And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft

by Mike Sacks

  I liked D.C. comics, such as Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, because they were about “real” people, with the superhero stuff in the background. I never quite got into superheroes — except on kind of a Pop Art level. I just never got into the fighting. What I found more interesting was the romance and the attempts at conveying some kind of reality in this absurd universe. Like Superboy's dad still working at the general store, even though his son could take over the world — things like that. My friends were the exact opposite. They used to say, “God, who cares about this romance? Get to the punching!”

  What were you looking for when you were young and first began producing comics?

  Some kind of connection to the world. And, for some unfathomable reason, I felt like the best way to achieve this was to produce my own comic books.

  Do you think that the generation who grew up with the Internet will find this connection in other, less creative methods?

  You mean, to write a banjo blog instead of actually learning how to play a banjo? You would think that there would be no good artists or writers or musicians anymore, but there are plenty out there who are just as good as anyone from any other generation.

  And yet, there was something to be said for the learning process in the pre-Internet era. If you were really interested in an obscure movie or a little-known artist, you would go out and research on your own, and every little tidbit of information had such power and weight. Nowadays, you can just click on Wikipedia and learn everything in five minutes. The thrill of discovery is greatly lessened.

  To what degree do you think the Internet has changed comics?

  I'm not really sure. There are comics now being created on the Internet, but I'm not interested in reading that sort of thing. I'd just rather wait until it's printed. I don't like the aesthetics of seeing something like that lit up on the screen. That's just my personal take on it — I don't expect anybody else to not read Internet comics for that reason.

  One thing I've found about the Internet is that it's very distracting to cartoonists — myself included. Most cartoonists are just looking for any excuse for a distraction. This type of work can be so lonely and tedious and frustrating at various stages of the process.

  Do you have an addictive personality?

  If I had had a computer in high school, I would no doubt have become obsessed and literally thrown away twenty years of my life. I would not be here talking with you. I would be sitting in front of a TV, playing Grand Theft Auto. I would have done nothing.

  Would you not have become a cartoonist?

  I don't think so, I really don't. I would have been way too busy trying to talk to girls in chatrooms. Why would I ever have bothered with comics? I can't imagine.

  Do you now work alone?

  Yes.

  You don't have assistants at your disposal, like Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, has?

  No, no. I'd love to hire an assistant, but only to do the lowest shit work. I don't have the right temperament to have an assistant. I'd feel bad criticizing them, and I'd wind up accepting work I wasn't happy with.

  I do like the idea of having a whole studio of artists and forcing them to draw in my style and cranking out these huge books every year, but I know I'd never be happy with that. They'd never get it right, and I'd wind up doing everything myself anyway.

  Whom do you bounce your ideas off of?

  I don't — that's part of the fun.

  I've tried in the past to gauge people's reactions as to whether something works or not, but nobody is really honest. Even when they're being brutally frank, there's always some other agenda at work. I have to go by my own instincts.

  Also, the work becomes more specific if you work alone; more singular.

  I'd think that as a comic-book artist, you have to really commit to an idea. Once you put an idea down onto paper, it would be difficult to tweak it — unless you worked on a computer.

  No, I draw everything by hand. But that's right — to drastically change it once you start the process is close to impossible, unless you just start over from the beginning.

  I'll usually start with an outline. I try to get the beats of the plot figured out, and from there I just wing it. After drawing comics for a certain number of years, a cartoonist will have a sense of how long the strip should be, and the rhythm and tone come instinctively. You don't really need to break it down further than that.

  Often, when I'm partway through a story, I realize that if I were to go in a different direction the strip would be a lot more interesting. When that happens, rather than starting over I try to go with that and make it work. I try to keep things loose enough so that there's always that potential. It's exciting to work that way. It's one of the few things about drawing comics that actually is exciting.

  You never stop once you start?

  I've abandoned a few things, but most of the time I try to keep going. That's the thing: you can't go back and re-do it over again, because that'll just dissipate your creativity; you lose everything that's interesting and spontaneous. I could spend the rest of my life re-drawing everything I've done, but it would just kill everything that's good about it. That would be a total waste of time.

  Isn't that a strong creative urge, though — to want to make a work perfect?

  It's similar to when a musician isn't happy with the quality of their early records and wants to record again with a better band. The original work is connected to a specific moment of time; it's never going to become “better.” Even when I do a new cover for one of my old books, they always seem sort of condescending to the material.

  I can certainly understand that sort of impulse, though. I'd love to go back and re-do my earlier work. I recognize the crudeness of it, as well as the unfulfilled potential, but I know that it would not be better — it would only be slicker.

  Actually, that was the great appeal of writing the scripts to Ghost World and Art School Confidential. The process is so open to drastic changes. The ability to do something as minor as changing a character's name is something that no comic- book artist would ever bother with. It would be such a pain in the ass to go through and re-letter the name three hundred times that you'd just think, Forget it, and move on.

  In Ghost World, I made a million changes right up until the very last minute. We changed Steve Buscemi's character's name from Sherwin to Seymour the day we handed in the script for the first time, and I'm still not used to it.

  How was Ghost World green-lit? It was unlike any other Hollywood movie dealing with teenagers I'd seen up to that point — with maybe the exception of Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Heathers.

  Who knows how that film ever happened? It was the most cobbled-together financial arrangement in the history of film. It was held together by spit and Kleenex. It was very low-budget. There's a million Sundance films made every year with that kind of money.

  The script, which is available through Fantagraphics Books, is not your typical Hollywood fare. Even the action descriptions are different than what one would normally find in a script. For instance, this is from the very first page: “A large, hirsute man, wearing only Lycra jogging shorts, watches the Home Shopping Network while eating mashed potatoes with his fingers.”

  [Laughs] When Terry and I wrote the Ghost World screenplay, we would take turns handing it back and forth to each other. We were adding detail upon detail to crack each other up. We showed one of our producers the first ten pages, and it was packed with descriptions: “The high school graduation banner should be sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts” and stuff like that.

  Never in a million years could we have afforded the rights to Dunkin' Donuts. The producer said to us, “You know, guys, perhaps you should have looked at another screenplay before you started.”

  It's really a miracle this movie ever got made, quite frankly. A lot of people sort of missed the point of it.* Both Terry and I were so green when we were pitching it. We would tell executives we wanted to make
another King of Comedy or Scarlet Street (1945) or Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Big mistake. The executives would look at us as if we were insane. It's like saying, “We'd like to take $6 million of your money and shred it for an art project we're doing.” The people who make the decisions in Hollywood are never the oddballs or creative types, so you have to tell them what they want to hear. It didn't take long for us to start saying things like, “We want to make another There's Something About Mary. We had no intention of doing that, but you must at least make the effort to be reassuring.

  You just mentioned a movie I'm not familiar with: Scarlet Street. What is it about?

  People always think of film noir as a genre of violent action. To me, noir is more about a state of anxiety and profound loneliness — an awareness of the quotidian grimness of the postwar world. Scarlet Street [1945] is about a poor, ugly loser [Edward G. Robinson] who gets hoodwinked by a horrible woman and her pimp, almost willingly so, since even this cheap thrill is preferable to his emasculated existence with his harridan wife.

  What is it about The King of Comedy that you like so much?

  I think it's Scorsese's best movie — just a perfect little film. I admire that he was able to achieve an ending that's satisfying for the characters but bad for the rest of humanity. That ending knocked me to the floor the first time I saw it. I really wasn't expecting it.

  I also like any movie that deals with the ugliness of the relationship between star and fan.

  And, of course, Jerry Lewis was so amazing in that role: constricted, angry, very close to losing control. I read an interview with the Asian actor [Kim Chan] who played Jerry's butler in the movie, and he said that the scene when Jerry is yelling at him from outside the house to open the front door was not an act. Jerry was pissed off at the guy for not being able to open the door smoothly, and Scorsese had the genius to keep it in the movie.

  This next question may very well be the most specific in the entire book, if not in the history of humankind — but here goes anyway. There's a scene in The King of Comedy that has always fascinated me. It takes place when Robert De Niro is eating in a dim sum restaurant with a date. There is an extra in the background who stares directly at the camera for about a minute. Have you noticed this?

  I have, actually. From what I've heard, this extra was a friend of De Niro's who was just hamming it up. But why would Scorsese have allowed this to happen? It makes no sense. It might be the only time that an average viewer will ever notice an extra. But it somehow adds to the unreality of the film; the scene is very dreamlike.

  He's perhaps the most successful extra ever.

  Or at least the one extra who will ever be remembered. I can tell you from having been on a few film sets that all extras try to do that. They are horrible! They stare at the camera and perform these really weird, mannered movements to try to attract attention. They think that acting like that will get them into the film, but it never does.

  What do they think the director is going to say? “Hey, look at this guy! Look at his weird movements. Let's bump him up to a speaking part!”?

  Were you into teen films growing up?

  I never connected with that sort of film. I couldn't relate to the problems of average suburban teens at all.

  I never really considered Ghost World to be a teen film. To me, it was more about these two specific characters working through something that felt very personal to me. I wasn't necessarily trying to communicate with teenagers, and I never really imagined they would be as much of our audience as they have.

  You say you weren't necessarily trying to appeal to teenagers, but you did manage to capture teen-dialogue extremely well.

  I wasn't exactly a teenager when I wrote that movie, and I couldn't have told you what an average 17- to 18-year-old sounded like or what slang they used. It was a total mystery. So I used a modified version of the slang I knew, and I tried not to take it in a too-specific direction. I really wanted the script to be read by somebody of just about any age and not seem dated or corny or overly mannered or overly screenplay-ish.

  All writers want to achieve that, but how did you manage to pull it off?

  I was really interested in the secret life of girls from the time I was in high school. I've always been fascinated by this alien species. I loved the rhythms of their speech, but I wasn't overly familiar with it. As I got older and actually had girlfriends, I'd always ask them specific stories about what it was like behind closed doors.

  It also helped that I had a very special place in my heart for Enid. I have true affection for that character, even though a lot of the audience saw both the movie and the comic as an indictment of Enid. I've always found that strange.

  Why do you think that is?

  Perhaps they found Enid too judgmental. Also, she's a part of a leisure class and her problems are hardly matters of life and death, but she still complains about every little detail.

  Enid tries to create an interesting life out of a potentially dull existence by uncovering — or actually manufacturing — the strangeness beneath this seemingly sterile world. I find that heroic.

  If Enid were truly cynical, she would have just gotten a retail job in her town and given up. Enid thinks there's something better out there for herself, and she searches to find it. That has to count for something.

  What should also count is Enid's utter disdain for the commercialization aimed at teens her age.

  How many teen girls her age are even aware of it? I find it horrible. I find the commercialization and the suburbanization of this country really, really depressing. I'm lucky enough to live in a rarefied part of the country where there aren't too many strip malls. But every time I go on a road trip, it's just the same thing over and over again.

  Did you learn anything from your experience as a screenwriter that you later used in writing comics?

  I've learned basic rules of dramaturgy that you don't necessarily pick up from doing comics. I've learned about the nuances of a bigger plot arc, where characters have to travel longer distances emotionally. I've learned to get rid of absolutely everything that doesn't work, even if you put a lot of time and effort into it.

  I've always noticed a cinematic flow with your comics.

  When I'm doing the comics, I don't think in terms of cinematic flow. Comics have their own rhythm — that's what they're all about. It's the beat to the storytelling that makes them come alive.

  Look at “Peanuts.” Charles Schulz had a perfect rhythm in every single strip. They always worked. Robert Crumb also has that talent, as did Harvey Kurtzman.

  How does one learn to create rhythm that's appropriate to comics?

  You have to get to the point where the rhythm is in your head. You can't over-think it, because, if you do, the comic becomes fussy and stupid. It has to arrive with no effort at all.

  Do you recognize your own rhythm when you read your comics?

  Not so much with my own work, but I can see it with other people's. I can also see when another cartoonist has been inspired by something I've done — not so much by the drawing style, but in the way the story is told. I'm not implying that this a bad thing, necessarily, but I do see it. It might be very subtle, and they might not even know they've done it. It can just be a way a punch line is delivered. We all do this. There are a million places where I've found inspiration — a movie, a Robert Crumb comic, anywhere.

  Really, in the end, each cartoonist has to develop their own rhythm — as well as their own reality.

  How do you capture your own reality?

  For me personally, I have to be mindful of my own way of seeing the world. I'm not trying to reproduce the way the world actually looks as much as the way I imagine that it looks. Years ago, cartoonists would have a “morgue file,” which contained photos of every imaginable reference: cars, radio sets, boats, buildings. But I don't want anything like that. To me, it's much more valid to struggle to remember what something looks like.

  For instance, if I wanted to d
raw a Starbucks store, I could take a photo and then trace it. But what I really want is an internal impression of what a Starbucks feels like.

  When I interviewed Al Jaffee for this book, he said basically the same thing: That when he's drawing he'd rather imagine what a car looks like than actually finding a reference book and copying it in great detail.

  Doing that adds value to something like this. The finished product may not be perfect, but it won't be dead on the page, either.

  Do you find that you have to go through all of the choices in your head before you choose one that finally works?

  I often find it best to just go with the first thing that pops into my head. If you deliberate over every little choice it will become hours and hours of doing nothing. I try to spend only a few minutes really thinking about it. Then I do whatever feels right, because it will usually come back to that, anyway. The real trick is getting into the frame of mind where this is possible.

  I mentioned Charles Schulz, but I'll mention him again. He said that a real cartoonist has to be able to sit down and — in five minutes — create a product that is totally usable. That's when you do your best work.

  Just because you're a perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect. I find that I have to be really careful when I'm putting final touches on a comic. I can get very anal and crazy — say, the re-drawing of the tiny curl of a lip that might make an expression more effective. That's the kind of thing you really have to watch out for, because it'll drive you mad.

  Can you have too much freedom as a comic-book writer and artist? If so, can this freedom become debilitating?

  The number of choices you have to make is incredible, endless. It's almost too much freedom. Any time I'm working on an assignment and an editor says, “You can only use two colors,” I'm just thrilled; it makes life a lot simpler for me.

  You had an unusual childhood, and I was wondering if that later affected your writing.

  When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents. My grandfather, James Cate, was a history professor at the University of Chicago, and he had a lot of interesting friends. His next-door neighbor was Enrico Fermi, who helped create the atomic bomb. Saul Bellow was a colleague, as was Norman Ma-clean, the author of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories [University of Chicago Press, 1989], who was his best friend for many years.