The Thousands

It is not easy making a comic. Here, Chris Ware gave us some advice in that regard. "RUIN: Your Life. DRAW: Cartoons! And doom yourself to: decades of grinding isolation, solipsism, and utter social disregard." I know one person who won’t be talking at Semi Permanent. Anyway, brushing aside Ware’s words like so many emos at a pep rally, Jeremy Ley and Abe de Bruyn have made a comic! About Curtin House. There is only one copy and it went on display in the lightboxes on the Curtin House roof last night. We spoke to the authors about grinding isolation, dressing in matching clothes and storyboarding porn for Sasha Grey.

US: So Abe wrote it and Jeremy drew it?
JEREMY: Yep.
ABE: We were both excited about the experiment of making a comic for a wall (as well as the gallery at rooftop, it was also made as a poster). We wanted each frame to be self contained as well as have a bigger narrative, like a Lichtenstein print you could have on your wall, but with a story running through it. 

US: What’s it about?
JEREMY: Two guys go up to the Rooftop to see an exhibition… and a couple of beers. Hmmm, yeah that sounds about right.

US: So the exhibition is a comic. Will you also make a comic? With pages?
JEREMY: Hopefully. Well that’s what we talked about. There’s a publisher in Canada called Drawn & Quarterly I wouldn’t mind approaching. They’ve made some great titles.
ABE: To make something like a graphic novel would be a lot of work: first you have to write a story worthy of the treatment and then you basically end up pulling the whole thing apart and rewriting it a dozen times to fit with how the illustrations can change the story.

US: So why Curtin House?
ABE: Ha, yeah. I love that building, I’ve been working there in one capacity or another ever since I started paying rent. A regular at the bar said to me the other day, "Friends come and go like busboys in a restaurant," (I think it was a quote from Stand By Me) so in some way it is kind of a homage to the place, but also to the wider street/bar/art culture in Melbourne.  

US: Jeremy, how rad are your drawings?
JEREMY: ….

US: (That last question was not an actual question.)
JEREMY: Thank you.

US: What other type of drawing do you do?
JEREMY: I’ve drawn for a couple of magazines, children’s books, nightclubs, films, ads, oh… and I finished storyboarding an adult feature film a couple of months ago. It’s called Malice in Lalaland and it’s got Sasha Grey and Ron Jeremy in it! It was supposed to be finished by the end of this month, but they had to reshoot because it got too hot on the set. Part of it was filmed in the desert. I’ve also started a webcomic called "Raised by Perverts". Unfortunately it got a virus so I had to take it down ’til I fix it.

US: Abe, what’s your next comic idea / writing project?
ABE: This project was great, Jeremy is such a killer illustrator, but my writing came out of my training in visual and performance art. A favourite artist of mine actually develops his art by starting with writing a short story and then developing an interest within that story that he takes into another medium. I do have a writing project in mind that I would like to develop into a comic, but it could just be the beginnings of another entirely separate art or theatre piece – who knows? (Besides, I haven’t developed a proposal for Jeremy yet!)

US: Will you collaborate again, or do you now hate each other?
JEREMY: We sat down for lunch the other day and talked about other things, like Abe doing yoga everyday and my police wife. So no we don’t hate each other. I wouldn’t mind doing a large story, or a collection of shorts.
ABE: I’m pretty excited by the idea of working together again. I’ve been involved in plenty of collaborative efforts in the past and I guess effort is the operative word there… every time we had to readjust something in this project it was just so easy. We both really went with each others gut feelings.  

US: What have we forgotten?
JEREMY: My favourite comics… Summer Blonde, The Punisher, Barracuda, Memories, and Tintin. And, I’m not sure if you know, but we’re also the main stars in the comic.