And Then One Day Again!Ryan Claytor
I first discovered Ryan Claytor's self-published autobiographical comic series And Then One Day when a copy was randomly included in a review pile for me. I loved it; it was sweet and honest. A few months later, I had the chance to interview Claytor for Sequential Tart. Now that he has released a new issue in the series and is traveling cross-country to promote And Then One Day, another interview seemed like a good idea. :)
Ryan Claytor: I can't tell you how excited I am to see the first four issues together at last. They've been sold out for a year or so now, and in that year I've had a lot of requests to re-release them. I just picked them up a week ago and they turned out SO beautifully. I could probably type a dissertation on how elated this reprint makes me, but I'll spare you. People can grab a copy of The Collected And Then One Day either from retailers that carry my books or from the comics page on my web site, where you'll also find a lot of preview images. ST: Any extra special bits in the collection that we can look forward to? RC: Oh, of course! Ha-ha! Here's a quick list of what you can expect: - An all-new, full-color, textured, wrap-around, gate-fold cover. - Lots of new artwork. - Two-color printing throughout. - About the author comic. - Explanation of that elusive Summer of 2004. - ... and much much more. :) ST: "Lucky" is part of your Fine Art line of prints. How did you come up with the idea for the line? What other prints do you plan to do in the future? RC: In grad school I took a class with the guy who mentored Alvin Buenaventura, of Buenaventura Press. My professor found out pretty quickly that I was interested in comics and would bring in some of Alvin's work with Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, and a bunch of other heavy hitters. The prints were exquisite and naturally I wanted to produce something of the same caliber with my own personal flava. So those are a few limited-edition letterpress prints I did that semester. I've got a couple other ideas for prints I might do in the future, but not sure when they'll be available, so I'm going to dodge that last question. Hehehe. ST: Does your dad really say that all the time? RC: What's that? "Welp?" Ha-ha! Totally. That's kinda how he starts his thought process, I think. You can always tell he's getting fired-up to deal out some advice if he starts with that little intro. "Welp ...." :) Love you, Dad! ST: When I interviewed you in October, you were attending grad school in San Diego. How's it going? RC: Grad school is going quite well. I really enjoy (most of) my teachers and the fellow grad students are great to interact with. It's a really supportive group. We all kinda help each other out because we're all poor students and each of us has these specialized skill sets. For example, I've helped a number of students create their exhibition postcards and in turn they help me use a table saw or something else a man of 27 years of age ought to know how to do already. They're fantastic. I think it's easy to bond with the other graddies because we're all thrown into this uniquely artistic and extraordinarily work-intensive period of our lives together. I don't think a lot of people outside that situation can relate to what we're going through. There are so many sleepless nights spent working and endless seminar readings with research papers soon to follow and times where you question the worth of what you're doing ... and I think most people outside of that environment don't understand all the toiling that goes into making art. They think it just happens. It's magic. It appears. And speaking as an artist, it's great to have that support network of folks who not only sympathize with the situation, but are also concurrently experiencing the same academic and artistic boot camp. ST: At the beginning of the And Then One Day Sketchbook, you announced that you had to give up creating comics for grad school but you planned to keep an illustrated journal. Are you still doing that? If so, will fans see it published, like the Sketchbook? RC: I was actually able to parlay my comics into some graduate studies, so the next book in the series, And Then One Day #6, will be in comics form once again. (ATOD #6 details to follow in a subsequent question.)
ST: I missed something the first time I read the Sketchbook: you very briefly mention a teaching career in the past. Is that something you plan to return to after graduation? RC: Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm teaching as I make my way through school as well. I'm currently the instructor of a couple of Digital Media classes at San Diego State University, where I'm getting my masters degree. And yes, this is something I very much want to pursue post-graduation. ST: You've been living in San Diego for a while now. Any suggestions or advice for the hoards of us comic fans headed for SDCC? RC: Oh my gosh .... Uhm ... stay with a fried. Ha-ha! Not me, though. :) I've promised what little floor space I have to my buddy, Daniel M. Davis, and his wife, Dawna. They're the amazingly talented and motivated folks behind Steam Crow Press. You can see their beautiful work on their website. ST: Speaking of SDCC will you be there this year? If so, where can adoring fans find you? RC: I will, indeed. I'll be at a table K7 in the Small Press Pavilion. I'd love to see you out there. In fact, that will be the last stop on my North American Tour, so you can swing by to see how I'm doing after 3 months of in-store signings. Ha-ha! Speaking of tour ... cue the next question: ST: In May, you began the longest, largest tour in self-publishing comic history. Eighteen states! Even Canada! Why go on a tour? And how did you plan the whole thing? RC: I feel like this might be the only time in my life I can devote such a huge chunk of time to promoting my artwork. Im in grad school right now, so my summer vacation affords me the luxury of skipping town for roughly three months, and I dont have a wife or children to look after. It just seemed like the last opportunity to try something like this. As for the planning, it's been in the works for almost a year now. I started testing the waters last summer as I distributed the fifth book in the series. I asked a few retailers if they'd be interested in having me in their store for a signing and the reaction was really positive. So I set about researching stores and states and several months later, I'm on tour. :) You can find out more about ye olde comics tour below. ST: Will you be visiting any old haunts on this tour, any comic shops you frequented during your misspent youth? Any places you're really looking forward to visiting? RC: I am, actually. There's a place in Santa Barbara, CA, called Metro Entertainment. That was my shop before I moved down to San Diego a couple years ago. They were nice enough to host me for a leg of the tour. Plus, I'm also stopping by my tiny hometown, which sadly does not have a comic book store, but thankfully it does have a bookstore. The store I'm talking about is The Book Loft in Santa Ynez Valley. When I mentioned one of their hometown boys doing a North American tour, they were really excited to have me stop in, and I was stoked to have a place to stop in my hometown. ST: I was sorry to see that your collaborative web comic with Shana Manion has been put on hold. Will that be resumed at some point in the future? RC: The plan is yes. Shana and I have been out of touch for a bit. She moved to the east coast a while back. But I'm hoping once I'm done with grad school we can pick up that project where we left off.
ST: October 2007 is the next annual 24 Hour Comics Day. Will you be participating again, as you have in the past? As an organizer, or will you be creating a comic, too? RC: I think I'm going to bow out of 24 Hour Comics Day this year. I organized an event location and completed a 24 hour comic two years in a row, but this year I'll be hard at work organizing my thesis exhibition. My primary focus right now is getting through school, and sometimes that means ducking out of some major industry events. ST: What other projects are you working on? RC: I just finished the latest book in the series, And Then One Day #6. I've been working on this for the past year or so. It's going to be 176 pages of all new material and it's really going to turn the autobiographical comics genre on its ear. I've been doing some research on autobiography and found this theory which states that autobio is no more truthful or valid than fiction. This got me thinking, "What would make it any more truthful or valid than it already is?" because essentially autobiography is just one person's subjective opinion about themselves. So in order to contribute a greater objectivity to the genre, I started interviewing different people in my life. However, these interviews were conducted through a series of flashcard questions. I put the interviewees in an isolated room with this box of questions, a tape recorder, and that was it. I was not present so that I would not influence their responses to these questions about me. Again, I was trying to make this a more objective process. So I took these interviews, transcribed them, and turned them into comics form. The results of these interviews will be the next book in the series. Needless to say, I'm really excited. The books should be in my hands around late May.
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