Comic Book.
Link to Sample page above
Interview with Sammy Harkam
SPURGEON: [laughs] Let me ask how you approached your own work this time around. "Lubavitch, Ukraine 1876" is as visually challenging as anything I've seen you do. You have this really tight grid that feels boxed in and constrained, and utilize this slow progression of time, even the dropping out of backgrounds when it suits you. What effect were you trying to achieve through this very controlled narrative?
HARKHAM: I am getting more and more interested in the layering of moments on top of moments and how all things, piled up, can take on a particular resonance taken as a whole. Very much like looking back at a period of your life. This is what I love so much about Frank King's work. You start reading Gasoline Alley and it doesn't hit at first what's going on. But as it continues you really get the sense of time passing, of the ebb and flow of daily life in its details, things connecting, other things not. I want my stories to feel like memories in a certain way. The uniform panel size is a way of giving equal "emotional" space to each moment. That in turn, I think, makes an emotional point much richer.
The great cartoonist Jason has said, "You go halfway and the reader will go the other half." I really agree with this. The cartoonist is not spelling out which panels are the punchline or center of a scene. The reader engages it more. It's not appropriate for all strips, but for "Lubavitch" it seemed like the right way. Also, having many panels on page, jamming it with information, helps with this idea.
The general conceit of the strip was a way for me to talk about my life without distancing the reader. Setting an autobio strip a hundred and fifty years ago has an innate humor to it -- my initial inspiration was crumb's "Cave Wimp" strip -- and gave me an "in" to talk about Judaism/spirituality/God concepts without being weird and preachy. But by giving the main character my name, it has a way of stopping the strip from becoming about how people used to live, but how they still live. It was a struggle to create a balance between being humorous and still talking about why anyone lives an orthodox jewish life, without being preachy or aggressive with my opinions.
I don't know if the strip was successful at anything: being funny or truthful or entertaining. It was only once Alvin read it and convinced me it should be published that I thought it could have any interest to people and put it in Kramers.
Link to Sample page above
Interview with Sammy Harkam
SPURGEON: [laughs] Let me ask how you approached your own work this time around. "Lubavitch, Ukraine 1876" is as visually challenging as anything I've seen you do. You have this really tight grid that feels boxed in and constrained, and utilize this slow progression of time, even the dropping out of backgrounds when it suits you. What effect were you trying to achieve through this very controlled narrative?
HARKHAM: I am getting more and more interested in the layering of moments on top of moments and how all things, piled up, can take on a particular resonance taken as a whole. Very much like looking back at a period of your life. This is what I love so much about Frank King's work. You start reading Gasoline Alley and it doesn't hit at first what's going on. But as it continues you really get the sense of time passing, of the ebb and flow of daily life in its details, things connecting, other things not. I want my stories to feel like memories in a certain way. The uniform panel size is a way of giving equal "emotional" space to each moment. That in turn, I think, makes an emotional point much richer.
The great cartoonist Jason has said, "You go halfway and the reader will go the other half." I really agree with this. The cartoonist is not spelling out which panels are the punchline or center of a scene. The reader engages it more. It's not appropriate for all strips, but for "Lubavitch" it seemed like the right way. Also, having many panels on page, jamming it with information, helps with this idea.
The general conceit of the strip was a way for me to talk about my life without distancing the reader. Setting an autobio strip a hundred and fifty years ago has an innate humor to it -- my initial inspiration was crumb's "Cave Wimp" strip -- and gave me an "in" to talk about Judaism/spirituality/God concepts without being weird and preachy. But by giving the main character my name, it has a way of stopping the strip from becoming about how people used to live, but how they still live. It was a struggle to create a balance between being humorous and still talking about why anyone lives an orthodox jewish life, without being preachy or aggressive with my opinions.
I don't know if the strip was successful at anything: being funny or truthful or entertaining. It was only once Alvin read it and convinced me it should be published that I thought it could have any interest to people and put it in Kramers.
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