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Greg Baldino Talks To Erika Moen And The World Listens

Published Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:00:33 -0500

Living in an age where every thought is blogged; every face is booked; and every passing moment is tweeted, retweeted, and finally pasted under an old New Yorker cartoon; the art of autobiography isn't what it used to be. And thank heavens for that, because in what other age could Erika Moen's Dar! A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary exist? Since 2003, the Portland cartoonist has documented the moments and manias of her daily life. Following the axiom that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's a portrait of the common life of an artist- like the Diary of Samuel Pepys, only with more farting and television watching.

"I've been reading comics since I became literate," says Moen. "My dad was really into underground comics during his young adulthood and also had a giant Smithsonian collection of early newspaper comics that I absolutely poured over as a child. On my own I started with the Archie comics, then moved onto Sonic the Hedgehog and the Disney Adventures magazine."

In the late '90s, Disney Adventures magazine ran reprints of Jeff Smith's acclaimed comic Bone. Moen was hooked on the stories, which lead her to venture inside an actual comic shop. Her love for comics exploded, so much so that she started doing comics for assignments in school. "It's something I started doing in high school, actually. They were very encouraging actually! I would check with the teacher to make sure they'd accept this kind of format and then I would interpret their project into comics form. I don't think I ever got anything lower than a B on them." Her comic-essays continued into college, where she drew stories on everything from Victor Hugo, to racism, to lesbian sex.

Having proven to her academic peers that comics can be about anything, she remains clear on the element central to all of her work."People. People and their interactions with other people. I really enjoy stories where the characters feel human, with all the flaws, imperfections, conflict, joy and creativity that entails. Even now that I'm working with writers on my next projects, I still had to have the story focused on the character's development, rather than on the journey through an epic world."
First publishing minicomics, then on the web, Moen's newest format is books. In the past year she's released two volumes collecting the best strips from Dar! her online journal."They're not too terribly different in terms of how and why I create the comics. The only difference is in the immediacy of the feedback I get. Webcomics are INSTANT FEEDBACK, print collections can take a while to get a response."

Working on Dar! was a full time endeavor, balanced between other comics and freelance work, not to mention having a life to strip-mine for content. "At all times I kept a sketchbook with me so I could scribble in conversations and events and then at the end of the week I would go through and pick the writings that stood out to me. Compressing events into a six panel, fewer than 100 words comic could really be a challenge sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. But I got really used to it, so I felt like I was always walking around with these DAR goggles on, mentally calculating what would or would not make a good comic. Even now that I haven't updated in several months, my friends and husband are always looking over to me and saying 'This would make a great DAR!' I definitely would edit things to make them fit into the format, if need be. People always give me credit for being "so honest" but really there was a lot of editing that would go into my work! I take it as a compliment that they still rang true for my readers."

Truth and honesty in autobiographic works can be a minefield to walk through. Not only do you put a perception of your own life out for the gawping public, but everyone else in your life can become a part of your narrative exposure. It's a strange balance that Moen is all too aware of. "It can be a little surreal at times! I've lost track of how many times a complete stranger comes up to Matt [her husband], even out on the street not in a comic convention, and tells him 'I've seen drawings of your wiener!' When I'm meeting a reader who says they feel like they 'know' me I feel kind of guilty, because what they know is a tiny, tiny, edited clip of something I felt like sharing on paper. They know a story I told, not me. People don't realize that I actually did hold a whooooole lot back from sharing in DAR because it wouldn't make for fun comics. But, on the other hand, it's kind of awesome that someone can read my work and decide that they like me as a person based off of that. So I'm not complaining! I have met some truly great people because of my comics, including so many who have gone through the same or similar experiences that I thought I was alone on.

The last Dar! strip ran just before the end of 2009, concluding six years of online exhibitionism and six years of life that saw a lot of heartbreak, joy, humiliation, and acclaim. Though she's moved on to new projects, the experience of producing a regular weekly comic has been an incredible and defining experience for the young artist.
"DAR taught me how to make comics. It taught me to be disciplined, to improve, to draw better, to write better and to leave out unnecessary details because there just wasn't space for them. DAR taught me to look for the humor in every situation, because focusing on the negative is a drag to read. I learned to be considerate of other people's feelings when it comes to portraying someone else in your story; just because it happened to you, doesn't mean your interpretation is the only way people see it. DAR taught me that no matter what I go through, I am not alone!"

Greg Baldino lives and writes in Chicago, where he watches over the local comics scene like a posthuman autocrat. His fiction and journalism has appeared in many publications internationally. He can be contacted at greg.baldino@gmail.com

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