From Little Things

Autobiography is a curious act of onanism, often rewriting history and exorcising personal demons. That many comics artists choose the form isn’t a surprise — cartooning can be a lonely, introspective process. Jeffery Brown’s autobiographical comics riff on the Harvey Pekar “what I did today” style, small snippets on everything from his cat to fatherhood. They occasionally drift into the self-indulgent and tangential, but at their best, find great moments in the seeming paucity of daily events that compose one’s life.

Brown’s latest autobiographical work, Little Things: A Memoir in Slices (Touchstone, 352 pp.), chronicles his life as a record store clerk, a camping trip deep in the mountains, and surgery to remove his Crohn’s-addled gall bladder. The book further refines his scratchy, black-and-white pencils, which add to the diary-like composition of the book, with simple six-panel page layouts keeping the book clipping at a quick pace.

Fast Forward talked to Brown about his career, writing Little Things and the challenges of writing a memoir.

Fast Forward: How were you introduced to cartooning?

Jeffrey Brown: It goes back to growing up reading comics, starting with superhero comics, that usual kid stuff. I got out of comics when I went to college, and after that rediscovered alternative comics — Chris Ware, Chester Brown and Daniel Clowes. Reading the Acme Novelty Library volumes and Eightball re-inspired me. In college, I’d turned to fine art — I though I’d be a painter — but my sketchbooks were filled with text and cartoony drawings.

I moved to Chicago in 2002 to do my MFA. While there, I wasn’t happy with my painting and was directionless, so I started doing comics again.

What is it about the medium that attracts you?

Drawing is one of my great loves — just putting pen to paper. As a medium, it’s also very immediate. There’s something about the combo of the visual and the language that gets your point across more directly. I’m a big reader and lover of books – you’re working in a medium where you can reach a lot of people, but at the same time, individually, there’s an intimacy from author to reader.

Your style is very cartoony, yet a closer look reveals how considered your composition is. What inspires your esthetic?

I work with my gut — I’m always thinking about how it would affect the context. Having the mountain story in the middle made sense — it didn’t fit at the end, as it was kind of introspective, slow and thoughtful. The last story, which talks about fatherhood, made sense to appear at the end — chronologically and thematically, it marks a progression.

How did you decide which stories and themes to include in the book?

There are a lot of thoughts about friendships, how they come in and out of your life. And the importance of those relationships — even when you’re on the outs with someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the friendship. That is, trying to stay away from those two extremes of friendship — friends forever or mortal enemies. It’s more often the case where people grow apart and find each other again.

You’re open about your health problems in the book. The chapter detailing the cost of having your gall bladder removed ($25, 935.75) is shocking.

I never had a procedure where they sent me the breakdown of the costs. It was a shock. I have a chronic disease — unless I have health insurance through work, it’s something I can’t get. You can get separate government mandated coverage, but it costs more.

Did you ever consider writing a graphic novel just dealing with your illness?

Yes. Originally, I had an idea of a book just about being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, and having surgery to have part of my intestines removed. I finished 40 pages and wasn’t happy with it — what I had to say didn’t stand up on its own. So I thought, ‘Maybe writing about the health issues would work better in a different context, where it’s part of a bigger story.’

Because your stories are so personal, do you ever feel the need to self-censor?

It’s like walking a fine line — I try not to censor anything that I feel would be important to the book, but I’m trying to be respectful of the people I’m writing about. Sometimes I’ll say, ‘Maybe this isn’t the best thing to put in here’ — but if it fits into the story or theme, the story is the first priority.

I haven’t had anyone get really angry, just little things here and there. I try to make myself look as bad or worse than anyone else. In writing about these relationships, I always try to make it even-handed, more about the relationship. I hope that people I’m writing about would understand that.

What are the challenges of writing from memory? Is there a temptation to rewrite history?

I try to never write anything in the moment, as things are happening — I like writing from memory with some sense of perspective. Usually, like any recollection, I can’t believe I acted like that. As far as rewriting, it’s more of a case of — if it was something I would want to rewrite, I just won’t do it. The change would obliterate the meaning of it.

How has your style developed over the years?

It has developed from more of a place where I was starting to get away from the fine art idea of drawing. In school, I was seeing contemporary art turned into something else. It was no longer about expressing yourself, but this culture of status and sales. Clumsy was a deliberate attempt to go counter to that and capture what art is when you’re a kid — pure expression. My style has gotten a little more refined over time, but I still try to keep that immediacy — the sketching, the emotion of seeing the human hand show through the work.

Little Things uses a six-panel page construction. Why this format?

It started out, when I started writing these autobiographical comics (especially Clumsy), that most of them were one-page stories. I found that three or four panels wasn’t enough, but six gave enough space to do these “little moments.” I started working that way then stuck with it, as I had a good control of the pacing that way. I’m starting to play with that panel structure, especially in the mountain story, to make them more documentary-like. You have a static panel structure, where having them the same size keeps the eye coming from a more objective place. One of the early criticisms I had was that the panels were all the same — why not make one more important? But then you’re using the form to tell people what’s more important, rather than setting up the reader to follow the actual story.

What are the pros and cons of the comics business?

I don’t love the business part — I’m my own small business. Health insurance, taxes, paperwork, getting paid, making sure people pay me, contracts — that side of things I could do without. Now, working for Simon & Schuster, there’s a pressure — self-imposed, actually — of deadlines. A bigger publisher brings bigger scrutiny that takes away from the work.