A Quote by Jean Giraud
The comics were not only stories to enjoy for me they were drawings that possessed me.
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The comics were not only stories to enjoy; for me they were drawings that possessed me.
Underground comics were produced by individuals - they were the auteur variety, rather than the production-line sort of comic book aimed at pleasing a vast general audience. Mainstream comics never appealed to me: they seemed sterile in their stylistic consistency, and were quickly consumed, the stories interesting only for so long as you were reading them.
The thing that probably frustrated me and hurt me the most was when there were inaccurate stories written about me or stories that were written that were trying to imply or infer things that weren't true.
There are a lot of good comics, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics - there are black comics that work only black crowds, gay comics that do only gay crowds, and southern comics that only work down South, and so on with Asian, Latino, Indian, midgets, etc. The previous generation's comics were better because they had to make everybody laugh.
Imagine my surprise when, after a lifetime of teaching me to keep personal things to myself, Mom insisted my drawings were the start of a comic strip for millions of people to enjoy.
I grew up when comics were only sold in food markets and news stands, so the direct market is vital to me. The best way to make it stronger is if everybody buys my comics in multiple copies before they buy any others.
I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children stories. They were better than that. They just were. Adult stories never made sense, and they were slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets, Masonic, mythic secrets, to adulthood. Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?
Nobody ever asked me to do anything. Nobody knew what to do. When comics were brand new, nobody knew what kind of comics to make. So you were mostly on your own.
The fact that so many comics were waiting to jump on the bandwagon of hate toward me - what is it about me that engages this kind of behavior? I began to see it: My cockiness, my lack of hanging out with other comics. A lot of that wasn't my fault.
'The Sandberg Game' comes up all the time. Fans tell me where they were. They were driving down the highway, they were in the bleachers, they were downtown listening on the radio, they were on the farm on a tractor. I've heard all the stories where people have been. They're just amazed by the ending of the game and the thrill of it.
I really wanted to be a cartoonist, and I was in 4th or 5th grade and I would bring my drawings in, and I'd look around, and everyone could draw better than me. Everyone. My drawings were just awful. So that's why I had to write.
In the past, in the '60s and '70s, genres were much more segmented. You had action guys who were deadly serious about it, and I think you had comics that were comics.
My mother was a children's librarian. I remember when traditional stories were revised for modern audiences until they bore only a nodding acquaintance with the originals, but were released as 'authentic Indian stories' when they were, in fact, nothing of the kind.
I love telling stories. And even in single images, I tend to have stories inside them. I've always loved film, but I was making drawings and paintings and photographs. And you put art and narrative together, and that really is comics.
Underground comics were striking in that they seemed largely unedited - in a typical book, with stories by five to ten creators, some stories would be shockingly bad, and others would be startlingly brilliant. This was a lively and exciting combination. The artwork and stories, good and bad, were all so different - I'd stare at the pages and lose track of time. This was a world where anything could happen, and I wanted to go there.
I spent my time drinking and staring at a television in the airport bar. More death and destruction. Crime. Pollution. All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.
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