The Game of Life
Strzepek doesn't often do straight autobiography: the four-pager "Assteroids," in which he lets it all hang out, is posted on scubotch.com (a website he shares with the other members of his collective — Max Clotfelter, Aaron Mew, Kelly Froh and Liz Prince) and is an exception. For a cartoonist for whom relationships, particularly friendships, figure largely in his work (more on that later), it's very revealing that he chose to adopt a brash persona to explain how videogames have changed his worldview, at least in some small way (and is a welcome deviation from standard autobio-comic fare). We talked a little bit about how he depicted himself in the strip, and the concept of an (online or computer-game) avatar.
Strzepek clarified, "I'm a totally different person from my comic persona. I can totally let loose more […] because in comics, I know that when people read them, that they're invested in this culture: they're involved in this kind of thing." Strzepek, who is a tester for Nintendo[1], said: "I think that videogames have a tinge in my life with everything. I always have this very — adventure, or this action-oriented — perspective, because of games I'm interested in. But I think my stuff's probably a little bit different from other things like
Penny Arcade that are based mostly on videogames, and it's a fanboyish thing. I'm hoping that mine is just in the vein of videogames, and has that enjoyment reminiscent of playing a videogame with no references to videogames or videogame culture. If videogames were transferred onto paper, that's what I would like my comics to be."
Travel Size
One thing that Strzepek mentioned many times during our conversation was scale. I first encountered
The Mourning Star as 4"x 4" minicomics sold through Zanadu Comics, a local retailer. Strzepek cited many reasons for the square format (which was carried over into Bodega's 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" collections): he draws almost to size; he wanted it to stand out, from an economical standpoint, to fit two pages on a piece of paper, and "it would be a cuter, smaller book." It also served a practical process purpose: "I liked having minicomics I could put in my pocket and conceal, and if I was able to draw small things, I could keep it on me. If I had a small sketchbook, then it would just be a pocket sketchbook. I really like the idea of having a comic you could travel around with and keep on you. […] But the idea was that it was something that was travel-friendly."
This fondness for "travel-sized" also speaks to Strzepek's cartooning work ethic: "I like to bring my artwork with me. I work constantly when I get into it, I'll bring my work to my job and I'll work on my breaks and my lunch breaks, and after work. I'll go to a coffee shop or something if I need to get fresh air. I like the traveling ability, that's also why I draw small scale, I like to be able to just throw it into a satchel and be able to go draw in the park." It seems fitting that all of
The Mourning Star's protagonists are on some kind of journey, even if not all of them are exactly sure what they're looking for.
The Mourning Star
Set in a world recovering from the devastation of a comet one year earlier, Strzepek's
The Mourning Star has a still-developing mythos (Strzepek confessed that, even though there's a fair bit of geographical determinism in his graphic novels — for example, Westenders are birdlike — and there's much talk of the politics of the differing regions, he still hasn't drawn a map) and a large cast of characters (pictured and named in the back of the second book). Although the reader gets insight into many different factions of the new world order, including a behind-the-scenes look at the antagonistic gang The Rule, Strzepek's protagonists are
the trio of Klavir, Wilm and Futch and a tall, thin amnesiac who is identified as a "Snipper Sniper": Vol. 2 ends with these characters' storylines converging.
As Strzepek's humans were so stylized to begin with, his transition to humanoids is very smooth. (Strzepek consciously uses cuteness as a storytelling device: "With
The Mourning Star too, I was shooting for: it's supposed to be a tragic time, it's a sad world, there's destruction, but cuteness prevails, this cuteness that exists in this sad world. I was just showing the contrast. Not everything is dirty, and everything is going to be sad, and everybody is going to be suffering, and people — to survive and to move on with things —you have to make light and be cute
[laughs].") Setting his story a year after the world-changing event was a good move, as well, because it's long enough afterward that people have begun to adjust, but not so long that they've forgotten how it used to be, or have become completely hardened.
Strzepek is formally inventive, although always in the service of storytelling. Even in the minicomics, he experimented with alternating between black and white page frames. "At first I couldn't decide which I liked more, the black or the white. And then, also, there's so many characters going on, that I thought it would maybe be easier for the reader to know that OK, this is transitioning to the next scene. And some scenes, I do keep the same frame, sometimes it will change scene but it will still be black around the borders, and that refers to maybe something that's happening in the same time line, so it's just breaking up time lines, really."
The videogame influence can be felt in panels that are composed very similarly to a "victory pose" (with a word or a phrase positioned above the character, although the intent is usually not "victorious"). For example, in Vol. 2, Strzepek indicates that there are two simultaneous conversations going on by depicting one in the left column and the other on the right.
The Mourning Star shares a bit of the same pacing as Tolkein's
The Two Towers, which I typify as "they walk, they fight, they feast," although in Strzepek's comic, "they feast" is more like "they hang out and talk about their feelings." (Banter between men in scenes in which characters play dice as a distraction from guard duty, or relax in a hot spring, or
act as a Greek chorus as more skilled fighters go at it, are very reminiscent of the comedic camaraderie in Judd Apatow films.) Friendships among men tend to be the primary relationships in Strzepek's oeuvre[2]: friendship appears to be important to him in his personal life, too, such as when I asked about being in a cartoonist collective and he told me that, not only is informed feedback a benefit, "I wish I could hang out with them more often. They're totally like my bros and we're totally able to sit on the couch and get beers and we can just talk about comics and stuff."
Strzepek calculated for Vols. 1 and 2 to be reread. Not only is the milieu and the plot complex enough (Strzepek considered putting a synopsis in the second volume, but admitted that not doing so would help encourage people to just reread the first one), and the character development more apparent the second or third time, they're interactive — they contain a code (although the code is not necessary to understand the story).
The Black Mine
Strzepek also published a 5" x 3 ½"supplemental minicomic, written entirely in this code, called
The Black Mine,[3] carefully designing it as if it were an artifact from
The Mourning Star universe (it comes with a band labeled
The Mourning Star and a key inside). Strzepek went into detail: "this is a like a Chick tract of their world, people are leaving these little pamphlets around so that other people will read it. It's a fable, a story that they based the name of their gang off of, which is a little morality tale about not being greedy, and surviving, and thinking of your brother." He also agonized a bit over the dimensions. Strzepek said, "Somebody drew my character, and sent me an e-mail of the drawing. And they drew it next to another character. It's interesting to see how people perceive the characters, because they drew them the height of us, and I always imagined the characters 4' tall, really short. Barabaraz, the tallest guy, would be like 8' tall or something, but everybody else would be really short dudes. So I was thinking, maybe I should make this really small, like it was the scale for the world. But I thought of the printing, and how hard it would be to decode." (This puzzle-like aspect, again, is reminiscent of a videogame.) He summarized, "It's a comic book, but I want to make it an experience, make it something interesting."
NEXT TIME: BREAKING IT DOWN: PROCESS, WORLD-BUILDING AND TEACHING
Image credits:
All art [©2009 Kazimir Strzepek]
Notes:
[1] Strzepek described his job thusly: "Make sure the game works properly, so that if somebody has a certain error, they get the right message on the machine, and it won't be confusing to have to call Nintendo for customer service for help. They don't really do …like some people think that it's like we have control on how the game is made. We don't really get much projects where it's like input. We don't tell them, "Oh, this was fun, and this should be changed; this spot should be harder. […] You're playing the game, you find a problem, you have to research to make sure … there's some know-how into what causes things to happen. You write a report and you write steps on how you made it occur, and it's submitted, and then they research it, fix it and then, "OK, now try it again, you need to find a way to make it happen again, if you can't, it's fixed." But whenever bugs are fixed, something changed in the code so there's always something that has another exploit opening up. You have to make sure there aren't any cracks in the wall. Make sure things are in order, so that it's the closest to the final product they can make it."
[2] Although, to develop character, he shows each character waking up and saying goodbye to their respective girlfriends before they go to fight, after which they discuss said girlfriends with a mixture of respect and concern.
[3] He also agonized a bit over the dimensions. Strzepek said, "Somebody drew my character, and sent me an e-mail of the drawing. And they drew it next to another character. It's interesting to see how people perceive the characters, because they drew them the height of us, and I always imagined the characters 4' tall, really short. Barabaraz, the tallest guy, would be like 8' tall or something, but everybody else would be really short dudes. So I was thinking, maybe I should make this really small, like it was the scale for the world. But I thought of the printing, and how hard it would be decode."
Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2008
One thing that Strzepek mentioned many times during our conversation was scale. I first encountered The Mourning Star as 4"x 4" minicomics sold through Zanadu Comics, a local retailer. Strzepek cited many reasons for the square format (which was carried over into Bodega's 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" collections): he draws almost to size; he wanted it to stand out, from an economical standpoint, to fit two pages on a piece of paper, and "it would be a cuter, smaller book." It also served a practical process purpose: "I liked having minicomics I could put in my pocket and conceal, and if I was able to draw small things, I could keep it on me. If I had a small sketchbook, then it would just be a pocket sketchbook. I really like the idea of having a comic you could travel around with and keep on you. […] But the idea was that it was something that was travel-friendly." 
Strzepek also published a 5" x 3 ½"supplemental minicomic, written entirely in this code, called The Black Mine,[3] carefully designing it as if it were an artifact from The Mourning Star universe (it comes with a band labeled The Mourning Star and a key inside). Strzepek went into detail: "this is a like a Chick tract of their world, people are leaving these little pamphlets around so that other people will read it. It's a fable, a story that they based the name of their gang off of, which is a little morality tale about not being greedy, and surviving, and thinking of your brother." He also agonized a bit over the dimensions. Strzepek said, "Somebody drew my character, and sent me an e-mail of the drawing. And they drew it next to another character. It's interesting to see how people perceive the characters, because they drew them the height of us, and I always imagined the characters 4' tall, really short. Barabaraz, the tallest guy, would be like 8' tall or something, but everybody else would be really short dudes. So I was thinking, maybe I should make this really small, like it was the scale for the world. But I thought of the printing, and how hard it would be to decode." (This puzzle-like aspect, again, is reminiscent of a videogame.) He summarized, "It's a comic book, but I want to make it an experience, make it something interesting."
