JB lives
and works in Toronto. His thinly veiled cries for help are
published by the west-coast publisher 'The Comix Company' and can be perused here:http://thecomixcompany.ecrater.com
Banci: First off, when did you decide to go into making comics was it a conscious
decision or did you fall into it
jay Bee: I always wanted to draw cartoons, I mean, probably not the way I'm drawing them now, but I've always been drawing cartoons and comics. It has been my primary artistic focus my entire life so far. I suppose this means I should be better at it, hahaha. It's also not my full-time job, either. To be honest though, I'd say I've been really taking comics seriously as far as setting and completing goals for myself for about eight years now. Since I was twenty-two.
Banci: Do you come from an artistic family was there any one in your family that
particularly inspired you and did you attend art collage or anything like that
jay Bee: No, my family wasn't exceptionally artistic. I mean, both my Grandmothers sketched and painted as a hobby, and my Uncle is a graphic designer, but nothing too crazy that I know of. I also didn't really pursue an artistic education for very long, opting instead to suffer and do things the hard way so I can be a jackass about how many shitty lumps I had to take to get my nothing foothold in the "industry". I'm that
dumb kid that starts working right after high school and dreaming about 'making it big, man'.
Banci: Reading your glad hand comics there's strong theme of sci-fi
which is unusual in underground comics what made you go that route:
jay Bee: I guess science fiction and comics just work well together. I know I
want to tell stories with emotions and themes and feelings that people can relate to (or I can make you feel) but I also know I want to draw exciting and interesting places that only sort of seem like the ones I live in. You can also do whatever you want, you can make a metaphor as subtle or as obvious as you want, and with science fiction and satire it's like there's no rules to how you can tell a story or get something across. I don't know that's it's a more popular choice, I think there
are a lot of cartoonists working now doing stuff in a similar vein just maybe not in the same style or voice. I guess what makes my work "underground" is that confessional air, to be honest I just feel like the truth is so much more boring and sad.
Banci: First off, when did you decide to go into making comics was it a conscious
decision or did you fall into it
jay Bee: I always wanted to draw cartoons, I mean, probably not the way I'm drawing them now, but I've always been drawing cartoons and comics. It has been my primary artistic focus my entire life so far. I suppose this means I should be better at it, hahaha. It's also not my full-time job, either. To be honest though, I'd say I've been really taking comics seriously as far as setting and completing goals for myself for about eight years now. Since I was twenty-two.
Banci: Do you come from an artistic family was there any one in your family that
particularly inspired you and did you attend art collage or anything like that
jay Bee: No, my family wasn't exceptionally artistic. I mean, both my Grandmothers sketched and painted as a hobby, and my Uncle is a graphic designer, but nothing too crazy that I know of. I also didn't really pursue an artistic education for very long, opting instead to suffer and do things the hard way so I can be a jackass about how many shitty lumps I had to take to get my nothing foothold in the "industry". I'm that
dumb kid that starts working right after high school and dreaming about 'making it big, man'.
Banci: Reading your glad hand comics there's strong theme of sci-fi
which is unusual in underground comics what made you go that route:
jay Bee: I guess science fiction and comics just work well together. I know I
want to tell stories with emotions and themes and feelings that people can relate to (or I can make you feel) but I also know I want to draw exciting and interesting places that only sort of seem like the ones I live in. You can also do whatever you want, you can make a metaphor as subtle or as obvious as you want, and with science fiction and satire it's like there's no rules to how you can tell a story or get something across. I don't know that's it's a more popular choice, I think there
are a lot of cartoonists working now doing stuff in a similar vein just maybe not in the same style or voice. I guess what makes my work "underground" is that confessional air, to be honest I just feel like the truth is so much more boring and sad.
jay Bee:That's an intense question, uhh, yeah, I mean... Look if somebody in my
family really wanted to read my work and give me their opinion or try and understand what I'm trying to say than I'll have that conversation, but I don't know if they'd want to have it! I guess there's a lot of images that are hard to resolve since I truly feel that comics is this realm with no boundary. Actually as I was thinking about it I realize I'd brought a comic to work to show somebody this week, and I put it on the top of this shelf to remember to bring it home and I left it there! I mean, I stand up for my work and am proud of it, but the idea of having to DEFEND an IMAGE it fills me with dread. Or even worse, that somebody thinks the comics "suck".
Banci: You mention in one of your auto biographical strip "fuck me" that
your autobiographical always seems trite and arrogant. I personally love your auto bio stuff would you ever bring a book with auto bio stuff only in the future?:
jay Bee: That is the plan. I have been bullshitting forever that I was going to write a novel about a subject very important to me, but working up to a novel about yourself is very hard. I guess because I really want to put it ALL THERE on the page, it's tough to get through it in my own mind. The whole thing about autobio for me is that I find it a hard slog, I want to draw goopy archetypes of three women I've dated, or my mean boss, not try and be honest! That strip was drawn back in 2008/09-ish (SIX YEARS AGO! GOD I AM GETTING OLD!) I feel like there is a lot of stuff from that period in my sketchbooks when I was working alone overnight and drawing every day that was very good for my growth, but also very bad. There is such a thing as going up your own ass too much, so sometimes when I read that strip, or when I mention 'hipsters' I kind of cringe. I mean, I felt the way I did at the time, but part of that kind of diary of work is that you don't feel that way forever. It's a really tricky.
But, short answer, yes. I want to do that book about my life at some point.
Banci: Where do you get inspiration for your stories from. Do any characters like louiese diseassy and weesee based on any one you know.
jay Bee: Is it bad they're all based on me? Even the ones that are obviously
other people in my real life are not getting to write their part. To quote my ex "It's Jordan's world, we're all just living in it." In my comics this is not a sad realistic delusion, but the truth.
Banci: your comics on the surface appear to be violent of a sexual
nature but have a lot more deeper meaning which is refreshing nowadays for underground comics did you intentionally set out to do this or was it more of a stream of consciousness:
jay Bee: Good question, because I think that my work is kind of a hard sell. I try hard not to hold back as far as images and words go, it's certainly a stream of conscience when I'm working on pencils and plotting ahead but I always try to lock onto three or four emotional themes that I want to be present and try to illicit in the reader. I agree that a lot of my work features "strong sexual images" and isn't played up for laughs in
an obvious way, but at the same time I don't think my work is meant to titillate or really turn people on in a straightforward sexual way. A lot of the time when I'm drawing I'm not getting off on somebody being stabbed in the urethra with a needle, but I'm also not going to balk at it. It's just a drawing. I try to keep my work cartoonish in style so that it simply cannot be TOO dark anyway. It's really hard for somebody
to see all that in fifteen seconds of flipping through my book. I think if you just flip through the pages it seems like it's me making fun of BDSM or the internet or comics in general, but I'm really hoping that isn't all that comes across when people actually read them. I also guess to some people sex isn't a big deal and they don't think about it that often or they aren't really interested in exploring that aspect of relationships or the human condition or to be honest; comfortable with these kinds of thoughts and images, which is fine. I mean, it's not the only thing I draw and write about, so luckily if you're willing to be open enough to read my books you can also enjoy my other goofy comics. I feel like I've only kind of scratched the surface and there's a lot of deception on my part as well. I guess that's what you strive for, more
honesty?
cartoonists/artists/ that you are into or admire.
jay Bee: Oh my god, the list is huge and endless. I read as much as I can and
have so many favorites, my walls are brimming with books. There are so many great people putting work out right now and so many people I really go ape shit over, from creators here in Toronto to Japan, Italy, the US. Everywhere there are amazing comics being made! Everybody my publisher Dexer Cockburn has put out under the 'Comix Company' is actually an amazing cartoonist I am lucky to be published with! I'm not just saying that either, I genuinely get excited when I hear about the new books he's publishing/reprinting for really amazing "underground" cartoonists. And in this really cool, old-school-with-no-irony comics as prolific, affordable, exciting "COMIX". And I have to say I'm constantly inspired by (not to mention in awe of because they're all my heroes) the group of artists I have been jamming with for the last few years; Nina Bunjevac, Dalton Sharp, Chester Brown and Dave Lapp. And I'd be remiss to not mention Robin Bougie. I think between Robin Bougie and Dalton Sharp I met and learned about almost everything important in comics in my 20's,
they're just both very knowledgeable comic book creators of a high calibre and really nice guys. Also Takeshi Niemoto. 'Monster Men/Bureiko Lullaby' is probably my favorite comic ever made. I can't stress enough how much I love that book. If there were a fire in my home, and I could only save one item, out of everything in my apartment, including my sketchbooks.... I feel like that book would be it. I'd be sleeping under a bridge with a blue tarp as a blanket naked using that book as a pillow. I love it so much.
Banci: Ive seen from posts on your facebook page that you are into hip
hop is there any one in particular that you are into at the moment:
jay Bee: I am insane about all music, if I like it I'm going to absorb it. I couldn't even give you a realistic idea of who I like on whole, but I like to put a few albums on a tiny mp3 player and kind of rotate albums in and out of it. It's how I've always listened to music and it's down to a science. So for example right now on my tiny mp3 is: bbrainz, Big Baby Gandhi, Blank Banshee, Bruxa, Bones, Camu Tao, Dash Speaks, DJ Muggs, Graham Kartna, Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Hot Sugar, Homeboy Sandman and Paul White, Jonwayne, Lakutis, Mac Demarco, R. Stevie Moore,
Ryan Hemsworth, TRPL BLK, Tobacco, and Walsh. That's a good idea of the kind of stuff I've been playing a lot of these past few weeks. I've also always put out mixtapes with each new batch of zines I'd print (or new issues) and I've done everything from rap to minimal wave to commodore 64 mix'. I actually sent a batch of comics once to VICE magazine and they ignored the books but reviewed my mixtape very favourably IN PRINT! Hahahahaha.
Banci: Please describe your creative
process and what tools do you use
to create your comics
jay Bee: My tools are a Pentel calligraphy brush pen, and those Faber-Castell
India ink pens, I usually only use the small, fine and medium sizes. That's about it unless I'm dicking around with some random tools. My process is a little weirder, I think everybody goes from story in their head to pencils to inks, but I sometimes ink behind my pencils as I go so that the earlier story is locked in. I've heard a technique for writing a "graphic novel" is script, pencils, and when you go to ink you start in the middle so your art isn't all over the place. I obviously do not follow this. I'm kind of bizarre, I'm sure there is an easier way for me to work but in ten years I never found it. Maybe the next ten will be great!
Banci: What are you working on now at the moment
jay Bee: Well, for a long time I wasn't very good at producing. I wasn't
sketching every day, which is kind of a constant for me. Only in the
last six months have I begun sketching again, and with that I made a
larger dent in my next regular, 30 page issue I was to have finished in
the next few months. I'm also probably going to get to work on my long
book project, as well as try to do one more full issue before the year
is out. So, I'm on the road to producing like I was a few years ago. I
can only hope the quality is way higher. I have no barometer for such
things, all I do is hope, hahahaha.
Banci: What plans do you have for the future:
jay Bee: At this point in my career as an "artist" my only plans are to never stop, always be working and not die and while doing that not become absorbed by a normal boring working life.
to create your comics
jay Bee: My tools are a Pentel calligraphy brush pen, and those Faber-Castell
India ink pens, I usually only use the small, fine and medium sizes. That's about it unless I'm dicking around with some random tools. My process is a little weirder, I think everybody goes from story in their head to pencils to inks, but I sometimes ink behind my pencils as I go so that the earlier story is locked in. I've heard a technique for writing a "graphic novel" is script, pencils, and when you go to ink you start in the middle so your art isn't all over the place. I obviously do not follow this. I'm kind of bizarre, I'm sure there is an easier way for me to work but in ten years I never found it. Maybe the next ten will be great!
Banci: What are you working on now at the moment
jay Bee: Well, for a long time I wasn't very good at producing. I wasn't
sketching every day, which is kind of a constant for me. Only in the
last six months have I begun sketching again, and with that I made a
larger dent in my next regular, 30 page issue I was to have finished in
the next few months. I'm also probably going to get to work on my long
book project, as well as try to do one more full issue before the year
is out. So, I'm on the road to producing like I was a few years ago. I
can only hope the quality is way higher. I have no barometer for such
things, all I do is hope, hahahaha.
Banci: What plans do you have for the future:
jay Bee: At this point in my career as an "artist" my only plans are to never stop, always be working and not die and while doing that not become absorbed by a normal boring working life.
Banci: What do you make you of the
underground comics scene these days:
jay Bee: What a loaded question. I don't think it exists. The internet has changed the entire situation and it hasn't really finished changing yet. It seems like the multimedia approach is only intensifying. I think a lot of the entrepreneurial and exciting "studio" type jobs that used to exist for cartoonists now exists for corel animators. I think the comics field is jam packed with "special little snowflakes" that don't really share the kind of doom and gloom, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks forebears of underground 'comix'. That having been said I think there is a better "market" for people to enjoy your work for free and share it with everybody now, so if you tow that old bullshit line that your "art" is for "you" than you're living in the right age! Keep
in mind this is coming from a guy that cannot support himself from comics alone so my asshole outlook is because I am very much on the outside looking in and wish to be in a lofty position to discuss the 'underground' like I'm part of the conversation!
Banci: What advice would you give for someone starting out in comics:
jay Bee: Ugh. I'd hate to imagine that maybe there is one eighteen year old kid that maybe saw something on the internet that I did and somehow through mild interest reads this and becomes discouraged, because what a horrible guy I'd be! Look, as far as comics are concerned why are you making them? I can't seem to stop, I always come back to doodling comic book images and comics no matter how frustrated I am in with as a medium or a form of commercial art. Nothing I can say will convince you it's a lucrative road, but it's totally its own form of expression. It has it's own very loose rules and way to complete your goals, it is such a sublime and simple form of art that I suggest everybody try it. The roots of comics is that it is cheaply made and disseminated. Celebrate that egalitarian spirit and make your own!
end
jay Bee: What a loaded question. I don't think it exists. The internet has changed the entire situation and it hasn't really finished changing yet. It seems like the multimedia approach is only intensifying. I think a lot of the entrepreneurial and exciting "studio" type jobs that used to exist for cartoonists now exists for corel animators. I think the comics field is jam packed with "special little snowflakes" that don't really share the kind of doom and gloom, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks forebears of underground 'comix'. That having been said I think there is a better "market" for people to enjoy your work for free and share it with everybody now, so if you tow that old bullshit line that your "art" is for "you" than you're living in the right age! Keep
in mind this is coming from a guy that cannot support himself from comics alone so my asshole outlook is because I am very much on the outside looking in and wish to be in a lofty position to discuss the 'underground' like I'm part of the conversation!
Banci: What advice would you give for someone starting out in comics:
jay Bee: Ugh. I'd hate to imagine that maybe there is one eighteen year old kid that maybe saw something on the internet that I did and somehow through mild interest reads this and becomes discouraged, because what a horrible guy I'd be! Look, as far as comics are concerned why are you making them? I can't seem to stop, I always come back to doodling comic book images and comics no matter how frustrated I am in with as a medium or a form of commercial art. Nothing I can say will convince you it's a lucrative road, but it's totally its own form of expression. It has it's own very loose rules and way to complete your goals, it is such a sublime and simple form of art that I suggest everybody try it. The roots of comics is that it is cheaply made and disseminated. Celebrate that egalitarian spirit and make your own!
end
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