An iconic director with a unique creative vision, David Lynch is known for both his pop culture-defining films and smaller ion projects. However, the business of making art is still a business, and Lynch had the perfect response when asked to ply his trade for free.

While Lynch is known for era-defining works including Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and Twin Peaks, he worked across many forms of media, including short films, commercials, music videos, web series and even his nine-year comic run, The Angriest Dog in the World. It was this latter project that Lynch was asked to do for free. But despite it being a ion project, he delivered a hard no.

In 'The Making of David Lynch’s comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World', The Angriest Dog in the World, taking weekly calls to iron out the strip's dialogue. Despite the low fee Lynch asked for the strip, Barton recalls being pressured to ask if the legendary creator would do it for free, writing:

At one point, someone in upper management suggested Lynch not get paid for doing the strip. "See if he'll do it for free," I was told. Lynch was paid a pittance: a mere twenty-five dollars a week. For some reason, this was made this a particular point of contention.

When I ran this by Lynch, he chuckled. "No," he said. "You pay for it. It isn't free." I management's disappointment on hearing this. I was blamed. I hadn't asked Lynch right.

David Lynch Shot Down a Request to Work for Free

Even for a ion Project, Lynch Wouldn't Budge

It's awesome to know how genially but firmly Lynch shut down the suggestion that he should work for free, making a clear statement that if the LA Reader wanted his work, he was going to be paid for it. This was despite the fact that it was originally Lynch who reached out to the newspaper asking them to publish his project. In 'Lynch goes comic: The Angriest Dog in the World,' Medium quotes another LA Reader editor, Richard Gehr:

Lynch called up the editor James Vowell, and said, 'Hi, I'd like to do a comic strip for you,' and James wisely said, 'OK.' And David Lynch said, 'Well, it's kind of a weird concept. There's only like one… part.' And James said, 'Well, OK, let’s see how it goes.'

The Angriest Dog in the World ran from 1983-1992, always using the exact same art, hand-drawn by Lynch. The comic shows a growling dog tied in a garden, while jokes and non sequiturs drift out from a nearby house. Lynch described the comic as an exploration of his own past feelings of anger and isolation, with the strip depicting "the dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. ... Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis."

Sadly, while Lynch made sure he wasn't giving his work away for free, few strips from The Angriest Dog in the World's nine-year run are currently publicly accessible. Outside the LA Reader and inclusion in the 1989-1994 comic anthology Cheval Noir, only 17 entries of The Angriest Dog in the World have been collected, and even then in an incredibly limited-run collection. Hopefully, a full collection of David Lynch's comic will see publication soon, as it would be a shame for any of the luminary creator's work to be lost to future generations of fans.

Source: Heidi MacDonald, Comics Beat; Volodymyr Bilyk, Medium