‘Monica’ (Fulgencio Pimentel / ‘Mònica’, Editorial Finestres) is an undeniable masterpiece of comics in general and postmodern comics in particular. There are numerous cultural references to the author’s previous work and life, as well as a fragmented structure and, as the saying goes, more layers of reading than a mountain climber wears technical clothing in January. Come on, it’s a treat for comic book criticism, it’s very popular in comic book times. Fortunately, the book stands on its own and provides visual and narrative pleasure without the need to eviscerate even its most enigmatic sections. It also conveys a love for the profession of a comic book artist. Without further ado, we are here with Daniel Clowes (1961) via video conference from his studio in Oakland.
The time an artist devotes to a work is of no importance to the reader, nor should it be. So, did devoting seven years to ‘Monica’ cause you anxiety or obsession?
No. I spent a lot of time deciding what to draw. At first I had a lot of ideas and figuring out how to put them together in a coherent way wasn’t much fun. But once I got the all clear, I’ve never enjoyed my job so much. I think the reason I spent seven years on ‘Monica’ was because I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to keep going because I was having so much fun, so I added more and more details and tried things that weren’t necessary. The day I finished the album, I felt sad, not triumphant. It was like sending a child to college.
The counterculture of the 1960s is often presented as a utopian dream. It is also added that it turns into a nightmare after a certain point. You’re just reflecting your nightmare side. Because?
I hope you can see just from the aesthetic of ‘Monica’ and some of the things I’ve drawn throughout my career that I really appreciate the artistic freedom and ’60s look. But being a little kid caught in the middle of it all. The people trying to create a new world were terrifying. There was no safety for a child, it was chaotic. I wanted to capture that feeling rather than making a historical assessment of that period.
I definitely thought a lot about the structure of ‘Desert Centaurs’
There is a long and very important stream of novels and films about the search for a person. Just three examples: Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, John Ford’s ‘Desert Centaurs’ and John Irving’s ‘Till I Find You’. Did you keep this cultural tradition in mind when making ‘Monica’?
I’ve definitely been thinking a lot about ‘Desert Centaurs’. In its structure. There’s a very clear beginning event and a very clear final event when they find Natalie Wood. But the film has an episodic structure that allows you to meander as long as you’re clear about where it all ends. We all know they’ll find him one way or another, and that allows the story to progress in an unconventional way. It’s a bit like a jazz composition, in that you have a beginning and an end, and within an indeterminate structure you can go in different directions as long as you more or less follow the path. Stories of searching for a missing person have always intrigued me, and I think it’s because my childhood was so difficult for me to understand that I always searched for their meaning. I was never sure of the true events of my childhood. Nobody wanted to talk about them. That’s why in my life I was always searching for that lost moment that would explain everything.
To what extent is ‘Monica’ an autobiographical work?
Emotionally, from start to finish. I tried to capture how I felt at every moment of my life and turn it into a story. Often the events reported have nothing to do with events occurring in my life, but they reflect how I felt at different periods.
I found EC’s comics to be more extreme than the underground comics I’ve ever seen.
How did you discover the comics of publisher EC Comics and why do you like them?
In my youth in the early 70s, I had never heard of them. They had been out of print for a while and no one was talking about them. Then I saw a book titled ‘1950s horror comics’ in a bookstore in Chicago. I took it off the shelf and couldn’t believe my eyes. It seemed more extreme than any underground comic I’d seen, and it didn’t make sense to me that this material was published in the ’50s. I had watched many movies and TV series from the 50s; There is no slander and blood, couples sleep in separate beds. Two people were shooting at each other and they fell. There were no stab wounds. At the same time, those comics showed a man cutting up his wife and throwing the pieces into the trash can. They blew my mind. At first they intrigued me only on the level of the shocking facts they showed. But as I delved deeper into EC, I saw how beautifully these comics were drawn by some of the best comic artists of all time, all working simultaneously and competing with each other. Even now, as ridiculous as some of the stories are, these comics mean a lot to me and are among the best ever made in their genre.
‘Monica’ recovers themes already present in his first major work, ‘Like a silk glove forged from iron’, although it was published in fragments. For example, the search for a person and sect mentioned above. How are both jobs related for you?
For a while I was obsessed with an artist, let’s say Alfred Hitchcock, and I watch all of his movies and think about them every day. Until he gets tired and moves on to something else. That’s why I wanted to revisit this work after 10 years and watch all the films again. And they are very different. Some are much better than I thought, some are much worse. Another decade passes, another plunge, and everything is different again. I wanted ‘Monica’ to be a revision of ‘Forged in Iron Like a Silk Glove’ from 30 years later. I seem to have a deeper understanding of these issues now than when I was mostly instinctive.
Why is there often a sleepwalking atmosphere in your stories?
I don’t want my stories to have the meandering quality of dreams, I want them to be focused. But I also feel like dreams are an honest expression of us. We can’t censor ourselves there and we delve into very disturbing, very personal topics. I try to follow this rule. In my fiction, I try to be honest and brave about uncomfortable subjects, as if in a dream.
We tend to assume that everything has been done and limit ourselves to repeating the same things over and over again. Until images appear that tell you that you see the world through a very small lens.
He explained that in ‘Monica’ he reenacted images that had influenced him throughout his life, especially in his childhood. Is there a pattern in the images that fascinates you?
God, I had to look at this and think. Of course there is. Maybe it would be better for someone to review this and evaluate it. But I would say it always revolves around the unexpected. These are images that you could never imagine and that somehow exist. They make you see the world in a completely different way and tell you that there are millions of things you can draw, write about, or film because they’ve never been seen before. We tend to assume that everything has been done and limit ourselves to repeating the same things over and over again. Until those images tell you that you see the world through a very small lens and that there are millions of things that can become art.
He painted numerous album covers for bands in the indie rock scene in the 1990s. Was there a sense of community between cartoonists and musicians?
I can say that we musicians are jealous. We could spend months making our comics, and all our fans were bearded men. Even though they were only on stage for 15 minutes, there were a lot of girls around the rock bands. At the time, mass culture hated comics so much that we were happy to please anyone. The truth was that we were both part of the same marginal culture and appealing to the same audience; people were tired of everything from the ‘mainstream’, from cinemas to bookstores to radio.
I love The Raunch Hands’ cover of ‘Pay day’ (1989). Was it a band you liked?
Oysters were perhaps the first tapa I ever made. At least one of the first. I love the illustration and I really liked the band. I got to know The Raunch Hands pretty well when I was living in New York.
I’m listening to more and more movie soundtracks. Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, John Barry and stuff like that. And the Kinks are my favorite band of all time.
What music are you listening to right now?
More and more movie soundtracks. Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, John Barry and stuff like that. And the Kinks are my favorite band of all time.
‘Monica’ tells the history of the world with 20 short stories on the double page containing the credits. How did you choose these 20 moments?
There was so much more. It was a complex editing process. I didn’t want this to be an objective history of life on Earth, I wanted it to be a history of the world according to Monica’s vision, her sensibility. It’s like world history according to the general culture of a person who is not particularly interested in history.
‘Monica’ gained the status of a streaming event in the United States. Do you feel like you’re marking a notable moment in comic book history?
No idea. It was great to work for seven years on something that no one, not even my wife, had seen when I was making it. He knew he was happy with what he did, but he doubted it would interest anyone else. It is very pleasing to see that the response is not only positive, but that everyone comments differently, and it is much better than I expected. But I don’t know anything else.