DR:
Have you always been interested in comics?
PM: Since I
can remember, I’ve been interested in stories told in pictures with
accompanying words. For me “various combinations of image and text”
is a pretty good definition of “comics.” For a long time, I felt
guilty if I wrote instead of drew or, conversely, if I drew instead
of wrote. There is a tension between these two ways of telling,
because they are also two ways of thinking. My brain works
differently for words than it does for pictures. That tension
dissolves, though, when I put pictures and text together. As a
painter, my work had varying degrees of narrative but I was jealous
of the amount of time people spend with a text they’re reading as
opposed to the few seconds they spend looking at visual art. But,
even I don’t spend that much time looking at a visual work of art,
unless I am writing about it – then I have lots to say about my
experience. Images envelop us amorphously, while words pin down
experience, even if ambiguously.
I’ve been
interested in how stories are told in image and text separately, and
then together. For example, I love how medieval illuminated
manuscripts have individual letters and words that consist of florid
shapes that morph into pictures while purely visual characters or
hybrid creatures curl their way into the text. The images allow the
mind to wander, while the text pulls it where it wants it to go.
Many children’s
book illustrations partner with words in ways that I consider to be
“comics.”
I loved Heidi, that little girl favorite among classic
children’s literature. Illustrations of Heidi eating large chunks
of cheese and bread spread on a rustic foot stool instead of a table,
or illustrations of Heidi climbing Alpine foothills wearing all the
clothes she owns at once, felt positively transgressive in some deep
psychological way, while the words carried me along this orphan’s
story. Another long-time favorite, the Eloise series has snappy
writing, a spot-on funny and elegant drawing style with images often
tumbling down the page, and a wise-guy voice that is slapstick and
transgressive. Is it an example of children’s literature, a
long-form comic, or a graphic novel?
Art has become a
commodity for rich investors, while comics are cheap or free and flow
through daily life. I devoured the daily newspaper funnies as a child
and my parents’ Reader’s Digest for the quick in and out of the
jokes. My greatest loyalties were with the Three Stooges who
saturated my childhood with their songs, hand gestures, grimaces and
rude noises. The adult me is surprised that their crude/violent
slapstick felt like unadulterated joy but it may be because it was so
foreign to the niceties and conventions of daily life that it
thrilled my little girl self. Much like Eloise did in graphic form.
In the mid-1990’s,
I used image and text somewhat like comics, somewhat like children’s
book illustrations. I was writing some fictional stories, and
publishing art criticism for magazines and journals. I also created
hybrid pieces like Heidiology - comprised of 57 letter-size pieces of
paper with computer drawn images and text that hung on the wall with
pushpins and “deconstructed” the pull Heidi had on me. It
traveled around to a number of exhibitions rather than in a
publication, although I did sell some copies in a boxed set. In
various artist or literary journals, I published pages of drawings
combined with text, some humorous, some metaphysical. I wrote and
illustrated some children’s books which I continue to re-write and
illustrate as they morph into different stories. I’ve been spending
a lot of time lately crafting single-panel comic ‘gags.’ I have a
long-form work in progress which could be considered chapters in an
eventual graphic novel.
As I look way back
at how my artist-self got nurtured, where it’s been and where it is
now, I have to answer “yes” to your question, “Have I always
been interested in comics?”
DR: It's
interesting that you mention the tension in working in words and/or
pictures. I found that as a school kid, writing would be encouraged,
and art would be encouraged, but doing both together was not.
PM:
I teach Art in an all boys
inner city high school, but I'm also very invested in getting kids to
read and write through comics or children's books. One thing I
started doing last year is having students create a one-page 9-panel
comic with the first panel the title and then fill each panel with a
comic defining each vocabulary word they selected as unknown to them
from a graphic novel we're reading. (Clan Apis by Jay Hosler - a
very cool/funny story that contains every esoteric fact you ever
wanted to know about bees; a great example of fictionalized
nonfiction.) The kids love the book and the drawing process which
lasted a number weeks as each vocabulary panel was quite
time-consuming.
It's been successful having them create a dramatization of their
understanding of the word and also has been an outlet for their sense
of humor. We had some literacy consultants visit who recommended that
basically all the teachers here use drawing to learn vocabulary
words!
I'm chuckling.
DR:
A lot of image/text mixing artworks interested you. Are
there any other artists or works that you are a fan of, and has
served as an inspiration?
PW:
There are artists whose work
makes me so happy that they are who they are. I will never be them,
but their work’s gorgeous existence fortifies and inspires me.
Below are a few:
I
like to check out Rubyetc online - she’s very young and talented.
I find her work bracing and fearless and very funny. I like her
short-hand but ingenious drawing style. I was happy to hear she’s
coming out with a book.
Some
years back, The New York Times Sunday Magazine serialized a comic by
Chris Ware that he expanded into his Building Stories boxed set
extravaganza. It was everything I love about comics – it was part
of my beloved newspaper, it seemed to appear without fanfare and it
was so good that I thought I must be imagining it. I was bereaved
when it stopped running. Ware’s work is a perfect mix of inner and
outer life and visual/formal high jinks, it makes you feel you’re
in the hands of a master.
I
like Dan Berry’s podcast, Make It Then Tell Everybody. I enjoy
hearing artists talk shop when I’m busy doing my own thing. It
makes solitary work feel downright social.
These
Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves, A Love, Hate, Love, Hate,
Love, Letter to a Very Bad Habit by Emily Flake is sort of like
reading Eloise if Eloise grew up to be a comic artist with a very bad
habit.
The
Sweet Flypaper of Life had a concrete influence on me. It’s a
collaboration between the photographer Roy DeCarava and the poet
Langston Hughes from the 1950s. I stumbled across a used paperback
edition from the 1960s. It is such a tangible example of how words
can change your thinking and feeling about the picture you’re
looking at. It is all of a piece with a brilliant voice that’s both
verbal and visual.
DR:
What had been your experience in making comics yourself before
your contribution to Zero Sum Bubblegum?
PW:
My current comic inventory:
100
or so single panel cartoons inked and captioned
25
or so single panels that don't want to be single any more so I will
expand on them as time goes by making them multi-panels
One
Graphic Novella or Novel, one "chapter" inked, other
chapters roughly researched, outlined, sketched some
10-page
or so graphic short story, currently reformatting and adding to a
work done in watercolor in a different format
15
"Let's Talk" one-pagers or multi-panels
2-page
Waltzer comic
Half
dozen Hourly Comics
2
illustrated one-page David Robertson stories
...and
that's all she wrote.
DR:
You've been busy! How did you find the process of
drawing “Invigilator”?
PW:
Four decisions guided my
drawing process:
1. Finding the right female character; at first I thought the
encounter could possibly be intended and experienced as sexist, then
I realized with the choice of character, it could be about an
encounter that was possibly both sexist and racist.
2. Creating a layout in a tight grid. Since this story takes place
within a very brief time-frame in the same tight space with the same
2 characters, a tight grid seemed appropriate.
3. Keeping a close view of the main female character's face. Since
the story deals with her subjective experience, I kept the focus on
her face in most panels.
4. Treating the male invigilator as a symbol of white male power,
even if he doesn't see himself that way. He is depicted mostly as a
shirt, tie and big belly. He possibly uses his role to invade the
physical space of the students or he may be oblivious to what he
represents.
DR: To finish off, I'm interested in anything else you want
to tell me about your upcoming comics projects.
PW: I’m superstitious about my initiatives-in-progress and
generally don’t talk about them. I no longer just post stuff to
Twitter like I used to. Although I did enjoy the “frisson” of
doing that, the work gets lost in the noise (and some venues want
“right of first refusal”). I haven’t yet figured out a web
presence. I have a website in need of updating that’s mainly
children’s book ideas, some of which I’d like to graphic
novelize. I like the idea of serializing a long work or a twice- or
thrice-weekly single panel. I attended the NJSCBWI Conference
(New Jersey chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and
Illustrators) in June, and enjoy being in the mix.
Pam Wye is an
artist, mother, wife, art teacher, dog and cat enabler, feminist,
registered Democrat, scaredy-cat, Donald Trump denier, born in
Boston, one-time citizen of Manhattan and Brooklyn before moving to
nearby New Jersey to raise twin sons who are thanking her by growing
up and heading off to college in late summer leaving her anticipating
fewer dirty dishes but a gaping hole in her heart at childhood’s
brevity, but nonetheless still able to write in the third person
about herself and to spawn drawings and stories that someone
somewhere may find comedic or heartening or diverting.
Zero Sum Bubblegum is available
here.
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