Geoff Grogan’s ongoing graphic novel, Nice Work, follows Johnny Cat, a professional Frank Sinatra stand-in, through swinging early-60s Hollywood. Geoff was kind enough to talk to me about his comics, his fine art projects, and the days when the future looked a whole lot snazzier than it does now.

Shaenon Garrity: Where did you get the inspiration for Nice Work?

Geoff Grogan: I was listening to a wonderful Sinatra record called “It Might as Well Be Swing”–recorded with the Count Basie Band in the early 1960’s–and I was really overwhelmed by the swagger and confidence (bordering on arrogance) in Sinatra’s voice in those performances. I was thinking about what that voice represented in America in the 1960’s–how easily confidence becomes arrogance and self-righteousness–and how the counter-culture promised to sweep away all of that. It didn’t–obviously–and the consequences of resurgent self-righteousness are all around us–and that’s what intrigued me. The transformation–some may say the corruption– of American confidence into belligerence–and the way in which Sinatra seemed to embody that in the late ‘60‘s and after. I’m interested in the way people deal with power–and that moment where virtue can be corrupted–and Sinatra is the perfect icon for that exploration.

Then I read Gay Talese’s famous 1965 Esquire article, “Frank Sinatra has a Cold.” There’s a segment when Talese describes the atmosphere on a studio set when Sinatra arrives for rehearsal–and everyone on stage is bubbling with excitement “He’s here, he’s here”–but when the lithe, dapper figure of Sinatra walks on stage–everyone gasps–it’s not Frank–it’s Johnny Delgado–a Sinatra stand-in.

That did it–that character just spoke to me–someone pretending to be someone else, living as someone else–it encapsulated a struggle for identity, temptation, disguise, masquerade–all of these themes were suggested. So that’s where it began.

SG: What interests you about the style of the early 1960s?

GG: I was a kid in the sixties, so I’m naturally drawn to it. But there are certain things–the commercial architecture, for one. Even the cheapest fast-food places (which were not as pervasive then) were infused with high-modernist design–really futuristic. Modernism was in large part about progress–the belief that everything would continue to evolve for the better–in perpetuity–and so these buildings–even these shoddy cheap car dealerships, etc.–embodied an optimism about the future. “The future”–as an idealized concept–was always present. Compare that to Walmart’s cavernous boxes–which are about expediency. That’s a demeaning and dangerous attitude to infuse the culture with. Those ideas are borne out in the treatment of employees–and the ways we interact with each other in the parking lot. But that’s what happens when all ideas are measured against the one big idea–which is cash. And that wasn’t always the case.

SG: In addition to drawing comics, you’re a fine artist known for comics-inspired collages. In response to your collages created from pages of The New York Times, the Village Voice called you “the best desecrater of a New York institution.” How do your comics work and your fine-arts work feed into each other?

GG: Cultural Desecration is a comics tradition–so I think the relationship is only natural. Drawing is the link. Whether I’m drawing with pencil, brush and ink or newsprint–I think of drawing as the foundation. My concerns–the subjects–are the same. The collages offer the opportunity to emphasize scale and tactility–The elemental power of graphic simplicity. is something that comics bring to the collages. The iconic nature of the image-the power of that–is something that spills over. The idea of a symbolic language–creating works to be viewed on a wall underscores the multiplicity of meanings a single image may evoke–and so when I’m back into a comics page I may eschew dialogue or captions in order to allow imagery to communicate more than I otherwise would.

SG: What draws you to comics as an art form?

GG: It’s a deep-seated life-long attraction that probably has some disturbed psychological rationale. But I’ve always drawn comics, I love telling stories in a sequence of images and I love drawing in all its forms and comics are–to me–first and foremost-an exploration of drawing–whether it’s the expressive power of Gary Panter or the illustrative flair of Neal Adams, the graphic design of Chris Ware, the virtuoso cross-hatching of Robert Crumb. Complexity so powerfully embodied in visual simplicity is a characteristic I most admire and only lately have begun to aspire to. Chester Gould, Roy Crane–epitomize that quality for me at the moment.

There is a definite set of criteria in comics–the cartoonist has the page–and the game is to find the most elegant solution for communication within the boundaries of the page–using a finite set of tools. Tools that we all have to use–the panel, the word balloon, the caption, etc. And despite those limitations–perhaps because of them–the potential for visual invention is boundless. Some of the greatest art has occurred only when the artist has given him/herself a very clear set of limitations–Braque and Picasso and the development of Cubism, for instance. The potential is so immense–and the work is so challenging. Every different situation in a story is a new set of challenges–unlike any the cartoonist has faced before. So every day is a new opportunity for visual re-invention.

There are none of the inhibitions in comics that there are within the fine art world, none of the deference to elite power structures ( i.e; the gallery scene, museum culture, et.al.) and none of the pretense.

SG: You also teach art and art history at Adelphi University, including a “History of Comics” class. Do you find that teaching art changes the way you approach your own artwork?

GG: I don’t think so. Teaching is a natural outgrowth of thinking about art all of the time and studio artists have practiced it for centuries. The classroom gives the artist a place to think through ideas about their work–to clarify them and communicate them verbally–so it uses a different side of the brain. I think that’s a healthy practice for an artist–but when it comes time to make the work–it’s just you and the page or canvas or piece of newsprint, as it were.

SG: What can we expect to see in upcoming installments of Nice Work?

GG: The first chapter sets the scene–the environment and the cultural “zeitgeist” of Hollywood, USA circa 1961. The second chapter gets into the characters’ backgrounds, their histories, etc. and introduces the potential for the moral corruption I alluded to previously. And that’s where the fun begins.

SG: Any final thoughts?

GG: I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to present Nice Work through Modern Tales. Listening to Sinatra records while reading this story isn’t obligatory. (but it is highly recommended). I hope the readers enjoy following Nice Work as much as I do making it!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.