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Drawing conclusions

Do you think that’s because American culture is so celebrity and persona driven?
I don’t know. Possibly yes. In fact I found it easy to identify the “house style” of European comics and the “house style” of Japanese comics. If I was living in Japan what would I look at in American comics and think, “Oh yeah, it’s an American comic — you can tell because they’re all doing this”? What would be that constant element?  And I think it might be the primacy of the figure if you have the figure sort of playing to the audience. And that might actually have its roots in the origin of comics in America: really a kind of paper vaudeville.

Comics evolved out of stage plays, out of the idea that you’re sitting in the front row of the audience and they’re performing in these little vaudeville boxes just for you. Characters in American comics are more likely to face out. I thought that was interesting when I started. We face the audience more in American comics than characters do in Japanese and European comics. You don’t really follow characters into their world the way you do in other cultures here in America. Here in America characters tend to block you at the door. They’re in the center of the panel. They fill the panel and they face you. You can’t get into their world. You know? Spiderman’s always there, always facing you. Even when he’s facing the villain he makes sure you can see all of his pecs and his trapezius muscles and his, you know — you can see that Spidey’s there to please you! Spiderman’s there to entertain you. And I’m thinking, “You know what? Maybe it’s time to get beyond this.” It’s been a hundred years, people!

In Understanding Comics you talk about how we live in such an iconic culture. What do you think have been the most successful uses of iconography in pop culture in the last 10 years?
Well just look at the face of Homer Simpson or Bart and the power that has and how, in a way, those celebrities have such an enduring, laser-like ability to just burn right into our brain that exceeds any actual human celebrity. You know? [Laughs] Just try to name a human being –even really gifted actors like George Clooney or Johnny Depp, or Cate Blanchett, or any director or figure like that. Have any of them landed in our subconscious the way that the Simpsons have? I don’t really think that they have.

Robert Crumb says that he loves drawing himself. In both Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics you draw yourself endlessly. Do you love drawing yourself, Scott?
[Laughs] I just draw this weird schematic character who doesn’t really exist, who has no particular personality. In a way I’m just drawing a little dotted line and saying, you know, “My voice here.” Just fill this in for me, won’t you? It’s like I’m asking my readers to put me in by proxy. “If you don’t mind I would like you to construct me on this page. Because I have other things to do.”

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