One of the more interesting things to arrive in the N4N mailbag of late was several issues of Tales of Rocky Point Park, Pawtucket-based artist Jason Mayoh's comic book about the dear departed amusement park. These make for a good read, for Rocky Point and comic book fans alike.
These works by Mayoh, 29, can be purchased at local retailers, including the Time Capsule, Incredible Pulp, and Wild Time Comics, as well as Benny’s, Borders, and Newbury Comics, and via his Web site, talesofrockypointpark.com.
An art opening to celebrate Tales of Rocky Point Park, rescheduled following the recent snow storm, will be held this Saturday, January 3, at the Milk & Cookies Gallery, 250 Main Street (in the Grant), Pawtucket, at 7 pm. Musical performances by Sweetthieves, Lolita Black & Cowgirl are slated to start at 9 pm. Meanwhile, here are excerpts from a recent e-mail interview with Mayoh.
WHY FOCUS ON ROCKY POINT AS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR COMIC, AS OPPOSED TO SOME OTHER ASPECT OF RI HISTORY?
This project came out of a previous anthology comic called FIB which I was a part of. The first issue featured numerous stories by several different artists all about Providence, and the second one was supposed to be all Rocky Point stories. The anthology version never manifested, but I became infatuated with the subject and ended up doing three issues by my lonesome.
Rocky Point was a place I visited frequently as a kid and had very fond memories of. I literally hadn’t thought about the place in years, and when I started researching for the first issue I was shocked after seeing images of what the park had turned into 10 years after it had closed. Seeing it years later, in the state of decay it was in, was certainly a bit depressing and quite surreal. I knew I wanted to do something to try and pay tribute/memorialize the place — essentially to revive the park through imagination.
WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THE BOOK?
I try to retell the actual strange events that took place over the course of its 150-year history that supposedly happened because of [an] ancient curse. (Many old employees actually believed there was a curse on the park. I tried to research and come up with validation for it.) The comics are essentially 80 percent fact, 20 percent fiction, with the fictional elements being the reason the park was cursed . . .
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