Jon Lewis: Doin' The Swamp Thang

By Ken Dreger

Today in SBC's Feature Interview Ken Dreger talks to Jon Lewis, the creator of True Swamp - one of the top 10 comics of 2000 (Time Magazine -- "Best Comics 2000"). 

Ken Dreger: What is True Swamp at its foundation? Is it philosophical? Is there a moral foundation?

Jon Lewis: True Swamp is definitely philosophical in that just about everyone in it philosophizes (or at the very least obsesses uselessly). But the book itself doesn't present any one philosophical viewpoint. I myself am too schizoid to have only one. I just try to really get inside of each character's point of view and philosophy. 

As for the moral dimension, some of the characters deal with the difficulties of trying to live morally without being part of a collective system of morality; trying to figure out what is moral all on their own. Some of the others are part of a sturdy structure of moral tradition, but their difficulty is whether to wear the whole outfit even though parts of it are painfully tight, or to make alterations to their liking. If you mean moral in the sense of "is the book wholesome," I really believe it is. But there is one thing that will offend some people: my characters, Hale Marmot in particular, swear a lot. 

When I first started drawing True Swamp, I decided that the characters would talk like people actually do. And maybe I've spent my life in the wrong circles, but in my experience people swear a lot when they're not trying to get a job or charm someone's parents. Now, I've had letters from retailers basically saying "if you just took out the swearing, we could sell twice as many of these," and I hear that. I've seen plenty of evidence that you can write profanity- free dialogue and not lose any drama, and some of the other stuff I've done is written that way, but for me this is how the Swamp creatures talk, and "making them over" would seem really conspicuous and somehow creepy. Also, no one's offered me a load of cash for a "PG" rated reprint. I could just kill off or neuter Hale, and the book would be pretty much all-ages.

KD: What motivated you to write something like "True Swamp"? Where did this story come from and your need to tell it?

JL: Desperation. When I started the first True Swamp story in '92 I was a miserable writhing dustball under the cabinet of life. No direction. I'd done a couple dozen minicomics over the previous few years, raggy little collections of short humorous or strange bits. I was fairly serious about them, but at the same time I wasn't really PUSHING my ability in them at all, and by this point that kind of thing didn't hold my interest enough. The squirrel in my head needed something more substantial to chew on, and believe me, if you've got a squirrel in your head you want to keep it occupied, or you'll really be sorry. 

So for the sake of my sanity I decided to do a long story and truly try to make it not just good "for a minicomic," but good, period. This was the time when Tom Hart and I first started to hang out with Ed Brubaker a lot, and I dunno about Tom, but for me Ed was the first person that made the thought even occur to me that if I really tried hard and threw myself into it, I might make a comic of interest to more than fifty people. Plus, Ed was the first person who would actually critique what I was doing no-holds-barred, as if  people were actually going to read  the thing. The idea of a certain level of professionalism was pretty revolutionary for me-- up till that point it was an unquestioned article of faith to me that I would always be an utterly obscure outcast type. Ed was only a few years older than me but he'd been published by a real publisher (Iconografix-- no laughter please!) and came from a world where such things were possible (less than a year later, Ed, Tom, Jason Lutes, Megan Kelso, Dave Lasky, James Sturm and I were constantly getting together and picking each other's stuff apart with no mercy. It was so much better than any comic book school could ever be and I cherish it.) 

So I started really pushing myself. And I just thought, "what's my big story? What do I really want to tell?" and the idea of a swamp just loomed, an immersive, for me almost paradaisical setting, but enfolding a story that would be totally un-fey and anti-pollyanna and dig into all the gruesome aspects of being a depressed, neurotic schmuck with no direction in life. So the comic was ABOUT the very problems that DOING the comic was solving for me, if that makes sense. While I've never become un-depressed or un-neurotic, somehow I've been able to transmute those things into a positive fuel for my comics, to where this Volume of True Swamp isn't so much about neurosis, depression and futility: LENNY is about those things, but he's only a  part of a larger tableau. And I'm just older, I'm thirty-one this year and I know I'm not going to spontaneously combust or turn into a werewolf. In your early twenties these seem like real dangers.

Exerpt from True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime

KD: Who are the main "characters" of True Swamp: Stoneground and Hillbound?

JL: There's Lenny the Frog. He was the focus of the whole first Volume of True Swamp, which came out in '94 and '95 and is now collected in the True Swamp-- the Memoirs of Lenny the Frog trade paperback from Slave Labor.

Now, in the second Volume, which started last fall with True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime, Lenny shares the protagonist's seat with four or five others. Even so, he's still at the heart of the book. His species somehow ended up with more than their share of adaptations for catching food; hence they have much more leisure time than other varieties of frog. In Lenny's case, this has resulted in a neurotic and obsessive mindset: he thinks too much for his own good.

His rodent friend Hale Marmot is the Swamp's only inventor (and the only animal in the whole Swamp with opposable thumbs-- the result of a slow and painful self-administered process of his own devising.) In between Volume One and Volume Two Lenny went to work for Hale, helping him with his experiments and inventions. This was great for Lenny-- it gave him something other than himself to focus his squirrely mind on. But now Hale's fully immersed in this top-secret project that doesn't require Lenny's help, so the frog is back to his old misery.

Then there's Nikolas, who is a kind of odd little armless lizard-tailed humanoid thingy. He sprouted up overnight from the soil and hasn't the faintest clue what he's doing in the world. But he has some unique abilities, and it's he that sparked this new project of Hale's. Lenny could hate Nikolas for losing him his job, but unfortunately Nikolas adores Lenny and is just too sweet.

Also there's Miln, a tortoise. She's a book-- obviously in the Swamp there's no written language, so books are animals whose "texts" are stored in their heads and who "read" themselves to an audience. Some are reprint editions of classics, passed down over generations from book to book; others are new and self-created works, and that's Miln. Her subject is sociological: death and the afterlife in the swamp. Lenny needs something to obsess about and Miln fits the bill perfectly, but her interest in him may be strictly in terms of research.

Finally there's Cartucci, a vole who collects bits of newspaper, bottlecaps, anything with human text printed on it. No animal can read such things, but nonetheless, Cartucci's pleasure in his "proses" collection seems to go beyond the purely aesthetic-- the shapes communicate something to him. He is utterly ruled by his collector's passion and uses his skill as an eavesdropper, blackmailer and seller of secrets to expand his hoard. As you can see, all of these characters are obsessed. It makes Lenny miserable. It makes Miln happy. With Hale, it results in good stuff for the rest of the Swamp. It turns Cartucci into a force of nature.

KD: Why a swamp and why creatures versus humans?

JL: Well, "Swamp" in the case of my comic means any wild place that fits the purposes of the story. There are scenes at a pond, up on a rocky bluff, in forest , meadow, what have you. "True Region" might be more accurate, but True Swamp is a way better title. Back when I first started, I was just better at drawing animals and foliage than I was at drawing people and buildings, and I've always had a liking for little things that live under rocks. After reading the Hobbit as a kid I spent awhile pretending to be Gollum. So those were probably the initial reasons for the setting. But as I went on with it, what I liked was that it let me truly build from scratch. It doesn't come laden with the wild network of connotations and associations you get from houses, shoes, spoons, fire hydrants. It's a blank slate. It makes it a terrific way to explore the human condition without all that debris interfering.

KD: How does it compare to the first volume? Is it a progression or is it self-contained?

JL: It's more of an ensemble cast than the '94-95 one was. Thus the book's not as much about neurosis and depression, since Lenny is not the only focus now, just one strand in counterpoint with the others. The new volume is much more concerned with pacing and mood too... the page layouts and panel arrangements are much more flexible and varied than before, to try to get just the right flow or feel for each scene. I think I'm inking better than I ever have too. I've tried to make it so that the reader doesn't need to have seen the older stories. True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime, which came out last September, should be a good entry point for new readers. It might be confusing for someone to start cold with True Swamp: Stoneground and Hillbound, but we're also resoliciting Underwoods and Overtime along with it, and they're both pretty cheap for the amount of story you get, so that shouldn't be a deterrent. My plan is to put out one 64-72 page True Swamp book per year, each with its own title rather than an issue number. I figure it's probably more satisfying for readers to have a thicker chunk like that, plus it makes it easier for the stores to keep them all on the shelves.

KD: Based on the fact that Stoneground and Hillbound is a continuation of Underwoods and Overtime, how long is that particular story arc?  Do you have a ending in mind?  And is this ending an ending to True Swamp as a creation or will it be an ending to a stage in that "world"?

JL: If I try to estimate how long this Volume of True Swamp will last, I'm sure I'll just be laughably wrong. I had an outline I made for what was gonna happen in this installment-- an 8 1/2" x 11" of "plot points"-- and being almost finished now, I can see that I'm only gonna make it about 3" down that page. So I obviously have little ability to gauge this sort of thing. Fruitful and interesting tangents come up in the course of a scene and I can't resist savoring them, and then of course there's the matter of pacing which has become more and more important to me the longer I've done comics. As for an ending... I have not so much an ending in mind as a "big crux" (to quote the Minutemen if I may,) a climax I know I'm heading for, and I can see who's where doing what at that point. But the paths by which everyone's gonna get there are largely a mystery to me. I have to let the characters work that out themselves to a certain extent. And I can't see  whether that climax will be an ending to True Swamp or not. It might just be the end of the first movement of the symphony, with the next one following on in a different tone or mood. But it certainly looks like it's gonna take me several more of these 64-pagers to reach that climax.

KD: I have to say that I'm impressed because you somehow imbued those creatures in True Swamp with human personalities/quirks that by the end of Underwoods and Overtime they were more than "just" ink on the page.  Was it hard to transfer those personalities to the page?

JL: In a literal sense, yes. Their actions and expressions flash up in my head with absolutely no consideration for whether or not I can draw them. I do see my stories mentally in comic-panel form, rather than as little "movies," and that's a strength, but as far as actually getting them onto the page, it's all blood, sweat, bullets and your buddies face down in the mud. I've known some "naturals" and I ain't one. A reader once told me that what he liked about my art was that it looks not drawn but carved out of something. That's certainly what it feels like. I see these perfect little compositions in my head and I have to goad my moron-hands into building them. But these characters' personalities have really come alive for me, so on the conceptual side it's not hard to let them just act like  themselves, even if that does lead into the occasional unexpected tangent or subplot. I  like knowing that there'll be surprises for me along the way, though. I'm the kind of writer who has to have that, otherwise I feel like I'm embalming a corpse. There has to be that balance between pre-planning and spontaneity.

KD: What would you like to stress about the series for new readers?

JL: Well, we started off this interview with a big heavy question, so I'd like to say that I don't feel that True Swamp is a particularly heavy reading experience-- the tone that I try for in my stories is a kind of deep fun, lightness with layers underneath. A profound croissant, if you will. There's a fruit jelly in the middle that I spoon right out of the back of my brain. It's also an escapist book. I can't deny that I draw a world I would like to be able to live in, even though it's a far from happy place. And while I do spend a lot of time on the characters, they are part of a big, fantastical plot that is unfolding at its own pace, involving a remorseless horde of ants, an ageless subterranean entity that's neither plant nor animal, a catastrophic communication explosion, religious espionage, and all that good stuff. It's an "anthropomorphic" comic only in the sense that it imposes memory, self-conciousness, language and the whole mess onto animals who look like the ones you could (hopefully) see in your backyard. They don't walk upright or have hands or play tennis, and they do eat each other.

KD: A special thanks to Jon Lewis for taking some time out to answer some questions.  True Swamp: Stoneground and Hillbound AND True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime are solicited in this months (June) Previews. If you don't want to wait to read some True Swamp, True Swamp: Underwoods and Overtime AND a limited number of copies of True Swamp: Memoirs of Lenny (permanently out of print) are available through Alternative Comics: http://www.indyworld.com/buy.

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