Whatever happened to…the auteur of BLANKETS, the book which in many ways kicked off the whole “comics are literary” movement? Well it seems he’s holed up drawing his follow-up, HABIBI, but he’s remerged with an interview at Daily Cross Hatch and more importantly, a BLOG, Doot Doot Garden Blog which presents a page from HABIBI. A quote from the interview:
Not really any more than anyone else in the same position. I don’t feel like I go out of my way, but I can definitely relate to people in their position. In general I do like cartoonists, and I do want to help them, but in my personal life, I feel like I need to balance out my interactions with people that are into other stuff. If I’m holed up at a drawing desk all day, I don’t really want to talk about that in my free-time. I don’t go out of my way to help people—people always come up to me and I’ll help them out with their works, or lend them my scanner, but I’m the one who needs a mentor, really. I feel like I could use a master/mentor for the next phase of my life.
“How soon after finishing Blankets did you start work on the next book?
…After all of that travel and promotion, I started Habibi, which would have been the tail end of 2004.
How far into are you?
About 100 pages are finished, out of 600.”
Geesh, I love his work to death, but at that pace it’ll take him to what, 2017 to complete this book?