Aidan x Austin. SIDE B.
Aidan Koch and Austin English talking together and drawing together in 2017 — concluded.
This is SIDE B of a piece that was originally published in 2017. With Aidan Koch’s new book, ‘The Spiral’, out from New York Review Comics in 2024, it seems like a good time to revisit. In the intervening years Austin English has published ‘Meskin and Umezo’, a new book of his own through Domino Books, which has since sold out.
Aidan: Do you have ideas for long stories? What's your longest thing?
Austin: Right now I've been lucky enough to have this opportunity to be part of the Sharpe Walentas studio residency program, where I have a huge studio space to work in for a year. So, again, I've been putting comics on hold. But once it's over I'm going to be working on a long story, hopefully around 120 pages that will be two people talking for the entire book. I love to talk and I love stories with limited characters and sets…I feel like, a couple years ago, the idea of such a long story…I just didn't have it in me. But I feel like I've been building strength and I have a feeling I can pull this off.
I'm trying to plan it out differently than past works, trying to make a stab at doing things with a drop of traditional planning. I was wondering, with your work…they begin now with these abstract swaths, but then the figures have at least some relation to how even the most conservative cartoonists draw the figure. So I was curious if you pencil things out and then add ink or if that isn't even a consideration…
Aidan: Never.. I've never done that. All of it gets figured out completely as it goes. As it comes up, I'm like "oh I need someone sitting" so I'll pose for it. But I never.. I don't plan any drawing ahead of time.
Austin: But the actual pose, the idea of what the pose will be, does that come from intuitive drawing? Or do you have an idea in your head…
Aidan: I usually act it out. it's been changing a little bit. I'm trying to draw more from my head.
Austin: What about the swaths in the beginning? are those forms that you work out before you actually come to the page?
Aidan: No.
Austin: When you sit down to do the story, you do those completely from the gut.
Aidan: Yeah, as things develop, those maybe become not as effective or those won't always make sense as I start working for real, so usually I'll go back or I'll start taking that and putting it in other places, or if something shows up later, I'll find ways to start looping it around so it becomes more purposeful feeling, or I'll find a use for eventually.
Sometimes there's a thing that is just awkward, so I find the way to make it useful. And create… sometimes it gives foreshadowing or ends up being useful.
In Heavenly Seas, it was all about setting the environment, the idea is that it's a semi-Arabic-influenced location. So just starting out with those things…
Austin: (locates a specific image in Aidan's work) This! this is specifically what I was talking about. You use these swath elements a lot.. in The Blonde Woman, there's pockets of that. In Little Angels, there's almost a sustained narrative of it. They don't seem like so off-the-cuff. They seem so purposeful.
AK: It's supposed to be a growing sequence. So actually every page, each panel that's in the same spot is supposed to relate to the panel from the page before.
AE: Ah, that makes sense.
AK: And that's how the images take shape, but it's also…
AE: You mean this would relate to this (indicating a panel) and that (indicating another).
AK: Yeah. At least in terms of figuring out how.. what's dark or how the wash is used.. it's not specific… that's supposed to be her becoming super overwhelmed at this event. So it is supposed to be more about developing the tone but there's little glimpses of space and figures… it is a very specific way that it's done. Even the solid color relates to her little box because then she's repeated at the end that same square.
AE: Yeah.
AK: But then she's gone. She left the party. So she's no longer there.
AE: But that's actually really structured. I think that's why I like it more than just pure improvisation. Because there's a lot being considered but then there must be some actual..
AK: Yeah but it's also just playing around. The way I like planned was that I needed panels of washes (laughs) and that there's more towards the end.
AE: But then, if it didn't open with that, this opening, or even if it opened here, that would just feel like a completely different story.
AK: Yeah. Because the story is about… the first half is about more about emotional, mental…
AE: I love that.
AK: Thanks. (laughs) Yeah, jumping between the actual mental state and describing the mental state.
AE: The way people are communicating the mental state after it happens?
AK: Hmm… this is the experience and then it's like how I'm trying to understand that experience, and where are the words? (laughs)
I have more random things that I was thinking about. Which is also getting back to how much your spaces feel like dense and urban, did that change in Sweden? Did you see that influence? What was that experience?
AE: I think just being in Sweden gave me more time to work. I had enough money saved up when I got there that for first six months, I didn't have to work. I didn't know anybody there.
AK: So it's more processing than taking in the environment.
AE: I don't even think of it as that I think it was just… I was like "oh I'm gonna push things as much I can with my work" I think with Windy Corner because I was doing those while I was here, I was slowly making little new images and figuring out different things and pushing in it directions I wanted to go in, but it went very slowly, but when I was there I was like "oh okay now, if not now, when am I gonna push the stuff where I really want it to be." That's how I described it to myself. Even though I've been in New York now for, if I subtract the two years I was in Sweden, I guess like 12 or 13 years now, I never feel like totally at peace with the place, I don't understand it… but I do love it and I get into it so much here. I just never feel totally comfortable - you know, I just assume that someone could stab me in the back while I'm walking down the street, or…
AK: Or your apartment could burn down.
AE: Exactly, where as both those things in Stockholm didn't cross my mind.
AK: Yeah.
AE: So I guess with the work, maybe I was able to fantasize more about the aggressiveness of NYC because I was not part of it, and I could just joke around about it a little bit more. I feel like maybe when you're here, reveling in NYC culture is a little more draining because you're dealing with it day to day. But I really do think it was just like being there just made me get more serious about what I was doing. If I hadn't had that break of being away from here maybe I wouldn't have been able to get on that track.
But I think it's less a thematic thing and more an aesthetic shift.
AK: Well yeah, in that sense too- I mean you were talking about trying different things every time and how important that is. Do you think there's an end to that? Every time you start something new, do you want to pull in some new technique, or some new approach, or some new paper or whatever?
AE: I remember when I first started trying to draw comics in fourth grade, even friends of mine who'd never ever went on to make art after, they could draw a character in one panel and recognizably draw that character in the next panel (both laugh). And I struggled with that then, and I still really struggle with it now. By the end of the story, not just in terms of how the characters look, the way I draw, if the story goes on for forty pages, the way I draw has simply changed. Or it's like, evolved or devolved. So by the time I start something new, I usually feel like 'okay I'm gonna try to build on where I'm at now.' So I guess try to work with what separates me from traditional comics (AK: yeah) so instead of being like 'well fuck I can't get it right,' I'll try to think 'okay I'm going to try to push that flaw as hard as I can.'
AK: Yeah, I like that that's your challenge.
(both laugh)
Try and make them kind of look the same…
AE: But your work shows a great stride of change too, especially reflected in this collection.
AK: Yeah
Well I guess to me it's like my … my tools have been really stable. Like I'm really using the same paper, the same gouache, the same mechanical pencil. And I've evolved that so that I'm focusing more on the narrative I guess. And so the style changes and warps along with however that narrative is working. (AE right) but then also all that's influenced too by yeah, stuff I'm showing or stuff I'm making for other things.
AE: Even when you've shown work outside of comics, you maintain a certain consistency with that.
AK: Well it was different in the sense that I like, well… I guess I've kind of disappointed myself (laughs) because everything just keeps coming around to drawing, where I was really trying to push doing other things. I was doing ceramics for a while, but those don't make sense. Like the stuff I was doing didn't actually make sense… and wasn't strong.
AE: Well, how do you mean?
AK: Well, I think I've been trying to come to terms with whatever my visual voice or message would be as a showing artist versus a comics artist or something, and how to make those cohesive or not, or like, what that is, and I just had nothing to say about that stuff…
AE: It's almost like how your first zine, Super Special, which was totally different in tone, is not included in After Nothing Comes. You did Super Special and were like 'this is not exactly what i mean to say.' It's your first step…
AK: Yeah, yeah.
True, and so I mean I think I was like trying to go all in, but in an area where I had nothing to back it up yet…or something. So now I'm backing it up and taking it slower and…like I've sold pieces of fabric that work as stand alone pieces and I can kind of back up where the imagery is coming from, or like whatever it's doing.
And then, yeah. And working more in metal, like small things, which also like - all those things like I can kind of actually vocalize whatever it's about to me.
AE: But that's a pretty big challenge to present yourself with..not only is this work going to be a completely different context than a decades' worth of work you've done but it's also going to be in a completely different medium.
AK: Well, I think it's all starting to make sense together. I think seeing it operate in space together is working, and that is definitely the goal, or idea.
AE: I think that everyone puts too much pressure on being "well, I did this thing and now I'm doing this thing and how does it all fit?'
And maybe that's what's nice about being part of two things. People who define themselves as "I am a cartoonist" or the inverse of being "I am part of the grand history of painting"….I always think, 'well, if you want to think of yourself that way, go ahead.' But really you're a person and you happen to do these things that are often really beautiful, but really you can do anything, you can try out anything (AK true) and I think then it feels less convoluted.
I'm in the studio now trying to figure out how to work with paint. I have this great opportunity to work in this free space for a year so if I'm going to figure out what I want to try doing with paint it's going to be now. (AK: oh, absolutely) But when I look at the stuff I'm doing right at this moment, my first reaction is 'ooof, I would not respect the person doing this work if this is all I saw from them.' (both laugh) But I also really enjoy doing it. It's so fun, physically fun. (AK: yeah) And so, maybe the professional thing is to use this year to continue doing what I already have some strength in and make that kind of work more ambitious…but I can't imagine doing that, because it would mean denying myself this opportunity to head out and start from scratch again in a new medium, even if it means falling on my face a few dozen times.
AK: Yeah…
I was oil painting for like a year and a half or something very regularly and I had to stop cause it wasn't settling at all. Every painting was wildly different ….
AE: Where was this?
AK: The whole time I lived in California.
AE: So around…
AK: Two…three years ago…
Yeah, but it never settled on a voice that was me! None of it felt authentic at all. It was wild, it was all so different and so weird.
And then I was going crazy because oil painting takes so long and i was literally spending six hours a day, regularly, doing it. And I'd be like, for what? (laughs)
AE: When I've tried to work with oil painting, it's so… it's incredibly hard.
I think Gary Panter, or someone told me it was Gary Panter, has this quote where he's like "Oil painting is like a battle you are losing every second."
AK: Oh my god.
AE: The bar of entry with that, it's such a risk, because it costs so much money and you need space and it's so messy … (laughs)
AK: And time… (AE yeah) time time time… I just always wanted to be a painter. And then, I feel by the end of that I was like "oh my god, I'm not a painter."
I mean, I use gouache, but I'm not a painter. (AE right) Like some of the images turned out nice, but none of them did anything for me.
AE: It almost seems like you're saying the other stuff you've tried, it feels alien, so there's something essential about comics.
AK: Yeah, totally. And to drawing too. Cause I just love drawing, and comics feels like the best format to utilize that love. Cause it's pulling in all these other elements that makes it more interesting and dynamic, and as much as you can appreciate the drawing of it, it's the way you can get someone wrapped up in what's actually going on is so cool.
AE: Yeah, you have so many tools just inherent in what is the essential elements of comics.
AK: It's kind of seeing like, which things end up feeling comfortable. I mean the stuff that I've had printed on silk feels good. And like my metal work feels really good, for some reason. So I'm sticking with those.
AE: Right, it's just the oil paintings,,,
AK: It's just the oil painting! And well, I still love ceramics, but like, that's more like a relaxing hobby for now..I don't know.
AE: Well there's something like an engine for comics that keeps one glued to doing it.
AK: Yeah, well and I think that being around so many artists who work in so many different disciplines, in listening to other people who paint, or do ceramics or sculpture and the way they approach their work I'm just…my brain doesn't do what theirs is doing.
AE: Right.
AK: But their brains could never do what I'm doing.
AE: I enjoy talking about all kinds of art but I feel like my approach or way of working is foreign to both worlds. But I connect with elements here and there, I guess it's like that for most people.
AK: Yeah, I know…
When we were in Minneapolis, Josh Bayer and I talked to this class and actually that was so funny, because we did it back to back. (AE oh wow) and like it was just literally everything he said about comics I was just the total opposite (AE laughs).
AE: Oh you disagreed… because for me that would have been my perfect one two punch, your approach and his.
AK: I mean I love his work… it was mostly that he was telling the kids how to do something…
AE: Really, huh.
AK: Whereas…Yeah, he was very instructional. He actually just showed them how to draw a figure.
AE: See, josh's comics to me are as untraditional as yours or mine in a way.
Josh is one of my favorite cartoonists right now and I just love …everything he does. I look at his work and … he's actually synthesized something I would love to be able to do where it has the feeling of a just meat and potatoes real deal comic, but it's unashamedly artistic and he did that in such a straightforward way, I'm like blown away by it. And I get a feeling of his love for beautiful art and comics coming through from his work, and it doesn't feel confused to me, it feels like a real synthesis. So it's surprising to me that he'd be teaching that this is the rule to how to make a figure like..
AK: Well, I'm trying to remember exactly what he was saying, cause I just remember thinking how absolutely opposite our talks were. He talked about his approach of how, basically, if he sees something that someone has done really well he like sits down and figures out how they did it, and then teaches himself, and copies it over and over and over again and so, the way he talks about it is that he came from not necessarily knowing anything or any approach but then took everything he saw and forced himself to learn how to do it, so that everything he does is this struggle of overcoming some inability I guess.
And he just sounded like he worked so hard and was like so, simultaneously pained but also so in love with working. Where I was like… I'm the opposite with working, where I don't want to do anything that's hard for me …
AE: Well, but you do do something that's hard. Just taking the time to do it …
AK: Yeah, but the dedication he was putting out was like oh my god (laughs).
AE: When I see something that I like, I feel in direct competition with it (AK mhmm) but I have never had the impulse to figure out how that person did it. (AK laughs) If I see something that moves me, I feel that I have to equal it in my own language, in my own expression. I respond to work that is purely creative…if the person's work is creative in the sense that it has a lot of craft and control, and THAT'S how they're creative, I am moved by that. But I have this desire to be equal to them by doing whatever I do with the same level of dedication…or focus. But I always want it to be in my language, or if I admire something so much, I want to learn how to do it in my own hand, filter it through me.
AK: Definitely. Definitely, where it's like, you know I don't think I don't have the faculties. It's more like you said- being inspired to push what I have to a level that is of a different caliber.
AE: But you feel you have the faculties.
AK: I think it's there, but I don't have ideas about what I want my stories to look like until I've started them. And so even that's not really a challenge. Whereas I think a lot of comic artists know what they want their story to look like, or what it is.
AE: Well they have - I do think that's something that - a lot of comics artists have a dream of a perfect comic.
AK: Yeah.
AE: The one that they read and they are processing themselves through recreating that. And just the way the colors look in that specific thing from childhood. Even summarizing that is - to me - like a beautiful idea in the right hands but also key to a lot of mediocre art in a lot of hands.
AK: I really don't know what my stories are going to look like until I do them. And then I'm usually really happy while I'm working. I'm like, "ooh, that one turned out cool' or like, "oh my god, I'm going to draw that one again," or you're like, "oh that one's nice" or like, "ooh that box ended up working so well." It's like a game of excitement to me, like, "it worked!"
AE: That is the opposite of the pained approach.
AK: Yes.
AE: It's more just like, you get pleasure - it's pleasurable.
AK: Yeah, constantly, I'm just like, "ooh," like - things just turning out - not better than I imagined because I have no imagination for it before it happens. It's like all surprises all the time.
AE: That's I think a more beautiful idea than lusting after that image in your mind that isn't even really there anymore that you're trying to recreate. I think it's better - it's a healthier formula for expression, probably.
AK: Yeah, I mean, I'm not upset at any stage, [both laugh] you know, I'm not tortured at any stage, really, which is cool.
AE: Well, that's what I mean about pushing the flaws. Instead of like, you know, I get so much pleasure from doing comics even though they are, to me, a ton of work, but I love drawing things in different ways from panel to panel and instead of hating myself for doing that I was like, I'm going to … fucking embrace that and see what happens with that.
AK: Yeah.
AE: That's the thing, it's like, when I sit down to draw the character again I'm like, oh but I'm going to make him like, his belly really big in this one because who's going to tell me not to?
AK: That's definitely where it's fun. And nobody is your boss.
AE: Yeah. And you said something when you were editing Astral Talk where you were talking about how there's so much untapped potential in comics and I feel like it's still such a small community and it's like - why not?
AK: Oh totally.
AE: Why not do it how you want to do it?
AK: That's something I tried to push in my class too. People have so many preconceptions. Even when I'd be like, "don't plan your story - don't plan your story," people would be like, "well can I do this though?" and I'd be like, "no!"
AE: [laughs]
AK: I'd be like, "you can do whatever you want the rest of the time - "
AE: - That person wants to -
AK: " - but you're here this week for me and I'm telling you please don't plan the story" and they're like, "but it's comics!" [laughs].
AE: Yeah but see - that's why it'd be hard for me to do teaching because I would immediately be like, "well, I want people to do what they want and this person wants to plan and that's them expressing" - but yeah it's so fucking hard.
AK: I know, I know. I also feel that way because that's also my - like - I hated school so I did whatever I wanted and that's how I'm doing whatever I'm doing now. It was not from listening to other people.
AE: Yeah, exactly. I was good in school - I did everything I was supposed to do - but I hated it so much and I feel like art is the inverse of all that. It's like, you know, I checked all those boxes of doing what was imposed so I'm never going to do that in art. You know what I mean?
AK: Yeah.
AE: But I relate to Josh's thing because I think as you get deeper into doing art you do want some level of - you develop what you say a little more and you want some level of control over that. I could imagine now struggling to recreate drawings or learning from past masters. I could see in the near future getting pleasure from that stuff.
AK: Yeah I mean I enjoy, like, utilizing comics, formatting things.
AE: Yeah and you were saying that in the interview with Bill, like you actually are drafting things out.
AK: Yeah and it's fun being like, "OK, I'm working within a world where there's so many things set up to use," like, "how do I want to use those now?"
AE: Yeah but you use them because you want to, because now you've gotten to the point where it makes sense.
AK: Yeah and I feel totally allowed to do anything I want.
AE: Yeah. Yeah. [pause] "Totally allowed to do anything I want," I think that's a good [laughs]
AK: [laughs] Yeah I mean nothing's at stake.
AE: Yeah. No that's like a good endcap. "I'm totally allowed to do anything I want," that's a good final sentence for the interview. Unless there was more - I mean - I don't know, I feel like that last half -
AK: I think this is an hour and 22 minutes so [laughs] OK.
AE: I feel just like in that - we covered -
END SIDE B
original video and stills shot by Blaise Larmee with Jake Terrell; transcribed by Kim Jooha, Shawn Starr, Justin Skarhus, and Blaise Larmee in 2017.