In all of the comics and books and graphic novels that one can run across at Emerald City Comic Con this weekend, I’m not sure there’s another one that speaks to my interests more than Philadelphia comic artist Box Brown’s new book Tetris: The Games People Play (First/Second Books). I’m sure I have spent so much time playing the Russian video game that if Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours theory held water, I would’ve been a Tetris champion before finishing my teenage years. But as much time as I spent playing Tetris, I didn’t know much about how the game got to me, and Box Brown’s new graphic novel tells that story. It’s remarkable how compelling a book that, in part, deals with corporate rights acquisitions can be. But it’s a fast read with a lot of information to be gleamed from this story.
It makes a great contrast with Brown’s other terrific book, a graphic biography of pro wrestling legend Andre the Giant. It’s a beautifully told story that finds so much humanity inside of a man who used his enormous size (7’4″, 500+ lbs.) to keep all but a few people from getting close to. I was crying at the end of it.
All this is to say that Box Brown is one of my favorite comic storytellers, and someone I’m looking forward to seeing at Emerald City Comic Con this weekend. He’ll be on a few panels, including one at the downtown Seattle Public Library Friday night. He also answered some of my questions by e-mail.
I really enjoyed both your books about Tetris and Andre the Giant. How did you choose your subjects? With Tetris, I thought you found a compelling story within corporate negotiations, and with Andre the Giant, your book brought a lot of humanity to someone that a lot of people knew of but didn’t know. Were there elements of each story you found interesting?
With the Andre book, my main goal was to humanize Andre. I wanted people to understand his every day struggle. I guess Tetris was like that in a way too. I think people would be surprised how complex an individual Andre is and I think they’d also be surprised at the complexity of the way Tetris came about. In both cases I was interested in how a piece of art is brought to market and the way each is sold. I love the breaking down of that process.
What’s your research and writing process like?
I am an obsessive. So whenever I approach a subject it can start slowly but at some point I become completely obsessed with my subject. I start seeking out everything I can find on the subject and seeing that it relates to everything else going on in my life. I start talking only about the subject with anyone who will talk with me. At some point then after I sort of digest all the information I’ve taken in I start to kind of regurgitate it back out, and slowly editing and re-editing along the way it becomes a comic.
How did you get into becoming an artist?
I just started drawing comics one day. I was 25 and hadn’t drawn anything in a decade and I was never really very good to begin with. But, one day I just decided that making comics was something I could do. And, I just started making comics one day in 2005 and I haven’t missed a day since.
What are you looking forward to at ECCC this weekend?
It’s my first time at ECCC so I’m just looking forward to checking everything out and drawing wrestler commissions and hopefully making enough money to get like a vintage action figure or something.
Andre the Giant meets David Letterman.
Who are your favorite artists working today? Anyone that you think people should check out?
Oh so many. Well, of course I think everyone should check out my small publishing house Retrofit Comics. I stand behind every artist there. :)
Otherwise I really love Noah Van Sciver’s work and Tillie Walden. Those are two of my big faves right now.
What’s coming up for you in 2017, that you can talk about? Where can people find you online to see and learn more about your work?
Well, I’m on twitter @boxbrown and at boxbrown.com. I have a book about the comedian turned pro-wrestler Andy Kaufman coming out in 2018. I’ve also begun serializing a weekly strip called “Serial Paranoia” in a local Philadelphia paper called The Secret Admirer and on my Patreon.
