What is PEOPs?

 

PEOPs is a collection of portraits & stories of people by Fly. Each page contains a new face surrounded by words - for the most part the words are a story that the person tells about themselves or about something they experienced or about something they heard - it's usually a conversational dialogue - it's all about my interaction with the person while I'm drawing them. The idea for PEOPs happened while I was touring the world in a band called God Is My Co-Pilot. Sometimes we would be in a new place almost every day & there was usually time between setting up equipment and the show to get to know the locals. I always had my sketchbook and would draw people just out of habit. The conversations were very interesting because many time people were speaking English as a second language so the way that they phrased things was often very poetic & beautiful...so I would write down the conversations. At some point I realized I had a collection of drawings of people & stories. I thought it would make a great zine. After that I started going after people & making them sit for me & tell me stories. The format became much more structured & refined.

The important thing for me in doing these portraits is the idea of a documentation of a hidden history of everyday life - all the people I have met - artists, activists, writers, travelers, anarchists, poets, cartoonists, pilots, musicians, psychologists, moms, kids, dads, grandparents, punks, dykes, trannies, drug dealers, teachers, squatters - you get the idea. The categories are endless, but the idea is that everyone has an incredible story to tell & everyone deserves a voice everyone deserves to be listened to.