But this film very early on gets into the darker side of
Steve Rude’s personality. A title card mentions that he suffers from bipolar
disorder. Interestingly, the film includes interviews with his young children,
who talk about their father’s violent moods, including putting holes in walls.
And we see footage of broken walls in his home. His wife, Jaynelle, talks about
the first time she saw him get mad. Steve himself is quite candid about his own
problems, discussing his depression, saying, “The bedroom was the only place
I could go to survive this problem.” And later he tells a wild anecdote
about getting locked up in a nuthouse in Memphis (it’s actually kind of a
frightening anecdote for those of us who often act a bit differently from the
norm).
The film includes interviews with several people in the
comic book industry, including Mike Baron, co-creator of Nexus. He talks
about meeting Steve and teaming up with him to create the comic book. Regarding
Nexus, Mike Baron says: “It can be both very serious and very light,
often in the same story. Most of the seriousness is mine; most of the lightness
is Dude’s.” That of course comes as a surprise after learning of Steve’s
fights with depression. Also interviewed are Milton Griepp and John Davis,
co-founders of Capital Comics; Mike Richardson, founder/publisher of Dark Horse
Comics; and Mike Allred, creator of Madman. All of the interviews are
presented in black in white, with the exception of the footage of Steve Rude
himself. (At one point in an interview with Jaynelle, Steve joins her and the
footage switches from black and white to color.)
And of course there is plenty of information on his comic
book career, with lots of footage of his work, such as World’s Finest.
And interestingly, he has switched career goals, and is now trying to begin a
career in fine arts.
Even if you’re not into comic books, there is something
quite compelling about this guy, about his story, about his world. A moment I
love is when in the middle of a sentence, Steve gets up to yell at some dogs
that are barking outside. That is the moment when I personally sort of
connected to him. And later his wife mentions that he is very sensitive to
noise, and talks about how the neighbor’s dogs drive him crazy. That leads to
some trouble.
Special Features
The back of the DVD case doesn’t list any special
features, but there are some. There is a still gallery of Steve Rude’s artwork,
which will actually just start playing at the end of the film. It’s
approximately eight minutes long. The drawing of the Hulk with the guitar made
me laugh.
There are also two commentary tracks. The first is with
director Ian Fischer and composer Ross Williams, and includes a lot more
information on Steve Rude. Ian talks about being a fan of Steve Rude’s work,
and talks about Steve referring to himself as The Dude. In fact, he says he
never called him Steve during the making of the film. Ian does talk a bit about
why all the interviews apart from Steve’s are presented in black and white.
Ross did not grow up with comic books, so came at this project from a different
angle, and provides a different perspective in the commentary. Interestingly,
it was while in the process of making this film that Steve gave up comic books
to pursue fine arts.
The second commentary track is with Mike Baron,
co-creator of Nexus. It’s odd, because what we hear is one side of a
conversation. But there is some interesting stuff here.
Rude Dude was directed by Ian Fischer, and was
released on DVD on October 7, 2014.
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