At the beginning of her book What It Is, Lynda Barry depicts herself talking about all the things that are worrying her: "Oh, there's my book, the war, the laundry, things I said 15 years ago, the environment, my double chin, unanswered mail, what an ass I am, what a dirty house we have—and I've had 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' playing in my head for days."
This is something I can relate to lately, though I would add to the list: the book that's at the printer that I'm certain has a mistake in it, as I'm sure of every book I sent to the printer; my mother's health, the state of my complexion, the opening of SLG's art gallery on Friday, the topic of this column, the prospect of ceasing to exist. I should note, too, that the song playing in my head is actually "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah."
Werewolf bar mitzvah, spooky scary, boys becoming men, men becoming wolves. The novelty song performed by 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan has become something of an absurd taunt to me in recent weeks. (Yes, I realize how ridiculous that is.) The question "What are you becoming?" confronts me at unexpected times, and the whisper in the back of my mind of the word "Nothing" threatens to be the answer.
If this doesn't seem particularly comics-industry-related it's because right now I am resisting the sterility of the concept of "industry," which makes one forget that every industry is made up of people—people with their own ambitions, disappointments, triumphs, and defeats. Sometimes I can subsume the personal in the general when I write this column, but lately, I have been, forgive me, preoccupied with myself.
And that is because, paradoxically, when troubles are general, our thoughts turn to our personal well-being. I have been worrying over business matters, yes: the steep decline in sales, the dearth of quality material in our slushpile, the prospect of succeeding with our retail store in the current economic climate. These worries wake me up in the early hours, but even as I try to quell them (I'll show people books and products that interest them! I'll more actively talk to young artists! I'll make fliers and send out press releases!), the anxiety always turns inward. Because if the business does not succeed, if life is bleak on the outside, what do we have to turn to?
For some months, I've been putting off talking to my fellow independent comics editors for a column I want write about why we do what we do, how it makes us feel, what worries us. I've been asking these questions of myself before I put them to others, and I'm still working out the answers. Last week, I turned 31. I have worked in the comics industry for seven and a half years. I have seen artists' careers take off or change course, and sometimes I imagine myself as a stationary object in time-lapse video.
This, of course, is not an entirely accurate image. In the past seven-and-a-half years my career in comics has changed and grown, too (this column is an example of that). However, as an editor, my job is nevertheless to be a constant while those whose work SLG publishes grow. It is a fact of the career of an editor that your thoughts are occupied with the creative work of others, so much so that you might neglect your own creative ambitions.
I have vowed not to make that true in my case. Still, though I earned a Master of Fine Arts degree while working as an editor, though I write and have stories published once in a while, though at times I feel guilty because at times I am more interested in my work than the work that I'm supposed to be shepherding to publication, I know that the development of my personal work has probably not gone as quickly as it would have were I the edited and not the editor.
And that's what drew me to the Lynda Barry book I mentioned at the start of this column. On the cover of What It Is is the provocative question "What is an image?" and the simple one "Do you wish you could write?" Inside, Barry explores the former with rich collages, of images of sea and woodland creatures—octopus and fish and birds and rabbits—hosting questions about memory and experience, creativity and thought. "What are thoughts?" she asks us. "What are thoughts made of?" Barry illustrates her own development as an artist with stories from her childhood and adolescence. Reading What It Is is very much like navigating Marcel Proust's long paragraphs—it engages your senses and invites you to overlap your own thoughts and images with those presented to you. In the "Activity Book" section, Barry imparts the techniques her experience has given her to help give those thoughts and images texture.
In troubled times, we naturally want to reaffirm our sense of self. We want to feel that what we do means something not only to other people, but to ourselves. What It Is reassures us that these are not selfish or idle desires. It reminds us that, as Barry herself commented to me when I eagerly got my copy of her book signed, that creativity is just as integral to our humanity as our thumbs. And when I'm being creative, not by working hard at it, but by using her method of engaging with images, my doubts and worries, not to mention the silly refrain of "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" don't run in a loop through my mind. The problems are still out there, but we can face them more strongly if our minds are clear.
Jennifer de Guzman is editor-in-chief at the independent comics publisher SLG Publishing. She also writes fiction—mostly in prose, occasionally in comics—and holds an M.F.A. in literature and creative writing from San Jose State University.
