Comic artist and owner of OddMart Brad McGinty bears a striking resemblance to “Weird Al” Yankovic, so it’s no wonder that his profession deals in the strange.
“I’m pretty nervous,” he said as he took the podium Wednesday night for the latest Insights Design Lecture hosted by the Walker Art Center in partnership with the American Institute of Graphic Arts Minnesota.
But as McGinty spoke to the sold-out crowd about his life’s work, his passion for what he does seemed to dissolve any lingering nerves.
OddMart, the “store of the strange,” opened its current Uptown location just two years ago, but McGinty created its extended universe, the GLORP Gum brand, back in 2012.
Advertised as “the only gum that comes with a free T-shirt,” GLORP exemplifies McGinty’s knack for creating expansive universes filled with his colorful oddball comic characters.
“I like gum, and I thought it was a funny way to sell a shirt,” he said simply.
McGinty played a fake commercial for GLORP Gum for the audience that parodies the classic “How Many Licks?” Tootsie Pop commercial. A little girl walks up to an alien perched on a branch and asks, “Mr. Glorp, how glorpy is GLORP Gum?”
The alien leans over to inspect the gum and promptly eats the girl.
It might seem odd (pun intended) at first for an esteemed art institution like the Walker to host OddMart, but embracing the unexpected is exactly what the Insights Design Lecture Series is all about.
“These designers often pose challenges and push the edges of their profession, in turn inspiring us to identify new perspectives in our own work,” AIGA says on their website.
Mark Owens, director of design for the Walker, said OddMart fit perfectly into the themes of this year’s Insights series, worldmaking and shopkeeping, the storefront being a world in and of itself where art is brought to the people.
“In the history of design, the storefront and the shop window are the places where the relationship between art, industry, and the public was first negotiated,” Owens said in an email statement. “OddMart joins with the rest of this year’s speakers in mining this history for new possibilities.”
McGinty also pointed out that the Walker hosted Extreme Noise Records, a pillar of the Twin Cities punk community, for an Insights lecture in 2023, which made him even more excited and honored to speak.
It also shows that, for all its glamour, the Walker is willing to uplift DIY artists.
“Everybody here embodies the DIY spirit,” McGinty said. “They’re not waiting for someone else to tell them to do it.”
Five local artists who sell at OddMart also spoke at the lecture, and all of them are entirely DIY.
One of those artists was Xiomar, pronounced ZEE-oh-Mar Luna, a Twin Cities cartoonist, writer and zinemaker who has been making comics since 2001 when they were in middle school.
I first met Luna at the inaugural Midwest Queer and Trans Zine Fest in 2023, where I grabbed a copy of the “Leo” edition of their “StarGayz” series, which explores queer themes in astrology.
“Astrology is something that gets very gendered, and I wanted to push back against that,” they said.
Luna said their work is often autobiographical, citing their practice of drawing what they know and wanting to connect with readers as inspiration.
“I want to document my marginalized experiences, being trans, mixed race, having ADHD and growing up very poor, so that people can read my comics and see themselves in my experiences,” they said.
Another OddMart artist, Matt Eng, better known as Monster Matt, took the podium adorned in a top hat and cape.
“I’m Monster Matt, and I make weird things!” he said in an exaggerated, spooky voice.
Eng’s specialty is “Frankenstein-ing” discarded objects, similar to Sid’s mutant toys in the original “Toy Story” movie, to see what else they can be.
Today, this practice might be called “upcycling,” but Eng said it was the result of the DIY spirit and growing up poor.
Eng said it was that same DIY spirit he recognized in McGinty when they met 10 years ago. When McGinty asked Eng to be a part of OddMart, Eng said, “Hell yeah!”
“I love getting crazy things out there to people who enjoy ‘em,” Eng told the Walker audience. “It’s really amazing to find a place like OddMart. It’s not just a retail store, it’s a community.”
There are many ways to find community at OddMart. From their weekly OddMarkets on Sundays or Cartoon Cabarets on Saturdays, everything at OddMart is about bringing art to the people.
“The shop isn’t about me, it’s about the artists,” McGinty said. “I hope I can pass it on to the next generation of creatives.”
