"I'd like to create a completely unabridged comics adaptation of MOBY DICK," Joel Priddy informs, when asked what his dream project is.

"We venerate it as a classic, but forget that it's entertaining. And funny - it's a very funny book. It's full of these mock-erudite tangents on things like clam chowder, the depressive effects of the color white, and which mythological heroes could be considered whalers. All of that gets lost in the multitude of previous adaptations of the book, which strip it down to the bare bones of basic plot."

Most people in the comics field, when asked about their dream project, are likely to say something along the lines of revamping the DC universe, or a chance to publish their own line of creator owned mini-series. But Joel Priddy is not most people. Born in rural Virginia, Priddy "fled" as soon as he could, first to Richmond, Virginia (where he received a bachelor's education at Virginia Commonwealth), than to New York (where he got his Master's at The School of Visual Arts). "Then," he says, "I took a giant step backwards, and now find myself in Memphis, Tennessee. In between moves, I've drawn a lot." A lot?

"I've drawn my entire life, and don't remember a time when my goal wasn't to be an artist. My older brother instilled in me early on the idea that artists never made money until after they died, so when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd say 'I'm gonna be an artist at night, and work in a car wash during the day.'"

"But," Priddy continues, "except for one summer where I had a night shift at a Subway sandwich stand, I've earned a living from art since I was seventeen. This ranged from silkscreening T-shirts in my bathroom to sell at concerts, designing tattoo flash, photoshopping appliances for TV commercials, to illustrating for The New York Times."

Last year, his first comic work, PULPATOON PILGRIMAGE, was released, and won Priddy an Ignatz debut book award, a surprise to the creator, who was not expecting such a strong reaction.

"I was floored by it. Honestly, I didn't think too much about reader-response when I made PILGRIMAGE. I was just trying to make a comic, to see what sort of a comic would come out of me. I kept removing all the things that I thought were supposed to be in comics: jokes, action, plot. I feared the result was pretty self-indulgent, and was sure no one but me would ever want to read it. So, the warmth with which it has been greeted is immensely gratifying."

Priddy may not have expected the reception the book would get, but he certainly knows what he wants readers of PILGRIMAGE to feel after putting the little, mustard coloured book down. "I hope that people will feel a sense of wonder, and perhaps recognition. Those are my favorite reactions when I'm reading stories."

PULPATOON PILGRIMAGE is published by Adhouse Books, a publisher many may not be familiar with.

"I sent a sample chapter out to every publisher I could think of, even some real longshots. I've since realized that I should have sent out the whole story, but I thought I just needed to pique their interest, and then the requests to see more would come flooding in. Instead I received a lot of really encouraging rejection letters.

"In the end, I was ready to put PILGRIMAGE in a bottom drawer and call it a learning experience. I showed it to a fellow illustrator, Kelly Alder, to get his point of view on where I went wrong. Instead he asked if he could show it to some people. About a week later I got an e-mail from Chris Pitzer asking if I needed a designer for when I self-published. Then he asked if he could publish it himself."

Priddy, a life long painter, created PILGRIMAGE while travelling around the globe to such points as Italy, France, Germany, Peru, New York, and San Francisco. It was a time when he couldn't carry with him the easels, canvases, brushes or palates he needed to paint. "All I had with me was a notebook, a bottle of ink, and some brushes," Priddy recalls.

'I was ready to put PILGRIMAGE in a drawer and call it a learning experience.' "This project started spontaneously. Travel made painting impractical, but I wanted to keep my hand moving. I wanted to get to drawing right away, and a lot of the decisions I made were ones that made it easy for me to get started and not slow down. I grabbed three doodles out of my sketchbook and made them the characters. I stuck them in the woods because I could make them up easily without reference."

As for panel size, Priddy says, "I was carrying around a copy of Vasari's THE LIVES OF THE ARTISTS, which I traced for my page sizes. I'd draw two pages per notebook page. I'm not sure what size the originals are, but it's pretty close to the printed size."

Despite the fact that PULPATOON PILGRAMAGE - which is the story of three odd travellers on a strange quest - was created while Priddy himself was travelling, Priddy says that the story is not autobiographical. "Well, people who know me assume that Row, [a thoughtful, broken hearted robot who wears a hat and a suit jacket and has a fishbowl sticking out of his head,] is a self-portrait, because we dress alike. If I walked around naked all the time, people might see [the plant-man] Delaware as the self-portrait. They're all extensions of myself, and I feel equally close to all three main characters."

Priddy says that locations in PILGRIMAGE are not based on real places either, but homages to other works are in there.

"The man singing in Spanish during Row's flashback is from a Martin Chambi photograph of a Peruvian giant. The preface scenes, where you're following the character's footsteps, are meant to be self-indulgent little love letters to some of my heroes. For instance, the swamp is, in my mind, an Eisner swamp. Another has CALVIN & HOBBES trees."

In order to transform a series of sketches crafted on the road into the polished, understandable, narrative and commercially saleable story of PULPATOON PILGRIMAGE, one might think a lot would need to be edited, or cut out, but Priddy says that is not so.

"What you see is pretty much exactly what I drew. I went back and reworked a couple pages to even out some inconsistencies in the art, but that was all. If the results are either 'understandable narrative' or 'commercially saleable,' it's a relief for me to hear it."

Priddy, an experienced watercolour and gouache painter, is perhaps most proud of the writing in the story. "I have more practice as an artist than a writer, so I'm always surprised and tickled whenever anyone says anything nice about the story." He doesn't believe he's finished developing as a painter either, noting, "it takes twenty years to learn how to paint. I've still got a long way to go." But does knowing how to paint help with sequentials?

"Mostly no. Painting is conceptually very different from comics. But a little bit, yes, because, when I started PILGRIMAGE, I felt pretty confident about my ability to make the drawings look okay, which opened me up to really concentrate on the storytelling." Priddy's love of painting predates his love of comics.

"As a kid, I was much more interested in novels than comics. I liked what few comics crossed my path, but there was no ready supply of them for a kid out in the boon-docks, and I could get all the novels I wanted from the library. I drew a lot, and I wrote a lot, but it wasn't until the eighth grade that I realized that comics combined these two crafts."

'I was just trying to see what sort of a comic would come out of me.' Priddy strongly believes that comics should - and could - be enjoyed by everyone. "There should be comics for kids, teenagers and adults of every stripe, on every subject, executed in all sorts of techniques, and they should all be beautiful. There should be smart comics and stupid comics, high-production design-savvy books, and cheap-o disposable comics. Wherever a reader is in life, comics should have something to offer him or her."

Priddy says that comics are currently in a good spot, ready to make what he calls "the big leap".

"The adult population is more receptive to the idea of comics written for them than ever before. We've had enough cross-over successes, like MAUS and JIMMY CORRIGAN, to be taken semi-seriously.

"Now, the question is, can we meet the challenge? While the nation's curiosity is piqued, can we really create work that they'll care about? Can we rise above our self-referential world of escapist power-fantasy? It seems to me that, on average, even the mainstream comics are getting better these days. 100 BULLETS, the ABC comics, the ULTIMATES, etc. are all very good, smart reads. But even so, if they were videotapes, they would be on the "Action" shelf. There are a lot of other shelves at the video store.

"We need diversity. It's not a new statement, and it's easier said than done, but it's important, because I don't expect this window of cultural acceptance to stay open forever."

And as for Priddy's own future relationship with comics? He's currently a teacher at the Memphis College of Art, but does he harbour dreams of working full time in the comics field?

"I'm very happy teaching. The academic environment is a great compliment to the isolation of the studio. And the challenge of teaching well is just as invigorating as the challenge of making art.

"It would be fun to take a summer or a year off and be an inker or something, just to have experienced that side of the craft. At the end of that time, however, I'd want to go back to teaching."

Comics will remain in his life in one form or another, though. He recently contributed a short story to the new anthology comic, ODDGOD. Interestingly enough, Priddy got involved in the project through a studio class he taught and created on comics, one that he "cobbled together" at VCU.

Two of the students, James Callahan and Patrick Godfrey, decided to create a comics anthology, learning and dealing with all the problems along the way. "[These] guys had the dedication and maturity to stick with it, learning how to do all of the un-fun parts like layout and print production.

"I had, at this point, just finished PILGRIMAGE and wanted to do something as completely different from it as possible, as a sort of artistic sorbet, so I asked if I could join their project. The other submissions were looking very action-adventure, and I decided to make the action-adventure equivalent of Malevich's white canvasses."

With this in mind, Priddy constructed a list of about 40 bizarre names, titles such as Dame Cephalothorax-Jones, Senator November and Mister Fisticuffs. He then decided "...the first name on the list would beat up all the others over the course of 8 pages." The end result for ODDGOD anthology, "Action Fun Adventure", is, as he describes it, "...basically PULPATOON: PILGRIMAGE in miniature, only with punching instead of walking."

And speaking of PILGRIMAGE, and Priddy's future comic work, will there ever be a sequel?

"I'm very fond of these characters, and would love to find a way to use them again, either separately or as a trio, but I don't see room for a sequel. PILGRIMAGE's ending may be ambiguous, but for me it's complete, and I wouldn't want to take away from it. Unless, of course, I get the perfect idea."

Priddy says that as far as long-term goals go, comics will always be in his life. Ideally, he would like to "produce one really good comic a year for the rest of my life; get reviewed in the New York Times Book Review; achieve fluency in another language; retire to Barga, Italy and live on wine and olive oil."

With all that Priddy wants to accomplish, will we ever see his dream project, that complete, unabridged comics adaptation of MOBY DICK? (The question, 'What is your dream project?' was in fact the answer to another question, 'Is there a question you've always wanted to be asked in an interview?')

"Unfortunately, I figured out that, given my present time circumstances, it would take about fifty years of pretty constant reference-heavy work. And I'm not ready to devote the rest of my professional output to someone else's story," Priddy admits.

"But if I were given, say, a hundred thousand dollar grant, I'd take a sabbatical, set up a studio near Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, hire a research assistant and an artist's assistant, and see how far I could get before the money ran out."

Josh Buchin is a writer and artist living in California.

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