MISS LASKO-GROSS ON ESCAPE FROM "SPECIAL"

[MattBrady]

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Though Miss Lasko-Gross has been working in the comic book industry for a number of years, most notably with her comic book AIM, Escape From “Special” is her first graphic novel. Lasko-Gross tells the story of when she started to realize that nearly all adults are full of crap, that god doesn’t exist and that comic books rule. The book details her very awkward time at school and home and is chronicled in her very detailed style.

Newsarama: What are you doing today?

Miss Lasko-Gross: I’m going to do my day job.

NRAMA: What is it?

M-LG: How can I put this in a way that makes it sound like I’m actually cool or important when it’s lame? I guess you could say I’m a dog walker to the rich and famous.

NRAMA: Like on the Upper East Side or something like that?

M-LG: Tribeca and Chelsea mostly. Also I stay in people’s houses sometimes when I sit pets.

NRAMA: You must really love animals.

M-LG: Yeah I do.

NRAMA: Plus you have your mind free to do your work.

M-LG: Yeah, that’s actually how I got a lot of the book done. I bring my sketchbook with me on the subway or while I have a break between dogs.

NRAMA: So is Escape From “Special” straight up autobiography or do you fictionalize it a little bit?

M-LG: Unfortunately it’s 100 percent true. The only thing that’s changed is names and not even all the names. Just a few of the characters, in the interest of plausible deniability. Fantagraphics has decided to label it semi-autobiographical, which I think was more of a marketing choice.

NRAMA: Right. They don’t want you to become James Frey, right?

M-LG: That’s what I was thinking. Because around the time that they were starting to put together the material, that was going on. I figured they were just afraid that someone would be like, “That’s not true. Nobody travels with a band when they’re seven years old.”

NRAMA: It seems like this might be your first autobiographical piece.

M-LG: Well I did a story in True Porn, which is autobiographical. But before this I’ve really only done semi-autobio. This is also my first graphic novel. I’ve only done individual stories and individual issues of comics up until now.

NRAMA: You haven’t had anything collected yet?

M-LG: Nope. This is the first.

NRAMA: What is it in your head that made you think it was time to put away the semi and do straight up autobiography?

M-LG: I didn’t actually plan to do a separate book. What had happened was, I did a series called AIM, probably from when I was 15 until my early 20’s. I just did issue after issue and nobody gave a ____. It was a labor of love. I was just about to put out one of the last issues, right around 9/11. Then I lost my job so I couldn’t put out the book. It came out under Cryptic Press, but it was self-financed. Cryptic was really supportive of me, in terms of the production work and promoting it. It really was a step up from self-published, but it was still self-financed. I wasn’t planning on doing another book, because I figured it would be a long time before I could put anything out. I started doing these stories on breaks from work. A little piece here, a little piece there and it started to become a book. A couple of years later, it became something I could actually shop around as a graphic novel.

NRAMA: So the reason it’s broken up into stories is because you were doing them in pieces or was it a stylistic choice?

M-LG: Well it’s both things. I did start doing short stories. But I could have filled in the in-between spots and made it one cohesive chronological type book. But I really liked the idea of using the shortest amount of space and being right to the point, boiling it down and not drag people through a lot of pages you could skim through. So it was a stylistic choice and a function of how I was working on the book.

NRAMA: When did you figure out that your childhood wasn’t normal?

M-LG: At the time it just seemed like, this is how my family does things. It’s only in relation to meeting other people that you start to realize that not everybody toured with a band, not everyone was a child atheist, not everybody had a near death experience. But if you dig deep enough into anybody, you could probably pull out some stories. I think I had an unusual childhood, but not crazy unusual, like some of the graphic novels that you read and you just want to cry for them. It’s not like Phoebe Gloeckner or someone like that. That’s a rough childhood. I don’t think that anyone should feel bad for me because I didn’t have a bad childhood. I was a bad kid, but I didn’t really have a bad childhood.

NRAMA: When Jason Marcy does his autobiographical work he will check things with people to see if he got it right, did you do anything like that?

M-LG: The only people I don’t want to hurt are my family so I checked with them. I mention in the book that my mom was raped by her therapist. I went ahead and drew it, because it was something that was that heavily imprinted on my mind as a kid but I did ask her before I printed it. She said, “Yeah. That’s okay.” That was the only one. I don’t really care about hurting the feelings of some kid I went to elementary school with who was beastly to me or the parents of other kids who didn’t like me. If it makes them look bad, it’s only because they made themselves look bad.

NRAMA: They deserve anything you can give them, right?

M-LG: Yeah. When you’re saying things that are true, if someone gets hurt, then they should think about that. They look bad by their own actions.

NRAMA: Did you finish the book before you shopped it around?

M-LG: I would say I started showing it to a few publishing houses more or less when it was halfway done and I could tell that it was a book. I didn’t get the final okay until it was 90 percent done and then I just had to tie it up. Fantagraphics is who I decided who to go with and who would have me.

NRAMA: Well it must be amazing for someone who comes from doing smaller stuff to work with Fantagraphics.

M-LG: It is, because they put out a lot of the books that I really loved. In particular, Jaime Hernandez’s Love & Rockets. That was so important to me in high school when I was first starting to publish comics. Also, they do such good design work. So I’m very pleased that I ended up there.

NRAMA: Did Gary [Groth] give you any editorial input?

M-LG: Nothing at all. I was surprised. I thought that there would be some kind of process.

NRAMA: Were you involved with designing the book?

M-LG: I okayed it. I liked pretty much everything they did. It has a 1930’s Monopoly feel on the inside front covers and back. I like the color choices. I like the paper. I think they chose to alternate the page colors, because they thought people wouldn’t understand where the stories began and ended, since they’re pretty abrupt in terms of how they end.

NRAMA: What did you use to draw it?

M-LG: I used Micron pens. I used Prismacolor markers. It looks like watercolor, because I used the markers with a watercolor technique. I don’t use any brushes, because, as I said, I literally drew that book on subways, at clients’ houses, outside in the park. So you can’t really bring around ink and brushes.

NRAMA: Was it very cathartic?

M-LG: Yeah, the story that comes to mind is “Dork Now and Forever,” where I’m dancing around to the Cats soundtrack. I think I blanched the whole time I drew that because it’s so humiliating but once you put something like that to paper, you never have to feel bad about it again. It’s out of your system. Now I feel like I’ve taken control of it. If you read the story, “The End of Melissa,” that’s where I start turning myself around by doing comics. I feel like when you do comics, especially autobio, you get to show people how something happened entirely from your perspective. You almost control how they see things and they have no choice but to sympathize with you and to see things your way. That was the only power I think I had as a kid. It’s probably why I continue drawing comics. It feels good.

NRAMA: Are you someone who had read a lot of autobiographical comics?

M-LG: I didn’t. I’ve gotten more interested in them since I’ve been working on one. But I really liked Persepolis. I really liked Fun Home this year. American Born Chinese was really good. I enjoy good autobio.

NRAMA: Did you think of any of them when you were trying to put together a structure for the book?

M-LG: When I’m thinking editorially, I think more about what I hate in other people’s work to avoid it because I can’t change my life story. I can’t make it so that I grew up against this sweeping historical backdrop or any of the things that makes for sensational stories. You’ll probably notice the book’s not narrated. I really strongly feel that if you have to describe something that’s going on in a panel, then you either don’t have enough confidence in your own work or you don’t have enough confidence in your readers’ ability to understand your visual storytelling. That’s something that I feel very passionately about. So I didn’t narrate it. I didn’t explain to people the way I was feeling. That’s just wasting readers’ time.

NRAMA: You mentioned Phoebe Gloeckner. She’s someone whose work appeals to teenage girls. Is Escape From “Special” something that you think would work for younger girls?

M-LG: Absolutely, I think it would be perfect for someone who’s entering junior high school. The problem is that according to those girls’ parents or according to librarians and according to teachers, my book wouldn’t be appropriate for that age which is ironic, because it absolutely is. There is some nudity and certain language that people want to protect kids from even though that’s really what’s going on in their lives, whether they want to admit it or not.

It just so happens that a couple of people in that age group who read it were like, “Yeah. It’s totally what’s going on with us.” But Fantagraphics is in a tough position because you can’t promote it to an age group where it’s inappropriate.

NRAMA: Do you feel like the book is a little bit of an indictment of both kinds of special classes, meaning advanced classes and short bus type classes?

M-LG: Yeah, I’ve had my share of both of those. More of the shortbus type, unfortunately. I hated it, but when you’re a kid sometimes the things you hate are really good for you. Like not being allowed to watch too much TV or not being allowed to eat junk food, both of which I experienced. When you look back as an adult, you think, “My parents were looking out for me.” It’s the same thing with the special ed classes. Back then it was torture and it was stigmatizing. You feel like the world is out to get you. But it worked. I was able to mainstream back into regular classes. So I would say that it’s not really an indictment, but it’s an indictment of the way they make kids feel.

NRAMA: Your work is very detailed, is that a way you’ve always drawn?

M-LG: What I used to do is use a lot of those little Letraset sheets and I would make patterns by crisscrossing them. My big thing is doing everything by hand. I don’t color on the computer or anything.

NRAMA: Did you do anything on computers for this book?

M-LG: Lots and lots of cleanup because my pages are very sloppy since I drew them on the subway. There will be lots of little lines that need to be cleaned up so I spend hours on hours cleaning it up to make it look like I drew it in the studio like a normal artist and not on the street like a crazy person.

NRAMA: I read that you just got married last month.

M-LG: Yeah. I’m married to a cartoonist, Kevin Colden, and we held the reception at MOCCA.

NRAMA: How was it?

M-LG: It was really fun. The party was very us. It was loud and kind of dorky. It was full of comics. They had the Stan Lee retrospective up, so it was half Stan Lee, half Saturday morning cartoons. It was a perfect fit for us.

NRAMA: How did the two of you meet?

M-LG: We met at a party for my friend who joined the marines in a fit of patriotism and it was very depressing. He went there because he heard through a friend of a friend of a friend that she was joining the marines. He needed to buy a car and figured that somehow she might be selling her car. We were just introduced like, ”He does comics too.”

NRAMA: So he’s a war profiteer?

M-LG: Yes, he’s a war profiteer and an excellent cartoonist.

NRAMA: Did he know a lot of the stories in Escape already?

M-LG: He knew some of them. He was actually really helpful with the book, because I would show them to him as I was working on the stories. He’d let me know if something didn’t read right. Sometimes he was horrified because he didn’t know a certain horrible thing about me. He had the big horrible picture, but he didn’t know individual horrible things.

NRAMA: I read that you guys work together a bit as well, you did a cover for one of his books.

M-LG: I did the cover for him and I did the interiors. After we met at that party, we started working on a comic book together and that’s how we eventually got together. The comic book was called Caesar’s. It was like a time-travel sci-fi thing. He was drawing it. I was writing it. It went nowhere but we started dating.

NRAMA: Are you thinking about something new yet?

M-LG: Actually, I’m 50 pages into the sequel to Special. It’s even more upsetting to draw then the first one was. I’m getting to the point where I just start fucking up. Right at the end of junior high school and the beginning of high school, just thing after thing after thing. With sex. With drugs. With getting suspended from school. Just endless mistakes. It’s going to be a lot more of a painful and gut-wrenching book. In some ways.

NRAMA: It sounds awesome.

M-LG: [laughs] Yes, misery sounds cool.

Escape From "Special" is 136 page paperback priced at $16.95
http://www.fantagraphics.com/recent/bks.html

[STARK]

FIRST POST!

NICE ARTICLE. wHAT IS HER NATIONALITY?

[Charlie Hustle]

I keep saying it but stuff like this coverage is why the 'net has so far surpassed print media in comics in terms of quality and variety. I don't like the art on the book but the layouts seem fun and I like the writing.

[Todd.Shipley]

This is, by a wide margin, my favorite book so far this year.

[Ayo]

Escape from "Special" is a really good book. Stories of a kid growing up in (mostly-)regular America...fine. But Lasko-Gross is really smart about her storytelling. Individually, the stories are clever and engaging. Taken together, they're moving and completely captivating.

I'm going to put the extra effort into trying to find those older AIM comics of hers.

[Illustr8r]

Autobio comics: written by egomaniacs, read by nosy voyeurs.

[Anders Wolleck]

Originally Posted by Illustr8r

Autobio comics: written by egomaniacs, read by nosy voyeurs.

superhero comics, drawn by people wanting a paycheck, read by people who are too lazy to read anything really good

[Todd.Shipley]

Originally Posted by Illustr8r

Autobio comics: written by egomaniacs, read by nosy voyeurs.

While I'll agree that there is an inherent egotistical element to autobio comics, and many are awful, this one in particular is head and shoulders above most others. It's use of many short stories or vignettes convey more of an overlying theme then a defined story was a bold and effective storytelling choice that is only enhanced by the witty writing and lovely artwork.

Escape From 'Special' is a welcome departure from the glut of superhero comics on store shelves; books that any outside observer can see are obvious man-on-man-with-a-touch-of-bondage-chick circuses that rarely rise above a high water mark created 20 years ago by The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen.

[Not From Around]

I'm sure the target readership will probably enjoy it, but really, it could not sound any more like the common stereotype of what Fantagraphics publishes. It's like Marvel publishing another Wolverine title or DC another Bat book.

[Todd.Shipley]

Perhaps thematically, in that Fantagraphics focuses more on aesthetics more then pulse pounding action. I think it's unfair to compare it to Wolverine Does Vegas or Batman Vs. Zoloft® because such a generalization lumps so many varied genres into one. Fanta also publishes Angry Youth, R. Crumb, Jason, etc. all who have completely different takes on comics as a whole. It's like comparing a fruit basket(Fanta's varied genre line up) to a singular apple(marvel and DC's one note line up). They only publish maybe 2-3 autobio books a year and those tend to be among the best of that genre - which itself has gone through a well deserved culling-of-mediocrity process over the last couple of years.

[Ayo]

Originally Posted by Todd.Shipley

Perhaps thematically, in that Fantagraphics focuses more on aesthetics more then pulse pounding action. I think it's unfair to compare it to Wolverine Does Vegas or Batman Vs. Zoloft® because such a generalization lumps so many varied genres into one. Fanta also publishes Angry Youth, R. Crumb, Jason, etc. all who have completely different takes on comics as a whole. It's like comparing a fruit basket(Fanta's varied genre line up) to a singular apple(marvel and DC's one note line up). They only publish maybe 2-3 autobio books a year and those tend to be among the best of that genre - which itself has gone through a well deserved culling-of-mediocrity process over the last couple of years.

You tell 'em, Todd!