You seem really busy with the daily strips, the books and the family. How do you find time to work?

I've taught myself to work fast so that it doesn't take as long to finish the work as when I started. I can do a better drawing in less time. As I was teaching myself to draw better I also taught myself to draw faster.

How do you do that?

You just go faster and eventually you get better. You have to allow yourself to let the line wobble a little bit and not worry about keeping it so tight. It kinda looks better anyhow. That's what I've found out.

The art has changed over the course of the strips.

It's hard to say how it's changing. Definitely the shape of my character's head has changed and it seems to be always changing.

Is that something that comes with age or just lots of drawing?

I allow myself to change. I'm not that strict. I don't try to draw on model like an animator who has to draw every picture exactly the same. I've always drawn the character a little different in every panel. I change the shape along with the emotion the character is showing. If you allow yourself to change the shape all the time and not trying to draw it the same, then it's going to keep always changing. There's panel to panel changes and greater over-arching, over-the-years changes in the shape of the character.

One way it's changed is it's gotten a little more realistic and a little more human looking. It's still the elf character with the curved lip and the buck teeth and the ears, but the head is just a little more human shaped and the hair is drawn more realistically.

Spandy's changed over the years. I used to not draw her stripes now I draw her stripes. I used to draw her blank.

Do you get asked about theory since the Conversations came out?

A lot of people are interested in my "Craft is the enemy" letter that I wrote to the Comics Journal, so that's a fairly frequent topic of conversation.

I interviewed Jeffrey Brown and he mentioned becoming a new father.

Yeah, I read that. It kind of had a little swipe at me.

Yeah, he said he didn't want to draw about his son in case his son wanted to be an autobiographical cartoonist and he compared that to you drawing Eli.

First, that doesn't make any sense. His child is an infant. His child is not going to remember anything from when he was an infant so he can't possibly draw autobiographical comics about his time as an infant.

Plus, Eli is already drawing his own comics and has been since he was two.  Not that I expect him to grow up to be a cartoonist, but it's something that we're having fun with now.

Is this the start of a Kochalka-Brown feud?

No, I'm good friends with Jeffrey Brown.

Do you talk with a lot of cartoonists?

No, I don't spend a lot of time talking to other cartoonists. I like other cartoonists. I used to spend a lot more time corresponding or talking on the phone with them, but I don't anymore. I'm just busy.

What comics do you like to read?

I like all the indie comics that I've ever liked. But lately I've been getting into some more mainstream stuff cause some of it's been really awesome. I read Invincible, the Superman comic by Grant Morrison [All-Star Superman] and...I don't know who the artist is [Frank Quitely] but he's really good.

When you read other comics, does it inspire you to explore different styles?

Well, Dragon Puncher is in a pretty different style in that it combines photography and drawing together.

Do you think you'll do more of that?

I don't know. [laughs] I've got a zillion different ideas of things I want to do and it's hard to get them all done. Some ideas I've been hanging onto for a long time. I've got a lot of different things I want to do, some of them in different styles.

I think I already do work in a lot of different styles. The diary strips are drawn pretty differently than something like Monkey Versus Robot. Definitely story-wise, there's a difference. Writing-wise there's a huge stylistic difference between the two. Something like Conversations or Cute Manifesto are pretty different yet again. Super F*ckers is pretty different from those. I did this one book—Sunburn, which is in the Cute Manifesto—which is drawn differently and isn't very cartoony at all.

What's it like teaching at the Center for Cartoon Studies?

I think it's great, but I don't teach there very much. Only a few days a year. It's just kind of far to travel. It's about two hours away.

Is Vermont an essential part of your work?

Yeah, I think so. All of the books are set here in Burlington. Even Super F*ckers is set in the field behind my house. Also, personally, I really get a lot of inspiration from the changing season. If I lived somewhere else where the seasons didn't change, I think it would be detrimental to my art.

Is it because of the rhythm?

Well, every time the seasons change, I feel newly inspired. So it's not just a rhythm thing, it makes the world seem magic cause it goes through these various transformations. That feeling of wonder, I use in my creative work a lot.

Does drawing a diary strip add meaning to each day?

Yeah, maybe. It does tend to make life seem more important. Like, all the little things that make up life. Life isn't just big events. In fact, the big events of life would be meaningless without all the little things in life to compare them to.

Did you discover that through the diary strips?

What I was hoping to discover when I set out was just...well, I don't know what I wanted to discover. I had a feeling that the graphic novel format was...there's an inherent falsehood to it. The stories of your life don't really have a beginning and an end. The stories of your life, there tend to be countless dozens of them going on at once all wrapping and twisting around each other in unexpected ways with really no end. I thought the best way to portray that would be a daily diary strip that wouldn't end.

Although, I expected I would end it eventually, but I haven't ended it yet. It wouldn't have an ending. If I ever stopped, I'd just stop. I don't think I'd have an ending.

I can't imagine stopping now. I'm in the tenth year of the diary strip now...by next October, I will have finished the tenth year. I figured ten years was about the maximum I could do it but I never thought I'd get that far. I thought maybe I could do it for five years. The first five years felt like a long time, the second five years went by like nothing.

Do you have a set time that you draw each strip?

I don't really have a strict schedule for anything. I just draw whenever I want to. Sometimes I wait too late and I really don't want to, but I still have to.

Jason and a few other people on the boards have said the most recent strips are the best they've read. Is that inspirational and do you agree?

I had been thinking the recent strips were particularly good, too. Then when they called out on that, when other people said they thought the recent ones were good, suddenly I felt like I started to draw worse ones. I don't know if that's completely true, but it jinxed me a little bit.

Do you feel pressured by the message board posters?

Not really, as some people posted, even the sucky ones are a little bit great. I feel like they like it no matter what I do. They appreciate when it's especially good. I'm glad they're not always going on there saying, "That strip sure sucks." That would make it a lot more difficult on me. Even if I think a certain one sucks, it's not fun to have someone tell you a certain thing sucks.

Although I occasionally get letters like that. I got a letter from someone. All the letter said was, "You're a piece of shit." [laughs]

It was like, "Wow, that's some fan letter."

Some people write letters and go into more depth about why my comics suck so much. Some people are really offended.

I've found, and this happens again and again and again. There are people who hate my work. Actively despise it for years. Then suddenly they'll read something they like and in a short period of time reverse their whole opinion and start liking everything. I've seen that happen many many many times. If someone's actively hating me, that's good. They're thinking about me. My work is slowly worming its way into their brain and eventually it will succeed in conquering them.

Any plans for a third podcast?

It's hard to get the band together. My friend Creston--he plays guitar in the band--he just had a baby, and it's his first baby so he's more wrapped up in it. Then, the bass player we record at his house, he's been out of town for weeks. We haven't been able to do anything for a while.

I want to record a new album. I've got dozens and dozens of songs I want to record, but no time to do it. It's not that there's no time to do it, there's no time for everyone in the band to all get together and do it. I'm trying to think of another solution. I might make an album... I'm really into chip-tunes which is music made with 8-bit processors. I might make an album on my Game Boy. It's sort of slow and tedious work compared to just going with my band and having them play the song while I sing. That's the easy way to make an album. It'll be harder to make a chip tunes album, but I've made a few songs and I'm learning the program and getting better at it. I just have to finish up a couple books I'm working on and then I'll take the time to make a new album. I can't wait much longer, it's driving me crazy.

I think I'll do a whole album like that. At first, I thought I was gonna do music with the Game Boy and have the band play on top of it. I did two songs like that and I might put them up on the site soon, but it ended up sounding too much like math rock, or a little bit like Primus. I like rock when it's a little looser, and playing along with the Game Boy means everything has to be a little too precise. I think the Game Boy sounds better on its own without the rock on top of it and the rock sounds better without the Game Boy with it.

But I could do an album where some songs are Game Boy songs and other songs are rock songs. Or maybe I'll just do an EP that's all Game Boy songs. I haven't decided. I've wanted to make this Game Boy album for a couple of years, and I've just been slowly gearing up to do so. I'm almost ready.

A friend of mine once said, "James Kochalka lives the life everyone should live." You document what you do pretty well, what's your comment on influencing how others live?

This is only semi-related, but my son Eli was at a birthday party and the kids were playing and I went into the room to play with the kids and I sat down to play with the toys and this little girl she looked at me quite cross and said, "Grownups can't play." Why not? The grownups at her house might not play but the grownups at my house play.

If living the life of James Kochalka means having a little bit of fun and not being so uptight about everything, then that's good. But if living the like of James Kochalka also means having a lot of insignificant anxieties and meltdowns a couple times a day, I don't know if everyone needs to throw a temper-tantrum once a day. They might be better off without that.

That's the life of a superstar?

It's an emotional roller-coaster ride for my wife, I think.

Overall everything is good?

Life is fantastic, I'm just a little...I don't know...volatile.

Does that add to your art?

Pretty much any of my books that you read, they all follow an emotional ride that I go on all the time. Which is going from feelings of ecstasy to feelings of despair. A lot of the characters rocket back and forth like that. It's pretty funny in the comics. In the Johnny Boo book, Johnny Boo and Squiggle are always hurting each others' feelings and then having to desperately apologize only to do it all again a few pages later.

Fancy Froglin, when he has his erection he's ecstatically happy but when he loses it he goes into a suicidal despair until a few pages later when he gets it back and he's ecstatically happy again.

Do you hear from people who have been in despair who read your work and then feel better?

I do get a lot of letters form people saying American Elf helped them in some way through a difficult period in their life. It's good to know it's having some sort of positive effect. I think that's great.

Anything else?

Here's what I'm trying to do with my life and my work. I'm trying to fully integrate everything. So the transition from work to play to everyday life is all seamless. So that it's all one thing. There's no difference between living and making art. I've gotten really close. Music, comics, writing, painting, playing with Eli, doing dishes, cooking, all that, fully integrated into one seamless unit. That's pretty much my goal and I'm really, really close. Or perhaps I've already done it. | Gabe Bullard

To read American Elf for yourself, visit http://www.americanelf.com/! For more James Kochalka, visit the Top Shelf Productions website.

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