Generally, independent comic artists are a secluded bunch, sketching out tiny, personal stories in near-isolation, releasing work in limited print runs.
They aren’t the type who get nominated for an Academy Award or end up serialized in the New York Times Magazine. So it’s fair to say Daniel Clowes is a bit of an individual.
After writing and illustrating “Ghost World,” Clowes helped adapt the comic into a screenplay with director Terry Zwigoff. The men earned an Oscar nod for the 2001 film, which co-starred Scarlett Johansson.
Clowes’ success on “Ghost World,” published by Seattle’s Fantagraphics Books, pushed him into indie comics upper echelons. Since the movie’s release, he has illustrated a New Yorker cover and been serialized in the New York Times Magazine, a publication not known for its funnies.
After appearing tonight in Seattle at a free event, Clowes headlines a comic book panel on Sunday at Bumbershoot 2008.
He spoke with The Herald from Oakland, Calif., about the panel, working with director Michel Gondry and the horror of biographers. Here are excerpts:
What can people expect from the Bumbershoot appearance?
I don’t want to promise anything, because I actually have no idea, but I think they put together slides, a PowerPoint kind of thing, and show various panels and images, and we use that as a springboard to talk about the process and the different aspects of the exciting world of cartooning.
Do you think of yourself as a cartoonist or screenwriter first?
As a cartoonist. But I think of screenwriting as a hobby, really, but it’s a hobby that pays more than my career.
Where do film projects, like “Master of Space and Time” or “The Death Ray,” stand?
“The Death Ray” (a Clowes comic) is something that I can’t really talk about, but it’s very much something that I think will happen, and be good, but probably not for another year. And the “Master of Space and Time” (a novel by Rudy Rucker) was a rumored thing that Michel Gondry and I worked on a little bit, but our ideas were far too crazy. We wanted to make a $100 million art film, and no one was willing to fork over the money for that. We’re working together on an animated film.
Most comic artists don’t reach your level of success. Do you enjoy the spotlight?
If I had to do it all over again, I probably never would have done an interview. Once you start, it becomes this ongoing process, this endless evolving statement about yourself, the culminated effect of all your interviews. If you stop, people want to find out about you, and their knowledge will stop at the point you stop doing interviews. You have to keep going.
A biography of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz drew on his interviews. Can you see getting the same treatment?
God I hope not. That’s my worst fear. I don’t want people digging into my personal desk diary. I would rather have the work speak for itself. I read a funny interview with Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus,” who’s been doing interviews since the late 1960s. He said people are always throwing back quotes that he said in 1974 that are just diametrically opposed to the way he feels now. … You say things that just occur to you on the spur of the moment and then 10 minutes after the interview, you think, “I guess I don’t really believe that.”
Reporter Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455 or arathbun@heraldnet.com.
Daniel Clowes
Clowes solo appearance: 6 to 9 p.m. today, Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery, 1201 S. Vale St., Seattle, free, 206-658-0110, www.fantagraphics.com.
Comix Sub-Heroes with Adrian Tomine: 3:45 p.m. Sunday, Leo K. Theatre, Seattle, $40 to $100, www.ticketmaster.com or www.bumbershoot.com.
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