It’s embarrassing to be involved in the same business as the mainstream comic thing. It’s still very embarrassing to tell other adults that I draw comic books – their instant, preconceived notions of what that means.
I’m always hiding the books in my closet, and my art’s always turned upside down in my drawer.
As soon as I’m finished with it, it feels like an impersonal project. Like, “Well, I did another book.”
When I go back and reread the stuff, I’m always floored by how deeply personal and revealing it actually is.
Often I’ll do research just to get a time period correct, but I didn’t have to for the ’70s. I feel like I can close my eyes and still see it so clearly.
One of my weekend hobbies is to go look at old houses when there are open houses around here. Just to go look at the architecture. And you can see how many houses were built around 1977, the year where everyone said, “Let’s put in these aluminum windows instead of beautiful hand-made wood ones.”
Avatar is a total nerd thing, and yet our popular culture has somehow made all that stuff acceptable.
I think I have a very clear vision of what I want things to look like.
I think if you had different artists approaching the material in different styles, that’s very different. I think it’s an interesting thing to discover, what’s present in the work even when you’re shifting the styles. I’ve just found it a much stronger way to work.
I’ve felt that in the past, where I just felt like I had to keep drawing in the same way to maintain this sameness and rhythm throughout an entire book, and it was not really necessary.
If I could have somehow been the kind of artist who could crank out two or three issues a year, that’s different. That’s sort of what it’s all about, to get this thing out so that there’s some kind of continuity. But to do a comic book every year or two was just so anti-climactic.
I actually start drawing things. Usually they’re abandoned before I commit too much time and effort.
I like to leave a little room to innovate and change things around while I’m working.
Before I could read, I remember trying to piece together the stories from the images. It was a very primal experience.
I started drawing at a very young age. Writing a story wasn’t satisfying, but to actually draw our own world – it’s like controlling your own dreams.
He always accuses me of trying to look’cool’, I was like, ’everybody tries to look cool, I just happen to be successful.
Maybe I’m just sick of putting more into this friendship than I get out of it.
Why aren’t you girls out stealing hubcaps or shoplifting like normal children?
You were right, everybody hates my new car. Becky said it was a goth dorkmobile.
C’mon, let’s go in my room and abuse drugs and stuff!
For a moment, all movement ceases and the scene is one of crystalline stillness, silent except for a slow, melodramatic heartbeat.