Susie Cagle was teargassed yesterday, ducked on the sidewalk in an attempt to avoid rubber bullets from police weapons. The cartoonist has spent much of her past week camped out at Occupy Oakland, gathering fodder for an illustrated history of the movement (one you can help fund here, if so inclined), and by sheer presence, becoming a part of the event.

We managed to grab a few moments of her time ahead of this evening’s events to discuss the movement,  objectivity, and what it means to be a graphic journalist.

You were hit with pepper spray yesterday?

I think it was tear gas. I videoing while it was happening [above]. They tried to prevent this peaceful march from going to the police department. And they wanted to protest outside, because there are still 100 protestors locked in that jail. And instead of letting people let off some steam and chant and yell, the police employed some crazy tactics of running to the front of wherever the march was and making a line and blocking the street and pushing the protesters down another road where they would block the line. It was very confusing—it was a march of about 1,000 people, maybe more.

That many people don’t fit on a block. So, to try to maneuver and turn around, to try to push back out is a big production. It was during one of those that they tried to push us back in. There were 1,000 marchers coming up against, maybe, six cops. I’m sure they were terrified, so they called for backup and a dozen police in full riot gear ran in with guns raised and batons swinging, and just let loose wildly against this small street.

They’re tear gassing in there, and it’s all getting trapped by the buildings on either side. I really didn’t want to get shot, so, as soon as I saw them raising the guns, I just dropped to the ground. The whole time I was on the sidewalk, I was pressed up against the building. They started tossing flash grenades and tear gas canisters onto the sidewalk. I was standing with people who had just come out of their business to see what was happening, and they were attacked.

As I crouched down to protect myself, a teargas canister rolled right under my face and exploded.

How are your eyeballs?

I’m okay. Anonymous has medics—“Anon Medics.” And this guy in a gas mask pulled me out of there and washed my face. It was amazing. It’s not something I’d ever encountered before.

This is not dissuading you from going back today, I assume.

No, not at all. That’s what they want. The fact that they specifically told press to leave last night at 7:45 and then after that, there were four more hours of tear gas and grenades… A lot of press did leave, but I think we have an obligation to witness that.

Did you encounter other media after that point?

I did. I saw two news vans around. Normally when the news vans are around, they’ll pop out real quick to get something and then go back in the van. But I ran into a bunch of newspaper reporters. It seemed like they were spending more time in protests and having an easier time being accepted and talking to people. I ran into a bunch of local media who were pretty freaked out. I’ll be curious if they go back. I hope they do.

Are you presenting yourself as media?

Yeah, yeah. It’s a weird thing, but I think that’s the most appropriate thing to do. If I weren’t a member of the press, I would be protesting. But I’m more valuable to the Occupy movement as a member of the press than as a demonstrator.

People think that I’m a protestor, and when you’re out there, you kind of have to look like one, because you have to cover your mouth with scarf for the teargas. So everyone kind of looks the same and is being attacked the same.

So you don’t consider yourself a protestor, since you’re there as media? Is it possible to be both?

I think I’d maybe consider myself an activist-journalist. But I think if I say that I’m a protestor and that I’m explicitly part of this occupation, then that doesn’t give me as much credibility.

You’re throwing any semblance of objectivity out the window.

Totally. But I kind of feel like I already have. I don’t really believe in objectivity anyway, so that’s not really too troubling to me. I was going there for the last two weeks, but I wasn’t sleeping there. I was kind of on the fence about it. I have been working on a piece. My plan was to file my piece this coming Monday and then join the camp.

With what’s happening now, I think I’m more worthwhile to the occupation as somebody who’s working to document it. I think that’s a popular tact amongst the occupation. There are a lot of people doing citizen journalism there.

Is this a comics piece that you’re working on?

Yeah. It’s going to have to be totally different now. It was going to be a five-part piece about how different Occupy Oakland is from the rest of the occupation. When the camp was up, it was very different. They were primarily concerned with creating this functional mini-city, rather than doing focused protests and actions, which is very different than the other ones. They spent more time trying to figure out how to feed everyone and building a kids’ area, and a library and a community garden. That’s what they were spending their time on.

Is your process generally the same as a print journalist? You’re going in and interviewing people?

Mm-hm. I’ve been doing a lot of sketches, the past couple of weeks, so that’s different. I probably won’t use them for the final piece, but they’re character studies. I do sketches and take pictures of things on my phone for reference. In the last day and a half, I haven’t been doing any drawings, because that’s not so realistic out there.

The interviews are largely with protesters? Or are you able to speak with members of the establishment?

I haven’t been able to get in touch with the Oakland police department. Certainly you can’t talk to police while they’re down there—actually, I spoke with one really, really, unusually friendly officer, who gave me a little information on background.

Suspiciously friendly?

No, no. Those are the undercover cops that are in the protest—and there are definitely some of those.

Today I got in contact with Mayor Jean Quan’s office. But they haven’t answered my questions. I’m sure she’s being barraged with hate. I thought if I seemed nice and non-threatening, I could get through. And it seemed to totally work.

Do you tell people that you’re working on a comic when you approach them as a member of the media? Does that decrease the chance of compliance?

I don’t use the word “comics.” I’m very careful about that. I depends on how much time I have to explain it, because I figure that it takes at least 20 seconds to make it make sense, and if I don’t have that time, I should just write down whatever. But if I explain it as, “I’m doing art and a story and I’ll put them together. It’s kind of like comics,” and people are like, “okay.”

But the Bay Area has such a history of underground comics, and there’s a huge overlap between the Occupy movement and self-publishing/zinesters. And I know the people who run Infoshop are down there. I’ve been talking to them. They love comics. And they were excited to hear that it would be a comic.

–Brian Heater

In this second part of our interview with the Teen Boat author, we talk age appropriateness, absurdity, and self-censorship.

[Part One]

Looking back at the early Teen Boat work, did you get the feeling that the you of ten years ago and who you are now would have had completely different approaches to the story?

The biggest difference is density. We used to try and cram a lot of content into each page. When they were eight-page minicomics, we wanted to get as many jokes into them as possible. As we continued along and began thinking of Teen Boat as a book, it allowed us to open up more and do bigger images, splash panels, and spreads without every page being as precious—it wasn’t going to be the last page that anyone ever saw.

You’ll see while reading the book, the first couple of chapters are still a bit dense, and then panels start getting larger and more cinematic as they go. But as far as John Green’s line art itself, I think Teen Boat looked really good to begin with.

I was reluctant to color it at first, because I really like John’s clean black and white art, and I like the idea that you’re sort of imagining the color for it. But once we started getting the pages back from Wes Dzioba, who colored it for us, I totally changed my opinion. Teen Boat becomes even more surreal and absurd when you see it in color. You take it even more seriously. There’s a big scene that takes place in Venice, and it’s just gorgeous, with the canals and the sunsets and the beautiful Italian architecture. The color makes it so rich and vivid, so having a teenage boy transform into a boat there is just that much crazier.

So the absurdity operates better if it’s more real?

I think so. The contrast of the whimsy with the beautiful settings and atmosphere makes it even funnier.

Is the target reader’s age the same as Astronaut Academy?

I think it’s older.

It’s called Teen Boat, and it’s definitely more of a teen series. I consider Astronaut Academy more “middle grade”—that’s a term I learned while working on it. Kids in like 5th grade, and middle school. Thus the publisher’s change from “Elementary” to “Academy.” Whereas Teen Boat is set in high school. It’s more like a John Hughes movie—there are teens drinking alcohol and getting involved in sexy shenanigans.

Those are the best kind of shenanigans.

Yeah. In Astronaut Academy, there’s none of that. If a character kisses another character, it’s a big deal, whereas in Teen Boat, there are characters making out and things implied that are much more explicit (even if they happen off camera).

Aren’t younger readers generally drawn toward reading about characters who are slightly older?

Yeah. That’s sort of the problem with all my books [laughs].

What’s that?

The “ideal publisher demographic” is off target. John and I made a book about teens, and it’s actually for teens [laughs]. Rather than looking up at them, it’s looking right at them. But maybe it’s a little nostalgic, too, like The Wonder Years. You could look back whimsically.

At your years as a Teen Boat.

Yeah.

Beyond a certain amount of self-censorship, are you really thinking about what age group you’re writing for?

No [laughs]. I mean, I am, in that there are a lot of tropes that each genre comes with, and since we were parodying Dawson’s Creek and the John Hughes movies, I think we’re playing toward the same touch points. That’s more on my mind than specifically how teenagers will react to the content, or whether or not something is a little edgy for younger kids.

That said, now that we’re working with major publishers, there’s a lot more focus with regards to where these books are getting shelved and who the people buying them are specifically, and being cautious about not wanting to do anything that’s going to push the envelope too much.

Are they reviewing the scripts and pushing you in certain directions?

Yeah, but not in a way that feels even remotely oppressive. Our editor at Clarion is really great. He positioned it as: if we keep things exactly as they are, it makes this book available only to a certain audience. But if we are comfortable changing strategic things, it opens the content up to that many more people. Then it becomes a decision for John and I to decide how invested we are in a certain joke, or if there is something that would satisfy us creatively, but not offend as many people.

dExactly. I think that’s why I got into the idea of doing all-ages comics in the first place. Starting out, I’d go to a comic convention, and want to be able to sell my books to everybody who was interested. I didn’t want there to be all these conditions. If a parent asks, “is this okay for my eight-year-old kid?” I want to be able to say yes. I don’t to say, “yeah, sure,” and then have them come back and say, “so, this gang bang scene, my eight-year-old loved it.” That’s where self-censoring is already happening before we even get to the editorial process.

–Brian Heater

We wrap up our interview with the Big Questions author by discussing printmaking, the importance of wandering, and figuring out the riddles of the universe.

[Part One][Part Two]

Is it possible to over think art?

Maybe for some people [laughs]. I feel like I can think about it all day and it’s just fine. Some people think about it too much and it shuts them down—they stop having fun doing what they’re doing, or it stops being fun to read. If you’re doing conceptual comics and the result is boring, then you just totally failed. But hopefully the more you’re aware of what you’re doing, the more you can do it well. I like thinking about stuff too much [laughs].

You took printing courses in school.

I did take some printing. When I was at the Art Institute, I took an offset printing class. I never really got into printmaking in a traditional way. People would often encourage me to do etchings because I was always doing careful line work or a lot of cross hatching. And I love good etchings. I love looking at Goya and Rembrandt etchings.

But I hate the process of that stuff. There’s so much happening between you wanting to do something and you making final artwork. I just want to get my pen and a piece of paper and draw. I don’t want to have to think about acid bath and how I’m rolling the ink onto the plate.

You were printing your own minicomics. Did that knowledge of print making inform the layout of your work?

I would tend to say not. My experience with comics and zines probably had more to do with that than traditional printmaking. But some of that stuff might have filtered into my brain without me knowing about it. But going to Kinkos and Xeroxing stuff out of your sketchbook feels so different than making an etching, it’s so immediate and user-friendly and idiot-proof.

I mean, it’s not really, because if you look at some of those old Big Questions, they’re kind of a mess. But that’s what it is. That’s what photocopying at Kinkos at midnight is all about. It’s not about beautiful editions, it’s about getting shit out there.

Ten years of work went into this book.

Yeah, ten or 12.

You clearly appreciate the raw qualities of your early work, but is it ever difficult to look at it?

Not really. I remember why it existed the way it did. I think I made my peace pretty early on with the fact that it had started this way and that it had evolved and transformed, and that’s the nature of the project and the nature of the book and story. It’s necessary. And I like that that will be part of the experience of the book, seeing my changes as an author.

Chester Brown’s Ed the Happy Clown is clearly an example of that. He clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing when he starts, and you see him discover the story in these little experiments that he does. And that’s one of the wonderful things about that book. It’s this amazing story, but you’re also getting this weird little window into the life of the artist.

Have you attempted to maintain that spontaneity into your career?

Yeah, that’s super important to me. I really like not knowing where I’m going [laughs]. I often feel that if I know exactly what I’m doing, then I might as well just stop. It’s more fun to discover stuff. If you know what you’re doing, it’s not as fun. I’ve discovered little stories over the years where I have this very particular idea about what it’s about and what’s going to happen, and I often feel like I don’t even need to do it, because I already know what it is.

But it never ends up exactly like it is in your head.

That’s true. And there were definitely parts in Big Questions where I did know where I was going, but I left it open where i could let a scene go off in a different direction. And the philosophical themes in that book—it’s about how weird and mysterious the world is, so it was important to me to investigate something I didn’t really feel like I understood.

Do you understand the world a bit better now, having written almost 700 pages about it?

I can maybe talk about not knowing what it is more coherently [laughs].

So it wasn’t a total loss.

I didn’t really expect to have the mysteries of the world revealed. It’s just fun to poke around in there.

–Brian Heater

When Dave Roman had first announced the forthcoming release of the collected Teen Boat for Clarion Press, I was a bit dumbfounded to realize that we’d never set up an official interview. Sure we’d spoken countless times and even been on the odd panel together, but for some reason or other, we’d never sat down for a formal Cross Hatch Q&A, and while his new book is still more than half a year away, now seemed as good a time as any.

After all, Roman has been working virtually non-stop since losing a full-time editorial position after the untimely demise of Nickelodeon Magazine. He contributed to anthologies like Flight, collaborated with wife Raina Telgemeier on an X-Men manga series and celebrated the release of his first Astronaut Academy collection for First Second this summer.

Like that series, Teen Boat began life as a web and mini-comic. While maintaining the cartoonist’s long-standing focus on younger readers, the latter series skews a bit older, combining, as the tagline goes, “the angst of being a teen with the thrill of being a boat.” In this first part of our conversation, we discuss revisiting older work, Roman’s tendency toward long storylines, and why making comics for kids is important.

When’s the new book coming out?

Teen Boat? Teen Boat is going to come out May 8th. I think we’re going to do a debut at TCAF.

Do you have multiple things coming out?

I’m working on Astronaut Academy book two right now. I’m completely in that headspace. But we’re always talking contracts for Teen Boat #2, and we just did a short story for a book called Explorer, that Kazu Kibuishi is putting out. That comes out a little bit before Teen Boat—maybe two months before.

Teen Boat isn’t coming out until May and you’re already talking contracts for the second one?

Yeah.

That’s a good spot to be in.

Yeah, hopefully. They’re totally into it. I think the advance buzz on it is pretty good, so they don’t think that it’s too risky to start talking about book two, and I think that the idea is that these books take so long to make that if you’re doing a series, you want to close the gap between books. With Astronaut Academy I was actually contracted for two books all at once, which is good, because it means that, as soon as I was finished with the first book, I was already working on the second book. And since the books take a long time to come out after you’ve finished them, it gives you a little bit of lead time, so that by the time you’re out promoting book one, you’re already halfway into book two.

You’re not at the point anymore where you’ll work on something independently of whether or not there’s a contract?

I don’t know the answer to that question, to be honest.

Both of these books started off as minis, but now it seems as though you’ve got so much on your plate that you’re waiting to see if someone is interested in something before devoting too much time to it.

Sort of. I don’t view it exactly like that, but I guess that’s fairly accurate [laughs]. I just see it as making books. And it has to be about what books are paying or are going to see a path to money, just because, ever since I lost my job at Nickelodeon, I’m trying to survive off of just doing books, collectively with Raina.

We see it as working in tandem. So we’re alternating books between the two of us. Right now Raina’s next book is due in December and then Astronaut Academy is due in May. It’s alternating schedules and times when the books come out.

But you’re both constantly working on stuff.

Absolutely. We’ve had no gaps between us. Especially Raina. She did the four Babysitters Club books, one after another. And by the time the fourth was done, she was already halfway through Smile, and that become the full-time project. Pretty much the minute I ended my job at Nickelodeon, I’ve been working on Astronaut Academy non-stop.

These long series are default mode for you.

For some reason, I tend to think in series.

Books for younger readers tend to be structured that way.

Yeah. And I think by the time I create something and spend a lot of time developing ideas in that world, the ideas tend not to stop. I keep getting more and more excited to see where they can go. I was contracted for two Astronaut Academy books, and the second definitely has an ending, and you feel like that could be it, but I definitely have enough ideas to fill up a third book. It’s more just about whether there’s interest in doing a third.

Teen Boat will feel like a self-contained book, but we have all of these ideas for what to do afterward. If people are interested, we’re happy to keep making them.

You’ve been working on both of those projects for a while. How long has Teen Boat been around for?

Teen Boat’s been around for 10 years, I think [laughs]. The first mini comic came out around 2002 or 2003. And I’ve been doing Astronaut Academy for at least six years.

Will the mini comics work appear in the book?

With Teen Boat, yeah. It’s everything that was printed as mini comics, but fully-colored and we’ve added 30 more pages of content.

Did you end up redoing it?

With Teen Boat we didn’t. It was pretty much good to go, and believe me, no one was more thrilled about that than John and I. With Astronaut Academy, I did end up redrawing a good half of the book. Most of the material that appeared was redrawn for the book. But with Teen Boat, we managed to keep it almost entirely intact. There were three panels that were redrawn, total. And that was just to address some content issues.

What’s the difference there?

I think it’s because John drew Teen Boat, and John is very happy with his finished art, and I’m insecure about my art and tend to want to revise it and improve upon it. Just general insecurity.

[Continued in Part Two]

–Brian Heater

In this second part of our interview with the Dogs and Water artist, we discuss the importance of silence, the ways art school affects comics composition and how Big Questions is different than Spider-man fighting the Green Goblin.

[Part One]

Is conservation of style part of drawing a long form piece? Do you end up having to pace yourself? To not wind up spending a full day on a panel?

I do pace myself. What I end up trying to do when I’m working on the drawing part of the book is a page a day—or get roughly four pages done a week. Part of it is just that having a goal like that makes it more satisfied and helps the work to keep moving.

Does the timeline affect the style at all? The amount of time you give yourself?

I wouldn’t say so. If I don’t get it done in a day, I’m definitely not going to rush it. And certain kinds of scenes are more labor intensive. Any of the nighttime or underground scenes, because they’re so dark and there’s so much crosshatching. Those are going to take three days or four days. It’s important to give the book as much time as it needs.

There was a moment, I think around issue seven or eight—the way I tell stories is so slow. I give so much time to silent stuff. There was a moment where I felt like it was too much. I felt a little worried about it, that my readers were going to be bored. At a certain point, I just had to accept that this is how I do it. This is what I’m interested in doing, and I have to just trust myself and do it. And if people are bored, well, too bad [laughs]. I have to keep myself happy first.

Did you read a lot of superhero books growing up?

Yeah, yeah.

There’s a sense—and I think it’s the same with film—that you need to fill in all the empty space.

Right.

Maybe that’s part of the appeal your work holds for European audiences—their cinema seems to give itself a lot more breathing room and moments of silence.

Yeah, probably.

Is it hard to convey silence in a comic?

It comes naturally to me. I tend to be sort of a quiet person. I’m interested in the contrast between the silence and the chattiness of the birds. But I don’t really think of them as being that different. It’s just different stuff happening. It’s different kinds of information being conveyed, and it’s different parts of the story.

It’s a little more work. One of the things with superhero comics, for example, is you’ll have a scene where Spider-man is punching the Goblin, and you’ve got three paragraphs of dialog that fill in what you need to know.

Exposition.

Yeah. If you’re doing stuff silently, you’ve got to show everything. And you’ve got to show every phase of an action in order to make it totally clear, so that you’re not forcing your reader to re-read too much. Or they get to a place and don’t know exactly where it came from.

Does the use of blank space in your work come out of a similar place?

Yeah. I don’t know… That isn’t a super conscious decision. That’s just what ends up looking good to me. It’s the way the scene works. But I guess it is an aesthetic decision. I like that openness. I like the feeling of openness.

It seems like there’s a contrast between requiring a lot more spelling out of action while attempting to convey these images with as little detail as possible.

Right.

Are those not contrasting concepts?

I guess I’m a believer in reconciling opposites.

You went to art school.

I did. I went to the University of New Mexico and studied painting and installation.

Painting in the fine art sense?

Yeah. Sort of. It was a very idea driven program. But I did do some classic, realist, painterly paintings with big gobs of paint. And life portraits and landscapes and stuff. In a way I was doing traditional stuff.

What do you mean when you say “idea driven?”

The faculty definitely wanted us to have an understanding of why we were doing what we were doing. The form that a piece takes should be determined by the content. You shouldn’t just say, “I’m a painter and what I do is painting.” You should be open to following your ideas. And you should really know what your ideas are. You should really be aware of the history of painting and the kind of work that you’re making.

You’re making decisions as an artist. You shouldn’t be so afraid of thinking too much about what you’re doing.

Has that made you hyper-sensitive in your comics work, in terms of layout and composition?

I might be like that anyway. I think that’s just how I am and how I approach the world. But yeah, I feel like my approach to making comics is slightly heady—or maybe not heady, but I am thinking of everything, like why would you make a word balloon this way versus this way? Should your panel borders be straight or crooked? Or should you have them at all? What does it mean if you don’t have them? How does a circular panel border change things versus a square one?

I find that stuff all super interesting. Some people think that if you think about it too much, you’re leaving something out. I feel like you should start with “this is cool,” but then you should find out why it’s cool.

[Concluded in Part Three]

–Brian Heater

The new Big Questions collection from Drawn & Quarterly is a rather staggering thing. It’s a 658 page hardcover, 2.6-inch thick culmination 15 single issues drawn over the course of a decade. The series, which was born in the pages of Anders Nilsen’s art school sketchbook, centers around the journey of tiny talking birds, set against minimalist landscapes.

The series, along with the Ignatz-winning Dogs and Water, the Xeric-winning The Ballad of the Two-Headed Boy, and appearances in anthologies like Kramers Ergot and Mome, have helped earn Nilsen a place as one of the most respected names in cartooning circles. The new sweeping Big Questions collection is likely to land him a fair amount of notice outside our often claustrophobic world.

Whatever the case, Nilsen has already moved onto other things, beginning work on a new story, and getting ready to board a plane to France the day after we spoke.

Where are you heading out to, this weekend?

This Saturday I’m getting on a plane and flying to France. I’m doing a residency there for a week. Zak Sally and Sarah Glidden are going—they’re the two North Americans, and then there are a bunch of French cartoonists. I’m going there for a week, and then they arranged a short tour of some French cities and Brussels, and then I’m gong to the UK. I’m doing six cities there.

That sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

It is. The residency is awesome. The reason I’m doing the UK part is that the residency is paid for. I figure I was already over there, so I might as well go see the UK, which I’ve weirdly never been to.

You’ve been to France before.

I’ve been to Angouleme twice.

The French seem to take to your work?

Good question.

They’ve invited you back.

Yeah, so they must. Dogs and Water was translated into French. It looks like Drawn & Quarterly has just sound Big Questions to a French publisher, so I guess we’ll find out.

There are some stretches in there without dialog. That should translate fairly well.

Yeah, and hopefully somebody will make the words work.

Big Questions began in your sketchbook.

Yeah. The first few strips were all done in sketchbooks in mid-90s. It was me playing around, sort of making fun of myself and my own philosophical and artistic pretensions. I was playing around. It was a bit of an alternative to the other kind of work that I was doing, which was much larger scale and heavier and more serious.

A bit ironic that it was an alternative to the larger scale stuff and yet it turned out to be a 650 page book.

Yeah, I seem to not be able to keep things small and simple. It’s not one of my strengths.

So there was no plan to make this a giant opus?

No. Once I started working on the material for number three, I started thinking of it as a longer story. But I sort of thought it would be 100 or 200 pages. I had a general idea of what the plot would be and where the story was going to go. But I just didn’t realize how long it was going to take for me to get there.

How far in advance do you tend to plan?

Ideally with a long story, I try to start it without knowing where it’s going. I have an idea for my next longer story, what the characters re and some basic idea to get it started. I’ve had it in mind for years and years, but I try not to think about it and where it will go. I want it to be fresh and still interesting to me when I get to it.

But once I’m into a book—with Big Questions, the basic outline crystallized pretty quickly. Dogs and Water was a little different. I went one direction and then changed my mind, halfway through.

Did Big Question have a definitive ending for you? Are you definitely done with it?

Yeah, it’s definitely over. No more little birds. At least not as main characters. Though the next story has a goose as a main character, so I guess big birds are still okay.

Is it easier to write animals than it is people?

I wouldn’t say it is. Once they become characters, they’re just characters.

They might as well be people at that point.

Yeah. They’re easier maybe to draw. The birds definitely are. The facial expressions—they have them, but they’re easier to play around with. They’re a little more generic.

I’m not great with human faces, actually. Human faces or more complicated faces, the subtleties can do more than you mean them to.

Do people project the same sort of emotion on more simple drawn faces?

Yeah, and I think there is something more relateable about really simple stuff. That’s the power of traditional cartooning, you can get a lot across without very many marks.

[Continued in Part Two]

–Brian Heater

We wrap up our interview with Drew Friedman by discussion the seriousness of comedy, his relationship with Crumb, and the role he played in Anthony Weiner’s resignation

[Part One][Part Two][Part Three]

Do the comedians you deal with tend to have a better or worse sense of humor about themselves?

A lot of them take themselves very seriously. They’re actually very serious people, and a lot of them admit it. Jerry Lewis is a very serious guy. When I talk him, he’s very serious. He asks me what I’m doing and how I do this and that, as if he’s taking notes. He’s so interested in what I’m doing. He doesn’t want to talk about himself, which is kind of strange. Howard Stern is the same way. You’d think these guys would have huge egos and would be self-obsessed, but a least in those two cases, it hasn’t been that way. When I talk to Howard Stern, he wants to talk about what I do.

A lot of them are very serious. Especially the ones who write their own material. Their mind is always working. Woody Allen is obviously a very serious guy. He hardly even smiles. I don’t know if he’s a comedian anymore—he’s more of a director. But once a Jewish comedian, always a Jewish comedian.

That’s why I could put Gummo Marx in the book. People asked me how I could do that. When was he a comedian? He was a comedian in 1918, he retired before World War I—once a comedian, always a comedian. Plus he was a funny guy—I’ve heard he was funny. Groucho actually maintained that Zeppo was the funniest out of all of them. Go figure.

The Joe Franklin strip was a more traditional comic style. Are you working in that format at all, these days?

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve mainly been doing editorial illustration, these books, and a book of sideshow freaks that came out earlier in the year. But I’m actually getting into comics again right now, as we speak. I’m doing a long piece about my association with Robert Crumb. It’s an eight page piece for a book that’s coming out from Simon and Schuster next year.

When I get back into doing comics, I think they’re going to be more of an autobiographical nature, not really the show business parodies. I’m getting a lot of satisfaction out of the Crumb piece I’m doing right now. I’m trying to do things that I really enjoy. A lot of the editorial stuff was lucrative enough, but the political stuff and the business stuff, I just wanted to finish it up. I’m trying to concentrate on something that I had more of a passion for.

Politics and business are two pretty depressing topics, these days.

Yep.

Are they too draining?

Kind of. I don’t really do that much anymore. For a while, I was doing a lot. Too Soon is half political stuff. I was doing it a lot, mainly during the Clinton and George W. eras. And then less and less with Obama. I’ve backed off of it a bit. I still do it occasionally, like the Anthony Weiner cover for The New York Observer. I posed him like Burt Reynolds, naked on the bear skin rug.

He resigned a day after that, and a couple of people suggested that that may have been the case. Because it was too embarrassing. It’s great when something you’ve done may have had an effect.

I’m sure he wished that was the most embarrassing thing that came out of that event.

You’re right, you’re right. Maybe it was the final nail in the coffin. I didn’t even dislike the guy. It was just a funny drawing.

You said the book is about your relationship with Crumb—what is your relationship with Crumb?

It dates back to when he was editing Weirdo. He’s always been my favorite artist. I was buying his when I was too young for it—like eight, nine years old, smuggling it into the house. Me and my brother became obsessed with them. It knocked me out. I went to SVA and he visited the class. I didn’t talk to him, because I didn’t want to be a fanboy.

But then he starts Weirdo, and I sent him some of my early work, thinking I wouldn’t hear back from him. Then he writes me back instantly. He’s thrilled and says he’s been following what I’m doing. From there, we just established a correspondence that went on for years and years. I run into him now and again and I’ve drawn him a few times. I ran into him at the Society of Illustrators show earlier in the year, and we had a great reunion.

All of this stuff is going into the piece I’m doing. It’s part of a book—cartoonists drawing other cartoonists’ biographies. I took Crumb, but I wanted to do it from my perspective, not a standard biography, because Crumb has already done that. What more can you add?

–Brian Heater

We finally wrap up our interview with The Wolf author by discussing self-publishing, going to the post office, and making enemies of Glenn Danzig.

[Part One][Part Two][Part Three]

This desire of having control over a property – does that extend to not putting a book out with a publisher?

That’s definitely part of it, yeah. Like most cartoonists, I started off self-publishing because nobody wanted to publish me. And then I worked toward a publisher, and at the time I had that, The Blot was going to be published by someone else, and then I ended up pulling out of that because I just didn’t agree with the feedback I was getting and the changes. They wanted something that wasn’t what I had in mind.

I know that there are probably publishers that will let you do that, but so far, my experience has been that if I want it to be exactly what I want it to be, then I do it myself. Because otherwise, every person who gets attached to it can wind up muddling it. But I’m not completely opposed to working with others—it just depends on the product. I do it every day with my Disney work. But I have the means and ability to do it myself.

But who knows, down the road we might have kids or something, and I won’t have as much time or energy to be a self-publisher and self-promoter, and I might have to find someone to do it for me. But I really enjoy it so far.

You have pictures of palates of books on your blog. The whole thing seems overwhelming…

Yeah [laughs].

That’s got to be a part of the process that you wouldn’t mind handing off—the shipping.

Yeah, I don’t know. It’s one of those things—even dealing with galleries in the past to do an art show—there’s all sorts of things you think they’re gonna do, and then they end up not doing it, and then you have to do it yourself anyway. Everything from promotions to getting postcards made, to hanging the work. I ended up doing everything myself anyway. Sometimes it’s very hard to find the right person to rely on for certain things, but yeah, it would be nice to find someone to ship and store my books for me.

I think the job I hate the most—well, I’m starting to enjoy it more—I really procrastinate going to the post office. So, if I can get an intern to do that, it would be great—to ship the books. It was more intimidating with The Blot because I had the same number of palates come in. But I managed to move most of those books over the past couple of years, so I had room for those boxes. It worked out. As long as I can get rid of all of these boxes before the next book is done, then I’ll do the next one.

You had a good measure of success surrounding The Blot, even though it was your first book and self-published. You won an Ignatz.

Mm-hm.

And ended up on a lot of “best of” lists. With all the acclaim that came with that book, did you feel the need to do something larger and more ambitious the second time around?

No, not necessarily—not as a result of success or anything. Just more my own personal drive to do something more than what I just finished. I always want to push myself to do more, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with external influence. But it definitely makes it easier, knowing that I had one pretty successful book and had some success with the smaller ones.

It definitely makes it easier, knowing that I’ve been building an audience over the years. It definitely makes it easier making that leap toward publishing the next giant book. But I was going to do it regardless.

With The Blot, I printed 3,000 copies and 3,000 copies of The Wolf. I didn’t up it to 5,000 this time. I tried to stay within my means.

Were you surprised by the reaction?

I don’t know [laughs].

Did you go into the book thinking that this would be something a lot of people would get really excited about?

I thought I was going to be the next Dan Clowes. The week the book came out, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be invited to Dan Clowes’s house next month.’ I thought all that when The Blot came out. And then I went into a deep depression, because I didn’t hear anything for the first couple of months. And then I was like, ‘Oh, I fucked up.’ And then some good reviews started trickling in, and I started doing shows and getting feedback.

I started to realized that the stuff I imagined before—that didn’t happen—that’s probably never gonna happen, but I’ve got this other group of fans that are picking up on me. It wasn’t what I expected at all, but I think it ended up way better than I expected.

A lot of people never want to look at something again when they’re done with it. It sounds like you have a very intense sense of pride in your work once it comes out.

Oh yeah. Almost everything I do, I tend to like it. I look back at The Blot, and I see tons of things wrong with it. But they are things that only I see, so I don’t worry about it. I think it was the best thing I could do at the time, so I don’t think there’s any reason to look down on it now. Same thing with The Wolf. A year or two from now, I’ll probably realize that I can do better, but it’s the best I can do now. I put the best effort forth on it in every way. There’s no reason not to be proud of it.

But I’ve been through that. In the past—I think just depends on where you’re at. Before The Blot, I used to feel that way about everything I put out. But I look back on that work now and realize that I was still learning. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was still grasping for stories to tell and how to tell them. The only stuff that I look back on with shame is what I can look back on and see that I didn’t know what I was doing at the time.

Had to end on this—I know you did a poster based on Danzig’s reaction to the Glenn and Henry book. What are your thoughts on the fallout?

The reaction from Henry and Glenn?

Henry’s was just sort of lukewarm, but Glenn’s was amazing.

Those were weird. Both reactions were not what we expected—they were even better than we expected [laughs]. My friend Jay—the guy who tried to give the book to Glenn—he told me about it, and we were really bummed out, because we both love Danzig, but we had ruined his day together [laughs]. It’s kind of sad, but at the same time, it’s kind of the best possible reaction that I can imagine [laughs]. So I kind of had to make a comic strip of it.

Knowing what you know about Danzig as a person, did you really expect him to be excited about that book?

No, no. I didn’t know what to expect. When Jay was on his way to interview him, we were speculating. He’s either really gonna be pissed or he won’t give a shit. But it was something weird and in-between. He was like, ‘I don’t give a shit,’ and he wouldn’t even look at it, and then he went on this weird rant, calling us “stupid Internet hipsters.”

He basically called you “trolls.”

Yeah. It wasn’t what I expected, but in a lot of ways, it was a lot better than I could have expected. I would have been more disappointed and cursed me, like I’ve heard he’s cursed other people.

–Brian Heater

In this third part of our conversation with the Old Jewish Comedians artist, we discuss real Jewish names, fake Jews, and “The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin.

[Part One][Part Two]

You mentioned the concept of “working Jewish.”

Yeah, Jack Carter says he doesn’t “work Jewish,” meaning doing a Jewish schtick. Like Myron Cohen does a Jewish schtick. Jack Carter never did. He’s like an anglo-saxon. He doesn’t work Jewish. He real name is Jacob Chakrin, I think. So he was like, “why even bring up the fact that I’m a Jew?”

It seems strange that some of the comedians would mask that—these are some of the most Jewish guys, ever.

You’re right. And some of them are real proud of it. Freddie Roman’s real name is Fred Kirschenbaum, and that’s the name he uses, aside from when he performs at clubs. When I send him anything, it’s to Fred Kirschenbaum. That’s the name on his apartment building. That’s how people know him. Mickey Freeman changed his name, too—well, his real name is Irving Freeman. Mickey’s just a nickname. It’s pretty close. He was just proud to be Jewish. A lot of them are. But  a lot of them don’t want to center on that. Even a Don Rickles, the Jewish stuff never comes up in his act. He doesn’t need it. He’d prefer to leave that stuff behind him.

You mentioned Joey Faye in an interview with FMU. He ended up not making the cut for the second book because he wasn’t Jewish.

Yep. You might now him because he was very big on sneezing. He was in movies and television commercials, and that was his big schtick, sneezing. He dates back to burlesque and vaudeville. He had a big career. He played a lot of Jewish waiters, like in the Woody Allen movie, The Front, with Zero Mostel. He’s a Jewish waiter in that. They keep going into the delicatessen, and there’s Joey Faey, doing Jewish schtick.

So I drew him, assuming he was Jewish, and then I found out at the last second, when the book was at the printer, that his real last name was Paladino. He was a Jew poseur, so I had to pull him out at the last minute, and that’s when I put Freddie Roman in, because I had a little rule for myself with the first book that I wanted to draw these guys who were born between 1930. I relaxed that rule for the second book. Woody Allen was born in 1935, Joan Rivers was born in ‘35 or ‘37.

And now I have guys who are younger old Jewish comedians. Richard Belzer just turned 65. He’s a senior citizen.

He gets the discount.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I have him in there and his dog. And David Brenner, who’s actually in his mid-70s now. You wouldn’t think it. You think of these guys as kind of the young, contemporary comedians. The younger gys are in there now. Another reason I want to quit these books is that there’s always younger comedians coming up, and I just can’t keep up. Howard Stern’s gonna be an old guy in a couple of years.

Richard Lewis is up there.

I think he’s in his early-60s. He’s the exact same age as Larry David. He’s about 63, 64, something like that. I’m not crazy about some of them, and I just don’t want to think about drawing Adam Sandler when he’s an old man, or Ben Stiller, or even Jerry Seinfeld. It just doesn’t appeal to me.

Joe Franklin was at the last Friars Club event.

Yeah.

Are you guys friends now?

Yeah, we’re pals. It’s about as friendly as you can get with Joe Franklin. He’s going to be at the next party, too, and I’m going to have him give a little speech. I go to his house too, and I bring guests. It’s the thing to do, go to his office. It’s like an episode of Hoarders, with stuff piled high. And there’s a little path leading to his desk. It’s an amazing thing to behold. And he’s only been there for five or six years—it’s not like he’s been that for 40 years.

When the hurricane was going to hit, I asked people to stop by his office to make sure he didn’t get buried by his stuff.

We’ve become pals. We don’t talk about certain things. He loves the books. He fancies himself a Jewish comedian now. When he does live shows, he tells jokes. If Joe Franklin and I can become friends, anything is possible.

Can you give a little background or your relationship with Joe?

This is ancient news at this point, but 25 years ago, I did a comic strip called “The Incredible Shrinking Joe Franklin.” It was in Heavy Metal. It was a one-page strip. It was a parody of The Incredible Shrinking Man,” but it was Joe Franklin. Panel by panel, he would start shrinking. It was part one. He’s not miniscule at the end. He’s just getting smaller and smaller.

He saw it and he sued Heavy Metal and me and National Lampoon company for $40 million. It was a reasonable sum at the time, I thought. If I had it, I’d give it to him. Unfortunately, I only had $9 in my bank account at the time. It didn’t go to trial, but it got some publicity in The New York Times and The New York Post. It was dismissed by a judge, because it was obviously a parody. It’s water under the bridge. It happens.

It’s the only time I’ve been sued. The stuff is clearly a parody. But Joe is a little touchy about his height. That’s all. He’s a little guy. But I love him. All I ever wanted to do as a kid was watch Our Gang, The Three Stooges, Popeye, Soupy Sales, F-Troop, and Joe Franklin.

[Concluded in Part Four]

–Brian Heater

In this second part of our interview with the Old Jewish Comedians author, we discuss the late-Mickey Freeman, the search for Don Rickles’s real name and why Sid Caesar called Fantagraphics to yell at Kim Thompson.

[Part One]

Have you genuinely become friends with any of the subjects of these books?

Yeah. Mickey Freeman especially. He was like a mascot for the book. When I do my little tribute to him [at the Friars Club event], I’ll talk about it. He became something of a mascot for the book, because he was not only thrilled to be in the first once, he was constantly calling to suggest his friends—some people I’d never heard of, like Bobbie Baker, who I’d put in the second book. I said, “who is she?” [In Mickey’s voice] “She was the queen of the cruise ships!” I’d never known that. She wrote me or called me, and it worked out. She had a good face, and I put her in.

He hooked me up with Larry Storch and Eddie Lawrence and a few others. And some I’d never heard of, like a guy named Van Harris—who I’m sure you’ve never heard of. He was in on the Borsch Belt and Catskills in the 40s and 50s. There are photos of him performing with Joey Lewis, so, he had some kind of a career. But I asked Mickey, “Van Harris – is he Jewish?” He goes, “oh course!” Like he wouldn’t waste my time with anybody who’s not Jewish. But I didn’t waste my time with the guy, because he was a little put off. He sent me a bunch of photos of him in his prime, and I said, “no, Mickey kind of misrepresented the book.” I’m not drawing you guys back in the day, when you were young. I’m drawing you as you are now.” And he was a bit thrown off by that. So, Van Harris is not in the new book [laughs].

That’s as friendly as you get with these guys, especially him. But also, Larry Storch is a really great guy. He’s 88 now, and he still loves to perform,  and he still loves the attention. And I talk to Jerry Lewis every once in a while. It’s hard to know if he’s your friend or not. I was sort of in touch with him before these books happened. He called me about some other stuff I had done about him. He was thrilled to be in the first book, but he left me a phone message after it, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. So I called him back. But he wound up loving it.

So, are you actively seeking the participation of the subjects who are still around?

No, not at all. In fact, at first I didn’t want to be in touch with any of them. I never sought them out and asked for photographs or asked for their permission. I just wanted to do it, and just put it out there. And the publisher, Fantagraphics, started sending it out to the comedians, and some of them started calling, and sure enough, they were all thrilled—the still-living ones—were delighted, except for one guy, Jack Carter, who was pissed off. But he’s kind of angry about everything. He wakes up in the morning and he’s angry. So, he was annoyed. He didn’t like the expression I gave him. He didn’t like the liver spots.

My friend Ben Schwartz wrote a piece for the LA Times, and called Jack Carter, who wasn’t aware of the book, and asked, “how do you feel about being in a book called Old Jewish Comedians?” Jack said, “old?” Jack is 88. He said, “old and Jewish? I don’t work Jewish.” I was wondering if he was okay with the word “comedian.” And then he finally saw the book, and then he was really angry. He requested that I redraw him, which I wouldn’t do, because one to a customer.

A couple of other guys claimed that I got their original names wrong, because the only text in the book is their original Jewish names and their show business names, which just about every one of them changed, except for Carl Reiner—his real name is Carl Reiner and Myron Cohen, and there are a couple of others. But overall, they all changed them, so they could work in the clubs.

But a couple of guys claimed that I didn’t get their names right, like Don Rickles. His PR guy contacted us and said, “he’s really angry. His name is not Archibald, it’s Donald Rickles.” So, we said in the second book “Don Rickles says his name is not Archibald, so that will be corrected in a future volume.” Sid Caesar was annoyed. He called Fantagraphics and started yelling at Kim Thompson, because he claimed his name is not Isaac. He was on the phone with him for half an hour. He was doing Jewish schtick and German dialect. Kim was amazed.

If you’re going to get chewed out by anybody...

Yeah. He was amazed. He was delighted. He said, “just who called to yell at me? Sid Caesar.” So, he was annoyed. A couple of other ones were a little off. Kathy, my wife, did some research, but this was a couple of years ago, so most of the research was online. We were a little more careful this time to make sure that the names are exactly right. But there’s always something that falls through the cracks.

Is it that difficult to find their real names? In the case of Don Rickles, do you believe that his name is actually Archibald, but he’s covered it up?

I’m really not sure. He was very adamant that his real name is Donald. I talked to some other comedians, like Bobby Ramsen. He believes that Don Rickles name is Archibald. It was a very popular name in the 20s, when Don was born. A lot of these guys change their name, and they just want to be what they became. They don’t want a reminder of what their original names were.

For the king of venom, Don Rickles, for people to find out his real name is Archibald—imagine him getting heckled. “Hey Archibald.” He does not want that to get out. It’s still possible, of course, that his real name is Donald. We just don’t know for sure.

A couple of years ago, when you Googled his name, Archibald “Don” Rickles would come up over and over again. And Isaac “Sidney” Caesar would come up. So we think that, little by little, they had their people make that information disappear. It’s not that important, but it’s important to these guys that people know them as what they became.

[Continued in Part Three]

–Brian Heater