I Like Being the Background Character Sometimes
Posted by David Heatley at 11:59 am on December 17th
My brilliant wife Rebecca Gopoian had the idea of turning our fights about money this month into a Times Op-Ed comic strip. She wrote a really thoughtful piece called "Godless and Penniless: A Christmas Story." I kept egging her on: "get bitchier, make fun of me some more." I did some minor editing, but it's her piece and I'm feeling very proud of her. It's a tremendous gift to have someone you love depict you in all your imperfections. I think she revealed herself too. After detailing my life for 128 dense pages in my own autobiography, it's such a relief to be a secondary character in my wife's narrative. It gives me compassion for her and bursts the bubble of my sometimes seductive and overpowering ego.
Then again, maybe I'm feeling so gracious because my book was reviewed this Sunday in the NY Times Book Review. I wish this wasn't the case, but I'm usually able to feel generous only if I feel pretty taken care of first. And annoyingly enough, it's up to me to make sure I feel cared for. Ask for what I need, feed myself healthy food, get to bed on time and all that. So how did I spend the day that the Book Review arrived at our house? I woke up at 6:00 AM as usual to my daughter's chipmunk voice at my bedside. I had read the review a week earlier so knew it was a good one on the whole, but was pleasantly surprised at the huge illustration from my book on the printed page. I glowed with pride for about a half hour. Then I got myself and my son ready to go to our art class at the Noguchi Museum in Queens. We made holiday stencils prints together. We came home. He crashed out for his nap. I got my copy of the incredible Kramer's Ergot in the mail and read that for a few hours (more on that later). I cooked some potatoes for the holiday party we were going to that evening. Rebecca and Maya got home and we packed up again and drove to Manhattan for an interfaith Christmas and Hanukkah ceremony (heavy on the Christmas). I loved singing the terribly clunky Anglican carols of my youth. Rebecca patiently looked on with a smirk. The kids ran around on the stage afterwards, hiding behind curtains like I used to do with my brothers. I felt some more glow. Finally, we got their PJs on and brushed their teeth in the bathroom. Got them in the car and they fell asleep. When pulled up to our building, we did a Double Transfer™ from the car to their beds. Watched some "30 Rock" on the DVR, read some more of Tolstoy's biography and then crashed out in the bed. The next day my wife had to point out to me: "Some people wait their whole lives to have their book reviewed in the NY Times." That's true. It didn't feel like that big a deal. I think it's been the way I've coped with potential disappointment. "Better not get my hopes up too much that this will change anything." I think it's finally sunk in, many days later. It has changed me. My little baby made it all the way to the Book Review. It's out of my hands now and doing its work out there in the world. I wish it well. (Big old glow.)
2 Holiday images
Posted by David Heatley at 3:43 pm on December 5th
Been a little while since I posted. I've been in book tour land. I don't usually like to upload unpublished work, but these 2 don't have a home for the holidays. The first is a cover I did for an upcoming issue of Granta with a fathers theme. That's me holding my son Sam with the various men in our family on both sides, going back to cave times if you follow on the upper right-hand side. The second one is a recent NYer sketch that I feel captures the mood in my household (and maybe yours?). My kids couldn't care less about getting the latest plastic monstrosity. They just want some time to sit all together and play with blocks.
All things
Posted by David Heatley at 4:49 pm on September 29th
My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, my 128-page overstuffed graphic memoir from Pantheon is in stores today! You can buy it online at Powell's or amazon. UK buyers can get it on amazon.uk. While you're clicking around, be sure to read the comic strip I did for amazon called "My Upside Down Brain."
If that all wasn't exciting enough, I've recorded a 5-song mini-LP soundtrack to the book with grammy-winning producer Peter Wade. You can hear the first single and watch the music video on myspace or youtube. The full mini-LP will be on iTunes and amazon later this month.
And finally, I'll be "performing" my book with slides, video and live music next week at my Book Release Party! It's at the Slipper Room. 167 Orchard St. New York, NY 7:00-10:00 pm It's free. For anyone in NYC that can't make it, I'll be at Barnes and Noble in coversation with Art Spiegelman on Monday, Oct. 20. 97 Warren St. New York, NY 7:00-9:00 pm (also free)
Granta - New Nature Writing
Posted by David Heatley at 9:37 am on July 31st
I've got a 10-page comic strip in the new issue of Granta! After spending 5 years detailing the minute fluctuations of my own psyche, I'm starting to look out and engage more with the world at large. So this strip tackles our monolithic food industry. In general I'm not a fan of overtly political art. I'm much more interested in personal, individual psychology-driven stories. But this is a subject I feel strongly about.
I've had stomach trouble all my life. A few years ago I started getting a serious intolerance to soy, wheat and sugar. In the last few months I've added dairy to that list. It can be pretty alienating at parties or at restaurants to be so limited in what I eat, but lately I've come to believe that it's less important how something tastes than how it makes me feel after I've eaten it. I only arrived at this through intolerable stomach pain, fitful sleep, medical intervention (almost had surgery), etc. Pain is my best teacher.
And my life is completely different now because of this simple change. I don't feel heavy, depressed or intoxicated after every meal. And I sleep through the night.
Anyway, the idea for this story came to me during my morning meditation. I imagined what it would look like to draw all the steps involved in engineering (there's no better term for it) a classic burger and fries combo at a diner or fast food restaurant.
After I'd thought of the strip and made some notes on it, my agent told me that Granta was looking to feature more cartoonists and they were wondering if I had any ideas that related to people feeling disconnected from nature. Perfect! My idea had a home. I had to squeeze in the story while finishing my book for Pantheon. As the deadline got closer I realized I'd never be able to do it on my own, so I was forced to hire my friend, a brilliant cartoonist named Dave Kiersh, to color the strip for me. I'm so pleased with how it came out. And I realize that I don't miss all that agonizing detailed work. Hiring an intern might be the wave of the future!
The issue should be on stands soon.
page 1 of "#3 Combo $6.95"
Page 6 of "#3 Combo - $6.95"
Page 9 of "#3 Combo - $6.95"
I watched a few hours of horrifying slaughterhouse footage on YouTube for this section. Made me a vegetarian for 2 weeks. Unfortunately since I can't digest soy or dairy very well, it's not really a viable option for me. So I'm trying my best to only eat humanely slaughtered meat these days.
Children With Globe
Posted by David Heatley at 1:03 pm on June 23rd
I got asked to be part of a show in Edinburgh where artists were asked to reinterpret images from Carl Sagan's Golden Record, as launched into space in 1977 with the Voyager missions. There were originally 116 images describing life on earth encoded into a gold phonograph record. I have to admit I'd never heard of this project. In my defense, I was 3 when this was taking place (my daughter's age now, come to think of it). It's a pretty great idea though. And a great idea for a gallery show.
I chose "Children with Globe." Original photograph is below. My interpretation was done in pastels and ink on bristol collaged onto cardboard (inked and then scratched).
I agreed to contribute to the show months ago, but didn't get around to making the image until last month. The timing turned out to be perfect. I was asked by my nephew in New Jersey to come speak to his second grade class and talk about my job as a cartoonist. It was a total joy. Watching the kids draw stories about swimming, or staying in bed with fever, or turning into "supercat" and scaling a building was really inspiring. On father's day my nephew showed up to my in-laws' house with 22 thank you cards from his classmates, all drawn very carefully with markers, some detailed with little comic strips. One strip read "He's here. I'm happy. He leaves. I'm sad." A lot of them wrote "You have a lot of talent." One kid wrote "You're great at doing comics. I'm great too!" Adorable. I need more of this in my life, I think.
PS - The blonde girl in the drawing is loosely based on my daughter, the brown haired boy is my son. Can't avoid the autobio.
Spotlight at MoCCA
Posted by David Heatley at 10:01 am on June 3rd
I'll be giving an hour presentation on my comics and illustration work from the last 10 years as part of MOCCA this weekend. I'll also be signing free promotional samplers from my upcoming book My Brain is Hanging Upside Down.
My talk follows right after Chip Kidd's discussion of BatManga, his upcoming Pantheon book. So come on down for both!
Here's all the pertinent info:
SUNDAY, JUNE 8 2:30 PM (Chip's talk is at 1:20) MoCCA Gallery, 594 Broadway (Suite 401), just below Houston.
My Brain is Hanging Upside Down
Posted by David Heatley at 12:16 pm on May 19th
"My Brain is Hanging Upside Down," my 128-page full-color graphic memoir is now finished and is off to the printer. It comes out from Pantheon this fall. I'll be posting about upcoming events soon, but wanted to post today about the process of working on it. The book has taken me about 5 and half years to complete.
I started out drawing comic strips about my dreams in a self-published pamphlet called Deadpan in 2002. Once that started reaching stores and I started getting some responses and feedback, I decided I wanted to explore other parts of my story. At film school, I had done "portrait films," which were kind of cubist in nature. I would project 4 quadrants of the same person, shot from different angles, but doing the same activity. I got to thinking about trying to do a "portrait comic strip." Something I hadn't really seen. Ron Rege, Dan Clowes and Chris Ware were starting to do these multiple-strips-on-a-page comics, emulating a newspaper funnies section, but with narratives that connected to one another. I thought I would focus my pages around a single person. The various vignettes would add up to a portrait. I drew "Portrait of my Dad" for McSweeney's #13.
Next I wanted to try a good old fashion autobiographical diary strip, in the tradition of Aline Kominsky, Joe Matt, and Julie Doucet. I liked Jeffrey Brown's first book "Clumsy" a lot and was definitely inspired by his doodly line quality. But I felt like I could probably pack my entire sex history into one comic strip and leave it at that. I didn't want to be a cartoonist who was endlessly telling the same story about longing or heartbreak. I also thought it would be compelling to start at the very beginning and include all my early childhood sexual experiences, since it's all one big continuum. I drew my Sex History in about 6 months. And then I took 6 more months to painstakingly paint every panel with gouache. I think it elevated the strip beyond slapdash diary and closer to something an obsessive outsider artist might do. Sammy Harkham published the strip in Kramer's Ergot 5.
In 2004, I got a Xeric grant to self-publish Deadpan #2, which consisted of "Sex History," "Portrait of My Dad," and some dream comics. Even though most of the work had already appeared elsewhere, I wanted to see how the 3 sections spoke to each other, hoping it would comprise a kind of self-portrait. I think it worked okay, but realized I had a lot more I wanted to say to fully round it out.
I met Michael Homler, an editor from St. Martin's Press at a party in 2005 and he asked if I was working on any book-length comics. I immediately thought that I could expand what I'd done in Deadpan to fill a softcover collection. I pitched him a book called "I'm Open, " suggesting a few supplemental strips to round out the contents of Deadpan 1 and 2. I worked on this book for the next 2 years. But by the end of 2006, I realized that the book had changed completely. It became obvious that the scope of what I now had in mind didn't fit the original vision of the book I'd pitched to Michael. We parted ways amicably in 2006, and I'll always be grateful to him for his initial enthusiasm and support for my work.
I took some time to refocus the book and titled it "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down," after a lyric from my favorite Ramones song. By 2007, with the book solidly structured and mapped out, I signed a contract with Pantheon. I was able to quit my long-standing day job that June.
The year of work on the book since then has been astounding. I've had every emotional experience possible. Rage so strong I needed to twist towels, scream, punch pillows (while my wife and kids were out for the day). A torrent of tears and grief. Unprecedented joy and a sense of my spiritual purpose on the planet. Most days have been simpler than that. Sitting in my chair and penciling, inking, or coloring. Day after day. Watching the pages slowly fill up with ink, then color. Watching the layout pages grow, then rearrange themselves until they landed in the correct order.
Here we are, almost June of 2008 and the book is done. Every last image and piece of text hand-drawn. I'm proud of this thing. It's a tome. It's an illuminated manuscript of my life. It's my statement to the world, broken into 5 chapters: Sex, Race, Mom, Dad, Kin. I've told it all. And now I'm spent.
I can't post too many images from the interior for obvious reasons, but I thought I'd post a visual tour through the process of finding my book's cover. That process alone spanned 2 years and generated countless sketches. I was looking at a lot of Tadanori Yokoo posters, trying to get a similar riot of graphic styles, clashing and coalescing. The images are roughly in chronological order and most are embarrassing. But I believe in leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. Hope this is helpful to someone out there.
I'm satisfied with what it turned out to be and so grateful to be finished. Thanks for looking. Stay tuned for more!
New Yorker Money Issue
Posted by David Heatley at 2:29 pm on March 24th
I have a "sketchbook" page in this week's New Yorker. It's the first time I made it onto the "contributors" page. Got a nice plug from my upcoming book "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down." Much more about that soon... Here's some detailed views. There's a lot of hidden narratives for the adventurous reader.
Jackson Heights Map!
Posted by David Heatley at 3:05 pm on March 5th
A real estate developer in my neighb saw my "Queens is the New Brooklyn" piece on drawger and commissioned me to draw a cartoon map brochure for my neighborhood, Jackson Heights. It was one of the best jobs I've ever gotten. A total blast to research, organize, design and draw. I started by posting to our local message board asking people for their favorite things about the neighborhood. Of course I had my own list of things I love and the piece is largely autobiographical (like everything I do). I did strive for a balanced portrait of JH, which includes Indians, Pakistanis, Italians, Irish, Peruvians, Mexicans, Columbians, Koreans, Phillipinos, etc. etc. etc. Hard to get all that into a 2-sided piece of 11 x 17 paper, but I did my best!
Here's a link for the front and the back so you can really see all the detail. It basically took me all of February.
There's 5,000 of these babies floating around the NYC area. I'm dropping a stack off at my favorite local cafe. Otherwise you might have to be resourceful to get your hands on one. By the way, my client Dan Robinson was ideal. How often do you get the feedback, "Can you make it a little more whimsical?"
Exhibitor Mag
Posted by David Heatley at 11:39 am on January 22nd
The exhibition space
Did this one for Exhibitor magazine this month. About some company who had a lot of success at a trade show by making their booth seem exclusive with large dark purple walls and a live jazz combo. They also gave away t-shirts and TVs and Starbucks coffee. Not a theme I feel terribly sympathetic to, but I managed to have some fun drawing all the characters at the event. I googled the word "people" in google's image search. The very first result was a page showing the staff of an entire astronomy department at the University of Florida. Perfect!
This was what the whole image looked like, with the line snaking across the page.
The jazz band, also based on a trio I found on google. It seemed like the right casting - these middle aged guys with cool haircuts. Probably playing some smoothed out stuff, but still swinging. I snuck my wife into the audience on the lower left there.
More of the folks on line. I drew myself in a dorky striped yellow shirt. Kind of my worst nightmare of who I'd become if I was stuck in a corporate job. My fashion sense would wither away. I'd stop getting regular haircuts (actually, even now that's kind of hard to maintain). I'd be complacent, bored and depressed, probably shrugging like this to strangers very often.
I was having fun imagining how these folks would be passing the time on line. So I had this tanned outgoing alpha male guy hitting on this cute indie rockerish chick. She's timid, but still into the attention she's getting. The older guy is saying something about the woman's shoes or something. He has a fatherly air, but she misunderstands it as creepy flirting and is having none of it.
And the stragglers at the end. I liked this guy telling the rest about the free coffee. I feel some affection for him. But I have to wonder, who gets this excited about some free coffee? Who goes to these events? Aren't they usually the people who slack off at work and jump at the chance to go to a free trade show for the day? Are they really the kinds of people you want to be generating lists for and marketing to? I don't profess to know. Just wondering...
