Note from Drawn and Quarterly publisher Tom Devlin: I wanted to have Marc Bell and Ron Regé, Jr. talk about their new books (Raw Sewage Science Fiction and Shell Collection, respectively) not only because of a coincidental visual similarity but a thematic one as well. Ron and Marc have been friends for as long as I have known either (around thirty years) and, as you will read, have a lot of career and personal similarities. As third-wave underground cartoonists (an OFFICIAL term) they both exemplify a move to incorporate non-comics influences into their work that became a hallmark of what many (me) call the eventual fourth-wave underground cartoonists (the tumblr generation? Gulp. These designations are historically accurate as you will see from the following discussion.) Of course, being old friends there is a fascinating shorthand to how they discuss comics and art-making.
MARC BELL: Hello Ron. I have been enjoying these posts on your instagram of your Yeast Hoist series. It made me think about how influential these things were to me. I think at the time, seeing this early stuff of yours and other forward-thinking American stuff (i.e. Paper Rad and Fort Thunder), made me appreciate some things I had in me already but probably wanted to get out. What does Ron think when looking at Yeast Hoist? I mean Ron must think “Oh yeah, hey this stuff holds up.”
RON REGÉ JR: You & John [Porcellino] were some of my first peers and contacts. You both inspired me equally from the very start, and it kind of shows. Each new comic I got from you was highly influential on what I was doing.
It’s been fun posting the '90s minicomics. It’s cool to show them because they’ve never really been collected, most people have never seen them. The main thing that looking at the Yeast Hoists made me think of was how when I was making them, I had no idea that I’d spend my career as a cartoonist making giant hardcover books as opposed to little booklets. You and I and a lot of cartoonists making minicomics had no idea that graphic novels were going to become the primary way of making comics, and we certainly had no idea that we’d be making them. It wasn’t our original goal, or intention.
You and I have both struggled at times to make what we’re working on fit into the graphic novel format. We can make long, somewhat traditional book-length stories, but so much of what we do doesn’t fit into those parameters. So, it’s interesting that we are both now releasing books of material collected from mini-comics and other small publications. We’ve both tried to craft these collections into cohesive books. It’s also interesting that both of our publishers are willing to release them, as they might not have wanted this sort of thing from us in the past.
TOM DEVLIN: I think about this a lot as someone making the publishing decisions and while I can’t speak for Fantagraphics on this, it is reasonable to say the bulk of us grew up in the pre-graphic novel era reading underground comics, second wave undergrounds, and specifically zines and we have a love for artists with a distinct personality, whether or not that personality fits into the “important” themes so many graphic novels embrace. You’re both very distinctive artists, where your style is more the calling card than your worldly concerns.
RR: I like Tom being part of this conversation. If we’re going to look back, and compare our mirrored careers on each side of the border, Devlin is a big part of it, especially when it comes to each of us putting out published books. There’s all the “what ifs." Marc and I both followed you along from Highwater Books to D&Q. Would we have ended up there anyhow? Marc, I feel like your career may have taken a similar path, regardless? You’ve self-published all forms of books and booklets on your own, you had the mojo action companion unit, you did comics for Xclaim & Vice, and were part of a whole scene of Canadian doodlers.
But Marc: how do you feel about the divide between making traditional comics and your more abstract publications in relation to getting work published? Did you keep making regular comics because you wanted to, or because publishers would print them? If the “fine art” aspect of your career became the bigger focus of people’s attention, would you do that only? I know it’s kind of all the same thing for both of us at this point.
MB: I guess when I was showing in galleries regularly and making a lot of work for them I was still always thinking about how I could reproduce these things in books. And before all of that gallery business and before the “real” publication of my comics I was making little zines and collaborative zines (with some of my Canadian peers). It was a way to create tiny reproducible galleries that were affordable or tradable with your friends. I was really invested in making comics when I was younger. And I think continuing to make comics or being able to make comics was partly spurred on by publication interest. More and more I knew I could get this work published. And I understand why. Because people want to read things. So I sort of abandoned xeroxing comics at one point knowing they could probably be published on a wider level but I continued to self-publish the more “abstract” work. It’s hard to say if I would have abandoned comics if the “fine art” part of my career had not ended. You know, I might have! It’s a good question. Though I am sure I still would have been thinking of ways to put these things into books. And I am sure I would not have strayed too far from “words and pictures”.
I am curious about your feelings about that, Ron. Like you say, it’s “kind of all the same for us at this point”? Art and comics. We are neither purely “comics people” nor purely “art people” (obviously) ... or maybe to the point: it’s all blurred now? And the climate of comics and the comics audience does sometimes permit that! And some embrace it? There is probably a great bird's eye view explanation of what we are getting at here. I have noticed in certain French anthologies that comics are getting closer to fine art “printmaking” than ever before. It seems slightly dangerous but it is interesting. Do either of you two have a better way to encapsulate or elaborate on what I am getting at? Please do. Or we can move on.
And I am happy you mention John P. He was extremely important to me too. It does all go back to what John P. said about rejecting the art world. I am paraphrasing his commentary but I remember him saying that he decided he wanted to make art that “regular people” (not necessarily rich) can engage with. And publication as art can do that. You control the means, the delivery system. And it’s accessible for a reader if they are interested. Low price point!
I am about to begin a pre-traveling cartoonist ritual: the emptying of the radiograph pens. Wish me luck.
RR: Well there’s a difference between us. I hate those f’n things! How does anyone deal with them? I’m too clumsy. My ZiG Writer never fails me!
I like what you said about keeping the art projects in zines, while the comics work can get published. I never thought of it that way, but of course. Self-publishing is absolute freedom, which is why it’s always inherently more interesting. I’m totally attached to the ethos of cheap and accessible art that you attribute to John P. I take pride in a career primarily centered around sending people cheap xeroxes in the mail. As far as fine art goes, I can sell 10 drawings for $200, but it’s harder to find people who’d pay $2,000+ for one large piece of my art. I’ve always lived essentially hand to mouth by selling cheap art, as I believe you have, for the most part.
As far as saying that “all the same thing” – I just mean we can do what we want because we’re established. We’ve been doing this for decades. There is a small but dependable amount of people who like the things we make. We’ve produced enough work that there’s an audience for what we do. When I was putting together my book Halcyon a couple of years ago, it was all finished in b&w and I was deliberating as to whether I wanted to color it or not. I was thinking that the book would “do better” if it was colored, that people would “like it more.” Eric said that it was up to me, that it didn’t matter. The book was going to sell about the same as any others I’d done, in color or not. I happened to mention it to Tom and he agreed. I’ve had people coming up to me forever saying that my use of b&w (especially with The Cartoon Utopia) was confusing to them: “Why didn’t you color it?” But it doesn’t actually matter, it’s all the same thing.
And yes, there’s more and more great cartoonists that don’t make big long stories, there’s a whole world of great art cartoonists who aren’t at all trying to get published by anyone else, and obviously aren’t gonna start adding more jokes or concessions to their wild scribbles just to make graphic novels. We’re pretty free to do what we want now, but I guess you know that.
But! This Raw Sewage, it’s kinda the first time you’ve taken your lifelong “word art” practice and crafted it into an entire book, right? I know the Hot Potatoe and The Stacks were art books, but this is different, a bigger version and collection of the sort of thing you’ve done in zine form your whole career, yes? I’m psyched about that.
Where ya goin? East? Or across the pond?
MB: I am going to France for a comics residency in Angoulême and will use this time to get started working on my back-taxes (kidding, I'm going to draw there and let everything else slide). And I will be doing some events over there. In France and Spain and Belgium it looks like. I’m in Hamilton right now, visiting family and friends in Ontario. Yesterday I saw David Collier ride by on a bike but I don’t think he recognized me. The first time I met him was over ten years ago in London, Ontario, at Ting Fest and he re-introduced me to Bill Paul. And so Bill Paul put me in his birthday book and I was called the following November on my day. Bill is no longer with us now but he interviewed me a long time ago on a radio station in London when I was a teenager and first started self-publishing comics. For those that don’t know, Bill was the “Town Crier” of London.
And, yes, this Raw Sewage Science Fiction is the first of its kind, really. A collection of my self-published things. I like to see it as my own personal Nog A Dod (2006, Conundrum Press/PictureBox Inc) a collection of various Canadian self-published booklets by a variety of people. Though I suppose this does not cover things from that Nog A Dod era, it’s more recent stuff. I find it fun/interesting re-organizing things that have already been published. Though this new book was slightly contrived of course, I was generating material knowing it would be put in here. Not exactly a bad thing. I suppose it is similar to the way a prose author would write short stories, building up to a collection. So it was funny, Ron and I both putting out collections using a similar idea at the same time! Not that big of a surprise really.
RR: Collier’s great. I’ve got some things, but wish I had more. Yeah! Marc and I have made kind of similar books, with reddish colored covers even! Tom is one of the 90 subscribers to my monthly mini-comics series The Shell of the Self of the Senses, that Shell Collection collects. Tom, can you describe the sorts of things I’ve sent to you over the last few years?
TD: I love getting Ron’s comics in the mail because just that act is like being grabbed by the shoulders and shook a little bit. A reminder, a challenge. I sometimes open them right away, I sometimes set them on my desk or pop them in my backpack for later. They’re a multi-level experience in that part is like checking in with a friend and they say something you don’t fully comprehend but you enjoy seeing them and of course another level is the actual story Ron is working on. This is probably a frustrating and inexact way to describe comics — too vibey.
I’m in a bit of a reverie regarding how I see ink on paper right now given seeing Segar, and Herriman, and Bushmiller, and Huizenga, and Jack Kent, and Lynda Barry, and Floyd Gottfredson at the Billy Ireland in Columbus, Ohio. So much perfectly detailed stories that exist in three dimensions sitting next to the flattest images. It’s all beautiful.
RR: Thanks Tom! I love that description.
TD: When I edit or design books, I frequently imagine their later lives on home bookshelves to be discovered by the children of the owners or in used bookstores or thrift shops. The modern initial sales life is a given, everything is geared towards this — design, catalog description, other marketing. But this later life of a book has so much potential because I imagine someone discovering the work completely free of current baggage. Ron explains the how of the Shell Collection as a small subscription mailer (which may make no sense in ten years) but the content is mysterious and often glorious visually and thematically with radiating lines and creatures that oscillate between angelic and demonic. And with Raw Sewage, Marc seemingly goes deeper into his own subconscious than ever before. The book is less about characters moving through a space than it is about an accumulation of knowledge through the scraps left behind and picked up and rearranged. Both books are perfect for this kind of literary archeology. “Who made this? What does it mean?” To me, this seems a rare quality in that the books grow more mysterious and can become more personal to the reader over time.
MB: Ah, yes, that is a sort of comforting thing to think about. Especially as someone who feels slightly outside of any current trends (at any given time). In any case, obviously Ron and I will both survive this test of time because we are both such great artists, ha ha ho.
RR: You guys have been traveling a lot since we started writing this. I’ve felt more fatigued by travel this year, am wondering if perhaps I don’t like it as much as I used to? I just get worn out/ill after all the stress and disruption to my routine. Gettin older, blah blah, lol. I’ll still go anywhere, though! Please invite me to your festival! The further away from here the better! Ha ha.
Marc and I shared a room at VanCaf a couple of years ago, and I had a molar split in half down the middle, leaving an exposed nerve! It was when everyone was still masked, but I stood all day at a table talking in waves of pain. I was supposed to give a music performance that night, and literally stood in front of the venue with Marc wondering if I should go to the emergency room or play the show! Marc and I played a very short set together! I had to get a root canal when I got home.
Domestic and international travel is one of the biggest perks of a career in comics. I draw and publish comics continuously, and then accept the invitations that I’m offered because of it. Sometimes it’s an art job, an illustration or a design, but it’s often travel as well. I’ve gone and seen so many places, it’s totally changed and shaped who I am.
Marc once fell down a storm drain and twisted his ankle while visiting me in L.A. Did you have to go to the doctor later or something? We’ve had a few adventures. Marc, sometimes I run into that guy Sam from [the art collective] friendswithyou. He always asks me how “The Leader” is doing. Marc and I were taken on an epic trip to Tijuana by those guys at SDCC in ... ’03? We all got nicknames. So long ago, it’s nuts! Where was Tom that night? Next morning we were woken up on the floor of Alvin’s living room very early, as parrots were charging at our faces!
TD: I’m usually game for adventure but I suspect I decided I better not go to another country so I could open the booth the next morning?
RR: I really like thinking of these book-bound comics we make as time capsules. Books get shuffled around and shoved in closets and corners so easily. Picked up without context, years later. It’s how I found everything I love the most, there’s no reason it wouldn’t continue. It’s why I make stuff, for sure. I often try to tell this to artists and musicians when they get down about how many “likes” they’re getting. When someone has an emotional connection to a song or a comic they read, it’s often years after it was made, and the author doesn’t get a notice that it happened. No one wants to hear that when they’re worried about likes. I love beat up graphic novels at the library, man, they’ve got ‘em in every little town. Future library book sales, that’s where we’ll be found. Not everyone feels this way. I’m sure that the majority of mini-comics Marc and I have made were thrown in the trash soon after they were read, as that’s what normal people do.
MB: I agree: I love seeing a beat-up examples of a life's work.
Tonight this person asked me to draw on a pre-soaked coaster with a very primitive wooden dip pen. This drawing I made sat there and was abandoned by the person that requested it and then re-adopted by others that had witnessed its creation and then I watched from afar as it was being binned by a bartender who was clearing the table as we paid our bills. This was funny to me.
Ron, I remember you telling me of traveling to Russia (that is a story in and of itself if you care to share any of that) and how leaving L.A. you found it strange that there was nobody there to see you go or share in your absence. As if it didn't matter (in reality I'm sure plenty of people there cared about you). I've thought about that the past few times I have left Vancouver, feeling a bit like a ghost leaving town. And I suppose that is why I have been trying to make some kind of travel plans anyway. It's weird living in a state of your life where it doesn't seem to matter if you are in a particular place or not. It makes you wish to shake things up. Or that's how I have been feeling anyway. But yes, being older also means less accepting of the unfamiliar. Unless the “unfamiliar” is all sorted out to a reasonable degree. The ghost does not want that much change?
The twisted L.A. curb ankle debacle: this incident was right before returning to Vancouver the previous time I had lived there (this was way back early 2000s) and from what I recall I dealt with swelling upon my return. It was probably my only chance in this life thus far to be whisked to the gate on one of those little indoor airport cars and I blew it, I didn’t bother asking, yeowch.
I believe Dave Choe was also there that evening in Tijuana. Maybe? I went the wrong way back through the border and had to put the Ben Jones-esque Hulk pinata I purchased through the security a second time.
RR: OMG I forgot about that. Watching you go directly through the turnstile back into Mexico after the end of our long crazy night is one of the funniest things I ever saw.
This one [parrot] really had it in for me. This parrot belonging to Alvin [Buenaventura]. This one would chase me down and attack my feet. Sink it’s beak right in there. I believe there is a Jeffrey Brown drawing of this happening.
RR: RIP Alvin B,, I think of you often.
TD: So, Ron, I wanted to get right to the genesis of Shell Collection and The Shell of The Self of the Senses series that it came from. Very obviously, it shows you as an artist adapting to current trends (or more like means of survival) while continuing a kind of spiritual exploration that you had begun before. I’m combining two things here so hang in there while this comes together. You create a Patreon and start working on a series of mini-comics under the aforementioned name. There’s a small group of subscribers (50-100) that makes this possible and also makes you beholden to produce (to communicate). There are notable exceptions (Skibber Bee Bye) but I’ve always thought of you as a pretty direct cartoonist. Often, you are immediately communicating something that currently fascinates you. While the drawings may seem fantastical, the truth is your style is pretty conversational. These aren’t really symbolic comics, the work isn’t vague. You’re interested in something and you share it. This interest may be esoteric or spiritual or very grounded even but you know what you want to say when you sit down (or at least that’s how it reads to me.) You’re less exploring and more sharing. (I’m going to tie this into Marc and Raw Sewage after your answer. Also, yes, one more trip coming up soon and I have a love/hate relationship with traveling as well. I cherish trips to Finland and Norway but I find travel anxiety inducing and exhausting and very hard to recover from mentally and physically which I didn’t used to. Yet, if someone says “come to Japan,” I am packing my bags.)
RR: Marc asked me about Russia. I know exactly what you mean about being a ghost at home, Marc. But yeah, I traveled through Siberia and circumnavigated the globe in 2019, just months before COVID. It was just to go to a comics festival, like any of my trips, and it kinda changed my life. People are the same wherever you go of course, but Siberia looks & feels like the midwest, or Canada. Once seeing it, it feels crazy that the populations of both places have been kept ignorant of each other. There’s plenty about my trip, including my travel diary in Shell Collection.
MB: I think Tom has a pretty good reading on the purpose in your work, Ron. And anyway, I will let you continue!
RR: I’ve been sending people a zine in the mail every month since March of 2016. It rose out of a desire to just try out the modern online subscription model. I didn’t really think it would work, and didn’t expect it to last, but it has. I’m putting together issues 105 and 106 right now. The Shell Collection book just happened because of the sheer volume of work that I’d made. The first couple of years were a flurry of small zines. I then spent a few years making 8.5" by 11" page layouts, knowing that they’d fit well in a book.
The subscription has been amazing, because it’s given me a regular outlet. Being an art cartoonist in the time of graphic novels gives you the option to never have ongoing deadlines, a title that comes out on schedule, or a page in a regular publication.
Because of the monthly deadline, I’m sometimes presenting episodes of a traditional comic, but I’ve also done many issues that are more abstract combinations of words & pictures. A set of postcards. A color copy of abstract art, with a little zine of words. I’ve often had to throw together something quickly, or come up with an interesting concept to fill a gap. It’s been good to feel connected to the sort of word/picture/booklet combo that Marc has never taken a break from. So editing such stuff into a book with full color & a red cover is pretty similar & coincidental to R.S.S.F.
Thanks for noticing that so much of my work is direct and conversational, because my reputation is kind of the opposite? My big projects like Skibber or Halcyon are like quiet art films. The Cartoon Utopia has this conversational tone you’re talking about, but the art, topic, and even lettering are too psychedelic to make complete sense.
But yes, so much of my work is simply me trying to talk about something I’m excited about, or an idea that I’ve had. Shell Collection is completely full of this kind of stuff. It’s done in the tradition of, and voice of the alternative comic titles we were raised on.
Every time I make a comic about some sort of topic (alchemy, old telephones) I’m trying to be direct, but I do it in this particular way that doesn’t entirely make sense, or exactly convey what I’m trying to express, because I’m not a highly articulate essayist? But I know that the peculiar way that I do things is where the actual art of what I’m doing resides. It’s the voice I have in words and pictures, imperfect but individual. This is the part that people appreciate and it’s probably the same for Marc. But it’s also this force of never quite getting it right that drives me forward to create more and more attempts at getting across what I’m trying to convey. Right?
Marc, do you ever think about being an “artist’s artist”? I think that might be what we are, and it’s ok? I’ve noticed recently that the most passionate praise for my work tends to come from other cartoonists, as opposed to the wider comics-reading public. I guess all my art heroes are people that inspired others, but weren’t as popular themselves, because they were too weird. Artist’s artists inspire others, but also get copied a lot?
MB: I have this great letter Ron wrote me in the '90s speaking of his comics/art aspirations, but it’s not with me right now. But yes, I'm definitely an artist's artist if this new goodreads review is any indication. This is the sort of thing I feared putting out this new book. Forever misunderstood. But reactions like this are funny!
TD: A negative review is a confirmation that you’re doing the right thing!
So, what I was thinking about Marc’s comics is that they seem, to me, to be the opposite of Ron’s approach. The world is daunting and chaotic and Marc uses a kind of automatic writing to specifically interrogate what’s bothering him. Maybe just the very act of drawing is soothing but Marc is looking to challenge himself and his characters. Everyone seems to be marching left to right. It’s a constant parade, or maybe trudge. Marc’s comics read like collages of images and words that are in the air around him and by organizing them on the page he might understand the world. They’re perfect time capsules (there is that phrase again) as well. They probably read very specifically years later to Marc in particular. Like reading a diary.
RR: That review is so perfect, I’m jealous.
Whoa, Marc has a time capsule of my intentions. Must see! Dear readers: Right before email was invented (early '90s), Marc & Ron used to write each other letters in the mail. The design of every one of these letters and envelopes Marc sent me were all of the same quality of intention that you see in RSSF. Each one was museum-ready like a Ray Johnson piece. There was meticulous lettering, collage, doodles, comics, etc. I don’t have many examples to show right now. I still have some of them, but they are lost in a sea of very old papers. I’m sure Tom knows what I’m talking about.
Wait, can I see a pdf of Raw Sewage? I should probably see it before we wrap this, lol. [Tom sends Ron a PDF, Ron actually looks at RSSF]
Wow Marc, we really did make similar books, it’s wild. Besides the fact we’ve both collected material from small press booklets, we also both used pages with fonts for table of contents/chapter headings, etc. We both wrote introductions to explain the book to the reader, neither of us usually does that. I know many of your word zines have fonts and collaged texts, etc. But your graphic novels have probably been all hand lettered, eh? I’ve been adamant up until now about hand lettering everything in all my books. I wanted to try something different this time.
One last question! Why is “FLOTATION DEVICES” written with a font on page 107?
MB: FLOTATION DEVICES: Ron, I believe the handwritten text on this graphic originally said “PRIVATE JETS” (when it first appeared in Boutique Mag #4) but I thought that was too “on the nose” (so to speak) and so I decided to change it for this book. Floatation devices seemed funnier to me. As an obvious extension of airplanes, brrr. There are a few other examples in the book where I am putting fonts where handwritten text normally would be. I found this fun and dare I say liberating in a way. A dangerous line but it's interesting!
One thing I do like about making “zines” (or “artist books” to be clear for the fancier audiences) and comic books is that they can be a really good proof that can be examined and perhaps edited for a more permanent publication/version. And then the original zine or comic can exist as a unique object. Thank G-A-W-D that I have art or I would probably have a severe real life OCD problem.
I am trying work out a lecture for Grafixx in Antwerp, Belgium, focusing on Raw Sewage and Worn Tuff Elbow #3 and their relationship (zines or “art” vs. comics) and trying to come up with a brief map of my work leading up to these works.
And Tom, yes, left to right seems crucial in my comics work. I suppose I was probably very affected by “vaudeville”-style comics where the full figure is almost always in the frame. And as far as the chaos goes, yes, you probably put it better than I could. A peer of ours, upon reading my new comic (Worn Tuff Elbow #3), remarked that the actual world was catching up with the chaos/fragmented nature that exists in the world of Marc Bell comics. The idea that the line between them is becoming thinner. Which I thought was interesting. And perhaps a relief to think that perhaps I've been channeling *something*.
And this very left to right thing you speak of is happening in this comic strip I am working on here right now (of course). It is the actual retelling of the travel story that happened earlier in Hamilton, Ontario. I called a car to catch a bus to London, Ontario, and mistakenly got into a car that wasn’t my actual lift. And so this mystery person acted and spoke like he was my legitimate ride and then he mentioned all of the sudden he had to stop and use a toilet (red flag). How could I say no? Anyway, he parked in a Tim Hortons parking lot and went in to use the bathroom (for a long, long time) before my actual driver called me to say he was still waiting for me. Oh my. You can imagine my surprise.
Originally I referred to myself as “CARL BLEM” in this story of abstracted reality (it is full of random Bell characters as always) but thought it could be better to use my real name and I switched it back. Well, to be honest, I don’t know which is better but these are the decisions I struggle with daily. In my perfect world there would be a person there that would just answer questions all day from me that didn’t mind at all. A person should not have to suffer in this scenario unless they are being paid a profound amount of money of course. These would mainly be questions that do not actually matter whatsoever in the bigger scheme of things.
RR: Around 10 years ago, I gave a talk about my comics in a corner of a cafeteria at the University of Copenhagen to less than a dozen vaguely interested students. Afterwards, one kid came up and said that they all had just learned about “Cute Brut” in comics class. He then handed me this graph (what do you call this kind of diagram?) that I guess shows the amount of cuteness and bruteness in my comics (on an axis), Anyhow, I thought each of you might find this amusing & I challenge you both to tell our readers a bit about the “cute brut” genre.
TD: I would love to! I coined the phrase "Cute Brut" in the '90s (eep) when I observed that people were using less illustrative methods for cartooning in '90s zine culture. The EC Comics (uh-oh) ideal that was favored by the first and much of the second wave of underground cartoonists was giving way to a more daily comic strip cartoon-y or children’s book cartoon-y style (please keep in mind that there are many gray areas here). At the time I thought that traditional cartoonist gender roles were flipping a bit. Women seemed to be making more gothic or gross work (Julie Doucet, Dame Darcy) and guys like you two and people like Greg Cook were drawing cuter whether it was rounder figures or funny animals or even the use of floating hearts (John P!) — the new sincerity. Cynicism was out!
At the same time, this cute work was less polished than those classic funny animal comics — more rushed, more splatter-y, more Brut (from the classic Art Brut movement). It is, of course, a silly term and a partial joke but also I do think these kinds of terms can be helpful historically for marking movements. I think there are many, many reasons and movements with which Cute Brut is concurrent but I fear I’m about to get academic and maybe put too fine a point on all this. (King Cat, Tom Hart, Sarah Records, Rob Syers, Mail Art, Beat Happening, Hello Kitty, Basquiat …)
RR: This sounds dumb, but it dawned on me recently that all my characters look like muppets & always have. Sesame Street debuted the year I was born. Newspapers and Saturday morning cartoons were my only exposure to comics as a young kid. I knew comic books existed, but the only ones I saw were adaptations of current films. Were artists of the Cute Brut era kinda the first to experience this? I didn’t play with toys or look at things that weren’t corporate products. Kids just a few years older than me had trucks and dolls and books, etc. that weren’t just products.
I wanted to draw scary comics with realistically proportioned figures, but I was so bad at it that I quit drawing in late high school. I started art school, thinking I was gonna be in a punk band and make music videos! But I was bad at that, too. I slowly pieced together that I did want to draw and make comics and most specifically “art books,” though I didn’t really know what that meant. I moved to the city, and looked at everything. I slowly connected the dots between medieval manuscripts, folk art, Mark Beyer, Indian miniatures, Marc Bell, Mayan glyphs, Duplex Planet, Paul Laffoley, etc., and arrived at where I am.
The main thing I wanted to get across in this discussion is how much Marc and his work have been a complete constant throughout my career from the very beginning. We’re friends obviously, but aren’t always in touch and have never lived in the same place. I’ve so many cartoonist friends, but there’s no one that seems to be coming from quite the same starting point, and has the same attitude and goals as me of combining “art” and “comics.” Thirty Years ago, we probably both hoped to be published to one of two companies. Here we are, putting out books that collect our artsy mini-comics, him with one and I with the other. We’ve washed a lot of the salt from this discussion, but it’s also remarkable that our personal lives and struggles with art and life have also mirrored each other. Here’s a recent page from my subscription where I talk about our connection. Peace, Brother Marc!
MB: Thanks Ron. It’s true what you say about the Rege-Bell mirror. Uniquely different but very similar life paths in art and situations. As you are aware I often use the Rege-style “X” on a nose and will often write R.R. next to it. Here is a page from a booklet of fake posters I created with Thomas Vermeire called GIG POSTERS and in this instance the band is RON REGE JR NOSE (see below). Peace to you as well Brother Rege!
The post Marc Bell and Ron Regé, Jr. talk life, travel and comics: ‘Uniquely different but very similar life paths’ appeared first on The Comics Journal.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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