Nowhere WomanDeb Drechslerby Barb LienDeb Drechsler is the creator of Nowhere (Drawn and Quarterly). Like the amazing Touch Of Silver, Nowhere is about the joys and pains (mostly the pains) of being a teenaged outsider. Unlike the aforementioned comic, which featured a messed up young boy, Nowhere is the story of a lonely teenaged girl on the brink of sexual maturity. If you've ever read any of J.D. Salinger's work, you owe it to yourself to pick up Nowhere. I was lucky enough to get a short interview with Deb Drechsler a little while back. Sadly, she told me that Nowhere is currently on hiatus. However, this sad fact gives you lot plenty of time to pick up all the back issues of the comic. You can rarely go wrong with Drawn and Quarterly's products. Please give this unusual and beautiful book a chance. Sequential Tart: Tell us about your background/who you are. Deb Drechsler: My full name is Deborah Sue Drechsler. My family moved a lot when I was a kid, so we lived all over the Great Lakes (Ohio, Illinois, New York state). We lived mostly in subdivisions in suburbs. As a kid, I was kind of a bully, sort of like Lil is (the heroine of Nowhere). I drew all the time and wanted to grow up and be a famous artist. For a long time, I thought I didn't watch TV much as a kid, but when I was doing research about TV shows for a story I never wrote, I discovered I'd watched pretty much everything in the 60's. Some of my favorites were The Mod Squad, Laugh-In, That Girl, and The FBI. My first year of college, I went to Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I studied Printmaking. I was really interested in intaglio printing. The next year I transferred to Rochester Institute of Technology and changed my major to Graphic Design. I was actually thinking of becoming a corporate designer! I dropped out in my third year, to work on a feminist newspaper. ST: How'd you get interested in comics? DD: I loved Superman and Classics Illustrated when I was a kid. My dad owned a drug store, and I used to go there every Saturday to see what was new on the comic rack. I read the others, but those were my favorites. Batman was okay. I hated Archie and Richie Rich. ST: Early projects you've done? DD: I did a strip for a gay paper in the late 70's that was really awful. It only lasted maybe 6 or 7 episodes. I tried to do the gag thing, you know something funny, but was terrible at it. I didn't get it yet, that I could do any other kind of comic so I quit. Then, in the late 80's, early 90's, I did a strip for a year, that ran in two weeklies. Those stories make up most of Daddy's Girl (Drawn and Quarterly). ST: Why'd you choose to go the indie route? DD: It wasn't really a choice. That was where I pretty much had to go with the kind of work I was doing. ST: Who are your influences (comic book creators and other art forms)? DD: One of my primary influences, for storytelling, is a soap that I watched for about 20 years until it got canceled last month (sob!). Shocking, isn't it? I also read a lot of fiction and have forever. Some of my favorites are Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Hoffman, Dorothy Sayers, P.D. James, Charlotte Bronte. I'm also very influenced by movies, which I watch a lot of. Some faves include: Sliding Doors, Rushmore, Valley Girl, Earth Girls Are Easy, In A Lonely Place, I Know Where I'm Going, The Red Shoes, all Fred Astaire movies, most musicals, Dark City, Lone Star (almost anything by John Sayles is okay by me--I loved Baby, It's You). Comics? I like Jason Lutes, Chester Brown, Joe Matt, Seth, Julie Doucet, Dan Clowes, Richard Sala, Adrian Tomine, Phoebe Gloeckner, Carol Tyler, to name a few. ST: Best/worst part of your job? DD: Are we talking comics, here? If so, the worst part is the boredom. I get bored doing the same thing all the time. Best part is drawing. I'm always happy when I draw. Also, hearing from people who read the stuff. ST: What do you love/hate about the comic book industry DD: I love the freedom. It's so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of our culture that you have almost no restrictions on what you do. I hate that it's so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of our culture that there's no money in it. ST: Any advice for those wanting to get into the comics industry? DD: Embrace poverty and long hours. ST: Where can interested readers get back issues of the comic if they can't find it in stores? DD: Drawn & Quarterly Also, Fantagraphics carries it. They're at: |
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