THE DARK AND PLAYFUL CREATIONS OF NATHAN GORMAN AND DUSTIN WARBURTON

If you look for the artwork of Nathan Gorman on the internet, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any. His creative partner, writer Dustin Warburton, is a little easier to track down.

The designated mouthpiece of the duo, Warburton has built up a dossier of celebrity endorsements and collaborations, while Gorman has compiled a prolific portfolio of drawings, paintings, and sculptures. Though he keeps a low profile, some of his work can be found painted directly onto the walls of Downtown Binghamton establishments (think the giant octopus on the blue wall at the Lost Dog Café, or the hidden stairwell cityscape mural The Shop- an excerpt from the latter is featured on our cover). While each man has flourished in his own right, the two found each other in their youth, and bonded over a shared dream.

“We started when we were kids,” Warburton recalls. Both lived McDonough, New York from birth, but Gorman lived on the school district line, so they didn’t meet until Nate’s parents bought the store (“a gas station in the middle of nowhere,” as Gorman describes it). He tells their serendipitous origin story: “Dustin’s father and my mother both went to school together in Hicksville, Long Island. And then, 35 years down the road, they both ended up in McDonough, and when my parents bought the store, Pete [Warburton] walks in one day, and my mom recognized him, and there you go.” This is what brought them together. “We did not know each other. It’s fate.”

They were both in their teens when they met and began a creative collaboration. “We attempted, so many times, trying to write our first book, but we were kids; we didn’t have the tools necessary yet,” says Warburton. “And that’s what’s interesting, is that, years later, it finally happened. It happened when the time was right, when we were both ready.”

Since then, they’ve collaborated on several books together, but Nate recalls the frustration of their early attempts: “We were never able to complete the task. It started with just a manila folder.” Warburton elaborates, “I showed up at his house with a folder full of old photographs that we got out of the basement of the Norwich library.”

“We had the same idea from the beginning;” Dustin continues, “we knew were going to do a horror story about our town.” Why a horror story? “You’ll have to come see the town,” he attests. “It’s this old boom town from the 1800s- it used to be flourishing, but now it’s just dilapidated houses surrounded by wilderness- no cell phone service, no internet.”

“More wildlife than humans,” is how Gorman describes it. “The telephone book used to be two and a half pages, big print.”

So, inspired by the eerie vibe of their hometown, they set out to write horror, which they accomplished with their first book, Taste. At first glance, the book conjures a similar feeling to the Scary Stories series that were published through the 1980s to early ’90s, with Gorman’s pen-and-ink illustrations (inset and opposite page) supplementing horror tales, though Warburton’s writing is distinctly character-driven, and the setting is clearly a source of inspiration.

After several years and many other collaborative and respective works, the two published their latest book, Lilly’s Cove. It was a lucid piece that seemed to fall right out them, as if it had been many years unconsciously in the making. “This one flowed and happened quicker than any of the other ones,” Gorman says. It takes place, once again, at a familiar location. “This is our getaway spot,” Warburton confides. “This is where we go out and kayak.”

“It’s our office,” says Nate of the cove. “We sat on the dock and wrote it, pretty much, in one day.”

Despite its dark subject matter, Lilly’s Cove- which is, essentially, an illustrated poem- reads like a children’s book. “Where we go kayaking, there’s this one little cove, and my mom calls it ‘Lilly’s Cove,’ because of the lily pads,” Warburton shares, “and she came up with an idea about a woman who lived in a house- kind of like the house I grew up in- and somehow the spirit of Lilly drowned in the lake. When I wrote this, my mom was my audience. I didn’t have the intention of whether it would be for adults or kids. It was for my mom. And then it became something much bigger.”

Gorman illustrated this book in watercolor and ink with paintbrush, creating a looser, dreamier effect than that of his earlier illustrations. “I thought it worked a lot better,” says the illustrator. “I didn’t like how the first [book’s art] looked. I went back and forth between ballpoint pen and Rapidograph [a very fine technical pen], but I don’t like how they print; I don’t like how the images look. But I found that ink and paintbrush look great. They reproduce better.”

Warburton reflects: “The beautiful thing now is that we are at a point in our career where, when we start a project, we already know what’s going to be in our hands when we’re done. For me, [Lilly’s Cove] was a break, because there was no one we had to report to- it was just us.”

While Warburton writes horror (and horror films), he found some of his greatest success when he started to write children’s books. His book My Brother Eats Spiders was the one that “changed everything,” in terms of genre. “It took something that was horrifying and sick, and made it fun and cute,” explains Warburton. “It’s all in how you present it.”

The combination of witnessing real-life horror and remembering how to see the world through a child’s eyes was what led to this transition. “When Taste came out, I was 25 years old, my third year of college, my third year working in a maximum security prison while I earned my degree. When Strange Things came out, I graduated college, got out and started teaching at a private high school for pro athletes.” Warburton goes on, “It was during that time that my two little boys- just making sense of their relationship- was when I, on my spare time, wrote a kids’ book […] In prison work, I saw horror for real, and that kind of took me away from it.”

The two worked on a horror screenplay together a while back- Dustin wrote it, and Nathan completed 110 illustrations as a sort of storyboard for the film. A short film was made, but it was an indirect adaptation of the original. Their original was called Leftover People; then it was changed to Black Asylum. The final project, of which Warburton is credited as co-writer, is called The Wicked Sick. One mark of theirs that stayed on the film: the main character goes by the name of Leonard Gorman.

Horror illustration came naturally to Gorman; his art is often imbued with a cynical sense of humor and a dark flavor. “I’ve always been a fan of Salvador Dali, Norman Rockwell, M.C. Escher,” he reflects. “My father’s an artist, but he always did wildlife. I’ve always been stuck in the groove of spooky.”

Intricate and surrealistic, some of his illustrations are framed in a way that is reminiscent of the work of Alphonse Mucha and the art nouveau movement. “I definitely frame off. Norman Rockwell used to do that with his pieces,” Gorman says of his technique. “Close it up; you can’t go right to the end of the paper.”

Up until now, all of Warburton’s children’s books were illustrated by artists other than Gorman. But currently, they are working on a children’s book together with heavyweight champion boxer Ray Mercer- it’s about winning the gold medal (which is actually a golden conch shell), under the ocean.

When asked about how these collaborative children stories are written, Warburton replies, “It depends upon the celebrity that I work with. I fell into this because I was friends with them.” And how did that come to pass? “Dennis Rodman,” Gorman replies.

Warburton is something of a celebrity whisperer. “I have an ability to be able to make people remember me, I guess,” he says. Celebrity endorsements seem to be a focal point of Warburton’s work, having co-written the film Spiders 3D, as well as Dennis Rodman’s children’s book, Dennis the Wild Bull. He knows how to schmooze and, in his words, he knows how to produce. His mentor for many years was Stephen Bissette, who illustrated Swamp Thing throughout the 1980s. So, as engaging of a writer as Warburton may be, is greatest strength may be his talent in forming friendships.

“It’s a hustle, except we don’t have to worry about getting arrested hustling these books,” Warburton claims. “We’re hermits. I just want to go back into the woods and do my thing.” As for Gorman? “I hide in the kitchen,” he says, as his daily work involves cooking at Lost Dog. It’s one way to keep an artist from starving, and to keep a hermit from catching cabin fever.

Lilly’s Cove is now available on barnesandnoble.com. Gorman’s art will be on display throughout December in the staff art show at Lost Dog Café, located at 222 Water Street in Downtown Binghamton. His work is also permanently installed on the walls there, as well as at The Shop, located at 219 Washington Street, also in Downtown Bing- just peek into the stairwell.