Jeffrey Brown: The Interview
April 14th, 2007 por eunice szpillman
(eunice) It´s not too easy to find information about you in the internet… and it seems a bit strange that you don´t have your own webpage in spite of how successful your work is… Are you a technophobic by any chance?
(Jeffrey) I’m not technophobic, I just try to avoid working on the computer too much. I’d much rather just be drawing and writing. I barely have enough time to work on everything I’d like to, so as much as I’d like to make up a website, I just can’t imagine putting the work into it. I am on www.theholyconsumption.com, which does have a little information, plus lots of drawings.
(e) On the backpage of “Feeble Attempts”, we see a little Jeffrey dreaming with the possibility of drawing covers for the X-Men comic-books. Although that has not happened (yet), do you feel satisfied with the status you´ve reached?
(J) I’m very happy with where I am right now, although I think my work can become better and say more about life than it has already. Still, if I had the chance to draw some X-Men comics for Marvel, I’d probably take the opportunity.
(e) Quite recently, your second work, “Unlikely”, has been published in Spain. How do you feel about your work being translated into so many languages?
(J) It’s very flattering to have so much international interest in my books. Like any work, I think it will always read best in english, but I guess that’s just part of life.
(e) You´ve writen more than ten books in four years. However, not too long ago, I read that you still want to keep a conventional job in a big department store. Why did you take the decision of not focusing exclusively in your work?
(J) I think it’s more like ten books in six years - although that’s still alot for an alternative cartoonist these days. I work part time at a book store for insurance reasons - in America, we have to pay for our own health care basically, so even though working a day job may be somewhat of a waste of time, I couldn’t afford to get health insurance on my own just yet.
(e) Your biography at the Wikipedia mentions that you suffer a chronic illness, the Crohn´s disease. It is curious that your work, despite being mostly autobiographic, never refers to it.
(J) The first project I started after writing ‘Clumsy‘ was actually a book about having Crohns, but I wasn’t happy with it, so I abandoned it after about 40 pages. I’m going to finally write about that in the next book I’m working on, and the collection of autobiographical short stories I recently finished will also touch on the health issues.
(e) I didn’t know that you’ve recently finished a new book. Which is the title? It’s going to be published in Top Shelf Comix too? Can you advance us something, or it’s high state secret?
(J) It’s called ‘Little Things’…there’s about a dozen stories, for a total of 352 pages. I started drawing it back in 2005 and have worked on it in between other projects. It’ll be published by Simon & Schuster in spring of 2008. I’m still in the process of scanning the artwork and designing the covers, so I guess technically it’s not quite finished, just the drawing for it is.
(e) I always wonder how can you manage to remember all those small details and stories that the rest of us would love to retain. Do you keep some sort of diary that you later use to draw?
(J) I don’t keep a diary, although sometimes I’ll look back at my sketchbooks and seeing what I drew at different times can jog my memory. Mostly I just rely on memory with the theory that if I’m remembering it, it must be somehow important.
(e) I´m sure that many people have asked you this already, but I suppose that your autobiographic work may be a double-edged sword, because you also talk about other people´s lives in it. What do your relatives and friends think about it? Your ex-girlfriends must hate you, mustn´t they?
(J) They probably hate me for other reasons, too. I try to be fair, and I try to make myself look bad too, but it’s always hard to try and balance it all. I think I’m more interested in showing situations and feelings than really showing someone’s character, and I think readers should keep in mind whenever they read autobiographies that of course they’re only seeing one side of the story and it’s necessarily biased.
(e) In Joe Matt´s “The Poor Bastard”, he explains how he has been beatten up by a couple he met in the street because he had drawn a comic strip about them. Is it difficult to meet people who already know your work? Are they somehow afraid of becoming material for your books?
(J) I’m very selective about what I write about, and I try not to let it influence what’s happening in real life. I think people joke about doing something and ending up in one of my comics, but I think when people meet me and get to know me they realize that I’m not just going to walk around writing about every experience I have.
(e) Your last works are moving away from love stories, but your first book was such a huge success that your name remains strongly linked to them. Do you feel that we have collectively type-casted you in that sort of stories? Do you regret to have published “Clumsy”, “Unlikely” and “AEIOU” one right after the other?
(J) Sometimes I regret putting all three books out like that, but in some ways it’s more like I was just working on one big book, getting it out of my system or something. The amount of work I’ve put out and the variety of subjects I’m addressing now are starting to help get me out of that typecasting. I’m still proud of what I did in those books, especially ‘Clumsy.’
(e) “I Am Going To Be Small” is one of your funniest books, I laughed my socks off reading it… Have you thought about publishing this type of comic strips in some periodic publication?
(J) I have, but so far the projects I’ve wanted to work on haven’t allowed for that as much. The idea of having a regular deadline isn’t so appealing. I’m much better when I can work at my own pace, on my own terms.
(e) Most drawers also work in advertising as a way to earn more money. Have you done this in the past? What do you think about handing your work to others in order to promote some commercial product?
(J) Fortunately, my black and white scratchy drawing style isn’t so appealing for companies to use for illustration work, and I don’t have any kind of portfolio to speak of. It’s not so much that I’m opposed to doing commercial work, but if I can get by just doing what I really want to, there’s no reason not to.
(e) Well, actually I don’t think your style could be a problem for doing commercial work, there’s a Spanish artist who maybe you know, called Juanjo Sáez, his style has some similarities with yours, and he made advertisements for Nike and other important companies. In his autobiographic book “Viviendo del cuento” he talks about this as a very bad experience, he says the agency asked him once for “drawings like made by a goofy”, have your work ever been underrated because of your childish style?
(J) I guess that’s another reason to not worry about not getting illustration work. I think certainly people underrate my drawing amongst comic readers; reviews and blogs often accuse me of not being able to draw, even though really, I can. So they just assume it’s bad drawing rather than questioning the aesthetic choice of drawing in that style, or trying to understand how that drawing style informs the work.
(e) Your graphic style has become the most evident sign of your distinctive identity. Do you plan to keep it? Do you fancy trying some changes?
(J) I think if you look closely, you can see that my style has changed and also changes from project to project, even if you can still recognize the various styles as being mine. ‘Feeble Attempts’ is a good example of this, you can see the differences from early work to more recent stories, and the differences between different subjects.
(e) In Top Shelf Comics, there are authors like Liz Prince and her book “Will You Still Love Me If I Wet The Bed?” that are clearly inspired by your work. How do you feel about being one of her references? Do you take it as a compliment? What´s your opinion of her book?
(J) I like Liz Prince’s work very much. I think anytime other artists are inspired or influenced by your work, you should take it as a compliment, whether their work is similar or not. I still get a little surprised when my work does influence and inspire other artists.
(e) Are you happy with the result of the videoclip you made for Death Cab For Cutie? Do you plan to get more involved in the world of animation?
(J) I am happy with it. That’s one commercial project I didn’t mind doing, but it helps that I already liked the band. I don’t have any real interest in animation at this point; for me, working with static images and compositions is enough to hold my interest, and animating can be so labor intensive.
(e) I didn´t have the opportunity to watch “Drawing Between the Lines“, Bruce Parson´s documentary about you. What can you tell us about it?
(J) It’s just a short film, about twenty minutes, mostly showing what my everyday life is like and talking a bit about autobiography and alternative comics. I don’t really have much to say about it, I guess - it’s a little weird to talk about a film about how I draw comics about myself.
(e) How does it feel when are the big names in the genre, like Warren Ellis, Daniel Clowes or Kochalka, who speak highly of you?
(J) It’s always a little overwhelming to hear compliments from people who have inspired and influenced me, who have created some great work. It goes a long way to balancing out the inevitable times when people write bad reviews and speak poorly of the books…
(e) How it was to work with James Kochalka? I believe that you live in different cities. How was the creative process of the book?
(J) We worked through email, emailing our own half of each page to the other artist for them to complete. So James drew the first half of the first page, and then I drew the other half, and then I drew the first half of the second page, and so on, alternating. It was an interesting process, sometimes lots of fun, and sometimes less interesting, but a fun challenge to work on overall.
(e) And finally, can you recommend us three emergent authors in comic books that you really like?
(J) Ken Dahl, who did a minicomic called ‘Monsters’ is someone I’m looking forward to seeing more work from. Jonathan Bennett is an artist who has had a small output of a few minicomics and some work in the MOME anthology, and I think he has great potential if he ever tackles a long form graphic novel. Lilli Carre is another artist who has put out some minicomics and anthology stories, but also looks poised to create some great work.
