Interview by Kristin Blank
I got the impression that the Bird-man's blink is open to reader interpretation in most situations. What does it mean to you?
Like anything in the book, I wouldn't say it means any one thing. I work pretty instinctively, and the Bird-man just seemed to want to blink. Sometimes it's for communication's sake - in one story, I felt like the Bird-man blinking was like Lassie barking to say Timmy had fallen down a well. Sometimes it means more than that, but I'm not sure I could articulate just what that is in words (hence, comics).
Did I really just mention Lassie?
Besides the Bird-man himself, there is heavy bird imagery all throughout The Aviary, not to mention the obvious in the naming of the book. Is there a certain mythology or specific meaning to birds for you?
As I worked on these comics, the bird imagery crept in there pretty organically. As the book started to take shape, the birds just felt important, so I followed that imagery where it seemed to want to go. Can't say I'm an expert on birds or anything, but they are fun to draw. As for the title, I liked it not only because it connoted birds, but also cages, another theme that found its way in there.
What about the other recurring images of water and amputation?
Much like the bird imagery, these developed organically as the book took shape. The majority of the book wasn't planned so much as it was "found" as I went along. Certain images and themes naturally took on more importance, so I kept coming back to them. For some reason, amputation's always cropped up in my work - I feel like I've been drawing severed limbs for years. Maybe it's just a deep-seated fear of mine. And the water imagery initially started probably because I enjoy drawing all those waves. But as those waves made their way into more and more stories they took on more significance.
Not to be vague or anything, but I do want these things to be open to interpretation, I like that there's ample room for the reader to bring him or herself into the book. I think David Lynch called it "room to dream", or something like that. These comics are questions more than they are statements - there are plenty of answers to be found if you look closely, but I hope readers have their own answers, too.
The game "Are you there, Kelly?" is fairly disturbing in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Is this something you came up with, was it inspired by something, or just meant to punctuate the Funnyman's dilemma?
I found the description of that game on the back of an old photograph and thought it applied to the Funnyman's situation pretty well. Not in any literal way - like most things in the book it just felt like it belonged in there. Also, it meant drawing girls wrestling, weirdly.
The first words in "Always in Love" ("I'm worried—I'm always in love.") are the same lines from a song on Wilco's Summerteeth. Deliberate homage?
Yep. I'm a Wilco fan, and was particularly crazy about them around the time I drew that story. Something about that song just got me thinking and led in part to that odd story. There's another Wilco lyric elsewhere in the book, too - that Jeff Tweedy's a pretty terrific writer if you ask me. Which I guess you did.
What does the 'J' in Mr. Organ's name stand for?
I don't know. Any suggestions?
The panels read much like a movie and the words are a language buff's delight. Any academic background in Film or English?
Well, I took lots of film and literature classes in college, but not for academic reasons, just for my own enjoyment. I just love to read and I love movies.
I understand this is a collection of stuff that you've been working on for awhile. Do the stories appear roughly as they were written, or were they more out of order when you first wrote them?
They don't appear quite in the order they were written, but they're not too far out of order. They were written and drawn over the course of almost 6 years, and there was no overall plan for how they'd fit together so I had to change things as I went. Chronological order isn't really that important in the book anyway, what was most important in sequencing the stories was the order in which certain things would be revealed about this weird little world.
And as for "What are you working on now?"
I just finished a story for the Indie Spinner Rack anthology that'll be out in October, called "The Accommodations of Old Man Small", about a strange old man and his mutating house. This will likely be the first in a loosely-themed group of short stories I hope to work on in the next, I don't know, year or two. I'm also in the very very early stages of working on a graphic novel, but it's really not even formed enough to discuss yet. Right now I'm concentrating on promoting The Aviary. I'm going to a bunch of conventions over the summer to try to get the word out, and I made a little promotional website - www.aviarybook.com
Review of Jamie Tanner's graphic omnibus: The Aviary