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soft, steady clattering
This machine drives me insane.
Yeah, it's pretty temperamental,
I mean, you get it going,
this thing dialed in,
I think it's
going to be fantastic,
but it's been driving me insane.
My name is Zak Sally,
I'm a cartoonist.
called La Mano 21.
as well as a teacher.
guitar plays
the more it progresses
getting something in the world
some sort of personality there.
to make this thing happen,
as the material that's in there.
Somebody made this
with their hands.
I mean, I love it to death.
that all this stuff happened.
that I've put out on La Mano.
some of it I didn't.
Some of it I partially printed.
Actually, I started the label
in the early '90s
with a friend of mine,
back when I kind of came
from the music world
of this thing that you did.
When I was a teenager,
it was always like,
to publish me someday!
and then someday
will publish me,
and the more time went on,
the more I realized
publisher.
It's like you either get it done
or you don't get it done.
I put out on La Mano,
it doesn't seem to be one thing
is it a comic book?
Is it a memoir?
I don't know what it is,
in-between those things,
the happier I am,
the thing is.
This is a great thing, and
it should be out in the world.
of my own stuff last year.
Well, that's upside down.
even made in this room,
like, recorded some of it.
From 1993 to 2005,
with a band called Low,
which were some friends of mine
from Duluth
for a long time.
They're still a band.
Two years ago, for some reason
that I can't entirely figure out
I decided to make a record
just to see if I could do it,
just playing all the instruments
and writing the songs
and recording it all myself.
acoustic guitar
plays softly
The last couple of years,
I've been teaching full time
at MCAD in town, which is
one of the only schools
that has a comics program.
has been such a pleasure.
I wish I could just clone him
and make like, a hundred.
laughs
you usually draw in,
and then
this new cartoony style,
which is hittin' the rails
pretty hard.
In the spots where it comes
together, that is just...
There's something
in his own work
that I think is really special.
more behind it than just sort of
the surface appearance,
and he's been able to sort of
generate that from the students.
and try and tell them,
technical knowledge
and you need to do this
and you need to do this;
you need to develop a voice
that is as much your own
as you can make it,
and try and be as honest as
you're able with that voice.
fuzz guitar plays
is for my cartooning.
my life in that way.
that I was hoping
finish in 10 years,
but it's going to take
longer than 10 years.
It's called Sammy the Mouse.
Sammy the Mouse
came out a couple months ago.
It's one long continuous story
that has
and a middle and an end,
and I'm just trying to spend
as much time as possible
and finishing it.
is kind of an alcoholic.
He likes to stay at home a lot
and just wants to be left alone,
but the whole story is about how
necessarily what happens,
to decide things like that.
I think the artwork of Zak
is very independent,
art-centered.
It's not going to be something
in a Superman comic book.
It's raw, and it's gritty,
it's textural,
at the same time, it's simple.
It reminds me more of maybe
European comic sensibilities
mainstream America art style.
Sammy the Mouse
as nightmarish and terrifying.
Again, I don't,
I don't mean to be coy.
I think it's hilarious.
I mean, I think
it's really funny.
a fun comic to read.
My process is, again,
is different.
Mine is one of
the dumbest processes
I've ever heard of in my life,
if I could, but I can't.
in the language of comics.
where the words and the pictures
discrete things.
They're part of the same
reading experience,
between them
makes things happen.
I have completely worked out,
I'm kind of waiting for--
I know this thing needs to
happen at this point,
and I know that this thing
needs to happen at this point,
but... am I taking
a good long while
what goes in-between?
I want somebody someday to do
some psychological profile
of cartoonists
and what kind of person it takes
who'd want to sit in a room
creating this whole world
by themselves with no input
and then send it out in a way
going to hear much.
I think
kind of person to do that.
A lot of them are... bonkers.
And also the other thing
about cartooning is
I've finally gotten
semicomfortable with the fact
at the wall is like,
of my process. laughs
When I was growing up, there
was basically superhero comics,
and that was the
name of the game.
There's way more knowledge
and acceptance of comics now
even 10 years ago,
it'll be even more so.
I feel like comics
can do anything,
they can't are wrong,
you have one person.
It can be a very,
very singular vision
think all the best cartoonists--
that's why it's great.
by somebody who's doing that
unlike any other art form.
If art is anything,
that aren't in the world
into the world somehow,
how to make that happen.
If it's a comic, you gotta
figure out how to get that
and get it onto paper,
that I want to do,
and it looks like
this is the way I'm doing it.
So... laughs there's no point
in stopping now. You know?