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Welcome to my 'zine tree! Here in my studio, I've got this wire-y thing hanging above my computer desk chock-full of paper goods that have kept me curious. Instead of filing one thing away when I wish to add something, I've decided to do these features about some of the creators' works on the tree. There's a little bit of everything up there - some photography, some stickers, some floppy comics, but most of it is cartoon and comics art and all of it is independently produced. |
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 AG: Tell me a bit about your interest in underground comics and how that connects to your filmmaking. JK: I guess what draws me to the underground comix is their irreverence, accessibility, creativity and expressiveness, but also, the movement itself is a great story! When I first started making documentaries, Terry Zwigoff's Crumb was among a handful of documentaries that was a major influence on me. In the process of making a documentary about Baltimore low-budget filmmaker Don Dohler, I met and interviewed underground cartoonists Skip Williamson and Jay Lynch. After finishing the Dohler documentary, I went on to make a documentary about Skip (featuring Jay and others) called Pigheaded, which will premiere soon hopefully. >>See trailer for Pigheaded >> |
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AG: S O R R Y C O M I C S, your autobiographical web comic from which your practice grew, existed in digital form first. Why this switch to paper?
Early on, I was just so focused on the making of comics and I knew paper distribution was a lot of work for a smaller audience. With the internet, I can share the work quickly and even get some feedback. I was most interested in honing my storytelling skills then, so I just decided to focus on creating comics and forgo publishing anything until the urge struck. Then in early 2015, I read a bunch of things like Mineshaft magazine, Noah Van Sciver's Blammo, Box Brown's Number 1 and was finally intrigued enough to publish.
Early on, I was just so focused on the making of comics and I knew paper distribution was a lot of work for a smaller audience. With the internet, I can share the work quickly and even get some feedback. I was most interested in honing my storytelling skills then, so I just decided to focus on creating comics and forgo publishing anything until the urge struck. Then in early 2015, I read a bunch of things like Mineshaft magazine, Noah Van Sciver's Blammo, Box Brown's Number 1 and was finally intrigued enough to publish.
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I liked how a comic book with disparate types of comics within could still be thematically connected, like an album. And how the larger body of work can also have little thematic connections here and there. I just started to crave that next level of challenge. I had a bunch of material developed, but from two different places, so I decided to simultaneously create the first two issues of a comic called EXIT. |
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AG: There are two film-related comics in this issue of EXIT – one about the 1986 film Heavy Metal Parking Lot, and one about your personal history with a drive-in theater. Both the film and venue are lost to time, but specific to Maryland. What compels you to offer these sorts of histories?
