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Big Things: Pam Bliss
Pam Bliss has been making comics since 1989, when she met Matt Feazall at a convention and he taught her how to make minicomics. Since then she's "dabbled" in full size comics, and in 2003 published her first collection of short stories, DOG & PONY SHOW. But minicomics remain her first love, with stories ranging "from kid's club adventures to time travel to the weirdness of everyday life to autobiography". What all these stories have in common is their setting - the small town of Kekionga, Indiana, "where anything can happen, and usually does". Bliss also writes a series of essays about making minicomics for Sequential Tart entitled HOPELESSLY LOST, BUT MAKING GOOD TIME. She lives in a small town in Indiana with her husband and three dogs. BIG NEWS: Just in time for this Big Interview, I'm currently working on a Big Project: my first graphic novel. It's called FOX ACRE, and it's set in Kekionga's past. I'm describing it as a Gothic romance with horror elements, for readers of all ages. I plan to serialize it in minicomics form, mostly because I think it will take at least three years to complete, but it's a single, tightly structured story with a beginning, a middle and a very definite ending, and it will appear in book form eventually. This is a real sea change for me, since I've always worked in short stories before. I?m excited to be branching out, but a little intimidated too. But I really have faith in the story itself, and that should carry me through. BIG BUSINESS: My introduction to making comics sort of happened naturally. When I was a girl in school I was always drawing on my writing papers and writing on my drawings, and I loved reading and telling my own stories. It was only matter of time until I started combining all the things I loved into making comics. The synergy between words and pictures makes comics the most attractive possible storytelling medium, at least to me. Kekionga also evolved almost accidentally. My setting started out simply as a more exciting and magical version of the world around me, and it was only after some years that I noticed I kept revisiting the same places. After that Kekionga, with its own history, ecology, et cetera, just seemed to assemble itself out of fragments that were suggested by other fragments. BIG TROUBLE: My biggest challenge is finding an audience. I've been very lucky in that many of the people who read my comics seem to like them, and a gratifying proportion have stayed on and become loyal readers. But getting the work out there where people can see it is always difficult, particularly if you work the way I do, erratically and primarily in short stories. Here in the USA, comics readers seem to have some pretty serious expectations about how comics storytelling works. I'm not even talking about content here - that's a whole other issue. But in terms of form, the readers and the stores that serve them seem to expect long, continuing stories doled out in regular monthly or bimonthly installments and printed in pamphlets with color covers, and trying to get them to take anything else seriously has always been difficult. Over the last few years, these expectations seem to finally be fading. More and more readers seem to be willing to take a chance on a minicomic, and the growing market for paperback collections, in and out of comics shops, makes that an increasingly attractive option for anyone who doesn't make comics in the 'serialized epic' form. BIG SPENDER: One of the nice things about working in minicomics is that it's relatively cheap to do. I've been making minis for thirteen years this summer, and I'm still using my original $200 investment. It's a matter of pricing the books right, and putting everything I make back into printing more of them. It may not be making me rich, but it's a self-sustaining artistic enterprise and it's been running more or less smoothly quite a few years. BIG AMBITION: In a perfect world, I'd probably be doing more or less what I'm doing now, working on FOX ACRE and getting the stories ready for my second paperback collection, due out next year. But I'd love to be trying a lot of interesting experiments in production: better paper, colored inks, unusual page sizes, small paperbacks... I might even try working in full color. And it would be great to have a bigger budget for advertising and promotion, and to go to more conventions. BIG UP: The creators I always look out for include Lynda Barry, Matt Feazell and Donna Barr. I also recently discovered TRUE STORY, SWEAR TO GOD by Tom Beland. I always read James Kochalka's SKETCHBOOK DIARIES, Rachel Hartman's AMY UNBOUNDED, Steven Weissman's YIKES, Stan Sakai's USAGI YOJIMBO and Masashi Tanaka's GON. Outside of comics, I read novels by Terry Prachett, a lot of non-fiction - especially history - and any kind of alternate history. I also love bossa nova, new and old. BIG TIME: What's next for me is finishing what I'm working on now - getting FOX ACRE off the ground (I hope to have the first two chapters in print by the end of this year) and drawing some new stories for the second paperback. In the longer term I'll be finishing FOX ACRE, and looking for a publisher for it and for a collection of my HOPELESSLY LOST... essays. After that, who knows? I have lot of minicomics written, and plans for some more longer stories too, all set in Kekionga. I?ll probably just keep on keeping on. BIG FINISH: I'd like to be remembered as a cartoonist who told interesting, honest, truthful and entertaining stories. And as somebody who could draw a good dog. BIG DEAL: DOG & PONY SHOW is available through Amazon.com, or you can order all my comics directly from me. Check out my website - constantly under construction at www.paradisevalleycomics.com - or email paradisevalleycomics@yahoo.com for the very latest price list and all the details.
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