WEBVTT

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The idea of a static character
who is in a cyclical rather

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than a linear recurrence-- at
the end of each strip he's back

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where we started--

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was very interesting
to me, as was

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the way in which cartoonists
are free to let their fancy go.

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With no explanation
you'll have one strip,

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the next day's strip will
maybe be set in ancient Egypt,

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or in Frankenstein's
house, or on a pirate ship.

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And that will be just accepted.

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The audience will
just accept, OK,

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these are the same
characters we've seen.

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Now we're in ancient Egypt.

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Now we're on a pirate ship.

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And if you think about
that in opposition

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to traditional narrative,
if that happened in a novel,

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if that happened in a
movie a lot of explanation

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would be required, but
it's not in a comic strip.

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And so I was interested in
participating in that freedom

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while trying to
write a character

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but without being
caught in a linear mode.

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So my interpretation of--

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the series I'm working
on is called Ignatz

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and I'm just focusing
on the Ignatz character.

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And my interpretation of
Ignatz is very, very loose.

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For example, he's
not necessarily

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a mouse for most of these poems.

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So without further explanation,
I'm just going to read some.

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And I'll often have
quotes that are

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taken us the language
of the strip, which

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is this amazing patois with
all of these influences

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and references mixed in.

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The fact that "He
Walks in Beauty"

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was a reference to a Navajo
prayer and also to, of course,

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Byron's "She Walks in
Beauty Like the Night"

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is just an example of the
sort of layering that's going

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on in the text of these strips.

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So I was trying to play
around with it as well.