Big Questions, An Interview with Anders Nilsen

KA: I know a lot of writers read our site (as well as work for it) and are always interested in how other writers got to where they are in their careers. Do you want to talk a little bit about your background - where you grew up, how you first realized you wanted to make a life out of your art and what it took for you to make that happen?

Anders Nilsen: I've always expected to be an artist, even before I had any idea what that meant. My Father and stepmother both drew and painted when I was little, and so I think I got the idea early on that those were perfectly reasonable things to spend ones time doing. In college I'd mostly given up on comics and was doing a lot of painting and installation art. When I finished school I found, as many art students do, that the built in audience I'd taken for granted was gone and the work I had been doing suddenly seemed weirdly irrelevant. I started gravitating toward other things. I did a children's book for my little sister on her fifth birthday. I started photocopying comics out of my sketchbook to send to friends. And I found I really liked doing it. As far as making a career of it, I believe in doing what you love and trusting that it will get you somewhere. Eventually people started to notice. On the other hand I still work doing construction two days a week, so make of that what you will.

KA: I've read that you attended The School of Art Institute in Chicago but dropped out pretty quickly. Does this mean that you remain largely self-taught? Following that, what were some of your influences before and after; also, what led you to comics in the first place?

Anders Nilsen: I would like to say I'm self taught because I drew all the time as a kid and because I don't believe that you can get good at anything because of the school you go to or the teachers you have, no matter how good they are. But of course, I did go to school and my work is very much informed by the education I got. I actually went to the Art institute for graduate school. I left after one year because I felt out of place and though people were supportive of my work, they had little to offer me. There are no cartoonists there. I'd figured out what I wanted to do and realized I just had to do it, that I didn't need to pay someone ten thousand dollars to help me.

Why comics? I think when I went back to comics it was because, as a kid comics were the art form I identified with the most keenly. They say if you don't know what to do with your life, try to remember what you loved most when you were twelve and do that. Ultimately reading comics all the time as a kid means that I understand them the best. Their mechanics, their history, what made them good, what made them awful. I went to museums as a kid, too, but it was always slightly removed, it was someone else's thing. Which isn't to denigrate it - I love all kinds of stuff, and I even still do some installation art on occasion, when a space presents itself. But comics are in my blood.

There is a class dimension to my choice of a medium, too. Comics are an artform in which anyone can actually own the work themselves. As a kid I could own the object and do with it whatever I wanted. It could be precious or it could be trash. Art school, by contrast, is almost by definition an upper class, or at least upper middle class institution. Who else can spend tens of thousands of dollars on an education with no realistic employment prospects. Who else can afford to go to a gallery and buy a painting? I've ended up moving a little in both worlds, and wouldn't have it any other way, but I try not to have any illusions.

You also asked about influences. I'll mention two: Herge's Tintin books were the first comics I read and I still think they are the best ever. Chester Brown's Ed the Happy Clown was a revelation when a friend gave it to me in high school. To me, he is a close second.

KA: Do you think that kind of snobbery (in the art world- the class distinction that you mention) extends to the literary world as well- or do you have less interest in that side of the debate?

Anders Nilsen: I'm much less familiar with the literary world, so I hesitate to make any sweeping generalizations about it. But generally I think the literary world is slowly opening to accommodate comics the same way the art world is...simply out of necessity. There is an interest there, so they sort of have to take notice. Also, did I use the word 'snobbery'? I think that may be at play to some degree, but I don't like to play into the chip on one's shoulder mentality that comics has carried around for so long. Who cares what some hypothetical 'they' might think. Just draw and love it. If you're not invited into the club, start your own club. That's more fun anyway.

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