Early Work

Matthew Baker just started a site called Early Work where he's posting... well, early work by various artists and writers. I gave him some stuff, and tried to write something about what I was thinking about at 16. Also on the site so far are Naomi Shihab Nye and Kelly Luce. Most of the stuff I gave him was posted here a few years back after I went through my old sketchbooks for a project D+Q was doing (which ultimately didn't pan out). I should probably be embarrassed by this stuff, but I remember seeing old comics by Jeff Brown and Brian Chippendale and finding them to actually be kind of illuminating. It's fascinating to me that a person's sensibility can be seen so strongly so early. Maybe that's the case with this stuff, too, and it'll be of interest. I look forward to seeing who else he can convince to participate. 

"How's your next coloring book coming?"

One day last May I was at TCAF in Toronto sitting at the Drawn & Quarterly table signing copies of Poetry is Useless. Near the end of my allotted signing time the crowd had thinned and a distracted looking kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, approached and began absently turning pages in a copy of Big Questions. His mother, apparently desperate to interest her bored looking kid in something, anything at the show or in life noticed and her eyes brightened. "Ooh! It's a coloring book! You like to color! Should we get that for you?". I tried not to show it, but my soul crumpled slightly. Fortunately there's nothing like a parent's forced enthusiasm to dampen a child's interest in anything – he mumbled something inaudible, closed the book and they both wandered away.

Before my soul could completely uncrumple, my friend Jordan, who was at the table next door and had watched the whole exchange with interest piped up, grinning "Great coloring book you got there." he said. Later, back home in Minneapolis another friend got wind of the joke. "When's your next coloring book coming out?" Lots of laughs, all around. It became a thing.

Two months later I was at ComicCon in San Diego, signing again at the D+Q table, when Julia brought over a serious-looking, middle-aged Chinese gentleman and his interpreter, saying, among other things that he was a publisher in China, had been looking at my work and wanted to do a coloring book. My first thought was that Jordan or someone was playing a prank and I think I actually looked around. I'm sure some small mixture of annoyance and confusion probably flittered across my face, but I managed to have a short conversation with him and arranged to meet the next day for a drink to discuss the idea in more depth. But truly my initial thought was "How can I politely decline?".

The publisher is Ginkgo (in English) and it turned out that they make beautiful books. They've just started translating some literary graphic novels from the West (mostly France, but it looks like they are also picking up a few North American books – including Big Questions and Dogs and Water), and they were very fairly convincing. After turning the idea over in my head and thinking about what I might do I agreed. I'd had no idea that adult coloring books were a huge thing, and it turned out that several people I know use them, unbeknownst to me. It seemed like an interesting problem to play with, and Ginkgo was open to my ideas. The deal didn't get finalized until late January, and to get the 96 page book out in North America (D+Q is doing it over here) out in time for the holidays – done the way I want to do it – I have to basically do almost a page a day, with minimal chance for revision and none for preciousness. As I write this I'm just over half done, and am rather enjoying it. It's more drawing than I've ever done in a short period of time, but it's a genuinely interesting problem to work that fast, and has me pouring over books of plants and animals, visiting museums and conservatories for inspiration and looking at the world a little differently. I'll be posting pictures as I go for the next few weeks at FB and Instagram, and maybe a few more here as well, depending. Here's the cover and one more image:

The book is basically what it's title implies. I've done a bunch of drawings set in the Garden of Eden in the last few years, including the title/cover of God and the Devil at War in the Garden, and Adam and Eve Sneak Back into the Garden to Steal More Apples. The coloring book will basically be that version of Eden, populated with both real, fantastical – and long extinct animals, plants, and fungi, as well as various objects of human manufacture that might feel out of place. In a way I am picturing Adam and Eve's return in some imagined future after humans have disappeared and maybe even God has abandoned the place.

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Bell/Nilsen Wurld Toor Sketchtown Collab Striptasticism, France Edition

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Something about Alvin

This print is one of my prize possessions and has hung in my house since at least 2007. Printed by Alvin, art by Souther Salazar. It's one of many beautiful things that would not exist in this world if not for Alvin.

I first met Alvin Buenaventura at APE in San Francisco in maybe 2003 or 4. I remember there being some buzz about this guy who was making letterpress prints of some of my friends' work, but also with some famous people like Dan Clowes and Chris Ware. It felt very mysterious and cool. At some point I went over to his table and found an extremely quiet, humble guy who spoke almost in a whisper, and a very gregarious and friendly woman, all smiles – his wife at the time, Carleen. They acted as if we had all been friends for years. Of course in my heart I desperately wanted to be included in his project, but was able to act like a normal person and just begin to get to know them a bit instead. They were both friendly, unassuming and welcoming.

When he did eventually invite me to do a print it was one of a very few moments in my life that felt like I'd been included in some elite secret club. That feeling had nothing to do with any promise of money – there basically wasn't any – or of notoriety. It was because it was very clear that this person had extremely good, very particular taste – much better and more broad than mine, for example – and his vision of what was worth his time now included something of mine. His remarkable taste and enthusiasm for art was a theme for me in hanging out with Alvin, in a couple of ways. I was repeatedly struck by the clarity of his vision. I remember him showing me some Le Dernier Cri books at his house in Oakland once, and being struck by how sure he was of his opinions and enthusiasms about it. I was busily trying to sort out being overwhelmed visually, slightly grossed out, fascinated, jealous, and wanting to seem cool and like the right things. Encounters with other artist's work often feel compromised this way, it can occasionally be difficult to set aside my own biases, jealousies and artistic concerns and see another's work on its own terms. Alvin was one of those rare people whose taste felt immediate, singularly uncomplicated and clear. It was at once rigorous and generous. It was inspiring to me, and a challenge. It made him a very good publisher, but it also meant going to his house was like entering a little museum crossed with an incredibly well curated yard sale, full of treasures. It also meant that going to his table at a show promised a lot of new and very compelling work. I always spent too much money at his tables, and always wished I could spend a bit more. If all he'd done for me was introduce me to the work of Helge Reumann, and Lisa Hanawalt I'd owe him a debt.

Alvin and I worked on a few projects of various kinds, several of them better as ideas than they turned out to be as realities. He put out a skateboard of mine, of all things, and sold precious few – though he did actually try valiantly to learn to ride it, taking me to a couple of spots in Oakland to skate when I was in town. His enthusiasm for publishing seemed rarely to be inhibited by commercial concerns. He wanted a thing to exist and so he would do what he could to make it so, the market be damned. Which was part of why what he did was so important, but I know that came back to be troublesome in some ways, as it will. We had been discussing doing a small book project this year, one that probably would fit very comfortably in the slot of not-commercially-viable. But it was a unique project that would make sense for probably no other publisher. As Dan Clowes wrote yesterday, that's what he was: completely unique. There was a slot in the universe that he fit in, alone. That slot is now empty, and it matters a great deal. We are poorer for it.

Apart from what he was for comics and art, he was also just an incredibly sweet guy, at least to me. He always made me feel welcome, and wanted to help if he could.

Early last year Alvin and I got back in touch after a silence of a couple of years. Among other things he inquired about a drawing I'd done back in 2007, Hercules Ascending to Mount Olympus. The drawing was no longer in my possession, but I told him I'd thought of doing prints of it and would send him one, which I did, along with the rest of the edition to sell on his site. He came back to me later and asked if I would consider doing a larger version as a commission, suggesting a few additions that might make the image even more specifically personal to him and his life if, and only if, I didn't feel they would compromise the piece for me – which I didn't, such collaborations usually make a project more interesting and the idea was exciting: doing just such a near-monumental version had long been on my mind, but was impossible without a venue to show or a patron of some sort. I immediately went out and got a 10 foot tall piece of paper and waited to hear from him for a deposit and confirmation to begin. We talked a few more times in the months that followed, mostly about other things. He assured me a few times that he was still interested, just waiting for this or that project to come through to clear his slate. But then he seemed to fall out of touch, and confirmation never came. In some way this piece will always feel in some way like it belongs to him. The last few days have been heavy ones. His loss is heartbreaking.