#comics #artist #interview
Dan Berry is an artist and lecturer, based somewhere around the middle of the UK. He spoke to StoryWorld about his comics, art, and the creative process.
Hi Dan! Tell me about Carry Me:
Carry
Me started as a really small idea. I went for a walk with my daughter
who was about 9 months old at the time along an overgrown path on a
really hot 'end of summer' day. The path was more overgrown than I was
expecting and I ended up having to hold her high above my head so she
wouldn't get hurt by the thorny branches. The idea for a story about
life and death grew from there. I made notes once I got home and the
following day I started drawing it straight into my sketchbook. I gave
myself some rules to follow - no planning or pencilling beyond those
first notes, no corrections, just drawing. It's a very stressful way to
work, I don't recommend it!
You produce a lot of autobiographical comics. How much is true?
I've never really thought of the strips I draw that feature me as a
character as being autobiographical. The Dan that I draw is an
exaggeration of a version of me. I think I draw myself into these strips
for a few reasons. I'm pretty easy to draw. That's a big factor.
Drawing myself also gives me a bit more freedom to exaggerate small
details from everyday life. As for how much is true, they all start with
the seed of a small observation, usually about how I personally react
to something in real life that I'll exaggerate into a fiction. This is
probably why I've never thought of them as autobiographical before.
Why do you draw?
I'll
be honest and say that I really don't know. I can't stop. It is a
compulsion for me. I find now that my general base level of stress is
linked to how little I draw. I try to draw every day, even if it is a
brief doodle or something. I've got stories to tell and things to say
coupled with a compulsion to draw which comes out as comics.
Which artist are you most inspired by?
In
terms of style or subject, that changes every day. I really like
Kerascoët at the moment. One of the big influences on my work ethic and
underlying thinking about creativity was reading Brian Eno's A Year With
Swollen Appendices. I was really inspired by what seemed to be a
relentlessly enquiring approach to life. I go back to that book quite a
lot. It is like being refuelled when I'm feeling lazy.
Do you script your books before embarking on them?
Yes,
for the most part, the exception being Carry Me which aside from being
wordless was only roughly plotted before I started drawing. My process
usually starts with me making notes in my phone, then adapting those
notes into a program called Scrivener for mac. That helps me organise my
ideas and keep all my research in one place. Then I print it out and
make edits with pencil. It sometimes changes slightly as I draw it, but
for the most part I'll work to the pencil-edited version fairly
strictly.
What’s your work schedule like? Do you have regular times, places, etc, or can you work anytime, anywhere?
My
schedule is pretty full-on. I teach comics and illustration full time
in North Wales, and have two kids so all of my work is squeezed around
the edges of that. A normal day is being awoken by my son at about 6am,
getting up and answering emails til 7am, driving to work at about 7:30,
teaching all day til about 5, driving home, getting dinner together and
putting the kids to bed, doing chores and then I've got a two or three
hour window to get some drawing done. I can 'sort of' work anywhere. The
first four pages of Carry Me were drawn on a train to London, but for
larger projects I'm ideally placed at my desk with all my equipment to
hand.
Are you working on anything at the moment?
Yes,
I'm working on a short book that'll be out in a month or two. It's
tonally different from anything I've done previously and I'm very much
enjoying it!
Where can we buy your stuff?
You
can buy things from me in person if you see me at a comics show, it is
always nice to chat to people face to face. The next best place is from
my website - http://thingsbydan.
Thanks Dan! If you want to hear more of Dan's thoughts on writing, drawing and comics, check out his podcast Make it Then Tell Everybody, as reviewed here.
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