Today on the site, Rob Clough reviews Pretending is Lying:
Reading the New York Review Comics edition of Dominique Goblet’s Pretending Is Lying, I was reminded of an old Phoebe Gloeckner interview with Gary Groth in The Comics Journal. It’s commonly believed that the harrowing experiences she depicted in A Child’s Life and Diary Of A Teenage Girl are based partly on her own life. However, when Groth asked about certain events in the book and referred to them as happening to her, she very insistently deflected that line of questioning. She repeatedly said that it happened to the character she created (named Minnie) and not her, no matter how many times Groth tried to get her to admit to something that seemed obvious.
The reality was that Gloeckner was not being disingenuous, nor was she even deflecting. A narrative about a personal experience is a narrative, not the experience itself. It’s mediated by the author. In a way, it’s a kind of a lie, at least in the sense that when we pretend to play at something, it’s a lie. This does not diminish the importance of these kinds of experiences; in some ways, it’s easier to get at the truth through one’s own textual avatar than it is through a supposedly “truthful” autobiographical character. Art is also artifice, and clever authors can show us the strings and matte paintings that make up their world while still making us believe in them because of their own skill and self-awareness.
Elsewhere:
NY Mag takes a long look at the business and popularity of YA comics.
The latest guest on Virtual Memories is Joe Ciardiello.
