Linework NWis at its heart a gathering of remarkable creators, editors, illustrators, cartoonists, and publishers who represent some of the best work that is being produced in these mediums today. Each day from now until the show we are going to be highlighting the amazing creators of Linework NW in a series of interviews conducted by the awesome folks over at Gridlords. Today’s spotlight takes a look at the work of cartoonist Ed Luce, the creator of Wuvable Oaf.

Describe the first piece of art that changed your life. When was it? How old were you? Where on the planet were you standing?

Mike Kelley’s “More Love Hours Than Could Ever Be Repaid,” which is a monumental quilt covered in discarded handmade stuffed animals. I was probably in my early twenties when I saw it in person, so this would have been the late ‘90s, at the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan. Before really contemplating this sculpture, art was a mostly aesthetic experience for me. This piece suddenly, and surprisingly, overwhelmed me on a purely emotional level. I feel like it permanently altered my brain chemistry. Set me on a path of looking for deeper meaning in everything arts-related.

If you were in charge of a small press show like Linework, how would your tastes shape the event?

I’d change very little! I appreciate the vision at work here: presenting a truly indie comics event. The only thing I’d add would be a few friends that didn’t make it in this year.

Who are five people that helped you get to the place you are now with your current work? What did they contribute?

Mark, my partner in life, and Matt, my creative partner in comics, are largely responsible for getting me here. Mark has poured countless hours of his time into taking care of the not-so fun stuff that goes into sustaining a comics business, like accounting and travel arrangements. Matt was one of the first people to encourage me to take the Oaf character beyond his simple origins as a paper doll design for an art show. Both of them have been tireless in their emotional support.

My parents, too. They put a pencil in my hand as soon as I could hold one and kept it there. And they insisted I pursue art as a career.

And I consider Tom Neely to be my spiritual comics brother, of sorts. Sometimes creators get locked down into categories based on the work they produce. I struggle with being branded as a purely “queer” cartoonist. I’m completely comfortable with this association, it’s accurate and an essential part of what I do and who I am. But it can make my work easy to dismiss by people who see the label only, assume they can’t relate and then move on. Tom was one of the first individuals outside the queer comics scene to recognize all the other elements I was putting into my work. He reached out and has been incredibly supportive ever since.

And I think he’d say Dylan Williams first introduced him to Wuvable Oaf, so we need to credit him too.

What do you think you can contribute to someone else who is trying to make progress with their small press or artistic projects?

As a professor at California College of the Arts, in their new Comics MFA program , my expertise is self-publishing. So I feel like I’m helpful in presenting alternative methods for printing/assembling high-end mini-comics and constructing rudimentary business plans for people starting out. All that stuff the majority of comics creators don’t like to talk about, but can really embitter and burn you out if you don’t consider it at some point.

If you could design a monument, what would it look like and what would it represent?

I think Rob Halford deserves a monument… for imprinting a very queer aesthetic onto the aggressively macho, and fairly homophobic, metal music scene. It’d never happen in a million years, so why not go big: I’d put him astride a giant phallic-looking motorcycle, that shoots flames from the, uh… headlight? Maybe have Giger design it…? Made from British steel, naturally.

What kinds of obstacles do you encounter in your work, and how do you overcome them?

Getting the word out, for sure. I’m not someone who really enjoys spending hours at a time on social media. And while I have a relatively newfound respect for web-based work, I don’t consume comics online at all, so I don’t really have any desire to be part of the digital comics explosion either. Instead, I treat Wuvable Oaf as more of a multimedia art project. So I’m always on the lookout for ways I can transport this two-dimensional world I’ve created into our three-dimensional one. Music, figures, dolls, scratch & sniff cards, shirts… even underwear based on what the character wears. And I’ve found this approach has helped bring Wuvable Oaf to a broader audience, one that’s hungry for a more tactile comics experience.

If Linework were a country, who should be the president and why? This can be anyone in history or in the world.

I think we’d have very appropriate co-presidents in Zack and Francois. They’re the only ones who could have put this event together, so they get to run the country.





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