As a Cartoonist by Noah Van Sciver

I used to personalize far too much when I read, to reflexively attribute ideas or thoughts in a book to the author. To blame the author, some times, for how I reacted to the book, or just hold them responsible for how I, or anyone, responded to a book. [1]

I got better; I got older and (I hope) smarter.

One quirk of that growing-older change is that, as I seemingly have less and less time to read, I'm willing to give writers more and more chances, to assume it's a book that's not working for me rather than the author. And I try to be more generous to creators, to assume positive intent, to get away from that young-huffy pose of outrage that's so energizing to so many of us read-everything types for so long.

So I keep coming back to creators that don't quite work for me, especially if I see things I like in them. I just read a Katie Skelly book a couple of weeks ago, for example, liking it better than I did her past stuff. And I'm here again with another Noah Van Sciver book despite thinking Fante Bukowski wasn't really my kind of thing and finding Saint Cole technically strong but something of a slog to read. [2]

That's what brought me to As a Cartoonist, Van Sciver's short book of mostly autobiographical comics from last year. It's a thematically connected collection of comics, collecting work from what seems to be all phases of his career, from his first comic Blammo to a bunch of newer work. It's not a single narrative, but it is organized, mostly, by chronology: the main spine of the book is Van Sciver's professional life over the past decade. Van Sciver provides a list of original publications in the backmatter - have I mentioned recently that creators who make original publication clear are the very best people in the world? they are - and a number are listed as "never published," which could mean they were new or could mean they just didn't make it into anything else.

My guess is that Van Sciver was thinking about a book like this for a while - the autobio cartoonist is a clear type, and he seems to be in an indy-cartoonist world that includes a lot of autobio guys. And, as seen from some of the work here, he does have a confessional streak, or an urge to tell stories from his life, to tell his stories and express things that happened to him. But he's not relentlessly confessional, like James Kochalka or even John Porcellino - the strips with Van Sciver as a character are focused and directed, all about his career and work. They're not the kind of general "here's what I was doing and thinking" daily-comics: it's all about his aspirations and fears and life as someone trying to make these kinds of stories, in a world that mostly doesn't value that.

His life As a Cartoonist, you might say. He did.

Mixed in with the focused autobio material are some jokier pieces from Blammo about "Notable and Tasteful 19th Century Cartoonist," a now-forgotten and unnamed hack from a century ago, and some quirkier related pieces, like a page Van Sciver sold as a print, of him dancing under the title "How it feels to be a cartoonist."

It's not the kind of book that is a single thing; it coalescences and explores rather than explains, showing us some aspects of what's been like to be Van Sciver over the past decade, some hints of his personal life and history. (His childhood is fascinating - he came from a big family that seems to have been on the edge of poverty for a long time; his mother separated from his father and their Mormon faith when he was young; it looks like they moved around a bunch, too - but I think he's only told bits and pieces of that story, here and elsewhere.)

The title is arch and implies a certain distance, but Van Sciver is more of a warts-and-all cartoonist: he's grappling here with what it means to be a professional in this field, how to handle various situations, how it feels to be "a cartoonist," for good or bad, in mid-career, after the shiny newness has worn off and he's just trying to do something else and keep his life and career going. He portrays himself as well-meaning but not always successful, self-doubting and conflicted, prone to be taken the wrong way and somewhat odd because of his unusual upbringing. He's a specific, detailed person telling stories about interesting, particular things in his life - and making those stories just as long as they need to be.

It's a strong collection, with more of a focus and connection than you might expect from the sources. Even the "earlier, funnier stuff" - as Van Sciver has fans repeatedly tell him they like best, in an echo of Woody Allen - works really well in context, both as comic relief and as parallax: a hundred years on, all cartoonists will be half-forgotten.

[1] My theory is that I did this because I started out in SF, the field that never saw a metaphor it didn't turn into concrete. And I grew up at just the right time to be indoctrinated by a long string of Heinlein author stand-ins and form the assumption that was normal.

[2] One of the bits in this book also explained to title of Saint Cole to me, making me feel like a dunce. Van Sciver does mention most readers missed it, but it was a smart touch and it totally flew over my head.