Ballyhoo is a storyline that’s been kicking around in my head since my early twenties. Generally being flat broke, I spent a lot of time chilling at the library here on the East Side of Milwaukee, reading and researching about random topics that interested me. I read about classic gangsters like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde. I read about UFO sightings, Bigfoot, magic and the occult. For a period of time, I was on a kick reading about the history of the circus and sideshows.
While flipping through these old books, an idea sparked. Being that I was young, I was still carrying strong feelings of not quite fitting into society. I felt like an outsider and often lonely. I also loved rock n’ roll with a passion.
Those feelings led to a story idea about the ultimate outsiders of society—sideshow circus freaks. I wrote a few pages of story and scribbled some illustrations for what I thought might make a short story I titled “Don’t Quit Your Day Job at the Freak Show.” The star of the show would be a coming-of-age young woman, a sideshow attraction because she had been born with a tail. After falling in love with rock n’ roll music, she wants to explore living a different life.
Like many things from my confusing, hectic youth, the story got pushed onto the backburner and then lost in the shuffle for a long time. The script and crude illustrations got buried in a box of other projects. After seeing an episode of a circus themed reality show, I remembered that story idea I had from long ago, and began working out the characters more thoroughly on paper—the story’s star, Maryjo; her best friend, Dottie (born with four legs); Maryjo’s surrogate parents (a trapeze artist and a sideshow barker); the greedy but clever owner of the circus, Wilhelm; and a sinister magician up to no good, Marco the Mystic. I began writing out the script and David worked on sketches to start bringing the story to life.
The story combines many things I’m a fan of—1950s culture, supernatural stories, classic gangsters, and of course the circus and all the magic within. But most of all, it tells my favorite type of story—a person on a journey figuring out who they are.
–Tea
Ballyhoo 