Influx

Graphic novel supremo, Chris Ware, has a solo-exhibition currently running at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Lynne Warren, one of the museum’s curators, interviewed Chris via email. The full interview can be found on the site.

Here is an extract that talks about the power of spontaneity over planning.

LW: Your drawings are so intricate yet concrete; they are visually coherent in the way a solid, three-dimensional object might be. At the same time they require the viewer to generate a plan, literally and figuratively, of how to read them. How much “planning” do you put into a typical drawing as far as content and layout?

CW: “Generally I simply sit down and start drawing and see what happens; I might have notes or a line or two of dialogue on a piece of scrap paper or penciled lightly in the margins of the bristol board, but that’s it. There’d otherwise simply be no way to plan out something with the sort of naturalistic texture I try to aim for without spending weeks and weeks on it, and I usually only have a couple of days to write/draw it, anyway.

Finally, though I want my stories to feel as sprawling and unmanageable as I find my own life to be, I want to present them with as much “clarity” as I also seem to experience everything.”