The Land Of Imaginary
An Interview With Dorothy Gambrell
by Elizabeth Benefiel
Dorothy Gambrell is the author of two webcomics: Cat and Girl, about a cat and a girl, and The New Adventures of Death, about Cat and Girl's neighbor, Death, at his day job. In both comics, Gambrell juxtaposes soul-sapping bureaucracy with the equally meaningless dictates of the arbiter elegentiae.
Like any good satirist, Gambrell outdoes her targets: past esoteric references include surrealist Joseph Beuys, political scientist Ralph Bunche, and the infamous New York Post headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar." Think of it as a riddle and a joke in one &mdash decoding the punchline puts a participatory element into reading that many webcomics lack.
This interview was conducted while Ms. Gambrell traveled through Taiwan and China. When not abroad or in a parallel universe, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ZOTAPINE: In an interview with top two three films, you stated that "I wouldn't want to work in any medium that wasn't considered trash...bubblegum's got a lot more to say about the modern condition than John Cale ever will." Could you elaborate? How does "high art" fall short of trash?
DOROTHY GAMBRELL: In my experience, "high art" - or any medium that takes itself too seriously - seeks an outsider berth from which to issue commentary on the present day. Lower art &mdash trash, let's say &mdash is too much a part of the world to accomplish this. At least that's the theory from the high art side. Trash is seen as an expression of a time and place, not self-aware critique. Who believes in "Fear Factor" as a devastating parody of American society in the early 21st century? Besides me, that is.
Z: Are you saying that high art isn't as effective because it attempts outsider perspective in a current issue, or that you prefer not to work in that set-up?
DG: I keep my nose to the grindstone and my eyes on the punchline. Looking away from that worthy goal leads me to pretension at best, complete incomprehensibility at worst.
Z: Why did you start making comics?
DG: I started drawing cartoons when I was nine because I thought it might be easy. By the time I realized how wrong I was - well, I had already spent so much time drawing cartoons that it was the medium I understood the best. It's the best way I know to communicate.
Z: What's the hardest part of drawing comics, then?
DG: For me? The drawing. Between my head and the paper, at the fault of my clumsy hands, things get lost. Lines fall apart. Nothing ever gets set down quite like it ought to.
Z: Have you become better at translating your ideas with practice?
DG: I haven't gotten any better at making the lines on the paper go where they do in my head, but I've become better at dealing with the paper on its own terms, scrapping the head drawing entirely when the two pictures become irreconcilable. Drawing Donation Derby has been a big help, because there is no head drawing or penciled outline. It's just a pen starting in one place and ending in another.
Z: On that note, what audience do you have in mind &mdash present and past &mdash when making a comic?
DG: Anyone willing to indulge me? Anyone willing to not get the joke half the time, who thinks that can be a nice opportunity to waste time learning facts about something they don't give a damn for. I think everyone has one picture in their head of an audience, hundreds of heads at computers or in bleachers, each head looking a little too much like the creator. But then everyone would get the joke, and no one would find it funny. And what good is that?
Z: So which is more important in the long run: the artist or their art? Which is more important to you? Is that an irrelevant question?
DG: It's a trick question, right? What is the artist without their art? Snide answer: Jack Kerouac. Thoughts are meaningless unless they result in action. Artists are useless unless they get around to producing something. Sitting around drawing funny pictures is a useless end run around mortality, sure, but as a mere human being the faint hope of transcendence offered by those funny pictures is beyond any in my personal reach.
Images © Dorothy Gambrell, 2006, under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Text © Elizabeth Benefiel, 2006, used with permission by Zotapine under first serial rights. Please ask before distributing.