Fair Weather
CHRIS BRAYSHAW: In a reply to one of the letters in the latest issue, issue #8, you say this current story you're working on, "Fair Weather," is something you've always wanted to do, and that you were particularly inspired to do it after seeing Chester's recent autobiographical work. What is it about this new story that has held your interest as long as it has and kept it percolating around in your mind?
JOE MATT: My first interest in the story was that single page I did about David in the Kitchen Sink collection. It seems I've always had a recurring best friend and they've always shared a lot of the same personality traits, or filled the same role or needs in my life. I guess I classify Seth as the latest. [laughs] They're my male relationships. It's always such a complex thing for me because on one level, for a friend, I'm attracted to someone that has a strong personality. I'm very impressionable, so I'm drawn towards a strong personality that will influence me as well as make decisions for me and lead me. Eventually I end up resenting it, resenting all this power I've given up. [laughs] When I think of these friends now - not Dave in particular, but I've had a few others in between he and Seth over the years -- and I look back on a lot of them with a lot of resentment and bitterness. I'm always trying to figure out how much of it's my fault and how much of it's their fault, and how can I prevent it from happening again.
BRAYSHAW: So you see your friendship with Dave as being the first in a series of relationships which have repeated on into your adult life?
MATT: Exactly. An ongoing cycle.
BRAYSHAW: One thing that interests me is the way you've changed things from when they first appeared in the single-page strip, "My Best Friend Dave." For instance, Dave's appearance looks a lot different. In the Kitchen Sink collection, Dave looks way uglier.
MATT: I couldn't draw as well. [laughs] He's ugly alright. But so am I. It sounds stupid but I wasn't aware that to make a cartoon look more like a child you've got to give it a much larger forehead. In the Kitchen Sink collection Dave looks like a Neanderthal.
BRAYSHAW: What strikes me as interesting about "Fair Weather" is that in fact the two issues that have come out so far have been much more "cartoony," that is, the figures have been simplified, and the settings have not been drawn as realistically as in the earlier work in Snarf or Drawn and Quarterly.
MATT: Really? I find the settings more realistic. Especially like in an establishing shot because I'm using photographs part of the time for buildings and houses. To me that gives it a more realistic feel because I haven't used any photo reference prior to this. But the characters and a great deal of the artwork is simplified because I've got my eye on coloring it some day.
BRAYSHAW: This would be something you would like to see collected by, say, Drawn and Quarterly?
MATT: Sure, definitely. Not that I'd like to see it; my eye is completely on the collection. It always has been. Even from the very first Kitchen Sink page, I was thinking of that collection. "Fair Weather" is definitely going to be a third collection some day.
BRAYSHAW: Can you tell me something about reasons as to why you chose for moving away from things that happened immediately to you, to dealing with events that had happened further back in the past? What was your interest in that shift of perspective?
MATT: It was time to think of a new collection. I definitely didn't want to re-tread the same ground from issues #1-#6. I was very worried about repeating myself. The first thing I wanted to get away from was the whole sexual element. So the childhood story appealed to me because there was no sexuality in it. The voyeuristic looking at sunbathers doesn't quite qualify to me. This was before I got a hold of pornography -- I wasn't quite as lustful [laughs] I wanted to do a story that would allow me the opportunity to try to develop as a storyteller. Maybe use more silent panels and let the story breathe more. And do something that was more about two people as opposed to one. I don't know if it feels that way, if it feels like it's about these two friends, or if it feels like it's all about me. But in my mind the focus is on this friendship.
BRAYSHAW: I think there's much more interplay between Dave and you than there was, say, between you and Trish. That is, Dave comes across to me as an equal, who's criticizing you and talking back to you and analyzing your reasons for doing things, and I think there's a really good sense of interplay between the two of you. That comes through very well.
MATT: I'm just trying to keep the two characters together throughout the whole story. I also want to draw outdoor scenes - because the first six issues practically take place in my room. It felt very claustrophobic.
BRAYSHAW: There's also a sense that in the first few issues, you spent a lot of time using cuts between scenes, to juxtapose one person's dialogue with the results of their actions: "I'm going to go and do this."
MATT: Yeah, I wanted to get away from that little box in the corner that would say, "Three hours later" or, "The next day" It seems intrusive. I don't think I've used it yet. Like, "Later that night" is not necessary if you do a night shot, you know? So yeah, I have been trying to avoid those.
BRAYSHAW: Fair Weather seems to flow better, too. That is, there's a lot less cutting between scenes. It's more like one great, big, long scene, and there are interesting rhythms even in something simple like the couple of pages with Dave just riding his bike along. There's a really nice rhythm and progression to those scenes.
MATT: Thanks. I've been very happy with it.
BRAYSHAW: You also alluded to that sense of freedom: the panels are bigger, you've moved towards doing much larger scenes with much more detail in them. Can you talk about your interest in that? Is that more of an artistic challenge?
MATT: Yeah, it's just to make it more enjoyable for myself, to be less restricted. Even in the first six issues I limited myself to square panels. And now, if I want to do a long panel, I can do that and then cut it anywhere in that tier. It just makes it more fun, and sometimes it's necessary, so it feels right. I just wish I was faster with the art! [laughs] I'm so fucking slow.
BRAYSHAW: One of the things I think will surprise people who might not have seen the Kitchen Sink collection is, I'm thinking of some of the "Playtime" pieces, where you very consciously experimented with page design and panels, with different panel shapes and different pacing techniques. That's something I'm really pleased to see coming back into the work.
MATT: Where's it coming back? I don't see it.
BRAYSHAW: In getting away from the small square.
MATT: I see what you mean.
BRAYSHAW: For people who haven't seen that earlier work, they may think that this is all you do.
MATT: There was that one large "Playtime." Yeah, I remember I wanted that to sit next to the 96-panel strip. That was really why I did that - to make it look worse than it was.
BRAYSHAW: Tell me a bit about the reference that you're doing for Fair Weather. Earlier you were talking about using photographic reference, and in the letters you've also alluded that you've been talking to your mom about things that went on in childhood.
MATT: Right. I took some photos of the suburbs just to try and get a feel. I don't really use them too often. I've used them for David's house, the 7-11, my house, not a whole lot more. And the school, that was an important one I wanted to have photos of. But yeah, I've asked my mom and David, and my sister Monica, lots of things. I think my sister has been the most helpful. She's almost two years older than me so we grew up very close together. The interesting thing is that I am in touch with David.
BRAYSHAW: The conclusion to the strip in the Kitchen Sink collection seemed to intimate that you had drifted apart, and that you weren't in contact.
MATT: Yeah, but we got back into contact a few years ago. My mom is still in the suburbs and so is he, and she got a clerical job for a milk company, and it turned out that David is a milkman now. So they would see each other every morning in the office. She told him about the older issues of the comic and he wanted to see that stuff so we got in touch soon after that.
BRAYSHAW: Has he seen the first couple of parts of Fair Weather?
MATT: Yeah, he has. My mom told me he said it looks nothing like him. He doesn't feel like it's really him. It's more probably a question of likeness; I never really go for a likeness with my cartooning because it's just really not important to me, and it's difficult on top of it. [laughs]
BRAYSHAW: I think that's something that caught a lot of people by surprise. Like when the couple you meet in the Beguiling turn out to look nothing like their cartoon likenesses.
MATT: In that instance I was trying to get away with something, but it was so transparent. I feel like it would be like that with any change I would make. It's largely a part of my fear of me moving towards fiction because I worry that it would be too obvious. The whole question of "fiction" has always been troublesome to me because as a writer, you're always drawing on your own experiences, so to try to camouflage or change things, it just seems like more trouble than it's worth. It's like telling a lie, and it just multiplies. I worry that if I did some fictional thing it would just snowball into this thing I didn't know where it was going and I didn't have a grip on, and things just get inconsistent because they're not factual. It's very complicated.
My Brilliant Career
BRAYSHAW: What led you to do your first comics work for Kitchen Sink?
MATT: A complete failure in an illustration career. I tried hitting a lot of magazines in New York City once I got my portfolio done. I was very set on starting at the top. [laughs] I had a labor-intensive style and I thought a lot of it, and I didn't want to be doing an illustration for under $500. It just wasn't happening. I would go to these places and show them my portfolio and just stand by silently figuring the work should sell itself and it never did. I couldn't figure out why nobody was calling me back, but nobody called back. Consequently I just rotted at my mom's house watching television every day.
BRAYSHAW: Did anybody from any of these commercial places that you showed the work, or any teachers in art school provide either useful criticism to you, or suggest that maybe commercial illustration wasn't going to be it, but that your talent might lie in some different direction?
MATT: No, they encouraged the illustration career. They totally discouraged comics. This would be the early '80s. Comic shops were around, but...
BRAYSHAW: Black-and-whites weren't going to boom for another year or two.
MATT: Yeah, so it wasn't really an option. I remember in college I saw a few issues of Raw, #4 or #5 is the one I remember. But that just seemed so avant garde; it didn't even seem like comics to me, it seemed like weird, pretentious artists. [laughs]
BRAYSHAW: Had you seen Crumb's work, or an anthology like Weirdo?
MATT: No, I hadn't. I saw Crumb's work for the first time once I got out of college. I guess I was 22 or so. There was something about the style that seemed like it was always familiar to me. It seemed like I had been seeing it around since I was a kid. The whole style just gave me a real nostalgic charge that I've always been attracted to. Even as a child, things like the really old Little Rascals on TV or old movies, anything that spoke of an older world always grabbed me. And Crumb's stuff just felt like part of some old world, it didn't feel contemporary at all. So I picked up the early Zaps, and soon became totally obsessed with Crumb. Even as a child I was always jumping from one comic artist to another. I was a big Neal Adams fan, then Berni Wrightson, then John Byrne It wasn't until much later that I wised up and grabbed all the Kirby I could find.
BRAYSHAW: What led you to do your first comics work?
MATT: The illustration career totally fizzled out. This was right after college and I was living with my mom for about nine months. I was losing my mind, I had no friends, I was just living in that house in the suburbs every day. I would venture downtown to visit Matt Wagner, my friend from college, and he was doing Mage and just starting up Grendel. I would visit him and he would give me work just doing anything, cutting frisket, I started coloring figures right away. It was great, I just wanted to be downtown again. I would sleep on his floor, I was just so happy to be out of my mom's house. I was determined to move back into the city, but I didn't want to get a job. [laughs] But I got a job working at Fat Jack's Comic Crypt, unloading a truck at three in the morning. That was just one night a week, and that paid the $200 a month rent that I had once I got an apartment with Kevin, my old roommate. So any money I made coloring for Matt was money for food. As I was hanging out with Matt, he was keeping a sketchbook He's always been a very fast worker and a hard worker and I started keeping a sketchbook as well. This coincided with the time I was really discovering Crumb, Pekar, and Spiegelman's work. I'd see Crumb's sketchbooks as well, so I started keeping one myself and doing little strips about my life and just incidents that would happen on a daily basis, like a diary. Everyone I knew, Matt and all his friends, got a big kick out of looking at my sketchbook. So after I felt confident enough I decided to start my first real page that summer of '87. Like Matt, I just wanted to have my own book. He was making really good money, and he was working at home, and he owned his own copyright, and I just wanted to be like that. So I figured I'd start this page and stick with it until I had enough done for a book.
BRAYSHAW: And Matt was supportive of that work?
MATT: Oh yeah.
BRAYSHAW: Did you show the work to Comico?
MATT: Yeah, that was the only publisher I was in touch with, and I was in close communication with them. Diana [Schutz] liked the stuff, and there was probably some mention of them publishing it, but in my mind I did perceive them as a certain type of publisher that really shouldn't be interested in me.
BRAYSHAW: But Kitchen Sink was?
MATT: Yeah, Kitchen Sink seemed like the one I wanted to most be with. I sent them the first 20 pages when they were done, xeroxes. And they expressed interest right away. So I was very happy.
Joe the Cripple
BRAYSHAW: Having done the break-up stories, do you feel less emotionally neurotic?
MATT: No. [laughs] I'm an emotional cripple!
BRAYSHAW: Do you understand yourself any better?
MATT: I don't know. I just don't know. I've been single for four years now, since Trish. A big reason I couldn't get into a relationship is -- and this still might be prevalent - is that I don't want to repeat all the mistakes, and I don't want it to end up like the last relationship did. I would say I've got a real fear of commitment, and a fear of intimacy, all that stuff.
BRAYSHAW: Because you're not going to be autonomous anymore? Like if you're in a relationship with another person, there's going to be a certain amount of give-and-take which you don't really have to take into consideration when you're on your own?
MATT: Yeah, exactly. Freedom seems so much greater when you're on your own. No one is watching you. No one is watching me waste days on end. No one's watching me do nothing. Their judgment doesn't come down on me. But I still feel like I am at my best in a relationship. It breeds responsibility and it encourages it. Alone, I'm self-indulgent and masturbatory. [laughs] But I'm happy! I'm happy, in a sense, being that way. But not in any kind of a long-term sense. You really get sick of it.
BRAYSHAW: Your depiction of being alone seems to be I mean, sometimes you're just lying on your bed smiling. But a lot of other times you're hanging your head or you're out endlessly walking the streets after dark. Freedom in that sense doesn't seem like a really appealing thing.
MATT: No. It's like with anything: Everything has its moments, and too much of anything will really get to you. Like I've said in the comic, I'm a strong believer in familiarity breeding contempt. I could be living with someone and if I see them every single day I'm just going to start to hate that voice and hate that face. I can't help it. How do you conquer that? Should you even try to conquer it? I just need to be alone a great deal of the time. Trish and I lived in such close quarters for those four years, it's no wonder that things went bad.
BRAYSHAW: Do you feel that the concerns you have about repeating past mistakes in relationships or not being able to live up to an ideal, carry over into concern with your work as well? Might those also be reasons that you don't work as quickly as somebody like Matt Wagner?
MATT: Sure, I'm a perfectionist. I want everything perfect, from the relationships, to my work, to the condition of my books. Everything must be mint. It's detrimental and yet it's so strong in me. I don't know how to begin to combat it. If you could see how much white-out I put on the page I do put an awful lot of time into the comic. The infrequency of the issues isn't entirely due to my laziness. It's more due to my slowness and perfectionism.