This conversation between Katie Lane and Jason Overby wrapped earlier in the year. Katie Lane is the artist and author behind the Ignatz nominated Girls Gone Wild series (2dcloud), author of Rheme (Canton Editions), Single Camera Sitcom (Comics Blogger Books) as well as the co-editor of Altcomics Magazine 7 (2dcloud), and co-editor publisher of Bernadette Magazine. Jason Overby is a wildly undersung cartoonist, creator of Record, Jessica, Exploding Head Man, and co-creator of the comic forum Co-mix / comets comets (2009-2011).

I want to thank Katie and Jason for taking part. Please enjoy :)

Katie
So, how do you want this to go? I actually didn’t send you what I thought I was going to send you. So I’m sorry about that.

Jason
That’s okay. I don’t know. We can just talk. Did you have some questions that you were thinking you wanted to ask of me?

Katie
Mm. Yeah. I mean, there’s a few ideas I have or things that I’m interested in, and I think I could go about talking to you about, like the first one is: how did you come about this? Because your style is very textual. It’s very much about, or it seems like to me, it’s very much about the organization of text, which

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
maybe all comics are, but it is in this self-reflexive way where you’re drawing attention to the text or estranging the text from where it’s supposed to be, like you’ll be writing words in a gutter or something like that,

Jason
Right.

Katie
just like really using all of the kinds of conventional comic tools. But instead of exclusively offering an image-forward perspective, you foreground the text. So how did you come about that or when did you start working in this style?

Jason
That’s a good question. I don’t know for sure. One thing I’ll say is, I feel like I am more comfortable writing than drawing.

Katie
Uh-huh. Yeah.

Jason
I went to art school, and, I don’t know, art school is not necessarily about technical proficiency in any particular medium. And I think, maybe, drawing is a little more stressful for me than writing. So maybe that’s part of it. Part of it, I was just, I rediscovered recently... So, when Understanding Comics came out, I feel like that was a really big book for comics, for people in comics at the time. For me, it was a pretty big book. I thought it was cool as a work of theory. I think that post Understanding Comics, particularly, maybe not immediately, but there became this kind of mode of making comics that became the accepted mode of doing it that seem to be related to Understanding Comics, the book, that was really, like, show don’t tell. That was about creating, it was almost like a play or something where there are characters that are shown mostly full-bodied in an environment, and there wasn’t often a lot of extra-diegetic information. The only words were dialogue, things like that. And that became a pretty dominant mode of indie comics around the turn of the millennium. There was an article around that time in the Comics Journal from a cartoonist named Dylan Horrocks that was kind of against that or just questioning that idea and questioning the idea of comics as a “medium” that is separate from other media and that has inherent properties that are comics-specific. You definitely heard at the time, and you still hear people saying “that’s a pure comic” or, you know, whatever. There were a lot of comics - there was a book that came out in 2000 called Comix 2000 that was just image-only comics by a lot of international cartoonists, cartoonists from around the world. The thing of the book was that you weren’t allowed to have text in it, which was partially because it was international, so there were no language barriers but it also felt related to this more formal idea. And so the Dylan Horrocks’ piece was just, I don’t know, questioning what is a comic, and I thought that that was interesting, and so when I finally... I grew up liking comics, but when I finally started feeling comfortable enough to make comics, I really was into questioning a lot of the assumptions of what constituted a comic. And, for me, some of it is just the kind of affectations that have developed around comics, like panels, word balloons, thought bubbles, like those types of things. And then the other part, I think, is related to using words, which is rhythm. I think one thing that is interesting to me is the rhythm between panels and how you structure things so that people experience a certain idea or set of words in a particular sequence and the way that they might read that to themselves. So, I don’t know, those were probably some of the reasons. I’m not sure any more specifically than that.

Katie
No, I mean, I still think that that is a relevant. I mean, it’s like a relevant problem,

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
or a perennial problem maybe. In comics where it is this kind of like - there has always this, been flow. I think of like work that’s more graphic. And then the image, the text becomes like an image

Jason
Right.

Katie
in a kind of a specific way where it’s like, the text, the speech box is basically just to, you know, redouble the visual

Jason
Right.

Katie
material, or it never undermines it or if it does undermine it, it does in this way that’s kind of explicit or obvious, so you can really be aware that it’s being undermined.

Jason
Right. It’s almost like irony as opposed to maybe they exist as separate channels of information, and they’re providing you different information. I think one thing that’s really interesting about the comics you make is the way that you are using text as a visual element because the

Katie
Hmm.

Jason
writing is very handmade, not like a lot of older cartoonists or people who are more immersed in comics history, they strive to create something that looks almost mechanical, but not mechanical,

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
they don’t want to use a font, but

Katie
No,

Jason
but

Katie
yeah.

Jason
yours feels more human, and I think

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
that’s cool.

Katie
No, I mean, for me, it is about the, I don’t know... I mean, I feel like my lettering has been kind of controversial in some people’s like minds insofar as I talk to people about it and they’re like, why is it like this or something like that?

Jason
Right.

Katie
And yeah, it’s the human voice is the effect I’m going

Jason
Yep.

Katie
for. It has to have this like fingerprint quality. Like, unique, I guess is what I mean.

Jason
Totally.

Katie
So yeah, there is like, well, because in comics, I mean, in your comics, I think like the fun, there is a textual consistency.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
To a certain level, I don’t know when exactly you started doing this exact kind of style that you do now or, you know, there are these like kind of large letter-forms that are relatively consistent, and it seems like you’re working those, it’s like you must be laboring over that, for most of the work of the page is like working on those things.

Jason
Yeah, I

Katie
Maybe.

Jason
think, with certain things, definitely that’s true. Like for a while, I was, and I still do this sometimes, like, I use this set of rubber stamps. I got like over 20 years ago, but these rubber

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
stamps for letters that have, you know, part of the charm is that since I’ve had them for so long, they’ve actually degraded through their use, and they were pretty crummy to begin with, but there’s some kind of nice aspect to that.

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
I think I liked that it’s kind of human but also mechanical and also kind of a way to remove myself, my persona. But then the opposite is actually drawing letters in a way that’s pretty specific, that is more decorative,

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
maybe subtly questioning the idea of letters as just a way to convey textual information, but instead, highlighting the fact that letters themselves are a visual element in the comic. I think I was probably always doing that to some degree, and I’ve made comics where some of the idea was questioning words themselves as concepts,

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
showcasing in a drawing, instead of drawing a tree, having the word “tree” or something like that,

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
as a way to kind of suggest that the boundaries between things in the world are relatively permeable and not as hard-lined as they might be in a drawing or especially in a comic type drawing. Using words in that way I think is interesting too.

Katie
Yeah, I remember I was getting really bored of drawing with my pen

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
or something, and I was just kind of frustrated with the way I was drawing, and I was talking to Blaise about it, and I was like, you know, it doesn’t make sense to draw with a pen

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
in the

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
way, I don’t know, it’s

Jason
Totally.

Katie
because there aren’t lines in the world or black, like hard demarcations of forms is not the way that, like, it’s kind of the way that perception

Jason
Right.

Katie
works, you know, the way that we conceptualize objects to hold shapes

Jason
Yep.

Katie
and then naming them or whatever, but there isn’t a clean visual, like, light, as far as the light is concerned.

Jason
Right. It’s a vestige from illustration in the past or comics in the

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
past or whatever.

Katie
Yeah, and I think that I still always find that kind of confusing or something, and I don’t really know where to go with that. But I do understand that idea. I mean, I had this idea when I was doing this comic called Single Camera Sitcom where the whole thing was like digital collage

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
basically, and I started to get really tripped out by the fact that the letters that I was putting into it were also images or something and that they have the same quality as an accumulation of pixels on a screen or

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
something, but since we relate to them differently in a sensational capacity. I thought

Jason
Right.

Katie
that was a big realization for me at a certain point.

Jason
Yeah, it’s kind of

Katie
Uh

Jason
arbitrary that words are this other thing, when ultimately it’s all just a drawing, or, ha ha, in that case, a collage, some form of presenting an image in some way, it’s always an image, whether it’s, a letter-form or a tree or whatever. For a little while I was making these drawings where I would draw a dense pattern and then I would do this process of drawing on top of it and erasing it, and a lot of that was a way of making those lines muddy or making it

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
to where there was less of a distinction between objects or concepts, and it was just kind of this environment, like white noise,

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
and as a way to kind of questioning the idea of the distinction between different objects in an environment. Because, yeah, in comics, it’s so clear. If you look at Chris Ware or Ivan Brunetti or something like that, the, forms are, or Ernie Bushmiller, forms are very separate from each other and they’re very specific and clear, they’re all, it’s almost like a pictogram, like drawing

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
as language or something like that.

Katie
Yeah, I guess I’d be interested to, just because we’re different, we’re different ages, and

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
I think we have different reference points

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
what work was really the work that you were like “I am in this”, or, you know, I feel like we all make choices to be a part of

Jason
Yep.

Katie
someone’s visual world or something like that. What choices were you making when you were starting or throughout?

Jason
Yeah. When I was little I read superhero comics, and then when I was a teenager, I got into things like Eightball or Love and Rockets or Robert Crumb, and I worked in a comic book store when I was in high school. I really was too inept and not confident enough to make comics. I went to art school, and I think things that were happening around that time were still things like Dan Clowes or Chester Brown or the

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
Hernandez Brothers, Chris Ware. Chris Ware went to the college I went to, and I had professors that would like reference him, and so he was really, really big at that time, but I couldn’t make comics, anything I made was just really, really bad. And then I got a little bit bored of comics

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
for me Chris Ware is not super interesting, a lot of the things that were happening around, you know, late 90s, early 2000s weren’t as interesting as when I first saw Julie Doucet or Chester Brown or something like that, which was really, really exciting to me when I was a teenager, but around

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
2000, it just felt like everyone was doing kind of the same stuff and it was really boring and I just was losing interest. And then Fort Thunder became kind of a big thing.

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
and so I started to see that stuff. And that was just a completely different way of thinking about comics. Like before that

Katie
Yeah, for sure

Jason
it was like everything probably kind of came from Crumb, and maybe from Kurtzman, I don’t know, probably from Crumb.

Katie
Yeah

Jason
It was, like, white dude who has some affinity for cross-hatching, who is misanthropic, and has a negative worldview, all fantasy or superhero things are bad, and I don’t know. That was just the general hegemony of comics

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
at that time. And then Fort Thunder came out and it was completely wild, really interesting mark-making, people who had different reference points visually from the past. Gary Panter became a really big

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
thing. People who are into noise music and things like that. And so that became really, really exciting. And I think that was the thing, it was that and a combination of being really high-energy and really obsessive but also lo-fi,

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
and maybe the kind of like crumbier parts of Gary Panter, gave me more confidence and made me think that I could make stuff. And so when I was first starting to make comics, the first thing I did was this thing called Exploding Head Man, and that was super-influenced by Gary Panter, like the idea of having a character not have a specific style or a specific representation but changing that representation throughout, trying to do it in such a way that it was at least relatively clear what was happening. But I

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
think that, for me, getting away from this really rigid, more constipated way of creating comics and images where you had this plan and you drew everything the same and it was very process-oriented, being able to get away from that was really exciting and allowed me to make stuff.

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
How about you?

Katie
I also grew up reading superhero comics so that was my earliest reference point for, and I mean, I was reading superhero comics in this way that was very, I was like really obsessive about it.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
I was really up on every, I was up on a lot of stuff. I mean, when I was a teenager, or when I was just starting to become a teenager we could read anything on the internet.

Jason
Right.

Katie
Basically, so I didn’t have to buy comics ever. Really.

Jason
Super-interesting.

Katie
When I was really young, my grandma had this huge comic collection because she was just kind of a hoarder

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
and she was interested in the speculator boom in the 90s,

Jason
Oh, yeah.

Katie
and since she had all these Wizard magazines

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
and all these, you know, like every Todd McFarlane comic

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
and that kind of stuff, which, I would flip through those and I would read them kind of, but I don’t really remember any of them, you know?

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
In this way, there’s just like kind of visual information that washed over me but then, yeah, when I was in middle school I could just read comics on my computer like constantly.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
And it was like post-2000s Marvel/DC. So it was just a lot of Grant Morrison,

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
a lot of like Ultimate, the Ultimate line,

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
which was very like youth culture at the time, very Iraq war, Bush type stuff.

Jason
Mm-hmm.

Katie
And then whatever, I kind of just kept reading comics and I, actually, when I was younger, I wanted to write. I wanted to write superhero comics,

Jason
Oh, wow. Uh-huh.

Katie
that was what I ultimately wanted from comic books, is that like I wanted to be like Jamie Delano or something, you know, like I like wanted that kind of life of a script writer.

Jason
Mm-hmm. Right.

Katie
Because I didn’t think I could draw. I didn’t know that drawing was a skill that you could acquire.

Jason
Right.

Katie
At all. I thought it was just like, you know, I grew up in South Carolina, and it’s not a very like open place

Jason
Right.

Katie
in an artistic way, like being really into art is kind of like, you have an ability before, and then you just kind of, it just flows through you

Jason
Totally.

Katie
that’s how they think about it,

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
that they don’t really see it as a thing that you can nurture, foster, be better at or whatever.

Jason
It’s not a growth mindset part of the country.

Katie
Yeah, it’s kind of like you’re born a certain way, and then you die a certain way,

Jason
Yep.

Katie
and what happens in between that is just like a matter of you living through whatever you were given. And I don’t know. So like, whatever, and then I went to college, and that kind of turned into me getting into Love and rockets and like reading Eightball on my computer, like I was really disconnected from anything that anyone was making currently

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
when I was in college because I was, I just never grew up in a metropolitan area, like I had never

Jason
Yeah. Right.

Katie
been around an art culture. And then, but it was crazy, it was just kind of instant. I started working at a comic book store when I moved to New York, and that was where a lot of my, I just had to learn about, I don’t know, I guess it was a little bit before that, I started learning about stuff, but I was just, I just kind of was really abreast on everything that was being published by a publisher.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
In this way, I got really nerdy and obsessive about, like, okay, I need to know everything about comics,

Jason
Yep.

Katie
because I just need to this to be my life or something.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
And then the short, then it just gets really like, you know, when I just was graduating college, it was right when Lale Westvind was really on the scene and

Jason
Yep.

Katie
so was like, Connor Willumsen... Like the generation kind of immediately after, or not generation, but the people immediately after the 2dcloud kind of stuff.

Jason
Yep, yep.

Katie
Um, so like that, like Tommi Parrish.

Jason
I don’t know, Tommi Parrish.

Katie
Yeah, they have a book called, they have a big 2 books from Fantagraphics that are really good. But also Antoine Cossé was really big. There was a lot of European stuff was coming, because Breakdown Press existed at this time, too.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
For me, it was like, this is all stuff that I’m sure you’re aware of, but it was just like stuff I was, you know, my really open, how do I make comic images thing kind of came from, you know, like the stuff that Breakdown was putting out and then also old PictureBox stuff,

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
like all kinds of weird PictureBox floating. Like things where people would be like, oh, we found five million copies of Cola Madnes,

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
and we’re selling these for $5, they’re like, well, I guess I got to buy Cola

Jason
Totally.

Katie
Madnes, you know, like that kind of thing, and specifically got really into people who made images that were more on the abstract side

Jason
Yeah, yeah.

Katie
of comics because I think I knew that I couldn’t produce. Even if I started making... Well, I was making this collage comic at the same time. I was making all these digital images.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
And so I was really into the idea of like flatness in images, just like the lack of the ability to perceive distance

Jason
Yep.

Katie
or depth, became really important to me. So flatness was one of my favorite traits in an artist or something. So I got really into like, Michael Comueau.

Jason
I don’t know that person. How do you... Oh, is it C-O-M-E-A-U?

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
I don’t know if I know him.

Katie
He’s a Canadian guy. He did a book with Koyama called Winter’s Cosmos.

Jason
Oh, interesting. I like these drawings. Yeah, they’re cool.

Katie
Yeah, they’re really cool. And he just had a few different collage zines that I found at various places around the city. Because then I lived in New York so I could just go to a comic book store and people drop things off and they don’t sell, actually, usually, you know, not to be weird, not to be discouraging, but it’s like, you will go, I will go through a big box of zine stuff, and I’ll be like, oh, fuck, why do they have this weird anthology that I know half the people are in this or something like that.

Jason
Right.

Katie
Yeah. Kind of that stuff, like Mirror Mirror,

Jason
Yep.

Katie
that was big for me. And at the same time Gekiga manga became really popular in the United States, like in a publishing sense.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
So I was reading a lot of like Tsuge,

Jason
Yeah, Tatsumi.

Katie
and Seiichi Hayashi and stuff like that.

Jason
Yep.

Katie
Yeah, just like the shit that Ryan Holmberg translates basically

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
became really immediately huge in my imagination. This is kind of before I became peers with anyone though.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
You know what I mean?

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
And then in the 2020s, it became really different because I was actually in a comic scene where I was making comics and everybody else was making comics too. And that’s when I met Angela. And Max Huffman and Floyd Tangeman, Sarah Kirby, Mikael Choukroun, like all these people who were, and Juliette Collet, people who were in their 20s who were living in New York and they were just doing events all the fucking time.

Jason
Yep.

Katie
So they would just be like, releases, comics would come out and they would have a party, or my girlfriend, primarily, ran this figure drawing thing where we would just draw each other and then all these cartoonists would come.

Jason
Yep.

Katie
So it was just kind of this like soup of like hanging out with people. And so it was easy to be like, oh, I’m going to make a comic so I can hang out with these people that I caught.

Jason
Yep.

Katie
For me, it became a very social thing pretty quickly. I don’t know.

Jason
Yeah.

Katie
That’s kind of the story. I also have the same reverence for the stuff that you’re talking about. You know, I love Chester Brown.

Jason
Yeah, Chester Brown’s my favorite.

Katie
Yeah, Chester Brown is amazing.

Jason
I keep wanting to send him zines that I make because like he has his Patreon, and I was subscribing and he’ll just send comics and it’s the coolest thing to get something from Chester Brown.

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
So I grew up in Texas, went to college in Austin, moved to San Diego, was making comics when I lived in San Diego, didn’t really know anybody at all who made comics apart from, well, I did randomly... There was a guy named Alvin Buenaventura who was

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
kind of associated with PictureBox at one point, but he printed Kramer’s Ergot 7, the really big one, and

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
he was randomly in a band with someone that my girlfriend knew at the time, completely unrelated to comics. But so I was kind of friends with him. But then I moved from San Diego to Portland. I didn’t know anybody here making comics. And then after I started making comics. I met a few people, and I don’t even remember how I met Blaise. I think Blaise sent me an email, you know, and we just started emailing each other.

Katie
Yeah, classic.

Jason
Yeah, exactly.

Katie
That’s how I met Blaise.

Jason
That totally makes sense, especially at the time. And then he moved here and he was at one point living in a house or an apartment with Austin English and Jesse McManus, it was like one summer, and we would hang out sometimes. There was also a guy named Dylan Williams who has since passed.

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
He was really awesome. He and Tim Goodyear had this store called The Bad Apple, and so we would go there for drawing nights sometimes. Aidan Koch worked at... I worked for this coffee company called Stumptown in

Katie
Yeah.

Jason
a cafe that was in a hotel, the Ace Hotel, and Aidan worked at the front desk of the hotel.

Katie
Oh, wow.

Next week will conclude this conversation. A version of which will show up in print in Girls Gone Wild 2 [complete edition], now shipping. By becoming a paid subscriber you can help us do more of these artist conversations and get comics in the mail.

Last season (19) includes: Nuie by Nuie, East District by Ash H.G., Egirl Magazine 1 ed. Katherine Dee, La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola, Girls Gone Wild 1 by Katie Lane, Altcomics Magazine 7 ed. Blaise Larmee and Katie Lane, Mirror Mirror 4 ed. Airplane Mode.

Season 20 includes: Sometimes All the Time by Tara Booth, Girls Gone Wild 2 by Katie Lane, La Poderosa 2 by Powerpaola, We Will Raise You! by Junwoo Park, a new comic by Tara Booth, and Mirror Mirror 5 ed. Airplane Mode.

These artist conversations are part of a series that 2dcloud has commissioned. By signing up to our substack House on Fire you can catch them first. By becoming a paid subscriber you will receive an entire season of comics and books in print each year — somewhere between 5-10 titles — mailed directly to you in one burst.

Last season (19) includes: Nuie by Nuie, East District by Ash H.G., Egirl Magazine 1 ed. Katherine Dee, La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola, Girls Gone Wild 1 by Katie Lane, Altcomics Magazine 7 ed. Blaise Larmee and Katie Lane, Mirror Mirror 4 ed. Airplane Mode.

Season 20 includes: Sometimes All the Time by Tara Booth, Girls Gone Wild 2 by Katie Lane, La Poderosa 2 by Powerpaola, We Will Raise You! by Junwoo Park, a new comic by Tara Booth, and Mirror Mirror 5 ed. Airplane Mode.

If you missed SIDE A, click the link.

I again want to thank Wilfred and Ash for taking part. Please enjoy :)

Raighne interjects: Hi guys, thinking about this more as a panel at the moment. [I wanted to ask] — how do you write? Do you write a script formally, do character designs, storyboard / thumbnail? I find myself doing any number of things; writing out partial conversations, character descriptions, ideas in notebooks or on the computer. Sketches of some of these ideas on random pieces of paper, sketchbooks. And then usually I end up iterating as I go about it and refining in a kind of editing form.

Do you have tricks for seeing a project or a piece through? Or do you not really have any problem with that? I mean, outside of money. I have a separate source of income (clinical trials) so doing the work is just something I do on the side initially. And for me, completing something - seeing it through - I have to create like a separate ‘engine’ of just like, enjoying and being compelled [enough] to see it [through] to completion. Which can feel kind of mysterious to me at times. Like knowing yourself well enough to know how you tic. A part of it maybe is the sense of discovery.

Wilfred Santiago: Similar to you. I keep notes, ideas, thumbnails etc. pretty much everything that comes to mind in a small Moleskine. Been doing it this way for years.

A long time ago I began using a 3.5×5.5 Moleskine as a way to slim down and focus on the essentials. Because of its small size it forces me to not waste time on unnecessary details. Thumbnails, characters designs, ideas for dialogue, style approach -- it’s all there. Once I flesh out an idea and figure out what kind of story it’s going to be -- is it funny, scary, sexy time or whatever, I work on the story arc. My first question would be how does the story end? Basically, I think of the end first. Then the beginning of the story, I try to come up with a hook, something to grasp the reader’s attention from the get go. Then figure out what happened between point A and B.

To sum up:

1. Do ending.
2. Do beginning.
3. How do we get from point A to point B.
4. Profit.

Before the drawing begins, I prep by making a nice little playlist that reflects the mood of the story to listen to while I work on said project. I avoid looking at comics; everything else is game: movies, old school illustrators, whatever helps get in the character’s head and story. Once I soak in all that, I’m ready to sketch the pages and that’s when I write a loose script. Stage directions, panel notes and what not are written on the margins as I go along. This progression is not necessarily linear, It’s not like a wave, it’s more like foam coming to the surface. After a scene is completed, I blow the pages up, trace them onto the paperboard. Then I pencil, ink or paint depending on what it is I’m going for, all the while I tighten up the script. Once the art is finished, it gets scanned. Edits, color, balloons, rewrites, lettering are finished in photoshop until it looks like I know what the fuck I’m doing and it’s ready to print. I mean, it’s all fluid and sometimes things end up being something completely different from how it started or the original intent.

Below: (Finished page from Thunderbolt vs. the sketched version)

[Relating to seeing a project through]: Well, it’s been a ton of years, I have done a lot of dumb shit to see a project completed. I don’t have a method per se other than to keep my eyes on the prize. Once a goal is set I relentlessly pursue it, sometimes to my own detriment. Always been like that. Although as of late I’m not sure if that holds tru[e] since I haven’t been tested in a while. Right after the marketing failure of Thunderbolt I began adapting a book called Rocket Men, the story of the first crew mission to the moon. I greatly enjoyed reading the book and later find out its author Robert Kurson, lived in the same neighborhood as I. I met and spoke with him, and he gave me the green light to do it. Then the COVID hoax happened. Everything got flipped over its head, killing the project. After some forced time off and a number of attempts, I haven’t got a graphic novel published since.

Ash H.G. [responding to Raighne’s question about how he writes and storyboards]: I’ve written a tight panel to panel and page to page script, general outline plot scripts, as well as a more stream of consciousness approach with no script or outline. The method that I found that works best for me is ensuring first, I have a story that has an end to it. Then writing an outline of the overall story. If that’s all good and I like that, then I will really dive into character designs and storyboarding/thumbnailing. I’ve approached trying to complete stories without having an ending, and working out the character designs and storyboard/thumbnails first, but most of those stories ended up not getting finished.

I have held a day job or multiple day jobs up to this point in my career; if feasible, I will do some thumbnailing, sketching, and character designs on my shift, and might use some of those ideas for the story. Of course when I’m off of work I put more time into fleshing out the details of the story. I come up with [some] dialogue while thumbnailing, and [more dialogue while doing other things]. then build the page layout based around the dialogue. Just depends on wh[at] pops into my head first.

AHG [responding to how to finish a project]: As far as tricks go, I’d say mentally focusing on being able to let the art go. Meaning, it’s okay if it’s not up to the standards you had in mind to a degree. If it’s not “perfect”, that’s okay. At some point it’s more important to get the work out into the world and deal with critiques and reviews later. You can always redo it or take what lessons and criticism you may have received, into the next story. Also experimenting and trying different styles that may speed up your process.

I’d also say, and this may sound cliche, but complete a story so you know what it feels like. Even if it’s just a one page comic strip, a two panel or single panel strip. Complete something. If you’re working on a comic and can’t figure out an ending to it, tag, “the end” on the very last panel and see what happens. Cut up the strip - rearrange panels - label “the end” on different panels and see what happens.

Up to this point for me, the only challenges I’ve had when it comes to completing a story is not respecting the flow of the story. If I don’t respect the tandem of the story things can fall apart. Hopefully my feedback does not sound too contradictory.

AHG: [Wilfred, ] I looked up those manga books you mentioned [earlier — The Way of the Househusband and Oishinbo]. I think it’s so incredible how they make stories on such a wide range of subject matter. I really dig that about manga. Have you ever heard of Ebisu Yoshikazu? Man, I think his work is incredible — super raw. Very curious to know what you think of his work, lol. He started making comics in the early ‘70s. Not a lot of his work has been translated I believe. But at that link the publisher Breakdown Press has published two of his books. And yes, that Crow soundtrack is classic.

WS: I’ve not read Yoshikazu but I’m definitely familiar with his stuff. He has such a distinct style, hard to overlook. I did find The Pits of Hell on the Internet Archives, it’s going to be quite an interesting bedtime reading for me. As a creator, once I was introduce[d] to manga it was quite liberating knowing you can literally make comics about anything. Which mangakas do. I’m sure there is one out there about the joys of chewing gum.

AHG: With the Marvel and DC movies being so big now, have you experienced any sort of different treatment when you tell people you make comics? Or do you keep that on the down low?

WS: You are assuming that I talk to anybody.

AHG: I am curious to know what you may be currently working on and how that is coming along?

Attached is a photo of the sketch for our collab drawing, but would like to fill it in a little bit more before sending it to you (scanning).

Will do my best to get the drawing to you before April 1st. Just a heads up if I don’t it’s because I’m finishing the story I’m doing for the anthology.

Hope ya dig it.

WS: Send your pencils when you [are] finished and I’ll take it from there. Looking forward to it.

Nothing big. At the moment I’m working on a short story for Mirror Mirror. Which reminds me, I’m way behind my deadline. Gotta go.

AHG: I am doing a story for Mirror Mirror as well. Will answer your question and respond in the coming days. And okay, sounds good about the pencils.

I’m on a deadline for April 1st to finish my contribution to the Mirror Mirror anthology. Been focusing on that lately.

AHG: What’s on your nightstand right now?

WS: [I’m] looking forward to see[ing] your Mirror Mirror stuff. I’m late as fuck with my piece so no rush in sending the scan, although that’s gonna be fun. Are these guys on top of Cafe & Grocery on Lasko?

Without my knowledge over the weekend, my son went through my stash of comics and later told his mother that he read an “inappropriate book”. The book in question, East District. LOL.

AHG: I hadn't thought of it being Cafe & Grocery on Lasko, but will make it this. Thanks for the idea! lol.

Oh boy, I guess we're both in trouble now huh, lol.

Thanks, I am looking forward to seeing your piece as well. Raighne showed some pages from it and I'm very intrigued to read the rest of it.

On my nightstand: I recently finished Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I tried reading it many years ago but at the time I wasn't able to get into it. Now I'm currently reading The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos.

What have you been reading lately?

WS: Calvin and Hobbes.

AHG: Previously you mentioned it can be challenging to sell a story/book, what do you think it is about comics that keeps you coming back to it? You have this amazing skillset to be able to do commercial work and also more alternative type work, and even being able to blend the two together. Did you teach yourself photoshop and how to work digitally for aspects of your work, or took some classes also?

“You are assuming that I talk to anybody”—lol, that's fair. If that's the case, what's a usual work day like when you are working on a project?

WS: When selling a book a lot of publishers won’t give you the time of day unless you have an agent. I had an agent a while ago but he was an absolute abject failure so I dropped him, which limits the number of potential publishers. Comics is like making little movies but a lot cheaper, where you’re the writer, the director, set designer, etc. so whatever message you’re trying to convey or explore is minimally distilled. In a movie there’s so many obstacles, dealing with hundreds of people, plus cost. Speaking of movies, when I worked on my graphic novel THUNDERBOLT: An American Tale, I hoped to turn it into an animated movie. I even did an original score. If you’re interested or need some background noise, you can listen to it at: www.goodwilfred.com/ost

Unfortunately, it never worked out. No one even read the damn book because the scummy “publisher” couldn’t even get it to the comics stores. So it was DOA. It was an enormous amount of work, and it took me years to morally recuperate and start doing comics again. I can send you a copy of the book if you like. I got hundreds of [them]. I could literally do a comic book on the walls with zero money if I have to. That’s the beauty of it. My approach to comics is very old school, I start with a pencil on paper, I don’t have a tablet or any of that. The photoshop program I use is the same I started using in the late 90s, mostly for practical reasons. The fuck I’m going to pay a subscription to Adobe to use my shit. I’m self-taught. Everything I’ve learned is through trial and error.

So what is it about comics that keeps me coming back? That I can.

Let’s see...I get up around 2:30 am, make coffee, fix my son’s lunch and prep ahead for dinner. We all love to eat, and I love to cook, so I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Then drop the kid at school, come back home and have a cider, check email, do business-related stuff. Have brunch while reading the news, curse, then do art stuff— I’m currently working on a submission for a new graphic novel. Do more house chores. Groom, curse, think about doing exercise, have a couple of bourbon shots, do more art stuff, pick up the boy at school, cook dinner, have another drink, spend time with the family, watch a movie, laugh, curse, doom scroll, masturbate, cry, pass out. Rinse and repeat. Something like that.

AHG: In response to your answers and concluding the interview, man I can relate to the last sentence of the routine you speak of. I don't have any children myself though. For my current day job I have to get up early, so it makes working late challenging Sunday through Thursday. Later this week [week 3 of May] I start classes for a data analytics certification, in the hopes that it will lead to a better paying day job, and better working hours; at least hours that I prefer and don't mind working. Within the past couple of years I have had some major health challenges, so that's made life that much more interesting for me.

I already have a copy of THUNDERBOLT: An American Tale. You can send a copy for Raighne though if you'd like. And thank you for offering. It's a really beautiful book and I'm always impressed whenever I view /read it. Your work has always given me the spark of, "oh shit, I gotta step my game up" feeling.

I most certainly will listen to the rest of the THUNDERBOLT soundtrack. I started listening to it while typing this and dig it.

Thank you for being so honest about explaining your routine and challenges you've encountered on the business side of things. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of this new graphic novel submission you are working on, and also reading your story that will be in the new Mirror Mirror. Raighne showed me some pages of it, and I can't wait to read the entire story.

I think the transparency in the last sentence sounds like a good way to conclude the interview. And again, I can relate to that so much. To the point that I really appreciate you sharing that and releasing that out into the world. Thanks for your time Wilfred. Have a blessed rest of the year.

On a side note, working on the colors for the piece. Should be done this week or early next week.

Best wishes with everything that lies ahead.

This concludes this conversation. A version of which will show up in print in Mirror Mirror 5, which is due out later this year, and is part of Season 20. By becoming a paid subscriber you can help us do more of these artist conversations and get comics in the mail.

Subscribe now

Last season (19) includes: Nuie by Nuie, East District by Ash H.G., Egirl Magazine 1 ed. Katherine Dee, La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola, Girls Gone Wild 1 by Katie Lane, Altcomics Magazine 7 ed. Blaise Larmee and Katie Lane, Mirror Mirror 4 ed. Airplane Mode.

Season 20 includes: Sometimes All the Time by Tara Booth, Girls Gone Wild 2 by Katie Lane, La Poderosa 2 by Powerpaola, We Will Raise You! by Junwoo Park, a new comic by Tara Booth, and Mirror Mirror 5 ed. Airplane Mode.

This conversation between Ash H.G. and Wilfred Santiago was conducted over email from the fall of 2024 to the spring of 2025, with some of the imagery arriving into our in-box last month. I want to thank Ash and Wilfred for taking part. Please enjoy :)

Ash H.G.: Hello Wilfred, thank you for being open to having this chat. I really love your work. I remember reading in an interview you did some time ago that when you did 21, the Roberto Clemente book, it was a part of a series of biography books you wanted to do. Now that you've done a few biography books, are you going to transition back to doing more personal or fictional work, or keep doing biographies?

Wilfred Santiago: Hey, Ash, thanks for reaching out. I will tackle this over the weekend. Just received my copy of East District. Congratulations! Hope everything's well.

WS: So—It was always my intention to do a trilogy of biographies, so that’s done. Well, except for the third one, Thunderbolt, a biography about American abolitionist John Brown. it was never completed in full. It was supposed to be two volumes but only volume one was published, and it’s very unlikely part two will ever get done. This is a little bittersweet because I do consider Thunderbolt to be my best work. C'est la vie. I’m in a stage in life where I have more ideas that I can do with them, fictional and personal. I just haven’t had any luck selling any of them. I have to be very selective on what to spend three to five years working on, which is the average [time] it takes me to finish a graphic novel. I suppose for the right price I would do another biography but I did what I set out to do in that regard.

AHG: Hey Wilfred, I meant to say thank you on the ‘congratulations’ you said before —thank you, I appreciate it. It feels great having the book in print.

Do you feel like it is harder nowadays to sell a story that will be a graphic novel than in previous years? I myself fell heavily into the whole, "make what you love doing into your full-time job. That way, you are never really working" ideology. Of course, it turned out it is not that simple, and can be far more complex than that. I have a day job ya know, I have a bunch of ideas for stories as well. But it's tough out here.

WS: Nothing like the feel of a freshly baked book in your hands, right? I’ve done superheroes, smut, biographies, psychological thrillers, horror, sci-fi, funny books, you name it. Personally, sometimes I’ve felt like being put in a box, and I have no interest in that. Variety is the spice of life. Back in the days I earned pretty good dough working in mainstream comics. I would have killed myself if I had spent a quarter of a century drawing superheroes. Trying to do something else is more complicated for sure. There have been times where I had to put the apron back on, so to speak. Thankfully I haven’t had a real job in a very long time. I have no idea what’s going on in the comics business today, or who buys comics, I pretty much don’t read comics. I grab something once in [a] blue moon but it’s usually something old or that I have read before.

Actually, as far as I can recall, East District is the first new graphic novel I have read in years. I enjoyed it very much. Visually, it has a timeless appeal to me. Like it could have been published in ‘88, ‘98 or 2008. What was the inspiration behind the story?

AHG: Exactly, the fresh smell of paper is a sweet smell indeed.

Oh thank you, this means a lot. I'm really glad to hear you like it. I take making comics seriously, especially the different methods that can be used to tell a compelling story. I take great joy in studying comics/sequential storytelling. The inspiration behind the story comes from a few different places. [Primarily] it derives from me needing to express certain highly emotional things I've experienced in life. I like relating it to the blues, I want to express my woes. And [I] want to continue to do so. So that was the primary inspiration behind the story. Also, East District came out of my first graphic novel called Children of the Black Circus (COTBC). Only portions of it were released but never the entire book/story to the public. My editor Raighne, got ahold of one of the mini-comics I put out [of] it, and asked after reading the entire COTBC pdf I sent him, would I be willing to rework the story to make a new graphic novel.

I was thrilled to say ‘hell yes’, lol. Because although I think portions of COTBC are good and still hold up, the book as a whole I did not like and think fell flat on executing some of its essential strong qualities.

So the other inspiration was to make something I can be proud of and stand behind. Especially being a debut book. I know everything I do may not fit into this standard that I have, but will aim for them to be ya know.

In My Darkest Hour has those blues qualities I'm speaking of. I assume it must have been cathartic for you doing that book? That book is set in Chicago--that's where I live currently. How long were you here for and do you prefer where you are [now] more? I'm asking because I find the location of where artists reside super interesting. Especially within comics because for a very long time it seemed like you had to be in NYC inorder to "break in" (I believe you used to live there right?). Now it's totally different. Portland, OR has been the hotspot for comics for sometime now.

WS: In My Darkest Hour was the first full graphic novel I wrote on my own, so I followed the old maxim about writing what you know. South Side Chicago was rough, I mean, fast food joints with barred windows, street blocks of abandoned homes and what not. But you could get a gallon of Olde English for like $1.75 so there’s that. I didn’t even know those existed. Anyway, Hyde Park is like an island in the middle of all that, a nice neighborhood college town where I spent my first 5 years in Chicago, an adventurous time which comprised most of the inspiration for In My Darkest Hour. Was it cathartic? Maybe at the time.

I lived in NYC during the mid 90’s before landing in Chicago and staying there for about 20 years until 2022. At the beginning my interest was solely in mainstream comics, so it was great timing to be in NY since the big two are located there. Periodically I’d go portfolio in hand to their offices unannounced and pester them, looking for a break ’till I got one with Milestone Media. By the time I moved to Chicago I was done with superheroes, began collaborating with Canadian artist Ho Che Anderson, and focused on different kinds of stories. Do I prefer living where I am now? For the kind of lifestyle I live these days, yes. I’m in the right place.

How about you, how long have you been in Chicago? Are any of the characters or places in East District borrowed from your experiences?

AHG: Yes, I remember reading about you and Ho Che Anderson's collaborative work. I believe you and him did a book called Pop Life.

I've been in Chicago for [10] years now. It will be 11 [years] in October. Some of East District is borrowed from my experiences. For one, the main characters being of-color. I myself am a male of color, and creating a world where the lead characters are a reflection of some of the communities, people, and friends I grew up around, was a big inspiration for me. Growing up I became a big fan of The Cure (and still am). What struck me deeply is how Robert Smith is so vulnerable with his lyrics. Hearing a male do that was such a big deal to me when I first heard them many years ago. And I could relate to some of the lyrics, so his lyrics struck me that much deeper. And of course the different atmospheres created by their musicianship. On page 28, the last panel is from a drawing I did of a gangway here in Chicago. On the following page 29, that last panel is from a drawing I did of a bridge I used to go under when heading to an old job.

Before you said you don't read comics much, is it a combination of time and not much [that] has held your interest? Like are there other storytelling mediums you have been preferring more than comics?

WS: I don’t get moved much by new comics or movies, let alone music, which had as much influence on my work as comics itself. I do remember years ago buying and absolutely digging The Way of the Househusband and Oishinbo, a couple of manga that I loved enough that kept me engaged.

My introduction to The Cure was through the first The Crow comics back in 1990 before I even heard their music. Author James O’Barr used “The Hanging Garden” lyrics in one of his illustrations. And of course later Smith wrote a song for the movie adaptation. Pretty good soundtrack by the way, perhaps better than the movie.

How old were you the first time you heard The Cure?

Maybe for our collaboration we should mash an East District location with Smith and The Crow? I don’t know, just an idea.

AHG: That's a great idea - I'm hella down to explore that mash up and see what comes out of it. I will start penciling next week. When I'm done I'll scan it then send it to ya. I had no idea Cure lyrics were featured in The Crow comics. I didn't know it was a comic 'til some years later after I saw the movie.

I was around, let's see... my preteens for sure. My mom would play some of their music in the house a lot, and that's how I first heard them. She really likes the songs "Lullaby", and the "Purple Haze" cover they did.

Next week will conclude this conversation. A version of which will show up in print in Mirror Mirror 5, which is due out later this year, and is part of Season 20. By becoming a paid subscriber you can help us do more of these artist conversations and get comics in the mail.

—Sometimes All the Time Book 1 by Tara Booth
—Girls Gone Wild 2 by Katie Lane
—La Poderosa 2 by Powerpaola
—Mirror Mirror 5 ed. Airplane Mode
—We Will Raise You! by Junwoo Park
—and a bonus comic by Tara Booth, which will close out the season.

^ Sometimes All the Time Book 1 | Tara Booth • 9781937541545 • 112pp • 6 × 8.8” • color • $16.99 MSRP. Now shipping! Included in the back of the book is a guest comic by Tommi Parrish, a pin-up by Kyung-Me, letters from artist friends and peers, a conversation between Tara Booth and Raighne, and a preview of Book 2.

^ Girls Gone Wild 2* | Katie Lane • 9781937541743 • 40pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • color • $6.99 MSRP. *available in two editions; a very limited riso ashcan and a color offset. 24pp and 40pp respectively. The ashcan edition launches at Desert Island this Thursday. The color offset edition includes an extensive artist conversations between Katie Lane and Jason Overby.

^ La Poderosa 2: Aguas | Powerpaola • 9781937541750 • 48pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • color • $15.99 MSRP. Included in the back of the comic is an artist conversation in English and Spanish with illustrations between Powerpaola and Inés Estrada.

^ Mirror Mirror 5 | Airplane Mode • 9781937541767 • 152pp • 6 × 8.8” • color • $19.99 MSRP. This volume features work by Daisuke Ichiba, Yvan Algabé, Alice Bartolini, Andrea Bjurström, Steve Grove, Ash H.G., Wilfred Santiago, Nicholas Breutzman, Junwoo Park, Ellen Redshaw, Aidan Koch, Janne Marie Dauer, Jason Overby, Snail, Eduardo Crespo, Taro Kanafuro; artist conversations between Tommi Parrish × Jul Gordon, Ash H.G. × Wilfred Santiago, Connor Willumsen × Henry McClellan; and writing from Nina Power, Brianna Perry, Tao Lin, Jillian Hirsh, Meeks Morpus, Snail, M2. *note: the final lineup will likely see some changes…

^ We Will Raise You! | Junwoo Park • 9781937541774 • 72pp • 6 × 8.8” • color • $15.99 MSRP. Included in the back of the book is a drawn conversation between Apolo Cacho × Junwoo Park.

Illustrations for this season are by Powerpaola.
note: we’ll have more to share about the bonus comic from Tara Booth at a later date :)

For a limited time, if you subscribe to our substack at the annual rate you will get season 19 and season 20 mailed to you at a significant discount. If you live outside the US there will be an additional shipping fee.

Title: Sometimes All the Time Book 1
Author: Tara Booth
Price: $16.99
Publisher: 2dcloud
Format: perfect bound book, 6 × 8.8”
Number of Pages in Finished Book: 112
ISBN: 9781937541545
Publication: May 20 2026
Distribution: Direct - 2dcloud.com
Publicity: Melissa Carraher, melissa@2dcloud.com

Synopsis

Time is running out on our love. In Tara Booth’s new book series ‘Sometimes All the Time’, she guides us down a rabbit hole of memories while looking for love and meaning. Many works—scanned from diary entries, sketchbooks, and painted comics—cohere into an astonishingly uncensored narrative revolving around breakups, open relationships, drunken escapades, and quiet meditative moments in nature. Gorgeous and colorfully uninhibited—Tara is a hilarious and endearing minx who will steal your heart. Included are letters from artist friends and peers, an extended interview with the author, a guest comic by Tommi Parrish, and a preview from book 2.

Author Bio

Tara Booth is an Eisner and Ignatz Award Winning comic artist, illustrator and painter from Philadelphia. Tara’s candid autobiographical comics shed lightness and humor on issues related to mental health, addiction, and sexuality. Known for her painterly approach to comics, often using bright colors and dizzying patterns- Booth’s work has been featured in publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Vice, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Best American Comics. Tara loves to travel and hike with her two dogs.

Instagram: Tara Booth

Praise for Sometimes All the Time Book 1

“Booth’s mix of scrawly pencil drawings and fully realized, full-color paintings shows off her versatility and skill. Her funky style, whimsical humor, and poignant honesty will delight fans old and new.” —Publishers Weekly

“Fragmented, shimmering, filling up space: messy and alive.” —Janne Marie Dauer (AUERHAUS)

“You have so much trust and fluidity in your drawing style! (obsessed)”—Tommi Parrish (THE PAST IS A GROTESQUE ANIMAL, MEN I TRUST)

“I’m amazed by the way your characters move and bend themselves. Your art looks like there is still the child drawing spirit in it, behind your technical abilities.” —Julie Delporte (PORTRAIT OF A BODY, THIS WOMAN’S WORK)

“...thank you very much for showing me your colorful life full of truth.” —Powerpaola (VIRUS TROPICAL, ALL MY BICYCLES, LA PODEROSA)

“I can’t stop laughing when I read your comics. The faces, the way the bodies are drawn. [...] I think your storytelling is radical.” —Jul Gordon (PARC, SAME POSITION DIFFERENT SITUATION, IT’S OK TO GIVE IT A TRY)

“...your drawings go beyond the expected emotional reach of cartoon iconography. It’s like you’re drawing the feeling itself more than the way it might normally read on a face or in a gesture.” —Steve Grove (WILDLIFE FINDINGS)

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER

2dcloud
ATTN: Tara Booth
PO BOX 25730
Chicago IL 60625

^ write Tara to have your letters in print for book 2!

Krazy Kat was an ongoing daily strip produced by cartoonist George Herriman during the first half of the 20th century. Herriman’s strip is populated by idiosyncratic animals: the eponymous Krazy, a black cat; Ignatz, a mouse; and Offissa Pupp, a dog, amongst other characters. At the center of Herriman’s tableau is the love triangle occurring between Krazy, Ignatz, and Offissa Pupp.

Diagram illustrating love triangle among the three major characters in Krazy Kat

The illustration above can be further simplified to:

Krazy <——> Ignatz: Primary heart direction

Krazy <—x—> Offissa Pupp: Secondary love flow

Ignatz <—~—> Offissa Pupp: Tertiary heart arrow

The main love-diagonal occurs between Krazy and Ignatz, in which Krazy’s desire for Ignatz remains impossible. The key drama of Krazy Kat is Ignatz’s casting of a brick at Krazy’s head. The brick, as will be elaborated later, is somewhat of an object in the classic Freudian sense and consequently serves as Krazy’s primordial love vision. For Krazy (and rightly so) the brick is Ignatz’s reciprocation of her desire. The secondary love-diagonal connects Offissa Pupp, a necessary foil to Ignatz’s depravity, to Krazy, who largely seems oblivious to or uninterested in Offissa Pupp’s attraction. Often, Krazy is hostile to Pupp’s intervention in the familiar ritual of Ignatz beaning her head. Many strips end with Offissa Pupp arresting Ignatz and jailing him. The final, and less direct but still generative, love-diagonal aligns Ignatz and Offissa Pupp as Krazy’s ‘ill-suitors.’ Dog and mouse, Pupp and Ignatz, bisect in their representational contrast to the cat and its nature. Cat needs mouse, and dogs are only in sharp relief against a feline background, but dog and mouse only intersect so far as their feline (or anti-feline) interests. Krazy Kat operates on several registers, all frequently parallel to the strip’s provisional plot and slapstick comedy.

The Three Degrees of Krazy Kat

The first, and most self-reflexive, degree through which to access Krazy Kat is the role of distance in making art that posits an aesthetic relation between an artist, his autobiography, and his art. In his essay on drama “The Crisis in the Life of an Actress”, originally published as an article in a Danish newspaper, Kierkegaard tracks the developing career of a young actress Frau Heiberg. In her youth, Heiberg is renowned for her beauty, however these qualities fade or become less pronounced the older she gets. Despite losing her storied youth, Heiberg maintains an indelible actress. One of the Heiberg’s most notable roles, as illustrated by “Crisis”, is that of Shakespeare’s Juliet. Central to Kierkegaard’s argument is the idea of aesthetic distance, or put another way, the selfsame qualities that correlate in both an artist or author and her artistic production. For Kierkegaard, a then-seventeen year old actress’ portrayal of Juliet would be incapacious in so far as youthfulness is still within reach. Heiberg, at the time of Kierkegaard’s essay thirty-one years old, and her de-neoteny, paradoxically allow her to present a faithful portrayal of Juliet at seventeen. Lastly, I’d like to note that that Kierkegaard describes Heiberg’s acting prowess in relation to the dialectical, wherein time is the dialectic that suspends the actress in its diaphonous fluid. There is no past, therefore no looking back; there is only now, and what is to come. Counterintuitively, the time-dialectic central to, as Kierkegaard puts it, the “mature” portrayal of Juliet by Heiberg is only possible in so far as Heiberg has to return to girlhood, and reprise herself. Simultaneously, in her distanced portrayal of an adolescent, Heiberg gains the “reflective” qualities only age can bestow. Aesthetic distance allows the reader to estimate the capacity of the second and third degrees or registers in their efficacy to produce understanding of Herriman’s artistic intentions in Krazy Kat. Don’t look back, it is where you’re going.

The second register with which to access Herriman’s hermetic strip is an emergent identity politic, which comes about via commentators connecting Krazy and her literal (and subsequently racial) blackness to Herriman’s own mixed-race ancestry. This is not baseless; the argot of the strip, characterised by lyrical speech and misprision, that is so central to Krazy Kat, bares semantic and formal resemblances to the very Creole Herriman would grow up speaking in his native New Orleans. It logically follows that a racial politic is mappable onto Herriman’s strip vis-a-vis his (auto)biography, yet criticism rarely surfaces a comparable gender politic. This linking of Herriman’s contested racialization and Krazy’s formal qualities in Krazy Kat is perhaps more popular to critics solely on the basis of what is verifiable about Herriman’s life. People are less interested and less likely to suppose that he could be a girl because there are no surviving documents that point to the cartoonist’s hypothetical gender deviance. If there is parity between Herriman’s and Krazy’s racialization, why not also speculate on a gender politic rooted in Herriman’s ‘autobio’ as well? In any case, gender appears in Krazy Kat as an oft-toggled state, with Krazy liable to be girl or boy depending on the day, some classic reference to the complimentary yin-yang parody that is the binarist nature of sex.

Before diving into the third register of Herriman’s strip, I’d like to speculate briefly on and provide connections between the lenses of interpretation we’ve already discussed. Krazy Kat is an object of aesthetic distance endemic to the slapstick play that unfolds across black and white daily and later beginning in 1916, full color weeklies on Sundays. It’s also worth noting that Herriman’s Sunday pages are the most widely publicized and critically received. Fans on Reddit and Internet forums alike have speculated why Herriman’s reprinters, particularly Fantagraphics, do not release more collections of Krazy Kat dailies. While its easy to conclude that quality (the Sunday pages are considered the most artistic) and length (Krazy Kat ran for over thirty years until Herriman’s death) are the chief motivations for publishing decisions therein, is there not more to the Krazy Kat dailies than as a mere waste product of the oft-collected Sundays? In truth, there is some opposition to the commercial aspect of cartooning here, where dailies fulfill demands and workloads. More interesting to me however, is a necessary linking of the diaristic output of cartoon dailies and their linking of the diary to the commercial and the public, as opposed to associating what is memoiristic to the interior and the private. Herriman’s desaturated and Manichean dailies introduce a third degree of Krazy Kat: the psychological or cathetic dimension. A cathetic view of Herriman’s newspaper cartoon strip posits an answer to the problem of, well, the multiple lenses of interpretation, or “registers” with which a Krazy Kat reader may enjoy it.

Though both find currency in Freud’s early contributions to the field of psychology, and sound uncannily similar, the cathetic is the opposite of the cathartic. Catharsis is more readily associated with the artistic process, conjuring an image of an anguished artist engaging in something between neurotic revenge fantasies and maladaptive daydreaming. The Greek root word katharos means ‘pure’ or ‘spotless.’ Seemingly, we can say that expression is the property of the cathartic: emotions are expelled. But is artistic creation necessarily always cathartic? A cathetic view of artmaking cuts to the punch: there’s something diachronic in artistic expression, if catharsis is purgation and the artist must enjoy a long career, then is she ever really clean? Playing in her own dirt, the artist’s expulsion of negative and otherwise antisocial emotion must also cathect in the symbolic process that joins the art object to its maker.

Catharsis is the opposite movement of cathexis, wherein energy becomes attached to an object. Inevitably the concentration of energy within a particular idea, object, or person, denoting cathexis, lands us squarely in the realm of the symbolic. For Freud, cathexis allows the body to be a signifier. It’s hard to overstate the importance of Freud’s revelations: the genesis of cathexis cleanly escapes the mind-body problem, wherein bodies can express psychological symptoms in a process known as conversion hysteria. Cathexis and catharsis are homeostatic doubles, and proceed in order of appearance.

Dailies and weeklies, cathexis and catharsis

I’m going to risk a tangential departure and harp again on the historical reception of Krazy Kat and its discontents. While Herriman’s oeuvre is highly lauded, I’ve equally heard from cartoonists and connoisseurs alike that the strip is illogical and not really funny. True, the environment of Coconino County is constantly shifting, the Lays chip moon the residents’ only North Star. This allows Herriman increased formal invention in the execution of the weeklies, imbuing the classic anti-populist confusion innate to the avant-garde. It’s complicated. The deliberate misspelling and misprision adds another strata to trying to ‘get’ Krazy Kat. Herriman’s scratchy ink imparts a visual density as counterpoint to the more straightforward and commercial dailies. Simultaneously, large swathes of color interrupt a usually hermetic scratch from Herriman’s pen, but are largely considered more formally inventive and opaque in content than the dailies.

Thinking more on the cathetic and the formalism of the daily comic strip, the seeming ‘resort’ to inked perfection and simple gag lines in weekday strips actually allows for more flexibility in form than popularly conceived. A daily comic strip is the Sunday weekly worn inside-out, fruitful for formal invention in that it allows for the least expressive, and therefore cathetic, output.

If the brick mediates Krazy and Ignatz, acting as reciprocal desire for cat and mouse, then cartooning can be said to mediate the book-as-sequential-form (or the medium called sequential art; for me, this includes anywhere from Muybridge to cel animation to the procession of moving images or film), allowing for continuous reciprocity, and inevitably cathecting, of the artistic self. This usually resembles the inversion of catharsis wherein art objects are not merely expressions of traumatic and otherwise influential events in an individual’s life, but also re-attach and re-stage the original trauma by conceptually and formally embedding said trauma into the art object. The wound is opening again and again. Art is not (or just cathartic); art is non-healing. Fuck it, bandages off!

In this sense, Herriman’s dailies are anti-expressive and revisit the site of the original wound. These are the doomsday prepper plans, the manifestation of repression, that must necessarily occur before the expressive, and in comparison, utopic weeklies. The gorgeous sounding board of a perverted interiority, the dailies reverberate in the continuous cycling of psychic energy, culminating in and expressed by the idealistic, saturated, and resolutely more pictorial colored vision of the weeklies. Pro-expressive, the Sunday strips conclude the week (if we both agree that Monday marks the start of the week despite the tired and dusty Gregorian calendar) and mark the end of a cycle. Anti-expressive, the commercial tradition of the daily comic strip seeks a twin flame. The polyphonic layouts of the Krazy Kat weeklies compliment the relatively ascetic compositions of the dailies. The strength of the dailies, despite public reception that they are less artistic than the weeklies, is that they are so limited. Think of a divination system: there are set constraints (such as 64 hexagrams in the I-Ching or 78 cards in the Rider-Waite tarot deck), but within these outwardly narrow conditions great variation occurs. Like the lucky 777 of the slot machine or the 2:22 A.m. of a digital clock, arrangement and order (like the straightforward panel sequences of Herriman’s dailies) precipitate meaning.

Case Studies

Despite their denied brilliance and poor public reception, I will now turn to a few of early Krazy Kat dailies.

January 6th, 1918

In this daily from 1918 where our hero Krazy, and her paramour Ignatz, are pictured sitting at a table, Krazy poses an interrogative question: “Why is ‘lenguage’ Ignatz?” Ignatz rejoins with “‘Language’ is that we may understand one another.” I fixate on this first panel because of the curious structures it propagates. One is the architecture of the sentence: The first line of dialogue appears to be an interrogative clause. Krazy poses a question and expects an answer. Yet, by the fifth panel we learn that she has her own conclusions about the nature of language, perhaps rendering her initial question to be rhetorical or an indirect speech act, in nature. The strip’s punchline, “Then, I would say, ‘lenguage’ is, that we may mis-unda-stand each udda.” Another structure that occurs is the mirroring of the first with the fifth and final panel. The first panel seems to provide the answer to Krazy’s question, but as the punchline reveals, the meaning of language itself is arrested, and is only “resolved” in the final panel. The strip is additionally anti-expressive in the sense that belies a clean resolution in the dilemma posed by the functionality of language in (human) consciousness and sociality. Additionally, the five horizontally arranged panels allow for a subversive rhythm. Visually, this splits this daily in two, but also follows the syntactical arrangement of a joke. We have the set-up in the form of the interrogative Wh-question posed by Krazy as the first line of dialogue in the strip, the import and comedic possibilities of the cat’s query almost thoroughly exhausted after Ignatz rhetorically answers Krazy’s second interrogative clause of the strip with a “Yes, that’s so.” The middle, or third panel then serves as the conflict in the anatomy of the gag, escalating the discursive potential of Krazy’s question about language. This is again, best embodied by the clause that introduces Ignatz’s first reply, which I’ll simply reduce to the simple koan of “language is”. More mirrored images, doubles and twins: the fourth panel again reverses the dynamics of Krazy’s question in the third panel: “Can you unda-stend a Finn, Leplender, or an Oshkosher, huh?” When we do arrive at an almost post-coital punchline (see the discussion of Krazy and Ignatz’s affair above), we find Ignatz vexed, illustrated by the nonsense punctuational nonsense glyphs that float above his head.

Dailies precede graphic novels in order of mass-consumption, as newspapers are so cheap, the book-form so complicated and cathartic, the cartoon daily cathetic but simple. Dailies appear vestigial as bound printed matter has prevailed, like garments with no seams. It’s also inevitably a better value for a consumer; the expressive potentiality of the comics medium is easily held and compact in a single object as opposed to endless journalist origami. The modern comics consumer is a snob, but a highly domesticated one, preferring the pretension of the book to the vulgarity of the single page. Nevertheless, let’s present another daily strip from Herriman during Krazy Kat’s run.

Date unknown

Dates unknown (a part of the same daily strip; panels 1,2, and 3 depicted in sequential order)

The two sets of panels above return us to the racial register of Herriman’s comics, but also shed light on Krazy Kat as an aesthetically distanced project. The strip is almost straightforward in both form and content; Krazy is black, Ignatz is white, and the two switch complexions to the presumed bemusement of the dog-painter in the first panel of the daily. This can easily be likened to the phenomenon of racial passing and Herriman’s mixed-race ancestry. Something unravels, however, in the audience of this big transracial joke: the painter. The dog-painter is a classic portrait, perhaps even a “study” of a bohemian artist, beret included. The first panel of the daily is landscape in orientation, capturing a wide shot of a rarely chummy Krazy and Ignatz on a log, somewhere in Coconino County. The dog-painter seemingly stumbles upon this scene and is convinced that the scene before him will produce a black-and-white study. Unless you’re a Dutch master, studies are the ugly stepchildren of an artist’s oeuvre, incomplete as a work in its preparatory disposition. Ignatz underscores this point after Krazy observes that she and Ignatz are the subjects of the black-and-white study, calling the dog-painter a ‘wimwam’. To be a study is to never really be done, eclipsed by the artistic success of the finished work. Insulted, Krazy and Ignatz thus devise to deceive the canine painter by magically switching to each other’s complexions. The dog problematizes the familiar black-white binary in US race relations in the sense that he remains unracialized. Representative of the artist position, the dog’s opening line is punctuated by affected ‘oho’s, rendering a scene that can be neatly mapped onto a historiography of modernism and colonialism. Proto-Picasso that he is, this unnamed dog escapes the perils of (artistic) observation: the claustrophobia invoked by being classified, visually or otherwise. Krazy and Ignatz upend the canine reality, causing a painterly psychosis and a crisis in what the dog knows to be true. As artists, sometimes even our subject matter misbehaves, volatile under the microscope. The scientific and the sentimental both exist in the artist’s gaze, as much as our perception passes for objectivity. The third panel (and the last of this strip I could readily access through the Internet) displays the complementarity of race. Ignatz’s change is the most dramatic, the whites of his eyes hilariously contrasting his now dark skintone, a caricatured and exaggerated relief found in the increased codification of blackface into American entertainment. Krazy and Ignatz insist upon not being studies, but masterpieces that prevent a straightforward analytic on the racial Other. Duboisian double consciousness could only become more perverted in subsequent dailies.

January 31st, 1938

February 1st, 1938

February 2nd, 1938

These Krazy Kat dailies, occurring from January 31st to February 2nd, 1938, play with the ideas of twins and triplets. The ‘twins’, or the double versions of Krazy, Ignatz, and Offissa Pupp that appear throughout, present a fascinating psychological structure, wherein the Other is always coterminous with the Self. But in the final panel of the Krazy Kat strip from February 2nd, 1938, we see a tertiary multiplication of Ignatz’s form, with three Ignatzes resisting arrest from the now twinned Offissa Pupp. Ignatz appears like a Hindu deity, three-headed and three-armed, alluding to his immense power. Krazy is somewhat of the straight man in this series of dailies, as she is the only character in this sequence who remains as an individual, despite these strips riffing on her twoness, two sides of the same coin raced and gendered. But what I’m most interested in the cathetic and social dimensions of these dailies, and so the previous sentence serves as my final note on Krazy Kat’s identity politic.

Returning to Freudian cathexis and the explicit love triangle of Krazy, Ignatz, and Offissa Pupp, we can identify a series of love objects from our main cast. Ignatz as Krazy’s love-object, Krazy as Ignatz’s love-object, mediated by the brick, and Krazy as Offissa Pupp’s love-object. The love-object, be it Krazy or Ignatz (Offissa Pup, an unfortunate incel whose psychic energy cathects in the object of him upholding the law), is the target of cathexis. Krazy, Ignatz, and Offissa Pupp are holographic distillations of psychological archetypes. Krazy is virtuous, Ignatz is sinful, and Offissa Pupp is rules and order. We can think of Krazy as the Ego, Ignatz as the Id, and Offissa Pupp as the Superego, reflecting Freud’s tripartite organization of the mind. I want to suspend this interpretation, however, because I think this division of Krazy Kat’s characters into the three parts of the psyche would deny that Krazy and Ignatz’s affair is mutual. Ultimately, positing that Krazy Kat’s is analogous to Freud’s structural model of the human mind defaults to Krazy being conscious and her love for Ignatz merely a sublimated desire, our rodent antagonist becoming unconscious pigment in the attempt to paint Krazy Kat as the human mind. I am undoubtedly a Krazy-Ignatz shipper as evidenced by this writing, so I am undoubtedly aware that Ignatz has a wife and kids. Krazy and Ignatz’s love is impossible due to the mores of Coconino County society and their illicit affair, embodied by the brick (oh, the phallocentrism contained here!), only occurs under the guise of Ignatz’s perceived transgression. Offissa Pupp believes Ignatz’s “beaning” of Krazy with the brick is merely the mouse’s antisocial impulses, and sees himself as Krazy’s hero. Like sexual euphemisms or the references to alcohol and marijuana found in early 20th century American popular music, Krazy and Ignatz’s love must remain coded in the language of the law. Perhaps none of this psychological nonsense is really necessary. After all, of mice and men, neither know what they want.

December 3rd, 1938

Krazy Kat debuts on October 28th, 1913. A Scorpio sun and Libra moon, the independent comic strip comprises just more than half of its cartoonist George Herriman’s life by the time he passes on April 25th, 1944. Krazy Kat consists of daily and weekly comic strips, the latter being much more labor-intensive. On Sundays, Herriman’s artistic abilities and experimentation are on full display, resulting in erratic and mercurial Southwest landscapes and delicious verbal foreplay among Krazy Kat’s vibrant cast. My focus on dailies as opposed to weeklies isn’t intended to get you to believe the daily strips were artistically superior to the Sunday weeklies meticulously penned and colored by Herriman. I merely present my Krazy theism as a testament to the independent cartoon strip’s enduring relevance. The multiple registers of Krazy Kat, including the racial, aesthetic, and psychological presents the then-ongoing newspaper comic as replete with self-reflexivity, creating an almost biological organization of sense and perception with which to read Krazy Kat.

The strip above, dating from December 3rd, 1943, captures Herriman at his most laconic and terse, months before his death. It embodies Krazy Kat at its best: the depiction of cosmic balances concentrated in the story of a cat in love with a mouse. Krazy rightfully deems heliocentrism in her plain, pithy language. No sunset in Coconino County is the same, the individuation of that day’s twilight affecting a reflective mood in this protagonist. The sun diffuses soft light over the arid environs of Coconino, inspiring Krazy to exclaim an unnecessarily hyphenated and necessarily doubled “Twi-light.” A subtle darkening in the second panel shows Krazy in a relaxed, meditative state. In the following panel, she opens her eyes, and though the halftone submerging the previous panel has lifted, it seems only to serve as visual emphasis for final panel. Completely obscured except for her pupils and the whites of her eyes, Krazy declares “Twi-dark.” Light and shadow crystallize as Herriman’s characteristic absurdist humor in the final panel, but it is the third panel that is most interesting to me. Before saying “Twi-dark”, Krazy appears in an inverted halo of light, centered in the individual panel. Towards the bottom of the frame is a four-sided shape demarcated into various squares and rectangles intersecting at right angles. The sun and the moon are seemingly referenced in the shape at the base of the panel, as indicated by the circular shapes and enclosing ring of white around the black center. Herriman captures the transition from light to dark, the too-jotted-to-be-true abstraction of passing time culminating in the final panel’s inky space.

June 25th, 1944

Herriman passes away on April 25th, 1944. The final strip of Krazy Kat appears two months later, outliving its creator. On June 25th 1944, we last glimpse Krazy afloat at sea, unsure if this occurs before or after Offissa Pupp has rescued Krazy from the body of water where she seemingly almost drowns. The high-contrast palette of the panels evokes eclipse season, casting odd shadows on the flat plane of desert sand. This portends change and transformation. Cathexis and catharsis catch a vibe together. Once expressed, energy doesn’t truly die.

Our current season includes: Nuie by Nuie, East District by Ash H.G., Egirl Magazine 1 ed. Katherine Dee, La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola, Girls Gone Wild 1 by Katie Lane, Altcomics Magazine 7 ed. Blaise Larmee and Katie Lane, Mirror Mirror 4 ed. Airplane Mode.

This conversation between Tommi Parrish and Jul Gordon was conducted over email from the winter of 2024 to the spring of 2025, with some of the last images arriving into our in-box mid January 2026. I want to thank Tommi and Jul for taking part. Please enjoy :)

Tommi Parrish: My first question for you is about the material playfulness in your book Parc; what has your journey been in reaching a point where you combine so many different methods of drawing and painting into one story?

Jul Gordon: I knew I wanted to try working with color. Before, I always had worked mostly in black and white, so it was new to me and my technique developed during the process of working on the book.

Probably the different kinds of drawings are also due to the different phases of what I thought the book was gonna be during the making. In the beginning I planned it as an adaption of “the knight of the rose bearer” (Der Rosenkavalier), a comic opera written by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal.

I collected references of european gardens of the 16th and 17th century and also pictures of encyclopedias of plants from that time because Hoffmannsthal’s comic opera has references to the time of Maria Theresa of Habsburg. The scenery was supposed to refer to gardens and parcs from that time. I wanted an abandoned parc with soft colors like on ancient etchings .

Also it mostly doesn’t work well for me to draw something twice. So I rather have a change in how things are drawn than to actually draw something twice in order to align the style.

One thing that was an experiment for me was how I worked with the space in the story. Maybe that is also connected to your questions about the different styles. I found it important to be absolutely clear about the space. So I decided to built models of the parc and the other buildings in which the story unfolds and used them as templates for my drawings. This was a way to minimize the amount of opportunities: This is how the area looks like, the model proofs it. There is no doubt about it.

Attached you find another zine that I didn’t show you before. It’s called “It’s OK to give it a try”. It’s my latest publication, from winter 24.

TP: What was the driving motivation behind this one? I love love love the repetition, its so powerful.

JG: Drawing “It`s OK to give it a try” was part of a collaboration with the noise and performance artist Tintin Patrone (www.tintinpatrone.com). We made up this plan: I placed an ad on ebay (its attached to this mail) saying that I am looking for pets with a talent in music. I asked the people who reacted to the ad if I may visit them and their pets in order to record them. Some people contacted me and I visited two house-pigs with a grunting talent and a dog who was good at yowling. Then I gave the recordings to Tintin and she made a Sound piece from it. And I wanted to draw comics about what happened when I visited the people and their pets. The sound piece was published as a tape by the same publisher who published my zine, SofortBooks. It’s a small publisher and riso-printing office based in Hamburg: https://risofort.press/sofortbooks/

The title of the tape is “Well done”

I admire both Tintin Patrones work and also the publishing work of SofortBooks, it was nice to work with them.

When I visited the few people I felt very weird and stupid about what I am doing which is reflected in “It’s OK to give it a try”. Doing something, feeling ridiculous about it and somehow making it through the situation.

And also making it through the process of drawing a comic against all disturbing thoughts and feelings.

But also about the beautiful things that happened. I met one woman and her dog Cora, and we spent some time together, trying to make Cora sing. She invited me into her flat and was very open and nice. In the end, her partner even had himself made a tattoo of one of my drawings of the dog Cora.

TP: Woah, this is such a sweet idea; what a funny way to connect with people. Tell me about “same position different situation” to boost my memory? What are you working on at the moment?

JG: “same position different situation” is a collection of drawn dreams published by edition moderne and Colorama last year. I drew them mostly immediately after waking up. The challenge was to try to memorize as much of my dreams as possible and my rule was that it is not at all allowed to add anything to my memories.

This is the link to the english version published by Colorama:

https://coloramabooks.space/products/unbenannt-17-nov-_11-20

Currently I’m researching for something that I imagine as a vampire story. I am diving into all kinds of theoretical texts about vampires and develope a story meanwhile. I always loved vampire stories and now it feels like I finally allow myself to try to create one myself. So far, I think about a character that is and energy vampire who feeds on sucking peoples energy by telling them endlessly about his personal worries and problems. I am a bit concerned that the character is too close to Collin Robinson from the series “What we do in the shadows”. I love Collin Robinson and I guess I need to be careful not to create Collin Robinson Fan Art. Or why not, actually? Lets see.

Anyway, I am at the beginning of the process, and I hope the character will develope while working on it. Another character of my vampire project is the teenage sister of the energy vampire, who is “classic” vampire. They are called Kylie and Kurt so far.

JG: What are you working on?

TP: I do love the looseness of some of your work, and so great to make something with edition moderne and Colorama.

I have plans to make a book with Colorama too, but I’m such a perfectionist it takes an age for me to like an idea enough, let alone finish anything. I’ve been in this blissful working-out stage for a new book for a couple of years now, with lots of scrappy sketches, collages, and half-finished short stories but nothing solid to show for it. I want to go super experimental with this one, but I’m not totally convinced it’s not a nonsensical mess. It’s from a whole bunch of different perspectives, with interviews and scrapbook elements; basically, I’m trying to work out how to make books that don’t drain me dry quite like the last two big ones.

So anyway, I’m working on that next Fantagraphics book and probably a lot of those scrappy bits that I like will go towards the Colorama book.

Fanta is also putting together a compilation of my old unpublished work, so we’re designing that.

Also I’m adding to the book I made with Perfectly Acceptable before its reprinted. And, of course, finding ways to make money.

The big big thing is in April, I’m moving back to Australia to go to grad school. I’ve lived in North America for going on 9 years, jumping from visa to visa, and the instability and stress of it is absolutely unhinged. Anyway, in a month, I will start my master’s degree for two years, hopefully leading to me quickly getting teaching gigs/ stable income. I’m pretty freaked out about it all, but it’ll ultimately be a good thing.

JG:Wow so many big plans. I’m totally looking forward to your new books! And Colorama and Fantagraphics are two of the best publishers I can think of.

Moving after 9 years sounds like a huge thing.

^ Parc by Jul Gordon is available for purchase from 2dcloud here.

^ A print version of this interview will be included in Mirror Mirror 5, coming in the summer from 2dcloud.

^ Future installments from this series include conversations between Wilfred Santiago × Ash H.G., Inés Estrada × Powerpaola, Connor Willumsen × Henry McClellan, Jake Terrell × Émilie Gleason, Apolo Cacho × Junwoo Park, Jason Overby × Katie Lane, Blaise Larmee × Brianna Perry, Kristina Tzekova × Andrea Bjurström, Tara Booth × Andrés Magán, amongst others.

These conversations were communicated via various forms. Some will be text with images, audio + transcription, video, English and Spanish, and some are communicated only through drawings.

The idea for this series was taken in part from a conversation between Aidan Koch × Austin English which we initially coordinated nearly 10 years ago. The formatting of the Lack podcast between Benjamin Studebaker and Nina Powers was another inspiration.

Today, we still have a small team. It’s changed over the years.

Raighne — Publisher
Melissa Carraher — Publicity
Kristina Tzekova — House Illustrator

Our goal remains largely the same. To bring you beautiful, tactile print comics and books into your home. Today we’ve launched these titles on Metalabel in such a way as to provide a sliding scale so that more readers can afford these titles.

2dcloud PRESENTS

Season 19
—Mirror Mirror 4 ed. Airplane Mode
—East District by Ash H.G.
—Egirl Magazine 1 ed. Katherine Dee
—La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola
—Girls Gone Wild 1 by Katie Lane
—Altcomics Magazine 7 ed. Blaise Larmee and Katie Lane
—Nuie by Nuie

These 7 print titles will ship immediately upon ordering.

^ This is the full video for the season. It features artist interviews and readings with Ash H.G., Powerpaola, Blaise Larmee. Interviews conducted by Brianna Perry. I introduce the season and talk a bit about the label and it’s journey. In addition, there are deeper looks at the works from some of the other artists involved.

MIRROR MIRROR 4 edited by Airplane Mode
9781937541729 • 72pp • 6 × 8.8” • MSRP $9.99

“Let the aesthetically and intellectually wild run free on the page.” —Micco Caporale (CHICAGO READER)

“A cross between Mineshaft and Bubbles plus its own vibe, Mirror Mirror mixes narrative and art, wide-ranging cultural reviews” —Tom Bowden (THE BOOK BEAT)

“...an avant garde slice...” —Ryan C. (FOUR COLOR APOCALYPSE)

EAST DISTRICT by Ash H.G.
9781937541613 • 88 pp • 6 × 8.5” • MSRP $20.99

“Ash H.G.’s graphic novel EAST DISTRICT evokes Los Bros Hernandez, David Lynch, and Guido Crepax…” —from the foreword by Stefano Gaudiano (KAFKA, DETECTIVE COMICS, and THE WALKING DEAD)

“EAST DISTRICT by Ash H. G. is an eloquently quiet and beautifully disturbing, thought-provoking, and uniquely articulated apocalyptic horror noir comic story that hit me hard and struck deep.” —Farel Dalrymple (POP GUN WAR, THE WRENCHIES)

“Ash H.G.’s raw primal and atmospheric approach weaves a tense web with functional simplicity. Gripping, suspenseful and unsettling – like being caressed by a wooden hand.” —Wilfred Santiago (IN MY DARKEST HOUR, 21: THE STORY OF ROBERTO CLEMENTE)

“Ash H.G. [...] arrive[s] to me fully formed with a wonderful inky brush style that complements this atmospheric futuristic horror.” —Brian Baynes (BUBBLES)

EGIRL Magazine 1 edited by Katherine Dee
9781937541705 • 32pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • MSRP $6.99

“Masterfully documents our modern Helens of Troy, the e-girls who have launched a thousand simps, who pulled us into their orbit to become transfixed by their lives whether we like it of not.” —Blassie

“Women, or rather, girls—this nebulous category that conjures both mystery and ubiquity—are online in the strangest of ways. The egirl, that modern version of the statue come to life, has a peculiar existence: half subject-half object. She dances for a camera, and perhaps also for you, but who really knows? She sells her image, but was she ever really there? Softly intoxicating, the egirl is the irony of the ecommunity. Does she even have a history? Yes, and no. Will her image endure? Again, yes and no. Whatever you do, stay pastel.” —Nina Power (ONE DIMENSIONAL WOMAN, WHAT DO MEN WANT?)

“In its closing words— ‘a love letter to the twinkling that made us all look up’ —it reminds us that critical analysis and genuine appreciation need not be mutually exclusive. perhaps this synthesis represents the most valuable contribution of e-girl magazine.” —Amina Green (BIMBOLLECTUAL)

“[...] it’s beautifully illustrated, and it covers everything from Jennicam […] to Red Scare.” —Daisy (TASTELAND)

LA PODEROSA 1 by Powerpaola
9781937541699 • 32pp • 6.625 × 10.25”

“In true Powerpaola style, La Poderosa tells us about moments of connection and friendship. And how extra important these become when bureaucracy complicates life once again.” —Jul Gordon (PARC, IT’S OK TO GIVE IT A TRY)

“Powerpaola draws exquisite attention to the heightening of detail under duress and the small but powerful interactions that inspire living life to its fullest.” —Aidan Koch (SPIRAL AND OTHER STORIES, AFTER NOTHING COMES)

“[A] dreamlike [and] utterly fascinating, reading experience.” —Ryan C (FOUR COLOR APOCALYPSE)

“Hopefully, La Poderosa will be the success it deserves to be. More autobiographical comics from someone as in control of their voice as Powerpaola would be most welcome.” —Gary Usher (BROKEN FRONTIER)

GIRLS GONE WILD 1 by Katie Lane
9781937541712 • 28pp • 6.63 × 10.25” • MSRP $6.99

“Like conversations remembered from a dream, Katie Lane’s comics are uncomfortably familiar and persistently strange, enticing and opaque, containing some key to hidden feelings and unsaid thoughts without the map to recover it. Few have ever written trans women with this finesse, this ear, this sense of our real frustrations and desires. Her work makes me feel less lonely.” —Emily Zhou (GIRLFRIENDS)

“Girls Gone Wild is mumblecore at its heart, the conversations and conflicts feel so real, the cropping of the panels is bodily, everything feels tactile. I Thought That I Was Wrong is like going to a noise show with a fog machine, everything’s coming in and out of clarity, surfacing and submerging back into the noise.” —Benny Johnson (GLUE PRESS)

“Katie Lane makes comics that you’ve never seen before. They sidestep expectation, drawing power instead from an intense, somewhat uncomfortable, specificity. In Girls Gone Wild, Lane’s characters’ keen self-awareness and sharp tongues only serve to push them further away from one another. The reader follows in step, drifting from dissociation to disturbing hyper-presence, sharing in their desperate desire for understanding.” —Juliette Collet (THE PEACEMONGER, BLAH BLAH BLAH)

“...ethereal and otherworldly, but also disarmingly real...” —Ryan C. (FOUR COLOR APOCALYPSE)

“Lane’s visual artistry is the star of this show and shows an emerging talent worth keeping an eye on.” —Tom Bowden (THE BOOK BEAT)

ALTCOMICS MAGAZINE 7 edited by Blaise Larmee, Katie Lane
9781937541583 • 40pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • MSRP $6.99

“...the true cutting edge of comics: artists reinventing the form to explore thoughts, ideas and feelings rather than grafting naturalistic fiction onto the comics form.” Austin English (DOMINO)

“Altcomics Magazine 7 is a mature, concept-driven anthology that thrives on uncertainty and trusts the reader to navigate its suggestive pathways rather than handing them a concrete map. It’s exactly the kind of vital, open-ended anthology series we need right now.” —Ryan C (FOUR COLOR APOCALYPSE)

“Altcomics 7 is 2dcloud at their weirdest and best—jagged, uneasy, dripping with brilliance. If you want comics that leave you questioning everything in the best way, this is essential.” —DR. BEN’S INDIE COMICS REVIEWS

NUIE by Nuie
9781937541651 • 32pp • 4 × 5.697” • MSRP $9.99

“I can feel the impact of glove on glove on body. I can feel the brushstrokes of black and red. Just like the pigments of these two colors mix, figuration moves into abstraction and back again.

The very physical act of boxing gets transformed into a fragile dance. A dissolve that takes you into the motion and into this space. Pulsating in and out of the pages.

What I love about nuie’s work is that it allows you to fill in the gaps in such an exciting way. It takes you as a reader, seriously, and it plays directly into the process of intersecting this emotional seeing, creating; an almost physical sensation. We are implied in this movement. A spinning motion. As you get closer to the object you cannot grasp it wholly. Dizzying.

You put your ear to the drawing and it tells you its secrets, but you have to put it very closely and get swept up in it. That’s nuie.” —Janne Marie Dauer (AUERHAUS)

“A subtle, whimsical exploration in non-linear storytelling. There is a lightness here that I find so refreshing.” —Jake Terrell (EXTENDED PLAY)

“As someone stares at the pages one’s mind can begin to fill in the blank spaces, with Nuie’s work encouraging a reader’s imagination to run wild with the careful brushstrokes, blending what is actually there with what we readers feel is there [...] 5 out of 5 stars.” —David Bitterbaum (THE NEWEST RANT)

illustrations by Kristina Tzekova. gif by Nuie, Blaise Larmee. team illustration by Raighne. video interviews by Brianna Perry. music by Paige Alice Naylor.

Title: Mirror Mirror 4
Editor: Airplane Mode
Price: $9.99
Publisher: 2dcloud
Format: Perfect bound, 6 × 8.8”
Number of Pages in Finished Book: 72
ISBN: 9781937541729
Publication: Dec 11, 2025
Distribution: Direct - 2dcloud.com
Publicity: Melissa Carraher, melissa@2dcloud.com

Synopsis

Mirror Mirror 4 is mercurial in breadth and temperament. Containing comics by Morgan Vogel, Henry McClellan, Alex Graham — including a comic interview by Nick Merlock Jackson with CocoJoey. An illustrated personal essay by Inés Estrada. Interviews with Decadence (Stathis Tsemberlidis and Lando), and another one from 2016 between Morgan Vogel and Jail. Reviews by Meeks Morpus, Brianna Perry, Koen de Rooij. Manga by Junichiro Saito. Covers, incidentals by Kristina Tzekova.

Publishing is mythological, sculptural. Mirror Mirror began as a series in 2016 where it’s main conceit was each volume would receive its own direction and editor; Blaise Larmee in ’16; Sean T. Collins + Julia Gfrörer in ’17; Plum in ’20. At the very edge of 2025, 2dcloud’s flagship publication returns as a hybrid anthology — a magazine. Edited by Airplane Mode. Now planned to be released 3 times a year.

This compact curated object with it’s incidental links between creators, presents strange rhythms and anti-social fixations. It is in search of some transcendent moment — a piece of liberating information.

Dedicated to Morgan Vogel, 1986–2020

NOW SHIPPING

Future volumes coming in 2026 and beyond will have work by:

Daisuke Ichiba, Yvan Algabé, Steve Grove, Wilfred Santiago, Ash H.G., Katherine Dee, Nina Powers, Kristina Tzekova, Blaise Larmee, Elika Imanaga, Meeks Morpus, Koen de Rooij, Eduardo Andres Crespo, Alice Bartolini, Brianna Perry, Andrea Bjurström, Janne Marie Dauer, Jason Overby, Aidan Koch, Ellen Redshaw, Luke Holden, Mayme Donsker, Nicholas Breutzman, Sam Ombiri, Junwoo Park, Ville Kallio, Alex Graham, Noah Van Sciver, Sarah Cuje, Olivier Schrauwen, Katie Lane, and more.

Perhaps nothing is more loosely put than the word ‘desire’. It’s a word I know as polymorphic, claimed by anarchists, astrologers, psychics, musicians, philosophers, psychoanalysts, romantics, theologians, and urban planners, among other disciplines. If love is possession, implying the legal and the economic, what a person has or had, desire denotes the exact opposite: a rental history of what an individual did not have.

The word of the night at the Chicago iteration of ’s Stacked Debates is arguably ‘desire,’ fitting for the event’s subtitle: The Digital Sexual Revolution. Substack’s teams for this night of ‘Stacked Debates’ are multifarious and impressive in scope: anthropologists with comedians and psychologists with sociologists ( and vs. and ), academics and writers ( vs. ), as well as journalists and novelists ( vs. ). I’ve pluralized and simplified the listed occupations per team because these debate participants’ output is cross-disciplinary; Monahan belongs to the artist collective K-Hole, Bloom has written a slew of books on psychology, Perdue is a novelist and woman of letters, and Aella, Lindsay, Rosenfeld, and Dee are all podcasters, Internet culture writers, and historians. I’ve still yet to scratch the surface of what all tonight’s interlocutors do, but hopefully I’ve provided a generous introduction.

Dee, Blassie, Aella, Bloom, Perdue, Monahan, Lindsay, and Rosenfeld all have some stake in the subject of desire. With topics ranging from AI, the Internet, pornography, and the confluence and intersection of all that’s listed, this series of debates is anything but sappy. Desire is best served with sex, a domain it shares with the more sentimental topic of ‘love.’ Tonight’s animated discussions flit from the academic to the anecdotal, interpersonal, and pop cultural. Always peppered with audience laughter, our master debaters are affable and relatable as they take us through Alanis Morrisette lyrics, case studies, memes, popular porn search terms, and their personal lives. Again, my keyboard is about to run out of breath as I try to summarize the scope of The Digital Sexual Revolution’s discourse and participants.

I’m going to briefly outline the formalism of The Digital Sexual Revolution before I tell you about love as medium and form. Tonight’s Stacked Debates were in this format: the first two debates consisted of two opponents, one arguing in the affirmative and the other the negative of a given question (Sean vs. Noelle, Kat vs Kate); the third debate consists of teams, (the teams being Katherine Dee and Blassie, along with Paul Bloom and Aella), resulting in Katherine vs. Paul and Blassie vs. Aella. The questions are paraphrased as follows: Will AI take over porn? Is it cheating if it’s with AI? And is the Internet reprogramming our desires? The winner, or in the case of the third debate, winners, is determined by which interlocutor(s) received the most (loudest) applause.

You’ll recall I mentioned anarchists, astrologers, musicians, philosophers, psychoanalysts, romantics, theologians, and urban planners as all having a stake in the topic of desire. Language mediates these vocations. You also note that this account is addressed to ‘you’. Tasked with trying to put some sort of container on The Digital Sexual Revolution, I could think of nothing more appropriate and desirous a form than the letter. This is apt, as all participants engage in some form of writing, whether hosted by media outlets like GQ or Slate, publishing houses such as Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, or social media platforms including Substack and Twitter. Debate may seem to be all talk, but this is undergirded by each participant’s writerly output. These people want to communicate with the audience, with you, and language is their common medium. I also want to communicate, so I’ve chosen writing as my medium.

Nothing is more desirous than language. We address others (or, as famed psychoanalyst Lacan repeatedly put it, The Other), through a kind of lack. We don’t have their input, their perspective, and ultimately, through relationships with others, we pursue what is missing. This trope connecting desire and language, the marriage proposal: You complete me. A declaration that can be platonic or romantic, but always erotic: I miss you. And without much ado: I love you. Note that each pronoun is accompanied by a verb. Love is action.

Love is best sutured to action when considering the formal convention of letter writing. Yes, everything from Ovid to the Song of Solomon to Shakespeare’s sonnets is a love letter, and this writerly medium is practiced by the anonymous and the famous alike. It’s simply popular. Epistolary correspondence has yet to fade in relevance; contemporary love letters are often shorter, now expressed through emails, text messages, and emojis. Love and its more base relative, desire, are declared, subject to the present moment. Love is something you do.

Then what is desire? I’ve said that love is action, always happening externally. If love is what you do, always exteriorized, an object being acted upon, then desire is defined by its interiority and stasis. Desire is paralysis, the suspension of a relationship between the subject and object, I and the Other.

Let’s return directly to the topic at hand. The first debate between Sean Monahan and Noelle Perdue concerns AI’s leaching into pornography. Perdue believes AI will be unable to take over pornography, while Monahan declares its ascent and eventual predominance in Internet porn. I’ll spoil the applause-determined outcome: Noelle wins. Sean is a noble competitor against Noelle, but perhaps the latter’s argument is more appealing because it is earthy in nature: desire is material. Noelle deftly uses examples that ground desire in reality; for instance, the popularity of the girl next door trope in Internet porn is based on its sheer mundanity. Further, the materiality of sex, and its popular optics, pornography, is always relational. Like language, the medium suspended in the fluid membrane occurring between I and the Other, sex happens between people. This excludes masturbation, tonight’s sort-of taboo lurking under all discussions of AI, Internet pornography, and romance. Note that in the early history of psychology charted by Freud, masturbation was linked to neurosis and best seen as a waste of sexual energy. If sex’s counterpart and condition is the couple, then masturbation’s complement and circumstance is the individual. You get off (singular gerund form) by yourself, you have sex with (prepositional) someone. Gerund and preposition seem to be the source of contention between Sean and Noelle. They disagree over the psychological roots of sex work phenomena like findom. Sean charges that findom is the result of loneliness: men want to waste money. Noelle comes in with a relational addendum: men want to waste money with women, not just by themselves; otherwise, cryptocurrency, gambling, and online shopping easily suffice. Perhaps Sean’s loss may be the result of optimism for the future because most people are aware of the cosmic ramifications of Artificial Intelligence, what it means for everything from cultural production like art and music to the economy. He warns that the discourse on AI highly parallels the fatalism surrounding the emergence of the Internet; even back then, people thought that the World Wide Web was a mere fad.

I’ll admit, I was torn over who to clap for. Noelle shutting down Sean’s premonitions didn’t leave me any less wary of AI’s takeover of pornography. Everyone else in the audience felt similarly, with the volume of the applause being nearly equal for the two debaters, and the estimation for Noelle barely edging out that of Sean’s. Ultimately, Sean and Noelle’s argumentation left me with this: what about desire is sublimated? After Lacan, how do we transmute libidinal energy into the non-sexual? You saccade to the following paragraph, indicating that I’ve left you hanging. Don’t worry, I’ll return to sublimation shortly.

The second topic argued by Kate Lindsay and Kat Rosenfeld concerns the contentious and often moralized subject of cheating. Is it cheating if your illicit affair is with AI? First, in the negative, Kate: it is not cheating because A.I. is not a person. On the positive side, Kat, it is cheating because AI is like a person. I’ll admit that Kate and Kat both held their ground, as this question was the most vulnerable to semantics, such as what constitutes cheating. Cheating is something everyone disagrees about, evidenced by the emergence of cheating subforms: cyber affairs, emotional cheating, financial infidelity, and micro-cheating. But the introduction of the topic of AI introduces new terrain. Is A.I (one thinks of Scarlett Johansson in the movie HER), a person? I am reminded that what determines a person can become particularly tricky, considering the concept of corporate personhood. Is it cheating if it’s with Siri? That being said, the audience was more partisan when it came to this second question, and Kat clears Kate. I think again that the outcome of the debate probably went this way because the audience rationalized based on both the material and the personal: if my partner were sleeping with an AI chatbot, I would consider it cheating. What I’m trying to say is, while all the questions were well-argued, the queries were mostly framed as a kind of precognition. The participants are (well-reasoned) psychics, trying to plod the landscape of future desires, and we are their clients. These debates play into the superstitious. Another note on the form of the Stacked Debates is that the applause is determined by whether the interlocutor effectively changed the mind of the audience. What I’m saying is that we can’t know who will be right, only what was argued most effectively. I think Kat wins because rhetorically she plays into the pathos of the argument and the psychological effects of cheating. This leaves me wondering: is the power of AI due to the capital behind it or the susceptibility of human psychology to its charms? Let’s briefly return to sublimation and Lacan by establishing that whatever appeal Artificial Intelligence has to hopeless romantics and onanists is because of this excess sexual energy of the libido. Some may turn to painting or music to burn off sexual excess, while others will go to robots.

The final question of the night, on whether or not the Internet is reprogramming our desires, is the least superstitious and the most philosophical. This third debate results in a member of each team facing their opponent, and is by far the best elaborated topic of the night. With Paul and Aella arguing that the Internet has less effect on an individual’s desire than its accredited, Katherine and Blassie are left with a difficult task to prove in the positive that, yes, we are shaped by the times we live in. This argumentation is based on the classic trope of nature vs nurture: what is innate, and what is conditioned. Paul, ever the psychologist, begins by buttressing his argument with the emergence of homosexuality as a sexual identity in the 20th century and the growing popularity of conversion therapy in reaction to it. It’s classic chicken or the egg; do more people identify as LGBTQ because queerness is more visible, or was it always this way, no matter if it’s 1200 B.C. or 2025 A.D.? Aella swiftly supports Paul’s rhetoric, disproving the opposing team’s evidence of case studies on sexual fetishes with her own research. Katherine and Blassie have it hard because it’s impossible to say whether desire is evolving in relation to emerging technologies. While Katherine and Blassie argue that the Internet affects sexual desire because the Internet is a given cultural condition of the contemporary moment, Paul and Aella disprove the importance of conditionality by arguing that conditioning is negligible when faced with nature. Notably, this third question beautifully wraps up what’s at stake throughout all three topics: the role of an individual’s milieu (sometimes affected by something as particular as artificial intelligence and in other instances, as broad as the Internet) in the shaping of their lust.

Reader, I’ve probably hit you over the head with tmi. I’d like to conclude my account with a recap of Paul’s final subpoint in his and Aella’s argument, as well as the outcome of the third question. Paul and Aella win not only because of their extensive background in psychology and sociology, but also because their arguments are more scholarly, in contrast to Katherine and Blassie’s more vernacular style. Paul’s final point—that young people consider the influence of technology on romantic and sexual desire to be novel because they lack the perspective of age—succeeds not because of who has seen more throughout their life. It’s because what is changeless and timeless about humanity is what we and the audience can depend on. We might not use fax machines anymore, or we’re scared about self-driving cars, but we can always count on this: people are going to continue to have sex, because they always have. The degree to which something is about desire or sex, love or romance, lack or possession, is irrelevant. The Digital Sexual Revolution leaves us with this: we are creatures of habit.

Sincerely,

Brianna

Illustrations by Blaise Larmee

Last Thursday filmmaker Parinda Mai and I went on an impromptu day (night?) trip to Milwaukee where we caught Marcus of Nourished by Time playing at Vivarium* in support of his new album ‘The Passionate Ones’.

“His voice is so buttery”. Mai had been on a tear over the summer listening to him while in Bangkok. “Smooth and coherent - things are at the place that they should be” and “it’s like butter mixed with something weird - butter and a probiotic because his voice is earthy, and soil has probiotics in it”, Mai continues to elaborate.

I’ve been trying to wrap Mirror Mirror 4 and get this last title of the season to the printer. Reformatting the anthology / magazine as to what it is, in part as a response to ‘market conditions’. Tariffs have been causing overseas printing prices to increase significantly and US printers are largely unable to meet that difference for the smaller print runs that boutique publishers rely upon. This is compounded by a less robust economy. The only thing I can think to do is aim for lower price points and contend with tighter profit margins; hope for the best.

^ On 9/11 Blaise Larmee organized a pop up gallery show via apartment.gallery. The event doubled as a soft launch for Altcomics Magazine 7. It gave me an excuse to buy expensive cheese, weird meats, jams, and wine. It was very cute :)

i started apartment gallery to show my dad, who had a self-described blip of a painting career in the 80’s -- he glued giant paintings to the walls of new york city -- and since then has toiled in obscurity. in the 90’s he would come home exhausted and go right to bed. after dinner he would get high and go downstairs to paint. once, either on his way down or having just returned, he confided in me his thoughts on painting. he said it was like leaping off a cliff, flailing, desperate, grabbing at anything and hoping it holds.

he died on august 20, 2025.

this show is arranged according to a sentimental hierarchy: my mom and me here, my friends there, and my dad in between.

^ Official press copy emailed the morning of the event.

Kevin Larmee’s death hit me harder than expected. I had intended to talk with him again. To thank him, and to hear more — I don’t know, about his life? Stephen once relayed that he said something I was doing was ‘noble’ — I think in relation to me doing clinical trials to pay off my publishing debts. A warm and flattering thought.

Weeks later, Blaise tells me about Elijah Brubaker’s passing. I think about how financially unsupported people in this space are. ‘The small press comics scene is littered with corpses’, I write in my journal. People give their lives to this space and it in turn drinks them up one by one. I didn’t know Elijah but I remember picking up single issues of his Reich comics from Sparkplug at comic festivals.

Recently paging through a print copy of Altcomics Magazine 7. I’m 43. Thinking about all the above, my life, my inevitable death. Comics from Blaise about his parents, and longer excursions into memory and adulthood from Jason Overby. The nature of art, ideas of a small readership, the responsibilities pressed upon us by family. This comics feels weighty and resonant. The different comics from Katie, Clair, Matthew, Frank - each piece rhyming with each other by being placed within the same pages. Overwhelmed by feelings.

^ Outside of Mirror Mirror 4, ‘season 19’ is wrapped.
—East District by Ash H.G.
—Nuie by Nuie
—La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola
—Egirl Magazine 1 ed Katherine Dee
—Altcomics Magazine 7 ed Blaise Larmee + Katie Lane
—Girls Gone Wild 1 by Katie Lane.

We’ll have these 6 titles and a selection of our backlist at the following shows and festivals.

Pretty Good Fest
Chicago Athletic Association
12 S Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60603
Oct 4, Saturday 11am-6pm
First floor, table 108

^ Join us this Saturday. Parinda Mai, myself, [Egirl Magazine’s editor] will at various times be at the 2dcloud table.

Sharing a table right next to us will be Ash H.G. in support of his graphic novel East District (2dcloud), and Entropy Editions publisher Justin Skarhus, who will have copies of THEM by Jooyoung Kim on hand at the festival.

Short Run
Seattle Design Center in Georgetown
5701 6th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108
Nov 1, Saturday 11am-6pm

^ Visit Blaise Larmee and Brianna Perry at the 2dcloud table this year. It’s a new venue for the long running festival. It has been maybe the best show we’ve done over the last few years. Excited to be back and wish I could join them.

Comic Indie Con
2025 W. 11th St., Houston, Texas 77008
Nov 1, Saturday 1pm-6pm
Nov 2, Sunday 11am-4pm

^ Concurrent to the Seattle show, Ash H.G. will be tabling at this comic convention. On Saturday from 1:30pm–2:15pm he’ll be on the panel “Balancing Worklife with Your Passion”. An evergreen subject in the alternative comics space for sure.

Grit City
Greater Tacoma Convention Center
1500 Broadway, Tacoma, WA 98402
Nov 15, Saturday 10am-5pm

^ An Old-School Style Comic Book Convention. Ash H.G. will be holding the 2dcloud table at this festival, perhaps with a cartoonist friend. Special advance thanks to Stefano Gaudiano.

LINKS

^ In the spring next year we’ll have a new comic from Wilfred Santiago in Mirror Mirror 5. We also have a forthcoming artist x artist talk between him and Ash H.G. that we’ll be posting later in the year. Wilfred is the cartoonist behind In My Darkest Hour (a personal favorite), THUNDERBOLT • An American Tale VOL.1, Michael Jordan • Bull on Parade, and 21 • The Story of Roberto Clemente. He has a new shop with shirts, hoodies, mugs, totes. I bought one of his hoodies that has an illustration from his new comic in Mirror Mirror, it looks great. If you're in the market, you know what to do.

> The Chicago Film Festival hits in October and theres a mixer tonight. Maybe I’ll see you there.

^ Speaking of mixes, here’s a lengthy and eclectic one for your perusal.

Alright. My head feels like an oversized Charles Crumb thought bubble at this point. Astounding my neck could support such weight. I’m going to go for a walk. See you guys soon.

*Vivarium the venue shares the name of a videogame developer that produced the game Seaman for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999. In it you talk to, feed, and care for a surly fish with a human face — that of game director Yoot Saito. A microphone connects to the controller and you actually speak to this Seaman, who will in turn ask you about your life while berating you for it. This was one of the odder imports to make its way stateside. For the US release, the actor Leonard Nimoy was personally selected for the games narrator by MariNaomi, who wrote and directed the translated edition for SEGA. 2dcloud did 2 books with Mari; Dragon’s Breath in 2014, and Turning Japanese in 2016 — which was later re-released via an expanded edition with Oni Press.

^ After a seven-year wait, the altcomics magazine is back with its seventh issue, focusing entirely on a diverse collection of comics. This issue features a 16-page comic on being and memory by Jason Overby, with contributions from Katie Lane and Blaise Larmee, who also make their own comics: smart art comics and emo autobio comics, respectively. Plus, contributions from Clair Gunther, Matthew Thurber and a page from Frank Santoro. Edited by Blaise Larmee and Katie Lane. Now shipping.

^ Plus Apartment.Gallery pop-up launch event today. Art, live music, comics. FREE.

Scale is an important visual cue for the human eye. It denotes the relative size of one thing to another: continents to maps, an arrangement of objects in a still life.

William H. Johnson, Still Life - Bottles, Jugs, Pitcher, 1938

Scale proffers the durability of an object’s essence no matter the size. We dwell in the big and small, lost to the ongoing sameness protruding from the relational quality of life. The self is subject to the body, the book to the cover, the individual to the collective, microcosm to macrocosm; all Matryoshka dolls within Matryoshka dolls.

bigger is better

This maxim doesn’t come from nowhere; were there to be a study on the frequency of certain comments in undergraduate art school education, I’m sure the suggestion to make something ‘bigger’ would come out on top. Bigger artworks pair distastefully with contemporary art’s theoretical turn. But the trend to 'supersize' paintings may have peaked in 2022, writes Kate Brown. In an article for artnet she assesses the economic and ecological underpinnings of the increased downsizing of art, focusing on the art world as a system.

Herein, however, I am more interested in smallness as an aesthetic strategy. I am mainly trend forecasting, and this can be read like a style column in a fashion magazine featuring the utmost art world Thumbelinas on the cusp of shifting the size differential in artmaking. Beyond what is fashionable in the art world, however, I am also interested in sketching the theoretical underpinnings of my future work. This essay is an extended and almost durational entry in the realm of studio notes, formally, an artists’ writing.

Miniature watercolors and paintings on glass from the 18th and 19th centuries. Credit: Bukowski’s

THE MEAT OF THE ISSUE

“craft always entails the making of actual things, not signs. The craft object is the thing itself.”

The appeal of the art object is its superfluity. It is always in excess of what it represents, best embodied by artistic intentionality, or a set of beliefs and ideas reflective of a creator. This excess is essentially the audience’s reaction or reading of the given artwork. The realm of interpretation.

I’m greatly familiar with the art vs. craft debate as a graduate of a textile arts department. Midway through, I realized that I could give a damn about craft and more readily identified as a painter. Craft, for me, is a means to an end. I traffic in the world of images, and what I create always points to something else which it is not. What artists call themselves is irrelevant: everything is a synonym for artist.

I am an appropriator, not a fabricator.

Ed Rossbach, Construction with Newspaper and Plastic Wall Hanging, 1968, Polyethylene film, twine, and newsprint

There is still much hand wringing to do about the difference between craft and art. On their part, artists working in the so-called intersection of craft and art attempt to elevate the former to the status of the latter by championing its labor-intensive qualities. For craft-oriented artists with this view, the amount of hours spent working on an embroidered tapestry thereby merits it as a work of art. Work, work, work, and bills, bills, bills! This point of view is best elucidated by historian Glenn Adamson’s writings on craft and subsequent texts on the connection between domesticity, minoritarian bodies, and traditional crafts including embroidery, pottery, quilting, sewing and weaving.

It’s not my intention to rehash the craft and art split in support of my expatriation from what is referred to in art school disciplinary nomenclature as “Material Studies.” But I do think that the notion of something being art because of how much time spent on it is fairly problematic. As artists, labor is a sticky situation wherein Marx’s alienation becomes ever so complicated. Additionally, how do we then account for artworks which belie time? I don’t mean to argue that the deskilled is better than the skilled, but that the craft vs. art debate ignores the fundamentally troubled relationship between the artist and her labor.

Contemporary art discourse has some allegiance to semiotics… but the craft vs. art debate is perhaps best elucidated by a distinction between sign and body. Racialization and gendering is perhaps the proliferation of the sign beyond the body. The notions of private and public are comparable to the sign and its object. In the public we traffic among a world of signs which mediate the body and the self’s inwardness. Discourse emits from the body’s publicness, an attempt to face interiority with exteriority. My sign-body floats before me, precedes me even. Relational, again.

i <3

her artistic condition came first to my own

the sun bleached her pill bottle

smeared blue-black ink along the reel of the dream

Water-damaged book

digression

A dollhouse,

A diorama,

A miniature

Interiors reflecting interiors

Interiority facing a mirror produces many interiorities

Mirror phase

Projections on projections

The miniature creates a fantasy space

Enacting control, power

Where the creator feels none

girl art and its discontents (or maybe it’s just cute)

With the emergence of woman-dominated expressions of dollhouse craft, the classic semiotic relationship set out by Risatti (an art object –(referencing) → a craft object) becomes infinitely troubled. Early dollhouses were the domain of housewives, and like other traditional crafts, grew to assume a gendered dimension.

A dollhouse is an image pointing to another image.
i love the image of the sunset more than the sunset itself

Janet Olivia Henry, The Studio Visit, 1983, mixed-media installation.

I’m not interested in simulacra, but something more base and vulgar.

The history of miniatures isn’t completely girl art. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to ignore the gendered, or better put, abject dimensions of things becoming really small. Thumbelina’s small stature is figured as a deformity in the original fairytale, and Alice’s fluctuating size after she encounters Wonderland troubles her greatly. What is small, cute, picayune, is inevitably identified with femininity.

Animated stills from Alice in Wonderland (1951)

It’s perhaps a reach to align the preoccupation with size in modern fairy tales and children’s storybook media with the contemporary woman’s fascination with her diet. Like weight, size ultimately prefigures an issue with control and manageability. In the case of Thumbelina, her tiny stature is inborn. With Alice, she controls her size through the use of various magical potions.

The miniature enacts the fantasy of control.

Alice shrinks after drinking ‘The Drink Me Bottle’

The miniature is everything as it should be.

I would love you if you were perfect.

Images reflecting other images, mirrors on mirrors, pools of clear water.

arcadia

the miniature is like shopping forever

an ambient consumption

polka dot sound

i forget I’m shopping

i don’t know i’m a customer yet

utopia

Nothing is more utopic than a reflective surface: the reverse is things as it should be.

in analysis i feel the pleasure of the reflective gaze, like staring into pools of water or reading for long periods of time.

Thumbelina echoes the tale of Snow White; in both fairy tales, the heroine’s time with her mother in the beginning of the story can be described as a beatific mother-daughter paradise.

digression

Another use of Thumbelina: Michel Serres’ La Petite Poucette where he dubbed millennials as the ‘thumbelina generation.’ Serres’ Thumbelinas are able to navigate the miniature worlds of their phones with ease. Thumbelina after all is no bigger than a thumb, and the thumb becomes the main apparatus for interacting with the world in the third millennium.

You are most beautiful when you stare at the screen

The screen’s predecessor being the page

The page the mirror

The sequel to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking-Glass, where Alice climbs into a fantastical world through a mirror.

Women are the ultimate interiors. The preoccupation with the woman’s secret.

Love Streams (1984) dir. Cassavettes

An obsession with woman’s interiority produces the muse.

How my mother always described the ‘pocketbook’: mirrors reflecting mirrors, endless reflections, innerness upon innerness.

What’s her secret?

All writing comes from the well.

case studies

The Stettheimer Dollhouse complete with miniature (real) artworks

Carrie Stettheimer’s unfinished dollhouse received beaucoup attention in the twenty-tens via her more famous sister Florine’s portraits. There are few in-depth studies dedicated to the Stettheimer dollhouse, though Quinn Darlington’s “Modernism’s Miniatures” is notable in its attempt to locate dollhouses as one of modernism’s discontents. Darlington on Stettheimer: “...it would seem that she ultimately preferred “living” in the Dollhouse herself…” (Darlington 62) Again, the male element is completely lacking. Or is it?

Florine Stettheimer, Costume design (Androcles and the Lion) for artist's ballet Orphée of the Quat-z-arts, c.1912 Oil, yarn, fabric, and lace on wood

Stettheimer’s dollhouse was a collaborative effort: she commisioned her artist friends to submit miniature works, most notably Marcel Duchamp’s contribution of a pen-and-pencil version of Nude Descending A Staircase in 1912.

Duchamp’s miniature edition of Nude predates his work La Boite-en-Valise by two years and Stettheimer’s influence on the former artist’s work is notable. Carrie Stettheimer is a hidden muse in Duchamp’s oeuvre.

Godard’s maquettes for the Centre Pompidou completed in 2005 are another celebrated entry in the genre of male miniatures. Thinking alongside Risatti, however, they ultimately point outwards, serving as thwarted models for the retrospective Godard had at Pompidou. This is the crux of the male miniature (dioramas, model cars): it exhibits something. The exhibition itself as a mini-museum.

Again Darlington: it would seem that she ultimately preferred “living” in the Dollhouse itself.

That is, the dollhouse is multidirectional: refracting rays of the mirror lead back to the source, the infinite reflections of the dollhouse’s light.

Godard’s maquettes, Duchamp’s La Boite-en-Valise are both unidirectional. They point to one thing: the art object, the exhibition, the retrospective, the oeuvre. This is the classic semiotic relationship between the art object and the image charted by Risatti.

Documentation of Godard’s Voyage(s) en utopie by Michael Witt

To extend Risatti’s argument, perhaps the art and craft divide is not over semiotics but instead the ‘image.’ Artworks are images. The mirror-image being the first image beyond a child’s cheek. The weaving’s functionality is its mortality, the durational aspect of the craft object linked to its material existence. The extent of the art object is linked to the human impossession of the image. Thumbelina carries her phone filled with pictures. It is human to expect the photograph to outlast the photographed.

Catching butterflies but it’s impossible.

Let’s try to catch images instead.

1,2,3…

Thorne miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago

ERRATA

I’ve touched on miniaturization as a simultaneously renewed and emergent strategy in contemporary art, but its effects can be observed in other media. Not quite contemporary, Robert Walser’s ‘micro-scripts’ resound with the memetic capacity of miniatures. Walser’s tiny writings were done with pencil, a noticeable shift from early twentieth century writers’ penchant for the typewriter. Walser’s miniascule writings were completed in an archaic German script. The meaning-making potentiality of the micro-scripts lies in its plying of a sub-German within German, like nesting dolls.

An example of Robert Walser’s microgrammes

Walser’s microscripts present the writing as it should be: as a whole. Our main experience of writing occurs through seriality: page to page, exposition develops. Taken comprehensively, the writing transforms into a ‘simultaneous’ experience, imbibed by the body, not unlike painting, a Eucharist.

There is a passage of Saint Genet that often troubled me. Its meaning remained undisclosed despite conversations with erudite friends. Here, I will reproduce it in full:

“The phenomenon of saintliness appears chiefly in societies of consumers. A full description of such societies would be beyond the scope of the present work. I shall mention only a few of their features: they confuse the essence and the practical purpose of the manufactured object; work is not creative, it has no value in itself, it is the inessential mediation that the merchandise chooses in order to move from potentiality to the act; a simple-minded practicality stresses the final aspect of the product; the truth of its being appears when it is presented to the purchaser or user as a polished, varnished, sparkling object; it is then revealed as both a thing in the world and as an exigency; it demands, in its being, that it be consumed. The work is merely a preparation: servants dress the bride; consumption is a nuptial union; as a ritual destruction of the 'commodity"—instantaneous in the case of food products, slow and progressive in that of clothing and tools—it eternalizes the destroyed object, joins it in its essence and changes it into itself, and, at the same time, incorporates it symbolically into its owner in the form of a quality.” (Sartre 195-96)

What I think Sartre is referring to is a condition of society where saints interact as images on the lens of the human eye. The Catholic predilection for iconophilia poses an essential schism for Christians due to iconophilia’s fatal act: the reproduction of God. Protestant iconophobia is historically less popular but has maintained devoted adherents. Abrahamic religion becomes beautiful in its central crisis over the image. Image-worship is the central concern of artists, and the miniature is its most perfect manifestation. Artists can be classed into three types: iconophiles (lovers of images), iconlaters (worshippers of images), and iconoclasts (destroyers of images).

An incomplete list of artists and works in the miniature mode that weren’t mentioned in detail but were referenced for this writing: Hans Christian Anderson’s paper cuttings, Sam Anderson, Sophie Tauber Arp, Duo ASMA ASMA, Fatine-Violette Sabiri and Shahan Assadourian, Julie Becker, Beverly Buchanan, Joseph Cornell, Mark Dion, Elizabeth Englander, Faith****, Alix Ferrand, Ella Fleck, Sayre Gomez, Janet Olivia Henry, Mike Kelley , Win Mccarthy, Picasso’s maquettes, Thomas Rainy, Betye Saar, Curtis Talwst Santiago.

Brown, Kate. “Why Is Small Art So Big Right Now?” Artnet News, 22 Jan. 2025, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/small-art-2599293.

Burch, Robert. “Charles Sanders Peirce.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, Summer 2024, Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2024. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2024/entries/peirce/.

Darlington, Quinn. Modernism’s Miniatures: Space and Gender in the Stettheimer Dollhouse and Duchamp’s Boîte-En-Valise. 2012. University of Notre Dame, thesis. curate.nd.edu, https://doi.org/10.7274/n296ww74n5t.

Heiner, Heidi, and Kathleen O’Neill. “SurLaLune Fairy Tales: Annotations for Thumbelina.” SurLaLune Fairy Tales, https://surlalunefairytales.com/oldsite/thumbelina/notes.html. Accessed 30 May 2025.

Risatti, Howard, and Kenneth R. Trapp. A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression. The University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Saint Genet. Pantheon, 1983.

Title: girls gone wild 1
Author: Katie Lane
Price: $6.99
Publisher: 2dcloud
Format: Saddle-stitched comic book, 6.63 × 10.25”
Number of Pages in Finished Book: 28
ISBN: 9781937541712
Publication: June 6 2025
Distribution: Direct - 2dcloud.com
Publicity: Melissa Carraher, melissa@2dcloud.com

Synopsis

When "girls gone wild" hit VCRs in 1997, I'm sure its creators knew the name would be ripe for parody. Katie Lane's comic is part of this history, though it's far from entirely satirical. lane's pen remains crisp while depicting a stressed relationship, unlike its namesake’s blurred lines. girls gone wild's legibility contrasts with its dialogue and narrative; we wonder what’s left out of the story due to the comic’s spare exposition. girls gone wild’s sex scenes are rendered in drab gray ink washes. Most of the narrative’s eroticism comes after arguments about movies and pronouns. Lane’s scratchy renderings of hair and her muted portrayal of nudity lend gravity and nuance to the familiar strained couple narrative in her depiction of a fraught relationship. Compulsive mark-making and dialogue unite girls gone wild: during sex, the narrator’s partner says ‘thank you’ over and over again; loops of cursive strewn throughout the comic; and the lettering’s repetitive, sometimes illegible scrawl that lets readers know that the couple’s argument has played out time and time again. An exercise in cathexis and catharsis, compulsion, and agency, girls gone wild is a raunchy and earnest take on a love affair run awry.

Author Bio

Katie Lane is a cartoonist and collage artist. Her work depicts the emotional and material intensities of relationships, and work: navigating the boundaries of language, personal hardship and self criticism. Lane's collage webcomic single camera sitcom ran from 2018-2022, and is being published by comicsblogger. Her recent pen and ink work in the collections ‘sine qua non’, ‘perception through a gap’, and ‘blue idea’ orbit sexual experiences and iterations of argumentative moments in romantic partnerships. She is the coeditor of bernadette magazine along with Angela Fanche.

Instagram: Katie Lane

Praise for girls gone wild 1

“Like conversations remembered from a dream, Katie Lane's comics are uncomfortably familiar and persistently strange, enticing and opaque, containing some key to hidden feelings and unsaid thoughts without the map to recover it. Few have ever written trans women with this finesse, this ear, this sense of our real frustrations and desires. Her work makes me feel less lonely.” —Emily Zhou (GIRLFRIENDS)

"girls gone wild is mumblecore at its heart, the conversations and conflicts feel so real, the cropping of the panels is bodily, everything feels tactile. I Thought That I Was Wrong is like going to a noise show with a fog machine, everything's coming in and out of clarity, surfacing and submerging back into the noise." —Benny Johnson (GLUE PRESS)

"Katie Lane makes comics that you’ve never seen before. They sidestep expectation, drawing power instead from an intense, somewhat uncomfortable, specificity. In girls gone wild, Lane’s characters’ keen self-awareness and sharp tongues only serve to push them further away from one another. The reader follows in step, drifting from dissociation to disturbing hyper-presence, sharing in their desperate desire for understanding." —Juliette Collet (THE PEACEMONGER, BLAH BLAH BLAH)

NOW SHIPPING

katiemailboxes {at} gmail {dot} com

^ write katie to have your letters in print for issue 2!

—Nuie by nuie.
—East District by Ash H.G.
—Egirl Magazine 1 ed. Katherine Dee.
—La Poderosa 1 by Powerpaola.
—Altcomics Magazine 7 ed. Blaise Larmee, katie lane.
—Mirror Mirror 4 ed. airplane mode.
—and a bonus comic by katie lane.

^ Nuie | nuie • 9781937541651 • 32pp • 4 × 5.697” • 2024 • color • $9.99 MSRP

^ East District | Ash H.G. • 9781937541613 • 88 pp • 6 × 8.5” • 2025 • b+w, color • $20.99 MSRP.

^ Egirl Magazine 1 | Katherine Dee • 9781937541705 • 32pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • color • $6.99 MSRP.

^ La Poderosa 1 | Powerpaola • 9781937541699 • 32pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • 2 color • $6.99 MSRP.

^ Altcomics Magazine 7 | Blaise Larmee, katie lane • 9781937541583 • 32pp • 6.625 × 10.25” • color • $6.99 MSRP.

^ Mirror Mirror 4 | airplane mode • 9781937541729 • 72pp • 6 × 8.8” • color, b+w • $9.99 MSRP.

Comics don't require software to remain open. Nor to burn.

The bonus comic by katie lane will formally be announced and previewed next week! Nuie, East District, Egirl Magazine 1, La Poderosa 1 are now shipping. Pre-orders will open up for the full season’s titles in June with discount options.

Illustrations by Kristina Tzekova.

This is SIDE B of a piece that was originally published in 2017. With Aidan Koch’s new book, ‘The Spiral’, out from New York Review Comics in 2024, it seems like a good time to revisit. In the intervening years Austin English has published ‘Meskin and Umezo’, a new book of his own through Domino Books, which has since sold out.

Aidan: Do you have ideas for long stories? What's your longest thing?

Austin: Right now I've been lucky enough to have this opportunity to be part of the Sharpe Walentas studio residency program, where I have a huge studio space to work in for a year. So, again, I've been putting comics on hold. But once it's over I'm going to be working on a long story, hopefully around 120 pages that will be two people talking for the entire book. I love to talk and I love stories with limited characters and sets…I feel like, a couple years ago, the idea of such a long story…I just didn't have it in me. But I feel like I've been building strength and I have a feeling I can pull this off.

I'm trying to plan it out differently than past works, trying to make a stab at doing things with a drop of traditional planning. I was wondering, with your work…they begin now with these abstract swaths, but then the figures have at least some relation to how even the most conservative cartoonists draw the figure. So I was curious if you pencil things out and then add ink or if that isn't even a consideration…

Aidan: Never.. I've never done that. All of it gets figured out completely as it goes. As it comes up, I'm like "oh I need someone sitting" so I'll pose for it. But I never.. I don't plan any drawing ahead of time.

Austin: But the actual pose, the idea of what the pose will be, does that come from intuitive drawing? Or do you have an idea in your head…

Aidan: I usually act it out. it's been changing a little bit. I'm trying to draw more from my head.

Austin: What about the swaths in the beginning? are those forms that you work out before you actually come to the page?

Aidan: No.

Austin: When you sit down to do the story, you do those completely from the gut.

Aidan: Yeah, as things develop, those maybe become not as effective or those won't always make sense as I start working for real, so usually I'll go back or I'll start taking that and putting it in other places, or if something shows up later, I'll find ways to start looping it around so it becomes more purposeful feeling, or I'll find a use for eventually.

Sometimes there's a thing that is just awkward, so I find the way to make it useful. And create… sometimes it gives foreshadowing or ends up being useful.

In Heavenly Seas, it was all about setting the environment, the idea is that it's a semi-Arabic-influenced location. So just starting out with those things…

Austin: (locates a specific image in Aidan's work) This! this is specifically what I was talking about. You use these swath elements a lot.. in The Blonde Woman, there's pockets of that. In Little Angels, there's almost a sustained narrative of it. They don't seem like so off-the-cuff. They seem so purposeful.

AK: It's supposed to be a growing sequence. So actually every page, each panel that's in the same spot is supposed to relate to the panel from the page before.

AE: Ah, that makes sense.

AK: And that's how the images take shape, but it's also…

AE: You mean this would relate to this (indicating a panel) and that (indicating another).

AK: Yeah. At least in terms of figuring out how.. what's dark or how the wash is used.. it's not specific… that's supposed to be her becoming super overwhelmed at this event. So it is supposed to be more about developing the tone but there's little glimpses of space and figures… it is a very specific way that it's done. Even the solid color relates to her little box because then she's repeated at the end that same square.

AE: Yeah.

AK: But then she's gone. She left the party. So she's no longer there.

AE: But that's actually really structured. I think that's why I like it more than just pure improvisation. Because there's a lot being considered but then there must be some actual..

AK: Yeah but it's also just playing around. The way I like planned was that I needed panels of washes (laughs) and that there's more towards the end.

AE: But then, if it didn't open with that, this opening, or even if it opened here, that would just feel like a completely different story.

AK: Yeah. Because the story is about… the first half is about more about emotional, mental…

AE: I love that.

AK: Thanks. (laughs) Yeah, jumping between the actual mental state and describing the mental state.

AE: The way people are communicating the mental state after it happens?

AK: Hmm… this is the experience and then it's like how I'm trying to understand that experience, and where are the words? (laughs)

I have more random things that I was thinking about. Which is also getting back to how much your spaces feel like dense and urban, did that change in Sweden? Did you see that influence? What was that experience?

AE: I think just being in Sweden gave me more time to work. I had enough money saved up when I got there that for first six months, I didn't have to work. I didn't know anybody there.

AK: So it's more processing than taking in the environment.

AE: I don't even think of it as that I think it was just… I was like "oh I'm gonna push things as much I can with my work" I think with Windy Corner because I was doing those while I was here, I was slowly making little new images and figuring out different things and pushing in it directions I wanted to go in, but it went very slowly, but when I was there I was like "oh okay now, if not now, when am I gonna push the stuff where I really want it to be." That's how I described it to myself. Even though I've been in New York now for, if I subtract the two years I was in Sweden, I guess like 12 or 13 years now, I never feel like totally at peace with the place, I don't understand it… but I do love it and I get into it so much here. I just never feel totally comfortable - you know, I just assume that someone could stab me in the back while I'm walking down the street, or…

AK: Or your apartment could burn down.

AE: Exactly, where as both those things in Stockholm didn't cross my mind.

AK: Yeah.

AE: So I guess with the work, maybe I was able to fantasize more about the aggressiveness of NYC because I was not part of it, and I could just joke around about it a little bit more. I feel like maybe when you're here, reveling in NYC culture is a little more draining because you're dealing with it day to day. But I really do think it was just like being there just made me get more serious about what I was doing. If I hadn't had that break of being away from here maybe I wouldn't have been able to get on that track.

But I think it's less a thematic thing and more an aesthetic shift.

AK: Well yeah, in that sense too- I mean you were talking about trying different things every time and how important that is. Do you think there's an end to that? Every time you start something new, do you want to pull in some new technique, or some new approach, or some new paper or whatever?

AE: I remember when I first started trying to draw comics in fourth grade, even friends of mine who'd never ever went on to make art after, they could draw a character in one panel and recognizably draw that character in the next panel (both laugh). And I struggled with that then, and I still really struggle with it now. By the end of the story, not just in terms of how the characters look, the way I draw, if the story goes on for forty pages, the way I draw has simply changed. Or it's like, evolved or devolved. So by the time I start something new, I usually feel like 'okay I'm gonna try to build on where I'm at now.' So I guess try to work with what separates me from traditional comics (AK: yeah) so instead of being like 'well fuck I can't get it right,' I'll try to think 'okay I'm going to try to push that flaw as hard as I can.'

AK: Yeah, I like that that's your challenge.

(both laugh)

Try and make them kind of look the same…

AE: But your work shows a great stride of change too, especially reflected in this collection.

AK: Yeah

Well I guess to me it's like my … my tools have been really stable. Like I'm really using the same paper, the same gouache, the same mechanical pencil. And I've evolved that so that I'm focusing more on the narrative I guess. And so the style changes and warps along with however that narrative is working. (AE right) but then also all that's influenced too by yeah, stuff I'm showing or stuff I'm making for other things.

AE: Even when you've shown work outside of comics, you maintain a certain consistency with that.

AK: Well it was different in the sense that I like, well… I guess I've kind of disappointed myself (laughs) because everything just keeps coming around to drawing, where I was really trying to push doing other things. I was doing ceramics for a while, but those don't make sense. Like the stuff I was doing didn't actually make sense… and wasn't strong.

AE: Well, how do you mean?

AK: Well, I think I've been trying to come to terms with whatever my visual voice or message would be as a showing artist versus a comics artist or something, and how to make those cohesive or not, or like, what that is, and I just had nothing to say about that stuff…

AE: It's almost like how your first zine, Super Special, which was totally different in tone, is not included in After Nothing Comes. You did Super Special and were like 'this is not exactly what i mean to say.' It's your first step…

AK: Yeah, yeah.

True, and so I mean I think I was like trying to go all in, but in an area where I had nothing to back it up yet…or something. So now I'm backing it up and taking it slower and…like I've sold pieces of fabric that work as stand alone pieces and I can kind of back up where the imagery is coming from, or like whatever it's doing.

And then, yeah. And working more in metal, like small things, which also like - all those things like I can kind of actually vocalize whatever it's about to me.

AE: But that's a pretty big challenge to present yourself with..not only is this work going to be a completely different context than a decades' worth of work you've done but it's also going to be in a completely different medium.

AK: Well, I think it's all starting to make sense together. I think seeing it operate in space together is working, and that is definitely the goal, or idea.

AE: I think that everyone puts too much pressure on being "well, I did this thing and now I'm doing this thing and how does it all fit?'

And maybe that's what's nice about being part of two things. People who define themselves as "I am a cartoonist" or the inverse of being "I am part of the grand history of painting"….I always think, 'well, if you want to think of yourself that way, go ahead.' But really you're a person and you happen to do these things that are often really beautiful, but really you can do anything, you can try out anything (AK true) and I think then it feels less convoluted.

I'm in the studio now trying to figure out how to work with paint. I have this great opportunity to work in this free space for a year so if I'm going to figure out what I want to try doing with paint it's going to be now. (AK: oh, absolutely) But when I look at the stuff I'm doing right at this moment, my first reaction is 'ooof, I would not respect the person doing this work if this is all I saw from them.' (both laugh) But I also really enjoy doing it. It's so fun, physically fun. (AK: yeah) And so, maybe the professional thing is to use this year to continue doing what I already have some strength in and make that kind of work more ambitious…but I can't imagine doing that, because it would mean denying myself this opportunity to head out and start from scratch again in a new medium, even if it means falling on my face a few dozen times.

AK: Yeah…

I was oil painting for like a year and a half or something very regularly and I had to stop cause it wasn't settling at all. Every painting was wildly different ….

AE: Where was this?

AK: The whole time I lived in California.

AE: So around…

AK: Two…three years ago…

Yeah, but it never settled on a voice that was me! None of it felt authentic at all. It was wild, it was all so different and so weird.

And then I was going crazy because oil painting takes so long and i was literally spending six hours a day, regularly, doing it. And I'd be like, for what? (laughs)

AE: When I've tried to work with oil painting, it's so… it's incredibly hard.

I think Gary Panter, or someone told me it was Gary Panter, has this quote where he's like "Oil painting is like a battle you are losing every second."

AK: Oh my god.

AE: The bar of entry with that, it's such a risk, because it costs so much money and you need space and it's so messy … (laughs)

AK: And time… (AE yeah) time time time… I just always wanted to be a painter. And then, I feel by the end of that I was like "oh my god, I'm not a painter."

I mean, I use gouache, but I'm not a painter. (AE right) Like some of the images turned out nice, but none of them did anything for me.

AE: It almost seems like you're saying the other stuff you've tried, it feels alien, so there's something essential about comics.

AK: Yeah, totally. And to drawing too. Cause I just love drawing, and comics feels like the best format to utilize that love. Cause it's pulling in all these other elements that makes it more interesting and dynamic, and as much as you can appreciate the drawing of it, it's the way you can get someone wrapped up in what's actually going on is so cool.

AE: Yeah, you have so many tools just inherent in what is the essential elements of comics.

AK: It's kind of seeing like, which things end up feeling comfortable. I mean the stuff that I've had printed on silk feels good. And like my metal work feels really good, for some reason. So I'm sticking with those.

AE: Right, it's just the oil paintings,,,

AK: It's just the oil painting! And well, I still love ceramics, but like, that's more like a relaxing hobby for now..I don't know.

AE: Well there's something like an engine for comics that keeps one glued to doing it.

AK: Yeah, well and I think that being around so many artists who work in so many different disciplines, in listening to other people who paint, or do ceramics or sculpture and the way they approach their work I'm just…my brain doesn't do what theirs is doing.

AE: Right.

AK: But their brains could never do what I'm doing.

AE: I enjoy talking about all kinds of art but I feel like my approach or way of working is foreign to both worlds. But I connect with elements here and there, I guess it's like that for most people.

AK: Yeah, I know…

When we were in Minneapolis, Josh Bayer and I talked to this class and actually that was so funny, because we did it back to back. (AE oh wow) and like it was just literally everything he said about comics I was just the total opposite (AE laughs).

AE: Oh you disagreed… because for me that would have been my perfect one two punch, your approach and his.

AK: I mean I love his work… it was mostly that he was telling the kids how to do something…

AE: Really, huh.

AK: Whereas…Yeah, he was very instructional. He actually just showed them how to draw a figure.

AE: See, josh's comics to me are as untraditional as yours or mine in a way.

Josh is one of my favorite cartoonists right now and I just love …everything he does. I look at his work and … he's actually synthesized something I would love to be able to do where it has the feeling of a just meat and potatoes real deal comic, but it's unashamedly artistic and he did that in such a straightforward way, I'm like blown away by it. And I get a feeling of his love for beautiful art and comics coming through from his work, and it doesn't feel confused to me, it feels like a real synthesis. So it's surprising to me that he'd be teaching that this is the rule to how to make a figure like..

AK: Well, I'm trying to remember exactly what he was saying, cause I just remember thinking how absolutely opposite our talks were. He talked about his approach of how, basically, if he sees something that someone has done really well he like sits down and figures out how they did it, and then teaches himself, and copies it over and over and over again and so, the way he talks about it is that he came from not necessarily knowing anything or any approach but then took everything he saw and forced himself to learn how to do it, so that everything he does is this struggle of overcoming some inability I guess.

And he just sounded like he worked so hard and was like so, simultaneously pained but also so in love with working. Where I was like… I'm the opposite with working, where I don't want to do anything that's hard for me …

AE: Well, but you do do something that's hard. Just taking the time to do it …

AK: Yeah, but the dedication he was putting out was like oh my god (laughs).

AE: When I see something that I like, I feel in direct competition with it (AK mhmm) but I have never had the impulse to figure out how that person did it. (AK laughs) If I see something that moves me, I feel that I have to equal it in my own language, in my own expression. I respond to work that is purely creative…if the person's work is creative in the sense that it has a lot of craft and control, and THAT'S how they're creative, I am moved by that. But I have this desire to be equal to them by doing whatever I do with the same level of dedication…or focus. But I always want it to be in my language, or if I admire something so much, I want to learn how to do it in my own hand, filter it through me.

AK: Definitely. Definitely, where it's like, you know I don't think I don't have the faculties. It's more like you said- being inspired to push what I have to a level that is of a different caliber.

AE: But you feel you have the faculties.

AK: I think it's there, but I don't have ideas about what I want my stories to look like until I've started them. And so even that's not really a challenge. Whereas I think a lot of comic artists know what they want their story to look like, or what it is.

AE: Well they have - I do think that's something that - a lot of comics artists have a dream of a perfect comic.

AK: Yeah.

AE: The one that they read and they are processing themselves through recreating that. And just the way the colors look in that specific thing from childhood. Even summarizing that is - to me - like a beautiful idea in the right hands but also key to a lot of mediocre art in a lot of hands.

AK: I really don't know what my stories are going to look like until I do them. And then I'm usually really happy while I'm working. I'm like, "ooh, that one turned out cool' or like, "oh my god, I'm going to draw that one again," or you're like, "oh that one's nice" or like, "ooh that box ended up working so well." It's like a game of excitement to me, like, "it worked!"

AE: That is the opposite of the pained approach.

AK: Yes.

AE: It's more just like, you get pleasure - it's pleasurable.

AK: Yeah, constantly, I'm just like, "ooh," like - things just turning out - not better than I imagined because I have no imagination for it before it happens. It's like all surprises all the time.

AE: That's I think a more beautiful idea than lusting after that image in your mind that isn't even really there anymore that you're trying to recreate. I think it's better - it's a healthier formula for expression, probably.

AK: Yeah, I mean, I'm not upset at any stage, [both laugh] you know, I'm not tortured at any stage, really, which is cool.

AE: Well, that's what I mean about pushing the flaws. Instead of like, you know, I get so much pleasure from doing comics even though they are, to me, a ton of work, but I love drawing things in different ways from panel to panel and instead of hating myself for doing that I was like, I'm going to … fucking embrace that and see what happens with that.

AK: Yeah.

AE: That's the thing, it's like, when I sit down to draw the character again I'm like, oh but I'm going to make him like, his belly really big in this one because who's going to tell me not to?

AK: That's definitely where it's fun. And nobody is your boss.

AE: Yeah. And you said something when you were editing Astral Talk where you were talking about how there's so much untapped potential in comics and I feel like it's still such a small community and it's like - why not?

AK: Oh totally.

AE: Why not do it how you want to do it?

AK: That's something I tried to push in my class too. People have so many preconceptions. Even when I'd be like, "don't plan your story - don't plan your story," people would be like, "well can I do this though?" and I'd be like, "no!"

AE: [laughs]

AK: I'd be like, "you can do whatever you want the rest of the time - "

AE: - That person wants to - 

AK: " - but you're here this week for me and I'm telling you please don't plan the story" and they're like, "but it's comics!" [laughs].

AE: Yeah but see - that's why it'd be hard for me to do teaching because I would immediately be like, "well, I want people to do what they want and this person wants to plan and that's them expressing" - but yeah it's so fucking hard.

AK: I know, I know. I also feel that way because that's also my - like - I hated school so I did whatever I wanted and that's how I'm doing whatever I'm doing now. It was not from listening to other people.

AE: Yeah, exactly. I was good in school - I did everything I was supposed to do - but I hated it so much and I feel like art is the inverse of all that. It's like, you know, I checked all those boxes of doing what was imposed so I'm never going to do that in art. You know what I mean?

AK: Yeah.

AE: But I relate to Josh's thing because I think as you get deeper into doing art you do want some level of - you develop what you say a little more and you want some level of control over that. I could imagine now struggling to recreate drawings or learning from past masters. I could see in the near future getting pleasure from that stuff.

AK: Yeah I mean I enjoy, like, utilizing comics, formatting things.

AE: Yeah and you were saying that in the interview with Bill, like you actually are drafting things out.

AK: Yeah and it's fun being like, "OK, I'm working within a world where there's so many things set up to use," like, "how do I want to use those now?"

AE: Yeah but you use them because you want to, because now you've gotten to the point where it makes sense.

AK: Yeah and I feel totally allowed to do anything I want.

AE: Yeah. Yeah. [pause] "Totally allowed to do anything I want," I think that's a good [laughs]

AK: [laughs] Yeah I mean nothing's at stake.

AE: Yeah. No that's like a good endcap. "I'm totally allowed to do anything I want," that's a good final sentence for the interview. Unless there was more - I mean - I don't know, I feel like that last half - 

AK: I think this is an hour and 22 minutes so [laughs] OK.

AE: I feel just like in that - we covered - 

END SIDE B

original video and stills shot by Blaise Larmee with Jake Terrell; transcribed by Kim Jooha, Shawn Starr, Justin Skarhus, and Blaise Larmee in 2017.

This is SIDE A of a piece that was originally published in 2017 on medium. With Aidan Koch’s new book, ‘The Spiral’, out from New York Review Comics in 2024, it seems like a good time to revisit. In the intervening years Austin English has published ‘Meskin and Umezo’, a new book of his own through Domino Books, which has since sold out. Hoping it will end up back in print somewhere!

Aidan x Austin features Aidan Koch and Austin English talking together and drawing together. The talk spans many subjects centered around personal practice and personal histories. While this is going on, we witness each artist's approach to drawing and collaboration. Each artist begins a drawing and mails it to the other. Each artist receives a drawing and completes it.

Just prior to the talk, each had released a major publication spanning years of work, provoking reflection on their past and present positions and how they got there (‘After Nothing Comes’ by Aidan Koch collects zines from 2008–2014. ‘Gulag Casual’ by Austin English collects stories from 2010–2015).

Aidan Koch: It's beginning…how do we wanna start?

Austin English: Sometimes you're in interviews and someone has this outlandish take on something (AK quietly laughs) and then they kinda force the person being interviewed to respond as if that's correct.

Aidan: yeah.

Austin: I think that happens to every artist you like and then you see the artist politely taking in that interpretation so…maybe it actually leaves you further away from actually understanding that person's work. So I was gonna talk about stuff that I noticed and maybe you could tell me how close I am to being correct.

Aidan: (laughs) cool. yeah… I mean have enough shit that we probably won't get to all of this. Yeah, and I mean I just have little general things…

Austin: I got 'Warmer' from you years ago, in the mail, and I remember reading it in my room which you later subleted. I just remember because, sometimes people's first comic, it's already there, it's like already their voice. And you'd done stuff before but it's like you say in your interview, and it's what i say in the note to the reader in 'Gulag Casual', this is the beginning of the work that relates to work that we both do now.

Aidan: Ya, ya.

Austin: So I was relating 'Warmer' to your current work, and I remember this moment when I first read it and it struck me again when I was rereading it. There's this kinda thrilling passage where you turn the page and one of the characters says "it is so hard though" and that is a really specific emotional phrase, really specific emotional language.

Aidan: (laughing)

Austin: And so in your newer work, in 'Glass Surfaces and Still Pools', there's still clear emotional language. You say, "do you know I'm alive", but the way I react to stuff in Warmer is much clearer and it feels even though Warmer is patched together and it is not a traditional structured story, (AK: yeah) you can, sort of, with less work, you can piece together the emotion of the piece. In the new work, there's more abstraction to the emotion. And so I was wondering if 'Warmer' is more of a reflection maybe of different emotional states you're going through mixed together, like a collage of feeling. Whereas new work kinda has, it's to me more like a puzzle. There's obvious, you have obviously emotional reaction to it, but it's much more like something you have to work with. And I was wondering if that makes sense to you? Are you adding more obstruction to recent work? Or if that's totally off?

AK: (Quietly laughs) I mean, I think it's on in terms of rawness or something. Since that was basically the first step from taking life drawings and zines and things and combining it with other material that I was writing. So lists and like… VERY young and emotive and expressive work. Just putting those things together. (AE: right) and I think I was a more sensitive, pained, human being at the time. (laughs) I was really FEELING a lot. (laughs)

AE: I don't feel like the emotion is necessarily different than the current work. (AK: hmm) It's just more upfront. (AK:hmm. yeah.) Or at least there's some clear continuity between now and then…

AK: I mean more in the construction. I think I'm now just understanding how to make stories, that wasn't necessary understanding I was making a story. (AE: huh) In my mind there was no deconstruction of character, setting, narrative. It was just like this thing (AE: right) that came together. Now I'm more considerate of devices. Part of it is understanding the format so manipulating it more subtly or something (AE: right). I like what you said about a puzzle. Now when I come into a story I have, maybe, themes to touch on or narrative arcs that I'm curious about. And I have these different elements and that it's just putting those together. (AE: right). And as I draw, the drawing influences how that flows (AE: right. In recent work). Yes in the recent work. Whereas in other work, I think it was much more just unconscious.

AE: Right. In the interview with Bill Kartalopoulos in the back of the book, you talk about 'Warmer' and how it starts off. You were still life drawing in cafes but there were other things going on in your life, obviously, and you kind of built it all together. I was wondering, is that something that's remained consistent? Because you look at 'Reflections' and it's like, here's maybe some conversations that you were having, maybe you overheard, (AK:yeah) that meant something to you, here are some landscapes (AK:yeah) that maybe you saw during this time, (AK:yeah) and they're together because while maybe they didn't happen on the same day, they are part of a specific period in your life. (AK:yeah) And so maybe that's a key to entering a lot of your work: these are things you seeing and feeling and they are mixed together because it's happening at the same time. (AK:yeah) Maybe that's constant way you've worked, but also, based on your response, in the more recent work, there's more manipulation. Because you are more controlling of the selections, whereas 'Warmer' is more upfront.

AK: Yeah. Because I think in 'Warmer' too, it's pretty much just me. I'm the character. Those are my exact feelings and mental dialogue. My body in times, my actual clothings, my setting, all of it is so much ME.

AE: But then, who is the other person?

AK: That's just the counter to myself. It's not actually anyone that I knew. Blaise brought up in our panel that his comic about panel discussions, for him, they are the ability to play out his own mental dialogue, but making it interesting by distilling parts into different characters. (AE: Right) That's a lot of times why I only have two or three characters, tops. Because it's giving them each a little something, but having one come more primarily from my own experience or point of view. I guess that's pretty standard but…

AE: Yeah that's something our stories share: not a lot of characters. It's like a play structure.

AK: Totally. For me, After Nothing Comes is interesting to look through because it's basically the same story over and over again. (AE: right) (AK: laughs) Considering it was over five years…

It's examining similar things. Even the concept of 'nothing' comes up multiple times. It comes up in 'Dark' with the looming monster guy. 'After Nothing Comes' kind of examining this emptiness or environment or landscape and mental landscape too, I guess. That's the theme. That's really consistent through most of those stories. What else is in there? (laugh)

AE: One thing I noticed is that some of the early stories, characters are talking about how cold it is. (AK: laughs) And then in 'Glass Surfaces', you talk about (AK: Oh yeah) that too. It's like the approach and the way of rendering everything has changed, but it's still those things. And characters in 'Warmer' and 'Reflections', they are parsing out how to communicate with whoever they are addressing and then in 'Little Angels', we have that again - it's not melodramatic like you need to express these things, it's more like I'm trying to get at this thing, it's not exactly working, but I'm trying to figure out how to express this thing and it's causing some kind of state.

AK: Yeah. I guess what that has in common is addressing ambiguous states and how to approach those. How to examine whether or not something is good or bad for you. Or if it's neither, what does that mean. (AE: right) It's very much about extreme ambiguity. (laughs)

AE: Working at the stuff in Gulag, seeing them all together, I was like, they are all the same theme (AK:laugh), and they are all about these little spaces. I was not conscious at that time that they shared that.. But they are all about someone in the space, (AK: yeah) people entering into that space. (AJ: yeah) But that's not a conscious choice. I assume you don't sit down and think "Oh this is my thing, (AK laughs) characters having trouble communicating and reacting to temperature."

AK: When I read all the stories in Nothing, read them all together, I saw the same things pointed out, with the same words even multiple times. And even certain drawing style. Fragments that do appear over and over. (laughs) I'm still trying to understand the same thing (laughs), but yeah.

For yours, I noticed it first…when I had 'Disgusting Room' in newsprint, what I noticed first was the spatial importance. And seeing everything together, my biggest note about it is how intrusion, personal space, and intensity of social interactions and dynamics, flow and weave in and out. I felt that it was probably influenced by New York, San Francisco, or being in city environments. Even the fact that a landlord is a character. (AE: right) Your being a tenant is so New York feeling. How obvious was that influence to you while you were working?

AE: But it's so weird to me because to actually take those themes that you see and that are clearly there…for me to actually take those themes seriously is not possible for me. (AK: yeah) If someone's like: 'your work is about space and characters intruding'. To me, that sounds insane. (AK: laughs) I can only think of the situations as.. It's like how I try to construct all my stories, I have the idea like: a thriller or I want more slapstick element to it but I have such a low level of craft to pull those things off, that by the third panel, it becomes something else. Then I try to catch up with the original intentions that I had - because I have something mapped out for what was supposed to happen - (AK: okay) but then everything gets so turned around that I end up getting so into rendering the characters in different ways, that the tone of the story becomes something completely different. Sometimes I do want to make the story that have a scary element to it, but not in the element that it's gonna be like deep psychological horror (AK: laughs) but just a thrilling horror element to it. I do wonder a little when working on these things what scares me? I do think, with growing up, moving around…we had to move a lot, we lived in a bunch of different places, we were always evicted. But to me, I never really was in pain over that stuff. I was never like, "ugh I gotta tell this story"

AK: (laughs) "This is my story."

AE: Sure. And then going from moving around in childhood to living in New York where you can never really control your personal space.

AK: Yeah. Beds also seem to play also significant role; characters being in bed. (AE: yeah) And that being that in the city that can be your only point of safety and independence or something. That's when you curl up and cry (laughs) (AE: yeah) and your partner and you just sit there and go, "what are we doing? What is life?" (AK: laughs)

AE: The idea of even that space. When I was first living in the city, I had to share a room with a friend…(AK:laughs)

I guess there's something scary to me…

AK: It's like a violation

AE: Yeah, but for me, "violation" sounds so loaded…

I want to write something sort of thrilling and personal to me, but it's not actually what I'm trying to express. It's…an outline for the expression. But, I don't want to sell out the writing. The phrases and things I have characters say…they're almost the most personal thing in my comics, more personal than the imagery. But I guess my storytelling being so murky and disjointed makes me less self-conscious about revealing that stuff because…it's there, but it's not right out in front. There's so much other stuff happening visually that the personal things I'm saying are part of the density…

AK: This relates to both of us. Part of what also gives the effect of the city, gritty essence, is the actual density of the imagery in your drawing, where it's like there isn't that space to breath. Whereas, everyone who reacts to my work is like "there's so much space, it's so empty." (laughs) (AE laughs) Those things automatically influence what people are getting out of both of our works. Nothing, something, or ambiguity. Because "there is so much space, or I don't know how to interpret this!" In yours, "it's so dense!"

AE: Yeah. the layout of your pages - they do have Pacific Northwest openness (AK laughs). I wouldn't have thought of it unless you'd mentioned it.

AK: Your mental landscape can show how things are connected or looping. I think that does come out in stories.

AE: Yeah.

AK: I'm alone a lot and have been for the last five years, just in random places. I'm in my head constantly. Sometimes I'm the only person around, so it's just me and my head. I definitely feel this emptiness. I was reading journals of mine recently, I'm in these crazy places, but in my journals, I don't talk about these places at all. I rant about how I am feeling (laughs).

AE: So when you are in these places, you don't talk about the space at all, it's more just your internal emotional…

AK: Yeah. It's just this crazy, repetitive, circular, internal monologue. I wanted to see if I had written nice notes about my surroundings or "oh did I describe that church" then it's like (cries) "I'm so sad and lonely and this person still won't talk to me, and I don't know what I'm doing" in million, fifty different cities, those are the only notes (laughs).

AE: That was one thing I was gonna bring up. I think a lot of time people discuss your work as being formalist focused. Sometimes that is the discussion about what the work IS, it ends there. But reading all the work together, it's really apparent that emotion overwhelms formalism, or humanism overwhelms formalism. You don't primarily think of the approach because the narratives, to me, seem more like pockets of specific emotions from story to story. (AK: yeah) So when you're describing the journals where you are ranting about everything that's happening… the work feels not like a rant at all. And it's also not like you're cleaning up. It's not like you're trying to put a positive spin on it at all. There's a sadness that seeps through them, but they also feel more like measured.. more like you are in control of the situation that I wouldn't think of even being close to rant.

AK: Yeah. what I mean is as much as I'm in different environments, those environments aren't necessarily affecting me or the way I think. Which I think is why things are getting more and more spacious. It's not necessarily a specific setting, or it's not people being influenced by a setting. It's other little actions or emotional narrative. Not action narratives.

AE: But there was something in 'Little Angels', I felt like "this feels more like urbane setting"

AK: Yes.

AE: Because someone is coming back and it was the first hint of any location in the work.

AK: Yeah. (Laughs)

AE: It feels like from your home or a home setting.

AK: True. But Little Angels was also commissioned by Greater New York so I had to address New York (laughs).

AE: Is that requirement of Greater New York?

AK: No, but because this wasn't a story that already existed… (AE: right) They didn't say it had to be about New York, but they asked to invoke something about the experience. And for me, this is a place that you can't really separate from your interpersonal relations..

AE: It was two characters actually talking to each other. Whereas in your recent work, there's a little bit less of that.

In the story 'Dark' there's actual abstraction happening with the characters, whereas with more recent work, the abstraction is separated away from the figure drawing. I was wondering how intentional that is? And if it is, why you bring in so much more abstraction in general now. Your stories now sometimes open with a swath of abstraction but when characters show up, it's completely removed…

AK: When Impressions jumped around, it tied in so much with the narrative. The character's identity floated around. I don't know (laughs) Maybe I'm pulling more on the subtlety of body language. Having the clarity gives you smaller motions and expressions, that's doing something. I'm not sure. It's interesting to see story by story. everything just slightly changing. It's always been just a little different every time.

How do you feel about looking back at yours as cohesive? Did you feel things changing?

AE: It totally feels different story to story. I wonder if it looks that different for other people, but for me it definitely feels different. Each time I started a new piece for what ended up becoming this book, I wanted to try working with different tools I hadn't used before. I don't have a set way of drawing in any different medium, so each time I start, something new totally changes the way I make images in general, and seeing them next to each other, I was kinda proud of how five stories fit together.

I think the stories in ‘After Nothing Comes’, it's really strange to have them all together in a way because they are such specific emotional events. With some you get more of a mosaic of a person and other are more a specific kind of undercurrent of feeling. I think what was cool about stuff in ‘Gulag Casual’ being together is they almost differentiate themselves better just by being next to each other. I feel like if you're picking up the stuff one by one, you'd be like “oh, just a bunch of weird stuff from that guy” but together they have, I don't know, I think they look cool together.

AK: I think it looks really cool. I had seen many pieces over so many years, it was harder to distinguish such stylistic differences between stories.

Would you want people to go back and see Christina and Charles or older work? Is that something you feel comfortable having out there? or being considered part of your oeuvre? (laughs)

AE: I think for the two books that have spines, I'm definitely proud of Christina and Charles next to this book. I can't draw like that again, (AK laughs.)

AK: It's so nice

AE: I can't believe I let myself get away with Christina and Charles. To me, now looking at it, that's a pretty weird book, but I definitely didn't see it that way at that time. (AK: yeah) Looking at it now, it feels like something I'd be pretty into if it came out TODAY. It looks weirdly still modern? So, I think the books look good next to each other, two out of left field entries. I do think stuff in Windy Corner Magazine is stabbing around for.. I feel a little weirder about that mid-period between the two books.

AK: What chunk of time is that?

AE: Let's see. It's from.. Christina and Charles is 2005 (AK:wow), I know, right? WCM #1 is 2006. So from 2006 to … 2011. That's five years.

AK: Christina and Charles is so impressive for 2005. In terms of what was around then or now.

AE: I misinterpreted what I thought was normal and exciting for the actual tone of what was acceptable at the time? I was so into … I love the history of comics but I'm always excited by new innovations in what's possible with comics. I embrace both the most traditional and the most out-there. I had read Kramers 4 and I had read all the issues of Raw when I was in high school. But I really liked Tintin (AK: laughs) I also really liked EC comics. But when I was working on Christina and Charles, in comparison to the implications of King Cat or Fort Thunder, I thought the book was pretty tame. Now looking back, it still looks outside of what those comics were doing, but I thought it was a book of the moment.

AK: Fits right in

AE: Yeah. I thought it fit right in or at least wouldn't seem as weird as maybe it was perceived. I do think maybe.. 2005 was a specific time. Maybe things have gotten a little more conservative since then.

AK: Yeah. That can be sad.

AE: I think have gotten a little squarer and larger.. maybe because there are so many people making…

AK: Or things didn't progress as much as they felt like they were right then? It felt like a part of a wave, but that wave just died and became a pool that everybody is just kind of doggy-paddling in (laughs)

AE: I think of that sometimes. When stuff was coming out at that time, I was like "man, yes", the idea of experimental painting and experimental writing and comics coalescing seemed so overdue. I was like "of course!" Now it definitely feels like.. I think even people that were right in the forefront doing it took a step back. But now there seems to be this ground swell again. Gulag Casual and After Nothing Comes seem to be built on the same enthusiasm of that moment.

AK: When ‘The Blonde Woman’ was coming out, I was like, "yeah, this is it, great, things will be a breeze after this", "it will be so easy to publish anything I want" and it's still not. Laughs.

AE: But you (laughs) say that as someone who publishes a lot.

AK: Yeah, but I thought eventually things would just be handed to me, they are getting there now, maybe. But I have been working for a minute now, I have been here. Laughs.

AE: When I finished the stuff in ‘Gulag Casual’, before it was supposed to be a book… you know, everyone who makes comics knows, comics take so much work…

AK: YEAH.

AE: The stuff in ‘Gulag Casual’ was five years worth of work that I do really love. At the end of it, I thought "Well, that was a lot of work." (AK: laughs)

I don't see comics necessarily being… I love it so much but it's also, what a weird place to drop this statement of all these drawings, shapes, color, thoughts phrases..what a weird place to drop all this into. Which feels ego maniacal, (AK laughs) but also you are the person doing it, you're like "well, is this the right place to put all this stuff that I care about into?" So for a couple of years after finishing the stuff in ‘Gulag Casual’, I got excited about having fulfilled my heartfelt obligation to comics, at least in the short term. I felt like I had earned myself a comics vacation, a moment where I could justify to myself making work that wasn't comics that I put as much work into. So I let myself draw and paint images that could just exist on their own, outside of a story or a narrative. And now I feel like I created this cool thing for myself where I'm in safari between comics and drawing stuff that will be in shows (AK: yeah) and I feel like both worlds definitely have their problems, but if you don't have all your time and energy invested in one of the two areas, it just feels like another thing that you're doing. And that's solved a lot of things for me, allowed me up to do even stranger things in both mediums. And I feel like that's where you're at too.

AK: I don't think my energy would sustain if I wasn't also in art.

AE: Is it similar to my thing, the safari between the two?

AK: I think a little bit. I think for me the comics community feels so safe and supportive and even more thoughtful in a lot of ways.

AE: I think it's definitely smarter than it gives its credit for in comparison to the art world.

AK: Yeah. Even just the fact that.. my work has been reviewed since I put out 'Warmer'. People are reading it and writing thoughtful responses. I've never had my art shows really reviewed in a way that's worth mentioning. I don't see that happening in.. for a while. So having the critical response, having the community that's interested in me producing more… I think the art world is so much more passive in terms of like "you are here, oh you are gone ok" whereas comics wants me to be there.

AE: You're never totally… comics is always open to someone going away for awhile and then coming back and doing work. I think that's really beautiful.

AK: Yeah. because they understand that books takes forever to make. No one expects you to put something out every month, or be in a show every month. You don't have to maintain that presence for people that you know exist. But then, financially being in art actually like… (laughs). (AE: yeah. laughs) I guess in like selling two drawings I can make more than any of my books made me. Laughs.

AE: That's part of the appeal to it, obviously. But I think the real satisfying benefit to being in contact with that world is that you open yourself to a lot of thoughtful aesthetic work that's being done that isn't being done at all in comics. And seeing that…going outside of the comfort zone of comics, a world that I understand aesthetically more…it's very educational and enriching to step outside of that. There's a ton of garbage but you already know about the garbage from the cliche joke about the art world. When you force yourself to look at a lot, there's a lot of gems beneath the surface, in the same way that there's beautiful work in comics that the general public doesnt see, because they think of comics as genre.

The thing that always drives me crazy about comics is, I don't feel like the work I do is that visually complicated, but when I read a random blog about my work, it's always - for years, ever since ‘Christina and Charles’, it's like a 11 years now - same like "I'm not even saying I don't like it, but it's so crazy, it's so weird. Is it even comics? I just don't know!' I haven't read a review of your work that explicitly says “oh this is really complicated”, but I do think it's sometimes lightly put in that sphere where just like “this is different stuff. different approach” (AK: yeah) As people who do stuff in both worlds, I think stuff we do is actually pretty conservative in terms of a lot of what's happening in the art world (AK: oh yeah) and I feel like that's a good… it makes me feel less crazy about making my comics work (AK: yeah). Sometimes you see work that, in the comics world, would not be thought as that skilled, but in the art world, if it has just a little sense of doing figuration, people are like "oh wow, this person can really draw!", (AK laughs) and I'm like, “I know.. but what about Lale Westvind! She can really draw!”

But all complaining aside, there's stuff that you see that's beautiful.. there's beautiful visual work being made, and especially if you live in New York, you get to see all the time. I think it naturally enriches you. Being part of something you get to know it better, by hearing about people's work that might be more obscure from peers. I think it's such an education. I think it all adds to the pot of what you are doing.

AK: I think that definitely being in that community and absorbing so much visual information, and being around artists who are pushing their personal limits of what they're creating is really helpful and inspiring. It's really cool.

But I was wondering about how people have responded to your works. I haven't really read many reviews of anything, I assume this is gonna be well circulated, someone will have something to say. (AE: laughs) laughs. What do people say?

AE: About the work in the book when it was originally published? (AK: yeah) It's always not that much, you know? (AK laughs) Any middling reviews are usually like "is this even comics? (AK laughs) is this qualified as comics?" Those are the criticisms that come up the most, and maybe they are really valid! I never even think about it when I'm making the work - it's clearly comics to me.

Comics might drive me crazy enough to take a year away from doing comics and do other stuff, but I do think there's something about comics that is like a magnet to me. If I take time away from doing it, it becomes so alluring.. (AK laughs) I just can't, for better or worse, let go. After stepping away from comics for just a little while I feel this magnetic pull not only to want to start MAKING comics again, but just to read them a ton again and fully sink into exploring cartooning, the history of it…. when I was a little kid, I could read any comic because there was something comforting about it and I feel like that again, coming back after stepping away for a little while. Just the idea of pictures being together on a page (AK laughs) is very potent to me… I don't know why.

But, the stories in this book, when I was doing them, I lived, breathed, dreamed COMICS. And, of course, by the end, I was grossed out by comics. Now I'm excited by them again, it's like I have a clean slate in my feelings towards them. And I also do think that comics is something you get better at as you get older and when I dream about what I really want to do with cartooning…I know it'll take time.

Making art that isn't explicitly connected to comics, I don't see my creative horizons opening up as infinitely because I'm still trying to work out the basics of what I'm trying to do. I feel like with comics, I'm finally getting to some kind of understanding of what I want to achieve.

AK: Yeah. I am in a show now where I just made a giant four page comic for it (laughs). Because literally that's the only way I can figure out showing images. (laughs) (AE: laughs) But it works in a different way. It's totally constructed in a very separate way which is how I had to approach it.

My issue with the wall is always like … it's not an intimate reading experience. It's not conducive to do that. But then also, you are only really seeing the skill, you don't have time to register the nuance of creating a story.

AE: For me it's hard to process the whole impact of work on a wall… It's like when you go see a literary reading or something, it all just washes over me. (AK laughs) Something about comics is, for me, so much about comfort and being able to enter this world, someone's made by themselves, in your own time, they drew the whole thing, and you can enter into it whenever you are ready. I never feel that way when I see art on the walls. I do feel more like - confronted with it. Maybe that's why aggressive art has always done so well (AK laughs) because "here I am! check it out!" But I guess with comics it plays to my strengths as a reader. With art I have to calm myself down and get beyond the sterile environment to have a relationship with the work.

END SIDE A, flip for SIDE B next week.
original video and stills shot by Blaise Larmee with Jake Terrell; transcribed by Kim Jooha, Shawn Starr, Justin Skarhus, and Blaise Larmee in 2017.

Title: EGIRL MAGAZINE 1
Author: Katherine Dee; with illustrations by Blaise Larmee, Kristina Tzekova, Bubbles, Raighne
Price: $6.99
Publisher: 2dcloud
Format: Saddle-stitched magazine, 6.625 × 10.25”
Number of Pages in Finished Book: 32
ISBN: 978-1-93754-170-5
Publication: February 12 2025
Distribution: Direct - 2dcloud.com
Publicity: Melissa Carraher, melissa@2dcloud.com; Brianna Perry, hello@2dcloud.com

Synopsis

What is the egirl? A print magazine puts it all in a timeline. Writing by internet culture reporter and amateur anthropologist Katherine Dee. Supported by sumptuous illustrations from Kristina Tzekova, Blaise Larmee, Bubbles, Raighne.

egirl is a 32 page full color magazine. It is envisioned as the first part of an ongoing series about Internet culture.

Issue #001 is an interactive timeline beginning in 1982. Minitel launches in France, where the seeds of cybersex and electronic romances are planted, and eventually blossom. We time travel, meeting early webcam girls like Jennicam, migrating to and away from Yahoo! Groups and LiveJournal communities and Tumblr and MySpace, finally, ending in 2024, when the $egirl token is launched and Hegelian E-girl Council is formed. Along the way, we encounter #GamerGate, and /r9k/, ASMR, cosplay, and TikTok, and meet characters like Bailey Jay, Belle Delphine, and "CLASSY" Fred Blassie.

Author Bio

Katherine Dee is somewhere between Internet anthropologist, culture reporter, and historian. You might also know her as Default Friend. She writes at default.blog and elsewhere.

Author website: DEFAULT.BLOG
X: Katherine Dee

Praise for Egirl 001

"Masterfully documents our modern Helens of Troy, the e-girls who have launched a thousand simps, who pulled us into their orbit to become transfixed by their lives whether we like it of not." —Blassie

"Women, or rather, girls—this nebulous category that conjures both mystery and ubiquity—are online in the strangest of ways. The egirl, that modern version of the statue come to life, has a peculiar existence: half subject-half object. She dances for a camera, and perhaps also for you, but who really knows? She sells her image, but was she ever really there? Softly intoxicating, the egirl is the irony of the ecommunity. Does she even have a history? Yes, and no. Will her image endure? Again, yes and no. Whatever you do, stay pastel." —Nina Power (ONE DIMENSIONAL WOMAN, WHAT DO MEN WANT?)

IN THE US AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER VIA METALABEL
OR 2DCLOUD.COM WORLDWIDE, SHIPS FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Title: LA PODEROSA 1
Author: Powerpaola
Price: $6.99
Publisher: 2dcloud
Format: Saddle-stitched comic book, 6.625 × 10.25”
Number of Pages in Finished Book: 32
ISBN: 978-1-93754-169-9
Publication: February 12 2025
Distribution: Direct - 2dcloud.com
Publicity: Melissa Carraher, melissa@2dcloud.com

Synopsis

La Poderosa 1 sees the return of the 90's and 00's style alternative comic book with Colombian Ecuadorian cartoonist Powerpaola. Reproduced in 2 color pantone and drawn with Powerpaola's signature expressive line. This is the first issue in an ongoing series.

Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Berlin; Paola zips between the three.

After returning from a holiday retreat in Buenos Aires, Paola plans a stop over in Amsterdam to visit a friend. Due to a complication with her Visa, a 3 month visit may be reduced to 3 days unless she can find a solution. Will she get to complete her course as a Guest Professor at a University in Berlin?

Author Bio

Powerpaola is an Artist, cartoonist and illustrator. Born in Quito, Ecuador; she grew up in Cali and Medellín, Colombia, where she studied Artistic Expression and Visual Arts. She has exhibited her travel diaries, artist books, drawings and paintings in several galleries. Author of Virus Tropical, Por dentro/ Inside, Diario de Powerpaola, qp (Éramos Nosotros), Todo Va a Estar Bien, Nos Vamos and All My Bicycles (Fantagraphics) and the artist book: Amazonas published by por Artedos Gráfico. She is the Artistic director of the animated feature Virus Tropical by Santiago Caicedo, based on her graphic novel. Powerpaola works as a cartoonist with a monthly comic at Lecturas Dominicales, El Tiempo, Colombia. She was part of the collectives: Taller 7, Chicks On Comics, La Casa Telepática and the duo: No Tan Parecidos.

Author linktree: POWERPAOLA
Instagram: powerpaola

Praise for La Poderosa 1

"In true Powerpaola style, La Poderosa tells us about moments of connection and friendship. And how extra important these become when bureaucracy complicates life once again." —Jul Gordon (PARC, IT'S OK TO GIVE IT A TRY)

"Powerpaola draws exquisite attention to the heightening of detail under duress and the small but powerful interactions that inspire living life to its fullest." —Aidan Koch (SPIRAL AND OTHER STORIES, AFTER NOTHING COMES)

NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER, SHIPS FEBRUARY 12, 2025

How did this show come about?

This was born out of a very strange connection. And this relationship was also born and nurtured within Tumblr. Around 2009, I started a Tumblr and was approached by France's "Frederic Magazine" to create a book together. On that team was Emmanuelle Pidoux. Frederic Magazine previously produced a book with Aleksandra Walizewska. Around the same time, I first saw Aleksandra's paintings on Tumblr and fell in love. She is like a god. I felt lucky just to be around the same time as her. I think I was able to continue drawing because of my admiration for her.

Emmanuelle then published zines of her favorite artists on her own label. Aleksandra and I were there too. Over the years, this exhibition was made possible through negotiations with a gallery owner that Aleksandra has a close relationship with.

It really is like a dream. It felt so dream-like and unreal. It's still the same today. I still don't know if it was real or not. I met Emmanuelle and Aleksandra for the first time in real life.

I think I was shy and couldn't connect with nature [naturally]. However, because we got to know each other through drawing, I feel like we understood each other. The gallery owner and staff were warm, professional and absolutely wonderful. They provided me and Emmanuelle with a nice apartment. Aleksandra is a superstar so many people came to the opening. And the beautiful Zuzanna Bartoszek, who contributed the text for this exhibition, read it aloud.

I think I was too excited, a combination of lack of sleep, wine, nervousness, and happiness. Looking at the photos later, I was embarrassed, but I realized that as long as the people who are important to me understand me, it doesn't matter how others see me.

It was the highlight of my life. After that, I became a bit of an empty shell, but when I look back on my life, it was always drawing that brought me beautiful news.

Also an encounter.

‘KONSKI ROMANCE’ was a gift from the god of drawing. He says, “Go on.” Perhaps.

Thanks for the drawing.

Iku Kawaguchi lives and works in Tokyo. frozengirl collects drawings made between 2008 and 2023. You can find her on tumblr and instagram.