Renee French: Works of Catharsis and Laughter

By Tim O'Shea

Renee French is a great time manager. What I mean by time manager is displayed by her latest work, Micrographica (to be released by Top Shelf in May), which was originally developed as an online project for Serializer.net. But as I found out in this interview, Micrographica was a "break" from her work on last year's The Ticking. As I interviewed her about Micrographica, The Ticking, her upcoming contribution to an exhibition at the Louvre, as well as her Rainy Dohaney work, I got the impression that French gets more done in a day creatively than some folks do in a week.

Tim O'Shea (TOS): Before discussing your upcoming work, let's go back to last year's release, The Ticking. In creating The Ticking, you realized that part of the story you were trying to tell was a reflection of your relationship with your father. I'm curious if you ever talked to your dad about the work and if so, what did he think about it?

Renee French (RF): No, I haven't talked to him about it. I'm not sure he's read the book, and if he does I doubt he'll see himself in it.

TOS: That being said, does it make you feel more vulnerable about your work and how people react to it, when the work is so clearly a part of you (that being said, all of anyone's art or stories is a reflection of themselves, I know...)?

RF: Well, I think I hide behind the 'fiction' thing and that makes me feel less vulnerable. The fact that The Ticking had that element from my personal life didn't make me uncomfortable because it was part of a bigger story that wasn't about me. I don't think I'd be able to do straight auto-bio work though. That would be scary.

TOS: Would you characterize The Ticking as a cathartic work? It was something that you worked on for a number of years (as you noted when I contacted you for this interview, it was a work-in-progress that we discussed when I interviewed you in 2001). Would you say, on some level, Micrographica is less of a cathartic work in comparison? Or is my effort to use cathartic as a unit of measurement off-base in terms of your work?

RF: Yeah, The Ticking was cathartic for me; a slow burning, take forever, catharsis. It felt so personal to me during the writing and drawing process that I seriously didn't think anyone would understand what was going on in the story. Micrographica, is pretty light and goofy and now that I think about it, I was doing the online version of Micrographica while working on The Ticking so I suppose Micrographica was a break from the cathartic experience. Does that make any sense?

TOS: Yes, it does (make sense). When you started Micrographica as a webcomic, did you envision it ultimately being published in collected form?

RF: No, I didn't. It was something I did to make me feel better on bad days, and to make Rob (Pike, French's husband) laugh.

TOS: Were your design/layout efforts handled differently for the webcomic than if you had originally had intended it to be published in the traditional venues?

RF: For sure. The fact that it was online let me feel less pressured and since I've always loved to look at drawings under a magnifier, I thought it would be cool and liberating, to do TEEEENY drawings and blow them up for the web. That forced me to draw with less detail too and not get too obsessive. So the originals are around a centimeter square. I don't think I would have ever come up with that idea for a book in print. In the small, perfect bound format it makes sense though.

TOS: You handle dialogue in Micrographica through captioning. Have you ever tried word balloons with this kind of work, or did you know at the outset such a choice would obscure the visual narrative elements far too much?

RF: I've been off word balloons since around 2000. You're right. For me, word balloons get in the way of the drawings. I like to let the drawings tell the story and then if words are necessary I'd rather put them underneath the panel so they don't get in the way, and don't become part of the scene. With Micrographica though, the drawings aren't really the most important element. This book is way more dialogue heavy than my other work. It feels really odd to have a book that's so loose and dialogue heavy. It's almost uncomfortable, like I don't have the safety net of my texture fixation.

TOS: How important was the font you chose for the text that accompanied the art in Micrographica?

RF: Well, online we went with a typewriter-like font because it felt right. For the book it seemed to work too. Like it's something typed, crumpled up, blown down the block, stepped on, and picked up by a stranger.

TOS: You will be touring in support of Micrographica, and I assume you did a similar book tour for The Ticking. Not all graphic novelists get to meet their adoring public on a tour, how gratifying is it to see people attend a book signing just to meet you?

RF: Tour is probably not the right word. The Ticking came out for APE last year and Jeff Brown, Alex Robinson and I did a signing in Santa Cruz, and then I went to San Diego. Micrographica is also coming out for APE this year, and there will be a few signings to go with it and then San Diego again. "Adoring"? Ha. It's always fun to meet people who like my work.

TOS: Back in 2001, we discussed your involvement in an exhibit at the Swiss Institute and how it helped bring greater attention to your work. You're set to participate in a show at the Louvre (along with the likes of Jim Woodring, Anke Feuchtenberger, Thomas Ott, Max Andersson and Tom Gauld). What kind of pieces are you doing for that project?

RF: The exhibition is in a wing of the Louvre that has the antique toy collection, and the French publisher L'Association is doing the catalog and organizing the artists and the exhibition along with the museum. Each artist was asked to do three pages involving a toy (we had a bunch to choose from) from the museum's collection. I'm finishing up my three-page story for the show right now. Velvet duck on wheels, giant flies, an underwater swimmy thing, yearning, etc..

TOS: What can you tell folks about Towcester Lodge, your project for Picturebox?

RF: Not that much. It's hard to talk about. More like an art book, with words, drawings, photographs, hair samples, cabin fever, Scotland, bloody tissues.

TOS: How did the book and t-shirt work come about for Dylan Williams at Sparkplug?

RF: Dylan is great and I love his work and the books he puts out. We'd been talking about doing a project together and I had these drawings that had been in gallery shows in NYC and Tokyo and were all sold.They're drawings of girls and rabbits who have defects, prosthetics or orthodics. After the originals sold I thought it would be great to have the images collected in one place so Sparkplug is doing a book. The title is Edison Steelhead's Lost Portfolio - Exploratory Studies of Girls and Rabbits. The Tshirt is based on one of the girls, Slug Girl, from the book.

TOS: You're a special guest at this year's SDCC. What does that entail for you--will you be the focus of a panel and such?

RF: I'll be doing a sort of slide show/interview spotlight thing where there will be some pictures and Dan Nadel will ask me some questions. That's as much as I know right now. I think i'll be doing some panels too. not sure yet.

TOS: Your Rainy Dohaney work, why the non de plume? I would love to meet an adult in 10 years or so, who first was exposed to your Dohaney work, but then unwittingly is drawn to your French work as they got older...

RF: Love that idea. Mainly I wanted to avoid the mistake where a parent, having just read My Best Sweet Potato to their 5 year old, puts my name into Google and orders Marbles in My Underpants thinking it sounds like a cute book. I just thought it was better to be clear--this is for adults, this is for kids.

TOS: Some goofy closing questions. I am a fan of your good friend and past collaborator, Penn Jillette, and loved his recently ended radio show. I was pleased as punch when you popped up on the show periodically. Have you had folks contacting you to buy your work, saying: "Yea, I heard about you on Penn's show." (As an aside, I miss Monkey Tuesday...) Is Penn trying to get you to appear on his U.S. game show, Identity?

RF: I miss Monkey Tuesday too. Actually, yeah, I have gained some readers from his show which is nice. He pimped the hell out of The Ticking whenever he got the chance. That's a good friend. I hope you're watching his Showtime show BullShit. I'm too shy to stand on a platform under a big light in front of a studio audience to do Identity.

TOS: How hard is to overcome your shyness to do a "slide show/interview" at a convention. Or is that different, in that your shyness does not come into play when you're discussing your work?

RF: Good question. It's going to take a LOT for me to do this slide show thing. I've done them before and I'm always terrified before. The difference is that I'll be in control (pretty much), the lights will be dim and my work will be projected so I'll just concentrate on the fact that people will be looking at the artwork and not me. It's not really the speaking, it's the appearing.

TOS: I love reading the blurbs you get for your books, last year, when the Aristocrats documentary was generating buzz, The Ticking featured a blurb from Aristocrats' Paul Provenza. Micrographica features a blurb from Jenna Fischer (Pam from NBC's The Office). With your next work, how are you going to top yourself in the blurb department--will we be seeing J.D. Salinger?

RF: Haha, I can't see topping the ones from past books, but we might be able to maintain. I hope you continue to be entertained. Jenna really came through even though she was way sick and working like crazy.

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