Drooker's Flood! Gets Special Treatment
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on March 27, 2007 Sign up now!
by Trevor Soponis, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 3/27/2007
First published in 1992, artist Eric Drooker's Flood! A Novel in Pictures was a bold expressionistic experiment: a story told entirely in pictures, not words. The gambit paid off, and Flood! was widely acclaimed. It was selected as an Editor's Choice of the New York Times, received an American Book Award and garnered flattering reviews from such industry heavyweights as Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman.
In an e-mail interview with PW Comics Week, Drooker, now a frequent cover artist for the New Yorker, explained the creative process of the project. "I began writing Flood! when I was 27, living on Manhattan's Lower East Side—a place of social unrest: police riots, shooting galleries and crack houses." Laboring for the next seven years, Drooker created a distinctive black-and-white style, occasionally shaded with a single hue of blue. "The hand-carved aesthetic is the result of a scratchboard, an engraving technique in which I scratch away the inky surface with a razor blade."
In 2006, the work received even greater recognition when the Library of Congress acquired the original drawings for Flood! which will now reside in the prints and photographs division. "I think it's fantastic that now, scholars of future generations will be able to examine the original work in its entirety. And I'm pleased that the Library of Congress is open to the public, rather than my art winding up sequestered in a private collection."
Since the original publication of Flood! the graphic novel has gained traction as a serious literary art form. While acknowledging similarities, Drooker admits, "My aim was slightly different. I was dispensing with words and allowing the pictures alone to tell the story. The challenge to me, as a visual artist, was to explore how far I could communicate without resorting to words."
