Chatting with Matt Madden, Constraint Cartoonist and an SPX Mainstay

 

By Mike Rhode

photo by R. Carter Studios, 2022

Matt Madden is one of the defining indy cartoonists of the early 21st century, and he has been coming to SPX for decades. He has a new book out this year, Six Treasures of the Spiral, so I used that as an opportunity to ask for an interview.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

I was born in May of 1968 in New York City, in the midst of student riots at Columbia University and in Paris. My mother was finishing her college degree at Columbia but was pretty oblivious to the student activism—she just remembered the riot police being alarmed at a pregnant young woman showing up to class.

Where do you live?

I've been living in Philadelphia since 2016.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

I’m entirely self-taught, though I have benefited from advice and resource-sharing with peers and mentors throughout my career. I learned how to draw and tell stories visually by reading a lot of comics, drawing copies of panels I liked, and above all by making comics before I was “ready” and self-publishing them as photocopied minicomics to sell and (mainly) trade with other artists.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I would say I'm part of the world of indy comics or alternative comics or maybe literary comics. I love doing one-pagers and short stories, strips more rarely, and I do book-length comics even though I'm very slow.   I work on paper and I always have books in mind even if I share a lot of stuff online.

How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

I do a combination. My final pages are India ink on Bristol board using a combination of different nibs and watercolor brushes. Some correction with Deleter white #2. Then I scan and do more clean up in Photoshop.

Increasingly, I use the computer and my iPad to write and plan my comics: I lay out my stories in InDesign using a technique developed by Alison Bechdel and I do a lot of my pencils on my iPad using Procreate, which I then print out and lightbox on to final pencils on Bristol board.

What's your new book about? How does it build on your previous works?

Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed under Pressure is a collection of short comics I’ve drawn over the last 25 years, all of them made using some kind of formal constraint or conceit: one story uses the letters of the alphabet to generate the art and story; another is a narrative palindrome; some were made by adapting fixed poetry forms like the sestina and the pantoum to the comics page.

These stories weave through my entire career as a cartoonist and show how formal experimentation has been a uniting thread in my work since even before my discovery of the tradition of constrained writing as exemplified Oulipo and Raymond Queneau, which led to my pivotal book, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style (2005)

You're probably best known as a 'constraint' cartoonist. If I have that term right, can you explain it and how you got into it?

Yes, "constraint" is the term I like to use, and what that means for me is a rule or structure that you impose on yourself as a combination of prompt and creative challenge to create a work of art. We use constraints or limitations all the time when we make art, for example you might decide to make a wordless comic or a comic with the exact same panel grid on every page: how do you tell a good story that makes use of those restrictions? Maybe it's an interesting challenge to try to convey a scene of dialogue in a wordless comic, or to try to create a sense of wide open space in a comic with a 12-panel grid on it. These kinds of constraints are kinds of parameters or guidelines, part of the decision-making and planning of any comic (to stick to one medium—these principles apply across the board, though).

What I like to do is add a weird, often arbitrary constraint on top of whatever pre-existing format constraints there are because I find it forces me to hone my creative problem solving and discover surprising solutions for drawings and stories.

For example, the lead story of my new book is called "Prisoner of Zembla" which was created by making drawings for each panel that evoked the letters of the alphabet, in order, meaning there are 26 panels (plus a title panel for 27 total, which makes for a neat 3-page comic using a 9-panel grid). As I doodled shapes of letters and tried to make them into faces, bodies, and spaces, a story started to suggest itself to me which was about alphabets and language.

The short version of how I got into using constraints is that I owe it all to Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style, which I adapted into comics between 1998-2004. Drawing the same comics 99 times really sensitized me to how significant and how fun these formal decisions are that we often take for granted. It's been my primary creative focus ever since.

For a longer explanation, I invite you to read the afterword to my new book, "Thinking Inside the Box, or: The Method to My Madden-ness," which you can also read on my Substack: https://mattmadd.substack.com/p/thinking-inside-the-box

Who are your comic art influences?

To stick to comics, here are some major formative influences in no particular order:

    George Herriman

    Winsor McCay

    Hergé

    Julie Doucet

    Carol Swain

    Daniel Clowes

    Muñoz and Sampayo

    Edmond Baudoin

    Gary Panter

    Art Spiegelman

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?  

A creative career is always a crapshoot full of would-haves and could-haves so I don’t like to dwell on that stuff too much. The two things I sometimes wish (and which are probably incompatible) are that 1) I had committed to regularly and only producing comics instead of branching out into teaching, editing, making textbooks, etc., and 2) that I had gotten a decent day job early on that would have allowed me to separate the desire to make art from the need to make money.

What work are you best-known for?

That's easy: I will probably always be best known for 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, my riff on Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style (1947), where I redrew the same story 99 times using different points of view, different genres, different formal approaches, and so on.

What work are you most proud of?

 These days I feel most proud of my short story "Bridge" (first published as a standalone mini by Kuš and collected in Six Treasures). It is an excellent example of how constraints can draw entirely novel and surprising stories out of you: this comic was created and drawn as a 24-hour comic (24 pages conceived, written, and drawn in 24 hours) with the additional constraint that there had to be a 10-year time gap between each page. Despite that straitjacket of a challenge, I was able to summon up a story which I believe is the best single piece of fiction I have ever created.

I’m also happy with the drawing though I’d like to point out that I completely re-drew the story a few years after the 24-hour version.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

My kids are in high school and the prospect of being an empty nester is on the horizon. I have several older artist friends whom I’ve seen really thrive with that new freedom and I plan to do the same.

I have two book-length projects that I’m already working on (slowly but surely) and several other projects on deck.

Mostly, I want to keep making comics but as time frees up in the coming years I’d also like to devote more time to playing guitar and making music, doing more translation, and doing drawing or printmaking projects.

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

I usually have more than one project going on at a time so if I get stuck or disenchanted with one I’ll switch to the other for a while. Often, by the time I get back to the stuck project after a break I can see it with fresh eyes and find a new way to approach it. The creative process is cyclical and any given work is always in a stage between near-finished and near-ruined.

I don’t really get writer’s block, that’s one of the appeals to me of constraints: if I’m not sure what I want to draw or write about, I can set myself an arbitrary constraint (say: make a one-page comic using only triangles and circles) and that puts me in problem-solving mode rather than worrying about whether I have anything to say.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

Overall I think comics have a great future—creatively, at least. So many new artists are bringing all kinds of new energy to the art form all over the world and the combination of the internet and the ever-growing network of small press-focused comics shows means that it's easier than ever to share your work. Then again, that also makes it harder than ever to get your stuff noticed amidst the tsunami of impressive minicomics, graphic novels, translations, and archival reprints that come out every week, but I think that's a healthy problem for an art form to have.

I'm speaking here about author-driven independent or "art" comics, not necessarily mainstream genre stuff.

Matt at SPX in 2024

What cons do you attend besides The Small Press Expo? Any comments about attending them?

SPX is my main annual con. One addition in recent years has been the Philly Comics Expo (PCX), organized by our amazing local store Partners and Son, which also happens in the fall. The show has a local focus but increasingly brings in out-of-towners like Bubbles Zine or even my tablemate this year, Johnny Damm, who came all the way from California.

I go to MoCCA from time to time and will be there in 2025 but I don't really have a sense of what it's like these days.

I think the vibe of these American indy festivals has evolved over the years to something pretty different from the 90s—which is a good thing. It's a very young scene and much more diverse than it used to be. I admit that I sometimes feel like a bit of an outsider in my own scene as an old grayhair with my books amidst a crowd of risograph zines, t-shirts, and stickers, but I'm happy to see the scene grow and I plan to stick around long enough to see the current youngsters find themselves as befuddled as me in 10-15 years' time.

I was lucky enough to regularly attend the Angoulême Comics Festival four years in a row and again in 2023 and that remains a whole other beast. It's like SDCC if there were no toys or video games (which is to say: it's nothing like SDCC). It's as exciting as everyone says it is, despite its commercialization and the brouhahas that pop up every few years.

You spent time in France as cartoonist invited to live there? How did that come about?

In 2012, my wife Jessica Abel and I were both accepted for residencies at La Maison des Auteurs, a studio residency for cartoonists in Angoulême, France. It's not directly associated with the festival, rather it's part of a whole institution that has grown in parallel called La Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l'Image. We initially went for a one-year residency, then renewed for a second year before finally extending to four years total—the maximum allowed!

Our children were two and four when we moved so we dropped them in the local public school and they quickly became fluent French speakers.

It was an incredible experience to be able to live abroad as a family in a country that places value on the arts (and on families: we received a monthly stipend from the French government simply because we had two children, through a quasi-UBI program called La Caisse d'Allocations Familiales). Angoulême is a quiet, even dull, place but it's great for a young family and it is within hours of Paris and Bordeaux or even Bilbao. We were able to travel all over Europe by car and train, often to comics festivals that invited us: Helsinki, Stockholm, Luzerne, Gijón…

You and Jessica Abel are a long-standing married comics couple. Do you talk about work at home? Share projects? Both teach professionally? Have different views on making comics? Have similar ones?

Jessica and I met through the comics scene and the early years of our relationship in particular were steeped in one long conversation about comics. These days it's more of a background part of our everyday lives (I write that even though tonight we are going out to the closing reception for "Philly Comics Now," an amazing exhibit of local artists that features both of our work). Our comics have always been quite different but complementary: my work is very formally experimental but I love a good story and try to populate my comics with well-rounded and interesting characters, whereas her work is very much focused on people and their relationships above all, yet she has a keen feel for the formal aspects of cartooning and uses experimental techniques regularly.

We have only rarely collaborated on creative projects but we have taught side-by-side for years, wrote two textbooks together, and we were also series editors of the Best American Comics for six years. She's a great editor and problem-solver and she's always my first reader on new comics.

What comic books do you read regularly or recommend? Do you have a local store?

My local store is Partners and Son (https://partnersandson.com/ ) and it is not just a shop but a social and cultural hub for the Philly comics community since it opened in 2020. I don't really read any serialized comics (even with indy comics, I'm a wait-for-the-trade kind of guy) but here are a few more-or-less recent releases I would recommend:

    Sunday by Olivier Schrauwen

    Blurry by Dash Shaw

    Unwholesome Love by Charles Burns (a floppy produced by Partners and Son!)

    Processing by Tara Booth

    Cutting Season by Bhanu Pratap

    The Gull Yettin by Joe Kessler

    The Great Beyond by Léa Murawiec

Do you have a website or blog?

I'm mostly concentrating on my new Substack (https://mattmadd.substack.com/ ) these days and I invite all of your readers to subscribe--it's mostly free content and I share a lot of thoughts and resources related to comics and constraints there.

I also maintain my website, mattmadden.com, where you can find information about my books, my comics coaching and other educational work, and other news. It's also an easy way to contact me.

What's your favorite thing about visiting DC?

Unfortunately, I rarely make it down to DC proper during SPX. I have some good friends in Alexandria but we haven't gotten together outside SPX since before the pandemic. I remember a nice trip to Eastern Market…

Matt at SPX in 2023

How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected you, personally and professionally?

I feel pretty lucky about how the pandemic played out for me and my family. No one close to me got dangerously sick and my kids were at an age where they were old enough to take care of themselves at home yet not so old that they were going to stir crazy. Jessica and I were already mostly working at home already and I spent the lockdown year refining my last book, Ex Libris, and eventually pitching it to Tom Kaczynski, who published it in the fall of 2021, just as the lockdown was easing up.

I would say I definitely took a hit professionally as I had pretty regular gigs traveling to schools to give talks and workshops and all of that is basically gone now. On the other hand, I was forced to finally reckon with how to teach and interact using Zoom and that has led to online opportunities—teaching regularly for SAW, offering one-on-one comics coaching to authors—that I might not have pursued otherwise.

All that said, I feel like it's going to be years before we fully absorb the weirdness and trauma of that first year in particular. I remember crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge into New Jersey (in search of a loaf of fresh bread!) and not seeing a single other car for most of the ride. My heart was pounding as if I was in 28 Days Later or some other apocalyptic movie…

Meet Antonio Alcalá, USPS stamp designer

Credit: Cade Martin Photography

by Mike Rhode

Early this fall, I got a press release about the US Postal Service’s Holiday Joy stamp, which noted, "Antonio Alcalá, a local DMV artist, is being honored by having his work featured on the Postal Service's upcoming Holiday Joy stamps. This is a rare and prestigious recognition that celebrates Antonio's unique contribution to art and Americana." What made this of interest here is that he was a designer on two stamps by cartoonists, Charlie Brown Christmas (2015) and Message Monsters (2021) with art by by Elise Gravel. Mr. Alcalá has a studio in Alexandria, VA, and answered a version of our usual questions.

What type of artwork do you do?

Most of what I do is traditional graphic design. On rare occasion, I will create some simple brushwork art, or will create some hand-lettering. Of course, when I’m generating ideas, I will do simple pen sketches in my notebook or on a piece of loose paper.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

Ha! I was born in the 1960s!

Why are you in Washington now?  What neighborhood or area do you live in?

When I was still in graduate school, I was offered a job working as a design for Time-Life Books in Alexandria, VA. After graduation, I moved there and have stayed there ever since. I live and work on Old Town, with my office six blocks from my house.

Do you have any training and/or education in cartooning?

I have an MFA in graphic design, which, unfortunately, did not include any education in cartooning. But I did follow some underground publications like RAW and learned about people from R. Crumb to Art Spiegelman to Linda Barry and so on.

Who are your influences?

My graduate school education was shaped by twentieth century modernists—both American and Swiss. But when I started teaching, I learned about a much larger range of important designers. I learned a little bit from all of them.

 

 
How did you begin working with the USPS? Is this your full time job?

I began working with USPS, in a way, almost 14 years ago. I was appointed to the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC)—the group that selects subjects to be made into commemorative stamps. After a year, an art director was retiring and USPS asked if I would be interested moving from CSAC to the art director position. I accepted without a second thought!

Working with the USPS is not a full-time job. Most of my day is spent running my graphic design studio, Studio A, Inc.

You've worked on at least 2 issues featuring cartoonists - Peanuts' Charlie Brown Christmas and Message Monsters. Can you give us an idea of the process involved when it's another artist's work being featured?

With Peanuts, I was working with probably the most iconic and beloved comic in history! No pressure! For that project I watched and rewatched the television special making screen shots of scenes I thought would work at stamp-size, reflect the highlights of the show, and make sure each individual stamp would be something the public would want to put on their envelopes.

With Message Monsters, I approached the artist (Elise Gravel) about the project and explained what I was looking for. She figured it out immediately! She sent sketches and there were a few small adjustments needed. But after that, it mostly became a layout question. She sent a bunch of options for the extra stickers, and I figured out which ones worked and how they best fit on the sheet. I also ended up creating the lettering for the title “Message Monsters.”

The artists almost always understand it’s a collaborative process and I’m doing my best to preserve their vision. But it is a long process from start to final stamp with a lot of review by various parties and sometimes, adjustments need to be made.

Do you have direct contact with the artist if they're still alive?

Yes.

Are you a Peanuts reader? If so, did working on these stamps have any resonance for you?

Yes, I am. I still have several Peanuts books from my childhood including the Peanuts Treasury and others. It’s always a thrill to work on subjects where I have a personal connection. I also had the opportunity to design “Snowy Day” stamps using the original artwork by Ezra Jack Keats. Another favorite!

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change? Or rather, how are you hoping your career will develop?

I wouldn’t change anything because things both good and bad are what got me here today. I’m pretty happy with where I am. As for the future, I hope to continue what I’m doing now.

What work are you best-known for?

I’m best known for my stamps, but I don’t know which one is most well-known. It probably depends on the audience being asked.

What work are you most proud of?

Probably my daughters. But of my design work it is hard for me to say.

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I’d like to have a little more “free” time to be creative and spend a little less time on the “business.” I’ve also become interested in learning letterpress printing.

What do you do when you're in a rut or have a block?

Sketch. Go for a walk. Doing something/anything different. Try not to worry too much as something will turn up.

Designed by Alcalá, art by Michelle Muñoz

What do you think will be the future of your field?

Wow. Good question. I wish I knew. My sense is it will bring some challenges to some and creative opportunities for others. I know, not particularly original.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

That there are so many FREE cultural events and institutions that are available to anyone!

Least favorite?

Traffic.

What monument or museum do you like to take visitors to?

Snowy Day

I’m a big fan of the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian (especially the National Postal Museum)!

How about a favorite local restaurant?

So hard! Maybe sitting outside at Ada’s on the River on a beautiful day!

Do you have a website or blog?

www.studioa.com

How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected you, personally and professionally?

My wife and I were in Northern Italy when the outbreak happened. That was eerie. We would be the only diners in the restaurant each evening. What we didn’t know!

But back home I was extremely lucky. My employees could work from home. I could walk to my office so my routine didn’t need to change. USPS and museum work continued. We got a PPP loan. The biggest change was learning to adapt to client meetings on Zoom.

 

Meet a Visiting Cartoonist - A Chat with Glynnis Fawkes about SPX and 1177 BC

by Mike Rhode

For years, Glynnis Fawkes has been tabling at the Small Press Expo. Her newest book is an adaption of a history of the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations in the Mediterranean. I was fortunate enough to get a review copy, which led to asking her for an interview that we did over the course of the summer. This year she'll be at SPX on Sept 14-15, even though 1177 B.C. is published by Princeton University isn't small press. Stop by and say hello; I recommend all her books and have bought most if not all of them over the past decade. Note that Fawkes' announced appearance at GWU Bookstore on Sept. 13 has been CANCELLED.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

I draw autobio, memoir, non-fiction, and fiction.

Do you consider yourself an archeology cartoonist, if that is such a thing?

Sure! My most recent book, my adaptation of Eric Cline’s 1177 BC includes a lot of archaeology, as well as history and theory, as well as two fictional kids to guide the story. In the sense that archaeology uses evidence found in material culture for insight into how people live, my other books (especially Greek Diary, Persephone’s Garden, and Alle Ego) involve archaeology too.

How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

I drew 1177 BC A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed in pencil on paper, colored it digitally with Procreate, edited with Photoshop, and the text is in InDesign.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

I was born in 1969 in Oregon. I grew up in NW Portland, among artists and authors.

What area do you live in?

I currently live in Burlington, Vermont, and I teach at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

I studied Humanities and languages (Russian, Italian, and Greek) at U of Oregon, then painting at Pacific NW College of Art, and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I earned an MFA. I haven’t had any formal training in cartooning except for a class when I was in HS with Bill Plympton. I’ve learned by trial and error, and by teaching, first at the University of Vermont, and then at the Center for Cartoon Studies. 

I also learned a lot from having good editors, especially James Sturm who edited my book on Charlotte Bronte.

Who are your influences?

New Yorker cartoonists of previous decades including Helen Hokinson, Charles Addams, Peter Arno, and Ed Koren, Sempe, Roz Chast, as well as Lynda Barry.

Children’s book illustrators including Robert McCloskey, Garth Williams, Clyde & Wendy Watson, .... Novels for kids including Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Lloyd Alexander... 

Novels for adults... 

Contemporary cartoonists Alison Bechdel, Uli Lust, Ozge Samanci, Anneli Furmark, James Sturm, Camille Jourdry, Riad Sattouf, Rutu Modan, Michele Rabagliati, Posy Simmonds, my pals Jennifer Hayden, Summer Pierre, Ellen Lindner ...

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

I would have liked to become more fluent in languages, especially French so that I could more easily converse and read Bande Desinee.

What work are you most proud of? 

I’m proud of my most recent book, my adaptation of Eric Cline’s 1177 BC. I’m also proud of my cartoons published in the New Yorker.com, and my autobiographical work.

How did you become part of the GN adaptation?

I had met the editor Rob Tempio at a classics and archaeology conference together with my husband John who was pitching his academic book, (Kinyras the Divine Lyre, published by the Center for Hellenic Studies, with 50 illustrations by me, 2014.) I showed Rob my comics of the Homeric Hymns and we stayed in touch. Rob asked me to illustrate Eric’s book Three Stones Make a Wall (PUP, 2017) and in the course of that project he asked me to propose a graphic adaptation of 1177 BC.

Did you and the text author Eric Cline work together on the adaptation? Was there an editor involved in between you? Did you do the breakdown of the book into the GN format? If so, how so? Thumbnails? or a script?

I did the adaptation entirely myself. I drew thumbnails and sent them to Eric at each step of the way, and he was quick to answer questions and make suggestions, mostly minor. I had resided the idea of having a narrator, wanting to avoid a TED-talk vibe in favor of making ancient characters speak. I sent what I thought were two finished chapters, and Eric and I met by zoom. He suggested adding ancient narrators, and the idea for the two young characters fell into place. This opened up lots of story telling possibilities for me, in how they interact with the historical figures, art, and geography.

I assume the original book is for adults; what led to this becoming a YA book?

It’s still categorized as adult, but you’re right, the young characters make it seem more like YA! I aimed this book for my younger self: fascinated by the ancient world. I’m interested in coming-of-age stories (and teach a summer workshops at CCS about this) and so this lead me to gearing the book to a teen audience.

Whose idea were the young characters and the framing sequences? Was that useful specifically in a graphic novel adaptation? 

The characters were an idea Eric and I had together, and I invented their specific characters: Pel of the Peleset, Shesha the Egyptian scribe.

from the New Yorker

How did you get work in the New Yorker? Did you pitch Emma Allen directly? Have you been in print yet, or just online?

Emma wrote to ME! Right at the start of her time as editor. That’s an email you can’t refuse! I’ve had one cartoon published in the magazine, and I haven’t pitched in a few years!

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I’m planning on finishing a book-in-progress, as of yet untitled, an adventure about a girl painter set before and after the Bronze Age eruption of Thera. After that I’m determined to write/draw a memoir of working in archaeology in the Cyprus and middle east around Y2K.

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

Walk around the actual block, talk to a friend, step back and not force my way forward, but give things time to re-orient.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

I can’t guess! I hope that people will continue to value and to buy books.

You usually table at SPX with a group of women - can you talk about how you came to know each other and what keeps you together and coming to SPX?

SPX 2019 - Summer Pierre, Ellen Lindner, Glynnis, Jennifer Hayden

I met Jennifer Hayden at my 2nd SPX, and loved her comics immediately. I was feeling very much like a mom, in what then felt like a young male world, and Jennifer’s example helped strengthen my conviction there is a place for stories like hers and mine.

Glynnis and Ellen Lindner

I met Ellen by stopping by her table at SPX over a few years, she made me laugh, and I admired her work, and that she edited The Strumpet. We coedited the last issue and I learned from Ellen about editing, and managing an anthology. The Strumpet created a space for me to publish, and to have structure to create, and a community of other women cartoonists. I met Summer Pierre at a “drink n draw” or as we called it “sweat and shout” before MoCCAfest, and again as soon as I read her work I knew I’d found a kindred spirit and friend.

What cons do you attend besides The Small Press Expo? Any comments about attending them?

I have attended SPX and MoCCAfest in NYC for about 10 years, and have also been to TCAF, and the Nonfiction Comics fest in Burlington is a gem of a festival.

I love attending festivals, where I’ve met friends and colleagues and publishers, had the best conversations, learned from and participated in panel discussions. Meeting the community in real life feels vital to continue this solo practice.

What comic books do you read regularly or recommend? Do you have a local store?

I order books at my local bookstore, Phoenix books in Burlington. I can’t wait for new books by Coco Fox and Emma Hunsinger.

What's your favorite thing about DC?

I love the museums!

What monument or museum do you like to visit to?

The National Gallery. I revisit paintings I love.

Do you have a website or blog?

glynnisfawkes.com

How has the COVID-19 outbreak affected you, personally and professionally?

It meant my kids were home for a whole year, while their HS was shut down for PCB poisoning and the city renovated an old Macy’s that became their HS by spring. My work time was often disrupted, but it was also great to spend so much time with them.

Meet a Visiting Cartoonist: Gabriela Epstein (UPDATED!)

Self-portrait (all images from Gabriela's website)

 by Mike Rhode

Gabriela Epstein spoke recently about her 2023 graphic novel, Danny Phantom: A Glitch in Time at Fantom Comics. Unfortunately I missed the talk, which I'm told was great, but I did get there in time to buy signed books and ask about an interview. Gabriela obliged with both, and I think this fairly in-depth interview is a good introduction to her work, except for her animation career which I forgot to ask about (now corrected!). I thoroughly enjoyed her two most recent books, Invisible, and Danny Phantom and recommend them.

What type of comic work or cartooning do you do?

So far, I’ve done adaptation work, graphic novel illustration and now some writing. Running the full gamut!

How do you do it? Traditional pen and ink, computer or a combination?

I draw everything digitally. The first several books I drew for Scholastic were drawn with an old Wacom Tablet and my laptop, but now I draw exclusively on my iPad. It mimics the feel of using a Cintiq at my old job and is a bit more portable.

When (within a decade is fine) and where were you born?

I was born April, 1993, in Pennsylvania.  Spent time in central PA and Philly growing up.

What neighborhood or area do you live in?

I live in Austin, TX, now.

What is your training and/or education in cartooning?

Technically speaking, I don’t have much. Although I studied at two art schools (PAFA and RISD), I never managed to snag a single comics course. All my comic making is self-taught.

That said, comics is an amalgamation of different skills like figure drawing, color theory, perspective, etc. so for those things I’d credit my two years at PAFA for giving me my fundamentals in drawing. All the digital tools I use now I taught myself via online tutorials artists would post on Tumblr and Twitter.

So how did you get into animation? 

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do until my final semester of school. I cobbled together a 2D character design portfolio in my final class (thanks, MJ!) and submitted it to every studio until I got a call-back from Powerhouse Animation.

What did you work on there?

I worked as a character and prop designer on the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Kid Danger.

Why did you leave for graphic novels?

I'd been getting recruited for lots of comic gigs while I was trying for a career in animation. I'd keep taking smaller ones just to create content, but as it turns out that just made more people think I was a cartoonist. I figured I should lean into that because the competition for jobs in animation is so tough there was no way I'd make it full time. At least, not without my body and soul intact.

Who are your influences?

My early comic influences were Todd Nauck (Young Justice, Teen Titans Go!) and Sean Galloway (Spider-man). Now I look a lot to Mitsuru Adachi (Cross Game) and Haruichi Furudate (Haikyuu!) for paneling and composition, and Satoru Noda (Golden Kamuy, Supinamarada!) for comedic drawing.

If you could, what in your career would you do-over or change?

I’d probably take a break before attending art school to get myself situated mental health-wise. I’ve learned the hard way that no matter where you go, you’re stuck with yourself. If you’re not happy foundationally, you’re not gonna get the full experience of whatever program or job you’ve got going on. I burnt myself out majorly, and that kind of work/life balance is simply unsustainable. I eventually did take a year off in 2015 and it was the best decision of my life. Helped me recenter and see what I actually wanted to do with my time rather than chase ghosts of what I could/should be.

What work are you best-known for?

Haha, probably my Baby-Sitters Club adaptations.

How did you get the job illustrating the Babysitter's Club graphic novels? 

I had been recruited for the book Invisible, which led to me signing on with my first agent back in 2018. In my talks with Scholastic, the opportunity to test for BSC came up and I gave it a shot. Considering that my predecessors were Raina and Gale, I didn’t think I had a good chance of getting the job, but I figured the testing would be valuable practice. I’ve learned so much from my experience working on that series—more than I can put into words.

How did it feel to follow Raina on that series?

I hadn’t read any of her work before signing on, so I went to the library and checked out all her books and read them all in one day. Her style is clear, concise, yet emotive. This is an extremely difficult skill to master, and something I greatly admire. She is a cartooning god, and I’m so humbled to learn and benefit from the creative decisions she made on the first four books of the series. 

Invisible, the book you illustrated with Christina Diaz Gonzalez, is the story of five Latin American school kids who are all from different Latino backgrounds. The story deals with racism, classicism, homelessness and the immigrant experience. How did you get this assignment?

Scholastic reached out to me and several other Latine artists to test for the project. Funny enough, I was originally going to decline because I am a white Latine and didn’t feel qualified to tell a legitimate Latine story. My mom (first gen Chilean immigrant) disabused me of that notion and encouraged me to at least test for the job.

For my test, I took a design pass at the core group of kids and illustrated several pages of comics based on a short test script I was given. Christina opted for my test, and we’ve stuck with my designs with little change.

Did you and Diaz Gonzalex work together, or was there an editor in between you?

Unfortunately, the project was a long game of telephone, haha. I would talk to my agent, who would talk to the editor, who would talk to Christina’s agent, who would talk to her. I think things would’ve moved much easier had we simply been allowed to do direct Zoom meetings. That said, Christina was very chill and graceful with all the changes I brought up to the story and potential designs for characters and locations, and for that I’m very grateful.

Was this just a job, or could you relate to the underlying story and issues?

Yes, I do connect with the characters’ struggles with identity and the unique experience of living with a parent/parents who are immigrants. There is a sense of otherness that is pervasive and isolating—one is not quite American, and yet I could never be thought of as Chilean, either. I think working on the story has made me more secure in my identity and much more aware of my own unique privileges within both worlds.

How was the book received? I was very impressed with it and enjoyed it.

The book has gotten many starred reviews and awards for which I’m grateful. However, those things don’t mean much to me in comparison to what it means for the kids who read it. As long as it helps kids feel like their experiences are validated, I consider the book to have been a worthwhile endeavor.

Additionally, I’m very happy with how the bilingual aspect of the lettering worked out and am hopeful this will be used for more ESL books in the future. [editor's note: When a character speaks in Spanish, it's shown first, and then in English in a second balloon. It works well. I don't know if it's colloquial to each character's country, but I would guess it is not.]

Danny Phantom wrap-around cover art

What work are you most proud of?

The Danny Phantom books. It was my first foray into writing, drawing and art directing all in one go, so they’re always gonna have a special place in my heart.

In your Fantom Comics talk, you spoke of your liking for the Danny Phantom animated series. Can you go into that a bit here?

I was a huge fan of the show since its premiere in 2004. I was just going through some old sketchbooks at my dad’s house and was blown away by the style change in my drawings before and after watching a season of Danny Phantom. I think a lot of the angularity of my style can be attributed to Stephen Silver’s designs on that show.

Danny Phantom was also my first foray into the fandom experience—lurking on forums, reading fanfiction and making fan art, so it would always be special to me in that sense. It’s been a comfort show I’ve rewatched many times and despite its extremely y2k humor, still holds up well!

How did you get this job? Did you pitch the publisher, or did they seek you out?

Abrams gave me a call to see if I’d be interested in illustrating a continuation of the series in comic form back in early 2020. I’d just published a charity Danny Phantom zine with some friends the year prior, so I think that may have had something to do with it, but I honestly don’t know. Looking back, a lot of my portfolio at the time was made up of Danny Phantom fan art, so that could’ve also been a factor.

Is this your first major writing assignment? How does that differ from illustrating someone else's script?

Yes! This was my first time being asked to write and draw a book for an existing IP. I was extremely nervous because I’d never written something that long before and hadn’t taken any formal classes in writing, either. To prepare, I read a few books on the subject and wrote some spec scripts for different shows to get the gist of writing out a full story.

That was the biggest hurdle for me. When I’m adapting books like the BSC, or illustrating for Invisible, I can make many edits and change the story for the better, but the bones of it are already in place. To start from scratch was more daunting, but the team at Abrams was very happy to walk me through everything. The nicest part was getting to draw it, too, so if I thought of better gags or more dramatic ways to stage a scene, I could just go ahead and do it without worrying if the writer would approve. That elasticity in the process made for a fun time!

 Is it the first of the series? Wikipedia says it is, but what is your plan / involvement?

Yes—right now I’m working on a sequel book that is due out in 2025. Future books would depend on how well it sells, but I would love to continue contributing to this franchise. I’ve got some story arcs in mind that would be nice to bring to fruition, so I have my fingers crossed. Even if that doesn’t come to pass, though, I’m so happy to have had this opportunity. It’s truly a dream come true!

What would you like to do or work on in the future?

I’ve wanted to make my own sports comic for years now, but for various reasons it has never felt like the right time. Hopefully that will change soon.  I want to make a hockey series! 

What do you do when you're in a rut or have writer's block?

I take a break. Often, consuming other media can spark ideas to solve your own story solutions. Like, “Man, I forgot how much I hated how x show handled this topic. I’d do it this way!” and all of a sudden you’re running for your notebook with bits of ideas that can totally restructure your story.

What do you think will be the future of your field?

Hard to say, considering how unstable the entertainment industry is right now. I think the market for graphic novels will continue as is, if not get larger. With comics now being used more and more in educational settings, I can’t imagine they’d lose popularity.

That said, I don’t know how this will translate to the creation of said comics. Publishers are already expressing interest in AI, and the labor force that creates comics is already woefully underpaid—both contractors and salaried editors and designers. This post-Covid cloud economy is a shambles. Could this lead to a breaking point in labor relations within the publishing industry? One can only hope. As it is, the contractor model for graphic novel creation in the US is abysmal and only affords those with baked-in financial stability the freedom to create. That’s a recipe for a lot of books that look and sound the same.

What cons do you attend? Any comments about attending them?

I don’t attend cons too much. I would love to go to NYCC again, though, and SDCC if they’ll have me for Danny Phantom 2!

What comic books do you read regularly or recommend? Do you have a local store?

The current series I’m following are Witch Hat Atelier and Dungeon Meshi. I’m mostly discovering old comics for myself now. My favorite local comic shops in Austin are Dragon’s Lair and Tribe!

Do you have a website or blog?

I have a portfolio site where I will post the occasional events that I do. www.gre-art.com

Check Please! postcard art