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The two garbagemen from "The Burbs." |
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Hawkeye. |
The Last Mechanical Monster. A Fire Story. Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? Mom's Cancer.
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The two garbagemen from "The Burbs." |
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Hawkeye. |
Friends with long memories may recall that I posted about a nearly identical plate I found several years ago. That was before the fire. I never really expected to see another again, until Karen and I were shopping today and I emitted a strangled "AAAAHH!" while pointing speechlessly into a cabinet. Karen rushed over to make sure I was fine. I was better than fine.
By the way, I am not oblivious or indifferent to the current political drama. Sometimes that's when light posts about plates are needed the most.
Me in the Library of Congress, just because. |
I answered her questions as best I could and liked one of them enough that I asked if I could post it here. I think it's a good summary of how I approach the job. I have no idea if my perspective is common or ideal. It's just mine.
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1. What is your philosophy/reason behind creating works in various genres and subgenres? What purposes are you hoping genres will serve for your audiences?
First, just to clarify (and I suspect we’re on the same page here), I don’t consider comics or graphic novels a genre, which is worth mentioning because many people do. They are a medium that encompasses many genres, including those you mention: science fiction, nonfiction, memoir, etc.
That out of the way, I don’t know how to answer this question and I doubt many authors would. We write the stories we want or need to write. I’ve given almost no thought to which genre I’m working in or onto which shelf a bookstore or library will place my work. As Orson Welles said to a critic who asked him to analyze one of his films, “I’m the bird. You’re the ornithologist.”
That may be professional malpractice on my part.
I’ve written two graphic novels that I’d call nonfiction memoir (Mom’s Cancer and A Fire Story). Mom’s Cancer also crosses into graphic medicine, a subgenre that didn’t exist when I wrote it. I’ve seen A Fire Story described as a work of “climate grief,” which may become a notable subgenre of its own if climate change goes as projected. I’ve called my second book, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow, historical fiction but don’t know if that’s accurate (I wanted to call it a “graphic polemic” but my publisher wouldn’t let me). My latest, The Last Mechanical Monster, is straight-up science fiction/fantasy.
Each was a story I felt compelled to tell, and which genre it fell into barely crossed my mind.
(I did devote quite a bit of time and thought deciding if Last Mechanical Monster was science fiction or fantasy and came up with an answer that satisfied me but made no difference in the marketing, placement, or audience for the book that I could tell.)
I’d say that I don’t choose genres, genres choose me.
Likewise, I give very little thought to serving an audience when writing a book. I want to tell a good story I’d want to read and nobody but me could write. I aim to make a book my editor would want to publish and my family would be proud of. They’re my audience. I’d be thrilled if many, many other people read and love it, but that’s beyond my control so I try not to fret about it.
The only time I recall worrying about a broader audience was when my editor and I discussed whether to include an obscenity in A Fire Story. We knew it would exclude us from the young reader market but decided to include the word for journalistic authenticity and because we couldn’t think of an alternative that wasn’t stupid.
Honestly, I treat all the work I do, even my fiction, as journalism. I just try to write and draw what happened as clearly and economically as I can, even if I made it all up. As a result, my approach to memoir, graphic medicine, historical fiction, and science fiction/fantasy has been pretty much the same: tell it straight, with some tone-shifting to help readers keep their bearings. A nonfiction book about cancer should not have the same tone as a light fantasy about a giant robot.
A quick selfie with Nathan in the Schulz Museum's lobby before his talk. |
Appropriately given his name (yes it's real), Nathan writes and draws historical graphic novels for kids under the series title "Hazardous Tales." He's also started a new series unrelated to his historical work that looks fun and charming. He says he does about 1.5 books a year, which is a prodigious output.
He's one of the two best comics-related public speakers I've seen. The other is Scott McCloud. He filled the museum's little theater to capacity and held his audience rapt throughout.
Nathan does what used to be called a "chalk talk," in which he speaks and draws at the same time, except instead of a chalkboard or easel he uses a tablet connected to a screen. Chalk talks are a lost art; they used to be a common tool in the cartoonists' tool box but kind of faded away half a century ago.
Nathan is confident and polished without being slick. You can tell he's done this talk a hundred times but it seems fresh, and he's able to roll with the crowd's responses and mood. Today's subject was Lewis & Clark, and he had his young fans squealing with laughter while imparting real knowledge.
For example, he did a fun riff on Sacagawea rolling her eyes and scoffing at Lewis & Clark's excitement to "discover" flora and fauna her people had known for centuries, then backtracked to explain how she wouldn't have actually made that joke because everything she said had to be translated from Hidatsa to French to English and back again. Toward the end he pivoted from (historically accurate) poop jokes to a moving account of how Lewis & Clark gave both Sacagawea and Clark's slave York equal votes on group decisions, a quietly revolutionary act in the early 1800s.
Great smart stuff. If you get a chance to see Nathan Hale speak, take it, and if you're in a position to invite him to give a talk, do it. Meanwhile, I'll be working on my chalk talk.
Golden poppy flowers are easy: four yellow-orange-red petals that fold into a cone at night and open during the day. For this piece I focused on the stem and leaf structure. The leaves are interesting, like tiny green hands with curling fingers. If you don't get them right the whole plant doesn't look right.
The color outlines are an experiment to see if I like them. They're red and green ink drawn with a nib on watercolor paper, on top of which I watercolored. I'm not sure about them yet.
This is just a sketch I didn't intend to share, but I know some people enjoy process posts. If it turns into something good, I'll share that, too.
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Photo of Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, which should be required viewing now. |
A point I haven't seen someone make yet:* for the entire Biden presidency, the right-wing has accused him of being a dictator. Just a week ago, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was railing against the "Biden Dictatorship" on CNN.
Yet now that the Supreme Court has handed President Biden actual honest-to-goodness dictatorial powers that he could use to murder his enemies today? Not a peep. That's because they're hypocrites who know deep down that Joe Biden is a fundamentally decent person who'd never use them.
On the other hand, they're absolutely giddy that their guy might get to. Trump is posting lists of people he'd like to see tried for treason, starting with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, General Mark Milley, and former Rep. Liz Cheney. Think he won't do it? You haven't been paying attention.
Look at who's celebrating the ruling and who's criticizing it. That tells you who thinks elevating presidents into all-powerful kings is a good idea and who doesn't.
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*I'm sure someone has made this point, I just haven't seen it.
We had a good turnout, nearly filling the Schulz Museum's little theater. This is the beginning of the panel, when we were introduced by the museum's public program coordinator, Sara Merrick. |
"Peanuts" has always been closely associated with NASA. The Apollo 10 command and lunar modules were named Charlie Brown and Snoopy, respectively. Also, one of the greatest honors a NASA employee can receive is a Silver Snoopy pin for their contributions to safety, which Bacon had earned.
I see my job at these events as keeping the conversation lively and on-track, and helping the panelists make their points as best they can. You also have to keep the audience in mind; some will be very knowledgeable but others will be young and easily bored kids, which doesn't necessarily mesh with detail-oriented engineers. I think we clipped right along and put on a good show.
The panel was part of a whole day of space-related activity at the Schulz Museum, including an informational table staffed by my friends (and one daughter) from the USS Hornet Museum, as well as the museum's own "Snoopy in Space" exhibition that will be closing soon.
A good time at one of my favorite places with some of my favorite people. Got to touch base with Jeannie Schulz, museum director Gina Huntsinger, and a few friends who came out. Can't beat that.
The panel is part of a full day of space-related activities at the Schulz Museum, including fun activities, another talk by Dr. Bacon, tables staffed by the USS Hornet and the Space Station Museum, and more! It's free with regular admission, and all the regular wonderful Peanuts art and artifacts will be there as well.
Brian says: check it out!
Mom's Cancer was in the right place and time to accidentally become a foundational text in the field of medical humanities called graphic medicine, meaning comics + healthcare. As the article describes, friends like "Comic Nurse" MK Czerwiec and Dr. Ian Williams pioneered graphic medicine after finding my book, and others like conference chair Jane Burns continue to discover it and find it helpful and inspiring. There was a time when "graphic medicine" comprised about a dozen people and we all knew each other. That's not true anymore. It's big and growing!
I remain astonished by the legacy of my family's story, not least because people still read it 20 years later. I give a few talks a year to medical students. It's routinely cited in academic journals. And it still gets mentioned in articles like this one by friends who are gracious enough to remember it. It's all enormously gratifying.
Parallel track: I love and collect antique stereograph cards. They're like primitive ViewMaster pictures that were big entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th century. Victorians sat around their parlors peering through 3-D viewers for hours of fun.
For years I've been looking for a little box or cabinet to store my cards in, but nothing's ever been the right size. I finally had an epiphany: maybe I could commission Ted to build me one. He jumped at the chance! With all he's built over the years, he'd never actually done a box and was eager to give it a shot. I gave him a drawing with some dimensions and encouraged him to spread his creative wings.
Here it is. I think it's fantastic. My cards fit perfectly, and I left room for more.
Neither Ted nor Judy is on Facebook, but I wanted to acknowledge Ted's great skill and kindness publicly. It's a treasure.
I was putting my phone in my pocket after taking a photo when my finger slipped and I accidentally took another. Usually those are blurry shots of my fingers or feet and are instantly deleted, but I liked how this one turned out so much I kept it. It's a painted cinderblock wall seen through the pickets of a metal fence. If I made abstract art, this is the sort of abstract art I would make. Which I guess I did!
Don't look! Act completely calm and normal! Just blink twice if there's a giant Marilyn Monroe behind me.
Here's that other podcast I alluded to: "Words, Images and Worlds" with Jason DeHart! I didn't know Jason before he asked me to guest on his show, but we have many mutual friends and he's just about the most prolific podcaster I've ever seen. Seriously, he's done hundreds of them, with some very impressive creative-type people. Also me.
I enjoyed our conversation very much, and if you have 23 minutes to kill, you might too. Thanks, Jason.