Dream a Little Dream... And Send It to Me

An Interview with Artist, Illustrator and Convertor of Dreams Jesse Reklaw

Part 1 of 2 (link to Part 2)
Click on any picture to enlarge

I wasn’t really sure how to approach Jesse Reklaw at first (whose real name – if you believe his Wikipedia page – is apparently Aka Walker... the Walker I get, but the Aka I still haven’t figured out). No, its not that I don’t appreciate the work he does, which encompasses on-line and print comics as well as a set of really fine paintings using watercolors, inks and acrylics. It’s good stuff all around for sure even if several of the images have managed to creep into my own dreams since we started our conversation.

No, it has to do more with the whole uncomfortable feeling of inviting – well how do I put this – you know, sort of inviting a psychologist to a dinner party. The reason I say this is that Jesse has been publishing for the past 15 years or so a fantastic comic strip by the name of Slow Wave both online and in syndication. What he does is take reader-submitted dreams and adapt them into a brief (usually four panel) comic strip format, with often bizarre yet familiar – if by familiar you mean dream-like or even bizarre again – results. He’s even released a hardcover of these dream comics, ‘The Night of Your Life’, full of people’s deepest and darkest and, gasp, weirdest phobias and fantasies and more!

So I had this kind of feeling that by essentially inviting Jesse into my ‘home’ if you will, he’d just sort of stare and analyze me all Freud-like, even though I don’t typically give out such details during polite dinner conversation (I’m much more of an embarrassing-body-functions conversationalist in that regard). But in the end, not only was our exchange a lot of fun, but I got to learn a lot more about this very bright and exciting illustrator. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our pleasure then to introduce Jesse Reklaw:

Welcome Jesse! I hope the input I sent you was okay.
Hi James. Thanks for the interview questions... they were fun. Hope you are feeling better!
(ZN: you see - I just couldn’t help myself. I had to share some of my most recent bodily defects! It’s just my thing I guess!)

Jesse, it’s indeed a pleasure to meet you. If I can buy you an extra large mocha with a double espresso shot (oops that’s what I want, I guess I should ask you, too), can you tell me a little about yourself in a sort of casual ‘hey, we just met at Barstucks for the first time’ kind of way?
Hey Ziggy, I fancy myself a social chameleon, so I'll get one of those XL mochas with the 2X espresso shots too. Though make mine soy (or almond milk if you got it), since I am vegan.

I've been a cartoonist for the past 15 years (mostly weird, non-commercial, arty stuff), though I am a reformed computer scientist (studied computer vision and artificial intelligence at Yale).

Okay class, Ziggy is going to briefly interrupt here because I did have to look this up: ‘The difference between a vegan and a vegetarian is that a vegan eliminates all animal products from his or her diet, including dairy. Those following a vegan lifestyle generally do not wear leather and avoid products made from animals such as wool, silk and down.' For more, see Vegansaurus, with a convenient link here to their terrific interview with Jesse!

I first learned of your endeavours through a former Ziggy Nixon blog victim and fellow awesome comic creator – Shaenon K. Garrity – who posted her own dream that you featured in ‘Slow Wave’. Too cool. How did you come up with the idea to start this unique and always changing strip?
Around 1995, right after I finished my undergraduate degree (at UC Santa Cruz), I was fascinated by dreams, comics, and the web. So I started a weekly webcomic about dreams, and it's been going ever since.

I have to admit, that after I saw this featured by Shaenon, that I really wanted to send something in. But I get the feeling that my dreams – well, the ones that you can feature on public web-sites at least – are too complex for a webcomic.

Do you run into that situation often and if yes, how do you approach it? (If need be, I can provide a number of recent examples, thanks to some great pain killers for my back my Doctor put me on!!)
Chemically-induced dreams are pretty great.

I'm a decent editor, so feel free to submit anything you like. I can chop it down into four panels.

When I look at the three main ‘focal’ points on your web-site - from ‘Slow Wave’ to ‘Ten Thousand Things to Do’ to finally your paintings, I get the feeling that these stretch across a pretty wide spectrum, the latter of which strikes me as being very much different to the other two. Do you see them being more similar in their approach or does each reveal a different part (personality) of you?
That's insightful of you to notice the difference.

I feel I'm always searching for the right style for each of my projects, and always falling short. Luckily (?), I have a compulsive tendency to finish things whether or not I think they're perfect. So I manage to push a lot of stuff out into the world.

To answer your questions more directly, I see all my creative projects as being integrated with who I am... but maybe an outsider won't see that until I finish everything that I will ever do...?

How do you wind up trying to get your different works and styles ‘out there’ (Facebook, Flickr, etc.)? Has one approach seemed to be more successful for you in terms of on-line methods?
I'm still seeking the best method(s) for distribution.

I like Flickr for comics because the interface is so clean and unencumbered with sidebars and ads and icons and doodads. But I don't think I've gotten the best exposure that way.

Facebook seems to be quite popular now. But I can't avoid comparing the social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, etc.) to the "browser wars" of the 90s (and even the "portal wars" circa 5 years later).

So I'm standing back and waiting for the next big wave to ride I guess. iPhone and other PDA distribution methods seem to be the next big thing.

How does this compare to the exposure you get from the cartoonists / comics show circuit? Or do you see both as an essential part of your ‘career’ or even if you will for keeping your sanity?
Going to comic book shows and networking with cartoonists, editors, and publishers directly is definitely more valuable as far as a career goes. Getting recognition from one person in the business feels like the same as having 100 casual readers online.

I talked with Shaenon many moons ago about the web-comic phenomenenomena (sorry, I never know how to stop spelling that word). How do you view the growing exposure of web-comics vs. the smudges of ink* we see in our daily newspapers (for those of us that still buy daily newspapers)?
It makes sense to me that ephemeral media like newspapers and magazines will migrate to the web. So I could see an emerging market for short strips online.

I imagine they will be encapsulated within some content distribution entity, such as an online magazine (like Salon)... or a search portal (like Yahoo)... or a social networking site (like FB)... or something else.

But ultimately I don't think webcomics will survive as entities on their own.

*noting that I apologize for the size of some of the strips featured here, but you have to paste either 'small' or 'medium' or you can't enlarge them. A weird tic of 'blogspot's' service, go figure...

Is the tide turning for the on-line artist or is it business as usual namely if you don’t get a Garfield or Dilbert established complete with desk calendars and plush toys you’re pretty much hanging out at the soup kitchen to make ends meet?
I think initially there were great opportunities for online artists to establish themselves independently (Achewood is a great example of this for a webcomic), but in the future I think business-minded people will make it harder for artists to get noticed if they're not part of some syndicate or publisher/distributor.

It also seems to be a bit of a Catch-22 situation in the markets today. Cartoonists need newspapers to help establish their work in the ‘mainstream’ yet push more and more of their work on the Internet. Still, the success has not seemed to be overwhelming via this route either, and as you yourself know, when one of your own print ‘employers’ goes belly up, it hits your cash flow pretty hard. Any thoughts to same?
Actually, I've noticed that until now for the most part there hasn't been much money made selling content on the Internet. It seems like artists put work online for free, hoping to get a book deal or a record contract.

But it's still been totally possible to get noticed and to become established just by putting work online.

Continued in Part 2

Dream a Little Dream... And Send It to Me

An Interview with Artist, Illustrator and Converter of Dreams Jesse Reklaw

Part 2 of 2 (link to Part 1)
Click on any picture to enlarge

Jesse, your background – or perhaps better said – your training to be an artist must have been an interesting one. How did you not only learn to draw-slash-illustrate but eventually decide to be an 'artiste' full time, leaving as I understand the computer program at Yale to do so?
I've always been a drawer. With the state of comics and the publishing industry in the early 90s, I figured I'd still need a "day job," so I studied to be a programmer.

I couldn't have foreseen that comics ("graphic novels") would become popular, and that the Internet would open up so many opportunities for young artists.

Are you involved in other activities such as teaching or other graphic design related ventures?
I do teach comics part-time at an amazing institution in Portland, Oregon called the IPRC. I also do freelance illustration and storyboarding, and I'm in the occasional art show. Exactly the kind of piece-meal occupation you'd expect these days.

I could really envision your watercolor pieces as being spot on for children’s illustrations. Has this been a focus or even approach for you before? Or is this field so crowded it’s just too tough to even try to get in the door?
Again, I think a lot of opportunities are opening up even in the historically impenetrable world of children's book illustration.

But I'm not very good at kids' and young adult writing. I'm too fond of obtuse philosophy and dirty jokes.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an illustrator and why?
I was just thinking the other day that if in high school I'd started taking antidepressants, today I'd probably be an electrical engineer (or a retired one that is!).

Alternatively, I'd be dead.

Or turn that around a bit: say a younger person approaches you and says ‘I want to do the same thing as you’ what would be your advice (e.g. ‘work hard and stay off drugs?’ vs. ‘run Forrest run’)?
I think doing internships is a really valuable way to connect with the industry, learn practical skills, and also see if the field is really something one wants to commit to.

But to get the most out of those real-world experiences, one really needs to learn how to listen to other people. Self-knowledge of course is even more important, and can help one develop listening skills.

So I'd say taking a lot of drugs and going on vision quests is the first step to any important career.

Finally, a selection of ‘what if’ questions:

What if you could get a hold of any project you heart could desire, what would it be and why?
Well, it's always fun to imagine being in a think-tank with my creative heroes, working on some slick corporate project that's burning money flying us to Europe, filling hot tubs with champagne, etc.

But I also sincerely love sitting in my backyard scribbling comics in my sketchbook, while my cat sniffs daisies, laughing to myself over some abstruse joke that I shouldn't publish but I probably will anyway, somewhere in the background.

What if you’ve just won the Super Lottery, and you’re suddenly richer than Bill Gates.

What becomes of your illustration career and why?
I challenge Bill Gates to a winner-take-all, high-stakes round of Old Maid... its close...! But... I lose everything and shuffle off to live under a bridge with my daisy-sniffing cat.

Then my girlfriend reminds me to come home because it's my turn to make dinner.

What if, I mean, what is a super cool fact about yourself that you would like to (or can) share without getting arrested, beat up in a dark alley or even worse, being forced to vote for Sarah Palin in 2012?
All my super-cool factoids will be published in my memoir ‘Couch Tag’, due out from Fantagraphics in 2011.

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As a public service announcement in order to get in a cheap plug for them, I’m using most of the bio of Jesse that was prepared by the San Francisco Zine Fest (with a little extra flavoring thrown in from the IPRC site added in for, uh, flavor), noting Jesse did this very cool poster for them as well :

Jesse Reklaw is a fantastic writer, illustrator, and painter, and has created work in a wide variety of formats, including self-published works (the autobiographical ‘10,000 Things to Do’), a weekly strip (‘Slow Wave’), zines (‘Applicant’), the books ‘The Night of Your Life’, ‘Bluefuzz the Hero’ and much more.

A long time resident of the Bay Area, Jesse was a founding member of the mini-comics distro Global Hobo, helping dozens of local small-press cartoonists get their work out to shops and readers around the country. He continues to support small press and DIY publishing in his home of Portland, Oregon, where he teaches cartooning classes at the IPRC, having taught comics courses at Portland Community College and elsewhere as well. He has been nominated twice for the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic. For more on various syndication as well as self-professed ‘awards and stuff’, please check out his website at this link.

While you’re at it, submit a dream of your own to Jesse. He has put together some helpful hints including: ‘If this is the first time you've submitted a dream, please provide a brief physical description of yourself (for example, your age, sex, and other features like do you wear glasses, have freckles, a monkey tail!!, etc.). Funny, interesting, and unusual dreams are preferred, which I guess is sort of his way of saying these are the ones that might get published (vs. just ogled at and sold to Pentboy for their readers’ letters section).

There seems to be, however, no restrictions on describing embarrassing bodily functions, which is – to no one’s surprise I’m sure – what I dream about pretty much all the time, too.

ziggynixonziggynixonziggynixonziggynixon

All pictures, videos and other media are used with written permission of Jesse Reklaw, or are available in the public domain (noting copyright and other restrictions, accordingly). No further reproduction or duplication is permitted without contacting the artist directly. Some pictures have been modified slightly only for the purpose of space limitations.