Coming from the man who created the "Storming Bohemia" website, it's not all that surprising that Charles Kruger is not the sort of fellow who sits down with the intention of writing a certain sort of poem. You'd expect improvisation to play a part, and you'd be correct.
Kruger is the videographer for Litseen; I met him at a talk I hosted with Guillermo Del Toro last year. He's also an accomplished and published poet, so I had him read some poems that he had read at the Litseen gatherings called Quiet Lightning, a sort of moveable feast of literature, food and drink in San Francisco, hosted by Evan Karp.
"...this character just started yelling at me from my sketchbook..."
—Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes strikes me as the sort of writer who might have made a great spy — or psychologist. He has a very low-key demeanor, but when he speaks he has an easy air of authority. It comes naturally to him because he knows his subjects well — the people he writes about in his graphic novels, from 'Daniel Boring' to 'Mister Wonderful.' But it's more than just knowing people that makes a writer worth reading. Clowes is one of the best of our writers, one who cares deeply about his characters, even when they're so flawed they make readers uncomfortable.
In a graphic novel, art allows the writer to be amazingly economical with storytelling technique. Clowes is a master of characterization and storytelling using both words and art, and we talked about the writing and the art he uses to create his characters, in particular Wilson as well as Marshall, the star of 'Mister Wonderful.'
Clowes is a generous artist when it comes to talking about what he does, and he told me lots of things he might have left unsaid. He talked about the differences in his writing process for graphic novels and his movie adaptations, in particular 'Ghost World,' which won him an Oscar. You can hear his acceptance speech by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
05-16-12: Commentary : Mark Sundeen Pays Out 'The Man Who Quit Money' : Over the Edges
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Mark Sundeen and Daniel Suelo : "What would happen if we actually practiced this stuff?"-Daniel Suelo
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
