.
Leslie: I call it eating green beans for dinner so you can have chocolate cake for dessert. Brooklyn’s Last Secret is my chocolate cake. It was during the pandemic and I started drawing those characters on a whim and as soon as I drew them, I’m like, “I know who these guys are. I know how they’re gonna interact. I know they gotta go on a tour.” I really did it for my friends. Then I got obsessed with it and it’s 300 pages.
By the way do you mind if I ask you some questions?
Kid Millions: Sure!
Leslie: You texted me and said, “I know these people.”
Kid Millions: Absolutely.
Leslie: What seemed real about it to you?
Kid Millions: The characters felt real from the first page. For instance, their booking agent’s casual familiarity, her mixed competences, and passive aggression felt very accurate. The adult adolescents in the band and the opening band $SHH, resonated with the mid-2000s environment we lived through. Their lack of talent and false spirituality was hilarious.
Leslie: Yeah. I thought about giving it a certain year to tie it to — it would’ve been like between 2004 and 2008. But in my mind it was 2008, because right at that time, it’s post-Brooklyn blowing up. Everyone’s getting older and understands the ridiculousness of the situations they’re in. When you’re younger and you’re hungry you can find a lot of those situations to be sexy and like, “Oh, we’re gonna be big because we’re on this tour with this band.” Then a few years later realize it doesn’t mean shit. You better do this because you fucking love it. That’s where I put them.
Kid Millions: I found the characters really well rendered — the dialogue rang true. How did you pull this off?
Leslie: Just knowing them, and having all their back stories. It’s not even a struggle. I know them.
Kid Millions: When you talk about backstory, how deep do you go?
Leslie: Deep. Childhood.
Kid Millions: But do you write it all out?
Leslie: No.
Kid Millions: Come on, dude. This isn’t fair. [Laughs.] I reread the book within the last couple days. It’s hilarious.
Leslie: Thanks. That’s really meaningful to me. You’re my target audience.
Kid Millions: Music is a major part of what you do. How do the two art forms feed each other?
Leslie: Well, obviously content. But also I am one of those people who is always listening to and seeking out music. I use music as a mind altering experience. If I’m painting an abstract painting I’m reacting to the music physically. If I’m creating something open ended, that doesn’t need to be a certain character, that can be whatever it wants to be, I can follow music and let music guide me. And of course all my friends I met through music. That’s everything in life.
My family members have really different social lives than I do. They can’t just go to a show and see 30 people they know. Those people understand the struggle of [making art] and the hilarity of it; the sadness of it and how frustrating it is. Music is social in a way that cartooning isn’t, and that’s more a part of my life outside of cartooning. It’s passion, and a structural element.
Kid Millions: How do you find teaching? Was that ever part of your practice?
Leslie: I bartended for 14 years because I thought it would be the best way to have a lot of time to work. I was also concerned about teaching because I thought it would take away creativity. I’d be looking at other people’s work and involved in that way that would be hampering. I was actually asked to teach six years ago. I turned it down.
Kid Millions: So what happened?
Leslie: I decided to try it. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s fun to be around other people that draw all the time. I love watching my students interact. I say, “You guys do your thing and I’ll help you in whatever way you need. I’m here for the structure.”
Kid Millions: Do you have ambition related to your art? What does that word mean to you?
Leslie: Just to do better work. Be a better artist, be a better writer, be a better draftsman, better painter. The book I’m working on now, I changed the scale of it so the pages are bigger and I can do a lot more detail. I’m using white paper instead of off-white paper which changes the way the paint sits on the page and creates different color combinations. I’m learning different technical aspects of color on the page while I’m doing it. Some of the things are working out wonderfully and sometimes I’m failing on the page. But I consider that a sign of progress. You can’t get better without failing. I’m glad when I fail… I mean, I don’t prefer it.
Kid Millions: You make your work ethic sound so natural but it’s not common. How would you advise your students about that part of your practice?
Leslie: It depends on what their goal is. If their goal is to make a graphic novel, don’t try to make it your magnum opus. Get through it. Especially the first one — because you’re gonna make a lot of mistakes. I know people who get stuck in one book for so long that they never finish it. I just think the first couple you just have to get through so you have it under your belt and you also realize it’s not a big deal.
Kid Millions: Good advice! I could use some of that.
Leslie: If you have a job, figure out how many hours you can draw. Let’s say you wanna do a book in two years and it’s 200 pages, you need to do a hundred pages a year. Then you break that into the months. If you only have eight hours to draw a week make sure your page only takes, like, three hours to draw, and it’s just black and white. You have to be patient. Just make 10 pages, then another 10 pages, but it adds up. You can make a graphic novel in two years, easy.
